Part IX: Oriental Headaches
(From “The Search for Modern China” Jonathan Spence 1990)
...1834 saw the beginnings of a new series of misunderstandings between the governments of Britain and the Qing dynasty as the British government ended the East India Company’s monopoly over the China trade, their appointment of a superintendent of trade in China (at the behest of the Chinese) would end up causing a great deal of misunderstanding and inadvertently lead to the First Anglo-Chinese Trade War in 1839(1)...
...Meanwhile Opium imports continued to rise, passing 30,000 chests in 1835 and 40,000 in 1838...
...In 1836 the emperor Daoguang asked his senior officials to advise him on the opium issue. The advice was split. Thos who advocated legalization of the opium trade pointed out that it would end the corruption and blackmailing of officials and bring in a steady revenue through local tariffs. It would also allow domestically grown Chinese opium—believed to be of better quality than Indian Opium and cheaper to market—gradually to squeeze out that of the foreigners. Many officials, however, considered this view pernicious. They argued that foreigners were cruel and greedy, and that the Chinese did not need opium domestic or foreign. They thought that the prohibitions made by Emperor Jiaqing, far from being abandoned, should be pursued with even greater rigor...
...In 1838, after evaluating the evidence, Emperor Daoguang made his decision. Recent events and increasing opium addiction had made the Emperor Jiaqing’s prohibitions untenable, the opium trade would have to be legalized in order to prevent the further destabilization of the Chinese economy...
...Though hailed as a landmark progressive decision by many within the Imperial Court at Peking, a large number of Han Chinese bureaucrats grew restless at the news of the decision. Seeing the Daoguang Emperor’s decree as a violation of tradition these bureaucrats began to remove themselves from the Imperial Service at a time when they would be needed most...
...One of the hopes of the pro-legalization faction within the Chinese court was that in legalizing the opium trade the outflow of silver from Canton could be stopped by directly trading Opium for Tea instead of silver...
...However the arrival of a newly appointed Imperial Commissioner in 1838 would do little other than halt the now legitimate Opium trade in Canton as the Hong Merchant intermediaries were ordered not to trade in silver for the foreign opium...
...The inadvertent halt to the Opium Trade due to the Chinese insistence on a return to a barter system would cause many opium traders to go into a panic having ordered huge shipments of opium that they were now unable to sell...
...Things grew worse with the arrival of the new Superintendent of Trade from Britain, Lord Napier, in 1839. His predecessor now dead from malarial fever, Napier was tasked by Lord Palmerston with ensuring equitable trade in the Canton region. Yet despite the conciliatory actions of his predecessor and direct orders from London not to offend Chinese sensibilities, Napier arrived in the region and immediately made a bad situation worse...
...Instead of landing in Macao and announcing his arrival like his predecessor, Napier instead sailed straight to Canton and the British factory where he demanded to speak with the Governor General directly...
...A series of hostile correspondences followed before Napier, in a fit of rage, ordered the small Royal Navy Squadron to sail up the Bogue and attack the Chinese forts guarding Canton. British Opium Merchants meanwhile watched on eagerly hoping that Napier’s actions whether directly or indirectly would force a resumption of trade at Canton...
...The First Battle of the Bogue as it became to be known was the first battle of the Anglo-Chinese Trade War or “Napier’s War”. It saw the small RN squadron of 2 frigates HYACINTH and IMOGENE along with a small sloop sail up the Bogue and destroy the obsolescent fortifications guarding the mouth of the River leading to Canton...
...These frigates then, under direct orders from Napier, proceeded upriver and in another pitched engagement broke the Chinese naval blockade of the foreign factories that had been imposed upon the unannounced arrival of Lord Napier...
...Upon seeing his naval forces driven back from around the Factories, the Governor General then, in a fit of rage ordered the liquidation of the foreign factories by the troops besieging them. The resulting “Battle of the Factories” would be much embellished upon being reported to Parliament and serve as a casus belli for the First Anglo-Chinese Trade War...
...Following the bloody “Battle of the Factories” the foreign merchants under the escort of the HYACINTH and IMOGENE proceeded to Macau where they resided for a short while before being expelled by the Portuguese governor, fearing Chinese retaliation. The merchants were then forced to take up anchor off of the Island of Hong Kong and wait for the relief fleet promised by Napier...
...While in anchor off Hong Kong the Second Battle of the Bogue would occur as the remainder of the Chinese navy in the region attacked the Merchants and the RN escort and were utterly devastated and repulsed. Following the Second Battle of the Bogue the Chinese navy abandoned all attempts to annihilate the British in anchor at Hong Kong harbour...
...It would take many more months for the promised relief fleet to finally arrive in the summer of 1840. Their arrival however, would mark the beginning of the War in earnest as they proceeded to blockade Canton and then move north taking Zhoushan Island before arriving off of Taku and proceeding to the Imperial capital (2)...
...Upon arriving off of the Imperial Capital, they were met by the Manchu governor Ch’i-shan who was under orders to negotiate with the foreigners who were ordered to proceed down to Canton to resume negotiations...
...What followed was the supposed “Convention of Chuenpi” however exorbitant British demands (3) (as perceived by the Chinese) prevented the negotiations from progressing very far and they soon stalemated resulting in the resumption of hostilities in 1841...
...The second phase of the First Anglo-Chinese Trade War would see the Royal Navy Squadron now based in Zhoushan move towards the Yangtze River and proceed to move upriver with the aid of several steamships bombarding and taking several fortifications before halting outside of the former southern capital of Nanking where they were met by the Governor General of the Region...
...What followed was the Treaty of Nanking, the first of the Unequal Treaties signed between the western powers and China...
... “Article 4. “The Island of Zhoushan to be possessed in perpetuity by Victoria and her successors and ruled as they shall see fit” (4)....
...The conclusion of the First Anglo-Chinese Trade War and the subsequent signing of several more Unequal Treaties would mark a severe blow to the legitimacy of the Qing dynasty. This coupled with the rising discontent of the Legalist faction within the Imperial court would ultimately lead to the fall of the Qing Dynasty in the mid 19th century...
Footnotes
1.Lord Napier is initially butterflied away and replaced with someone more amicable.
2.Similar to what happened in OTL’s Opium War.
3.In TTL the commander of the British fleet has far clearer instructions on
what to demand from the Chinese unlike Elliot in OTL
4.The only substantial difference in TTL’s Treaty of Nanking being that instead of Hong Kong, the British get Zhoushan Island (the one Palmerston wanted in the first place). Most other provisions of the treaty remain more or less the same (Indemnity paid to the families of those killed in the Battle of the Factories, Etc...)
