China, Britain and Opium - Part 2: A Sorry Defense

Britain was having a tough time with responding to China's destruction of their Opium. Essentially they were upset that China wouldn't play by their rules; rules which ultimately left the British rich, the Chinese poor, and stomped all over Chinese sovereignty. As of right now, the Chinese are firmly in the "good guy" camp, as they had every right to destroy the opium that came in (although they arguably should have done it sooner, as it has been illegal for ages). The British, however, had to make them seem like a massive, militarized, hostile bunch of opium-fuelled crazies that refused to open up and trade internationally, thus making it OK to bombard them relentlessly. You see, the just, and righteous thing to do was to show them the way of trade and open up their borders to allow everyone to flourish. Also, they might make some money while during said flourishings.

I believe even Lord Palmerston knew
he was a boring looking person.

Unfortunately for China the French and Russians didn't have much of a stake in this, meaning Lord Palmerston (the British P.M., and Barney Gumble's personal favourite) had some freedom in how to handle the situation without stepping on any major, powerful toes. Ironically, then, more foreign intervention could have arguably helped the Chinese, but that wasn't the case. His response is to say the Chinese will pay for the opium and during the off-season of trading they would begin a war with China in the year 1839. When that date came, they returned with a fleet of twenty-two warships and twenty-seven transports carrying 3,000 infantry from India, Scotland, and of course, Britain. During the initial assault, the British were surprised at the sheer lack of resistance. The defenders were equipped with bows and shields, at best with primitive guns that were far behind the times in comparison to the well-equipped, technologically advanced British army.

Now, there's that old war saying of "quantity has a quality all on it's own", and that's what the Chinese had going for them. They had the largest standing army in the world; 800,000 soldiers to a paltry British 7,000. However, even if these soldiers were well-armed, it would hardly have made a difference anyway. Well... that's not true. It would have. But they would have been still severely pressed. The problems China was facing were wide reaching, due to the governing bodies being rife with corruption, the soldiers being so poorly paid many had no interest in fighting, a total lack of training, and another soon-to-be hallmark of the story by the time this is over, officials with a tendency to flagrantly lie in their battle reports, severely skewing the actual chain of events for the emperor and thus creating a false sense of security in which he would foolishly send more troops to their predictable deaths. The result was the British came and bombed several coastal cities, and left with hardly a scratch.

The Nemesis doing what the Nemesis does. This picture is titled
"B-3. Hit!"

A new man is then sent to replace Lin, named Qishan. He's essentially the product of nepotism, and embodying all of the worst traits of it; lazy, privileged, and a perennial loser who nevertheless won't go away due to a rather fortunate birthright. In many ways he's Lin's foil, as the Qishan is replacing a man who fought and clawed his way through honest work. But all that didn't matter, as when Qishan took the reigns he had a new plan. Delay endlessly. He would hold these grand feasts for the British to try to pacify them, all the while prolonging the date in which he actually has to make a decision. This wasn't some unknown tactic to China; they're a giant country with wide borders and it's reasonable to pacify would-be invaders with a few coins now and then. Elliot, while he did attend, eventually got fed up with waiting and the consistent delays and decides it's time to wipe them right out, as Britain was too large, angry and powerful of a force to be simply placated by a few dinners and some kind words. Qishan's response was to once more go for quantity and not quality, placing a number of forts along the coast to lie in wait for the British ships, but when these ships came a knockin', they knocked a little too hard. The forts were levelled with incredible ease, killing 280 Chinese defenders, destroying 173 guns (like, big guns, cannons and such), sinking eleven war junks, and all the while only barely making a dent in the British navy's most powerful ship, the justifiably named Nemesis. There would be zero British deaths. Zero.

The British fight pajama-clad soldiers. 

We can assume rather sheepishly, Qishan went the next day with the hope to resume talks. The British demand Hong Kong, six million British pounds, and the reopening of trade in Canton. Upon hearing the offer, the emperor is irate, demanding that there will be no more communication. Qishan's response? Hold another banquet! This is the real beginning of the common theme of saying one thing to the emperor and showing another, where he's left so in the dark it's a little incredible how he's not catching on just how horribly things are going. Qishan, going his own way, reverts back to his previous plan of fortifying defensive positions and hoping the tide will inexplicably turn. After more delays, the British decide it's once more time to press on through and attack a little more. Running into the rather hopeful names of forts that only the Chinese would name in his manner, like "The Fort of Eternal Peace", "Of Consolidated Security", "Of Suppressing", and my favourite, "Of Quelling Those From Afar." They would fall just as easily, and from a spread of January to March, two thousand Chinese soldiers would be dead to only four British; three of those deaths came from their own weapons killing them accidentally. The score was Britain: 2000, Accidents: 3, China: 1.

Qishan is promptly replaced, but his successor is... less than inspiring. Yang Fang, a seventy-year-old mostly deaf man who has never had any experience fighting Britain, or Europe for that matter, is placed in charge. One of his first orders is to gather all the chamber pots so the soldiers could hide behind them in a surprise attack. The attempt was (obviously) a colossal and likely terribly smelly failure, in which the Chinese forces retreated in chaos and ended up trampling many of their own in the process. This was reported to the emperor as a trampling of the British soldiers who were fleeing in terror at the might of the Chinese army. The emperor would sing his praises as, unbeknownst to him, trade is casually reopened in the cities in which the British storm through.

♪♪♪  "Sittin' at the dock of the bay...  wastin' junks..." ♪♪♪

The next general, assigned at roughly the same time as Yang Fang to work in conjunction with him, was Yishan (the "Rebel Suppressing General"). He delayed his leave long enough in the hopes that the whole thing would have blown over by the time he got there. By the time he arrives, Canton is openly trading, all the forts are gone, the army is in tatters and everything has gone to crap. He accuses the people of being traitors that have no loyalty to China and are all too willing to pursue riches rather than defend their land, and they accuse him of only being interested in buying nice things and attending banquets in the meantime. To be fair, they're both right.

Yishan's first order was to hold a surprise attack by launching a number of fire boats towards the British ships as they were just about to assault Canton itself. However, upon seeing the fleet, his poorly trained soldiers, their training matched only by their lack of pay, lose heart and flee - causing the ships to destroy much of their own coastline. Reeling from the loss they sign a truce just before they were about to attack, agreeing to the six million ransom. Naturally, Yishan reports to the emperor that he absolutely destroyed the British and the ransom money was just merchants that owed the British money anyway. The British, begging for peace, were given a truce. Little did the emperor know the truce was for just that province, and he went through the process of disbanding the massive economic investment he had in producing this army.

Worse yet, Elliot was just about to be replaced. The reason? For being too soft on the Chinese.

China, Britain, and Opium - Part 1: China Just Says No to Drugs

Opium in 18th and 19th century China draws a lot of similarities to marijuana in Canada today. Each seem to have their medicinal purposes, both are illegal but not really illegal, and no politician can really come to a solid agreement on just what to do about it. Naturally, with both, plenty of people swear by it, thinking it's some magical cure-all, while another group thinks it's the bane of humanity and all of it should be abolished. It's a real open-and-shut case.

The positives of opium are that it does seem to help with a few things; dysentery, coughs, diarrhea and a number of minor ailments would be at the very least reduced. However, like any drug, there is always the risk of reliance and addiction, and taking enough will cause visions and paranoia. Go way overboard, and it can be fatal due to suppressed breathing. It also had a habit of causing an air of complacency about people. So... good and bad.

Emperor Daoguang had a long history of
wishy-washy politics and a lack of strong
decision making, but the man had an
undeniable sense of style.

This the Chinese knew quite well. Opium has likely been in China since around the 7th century, but it wasn't until the late 1700s that it really took off, even though it was made illegal in 1729. Of course, illegalities didn't stop the super-rich from using it, and by 1790 it was seen as a drug for the wealthy; like caviar laced with cocaine. Wait another thirty years, though, and and the drug is now for everyone and the use is incredibly widespread. All of this is amidst government bans and threats that largely fell on deaf ears; shipments would come in and after a bribe would unload their cargo. Occasionally the officers in charge would stage a fake chase, just to make it look good.

Meanwhile, the emperor Daoguang, doesn't take too well to this. China was going through some crap at the time; a silver crisis in the global market is messing with their economy, everyone's poor, there are riots and anger, a self-serving ultra-rich are openly corrupt, and they're having difficulties securing their borders. It's a classic "when it rains it pours, then drowns out all the good in your country" situation. Daoguang's idea on how to fix this is to cut off opium, especially since just recently China had lost a small battle due to their troops supposedly being high as kites. This was met with differing opinions; one side saw it as a "well, they're all going to die anyways" situation, and they likely wouldn't be able to enforce any laws (the emperor was calling for execution in most cases) that stretch to 1% of the population, or four million people. The other camp felt that the opium was a means for foreign nations to weaken the country economically, socially and politically through a gradual weakening of each. To be fair, both bring up pretty decent points.

The solution was to focus not on the whole population, but to cut if off from where it begins; in Canton, the trading centre for the British bringing in Opium. On the last day of 1838, the emperor goes nuclear on opium and puts out a full ban. He sends Lin Zexu, a tireless, incorruptible civil servant in charge to go forth and wreak havoc on the drug trade. Lin Zexu issued an ultimatum to opium users caught smoking the drug: repent for a year and prove you are able to go without, or face a death sentence. In just two months, 1,600 were arrested in Canton with fourteen tons of opium confiscated. Such a hard-line style just may have worked, save for one very important problem that was sadly overlooked.

The British were quite fond of making a ridiculous amount of money off opium.

Here are the two pictures of Charles Elliot
Wikipedia has provided me. One is exactly as you
would expect from a British man from the 1830s to be.

The other is this.

Enter Charles Elliot. Elliot is the man in charge of the opium trade with China on behalf of the British, but he isn't really the man one might expect. He hates opium, thinking that the whole trade is disgusting and amoral and therefore distinctly un-British. He had really been hoping it would be made legal (keep in mind it had been illegal for quite some time, just not really enforced) in order to wipe his hands of the immortality of it as then the Chinese government would have the fault placed on them. He hates his job, he hates the trade, and hates the wares he's peddling, but darn it, it's his work and the interests of Britain are his own. Adding to his list of problems is a lack of clear instruction from upper level government on how to deal with an angry China, being on the other side of the world, and not having a few important things: cell phone reception; a cell phone; a time period that has cell phones developed.

Elliot and Lin Zexu are my two favourite players in this story. Elliot's confusion over just how to feel about the opium trade makes him always entertaining, and Lin Zexu being such a strong-willed incorruptible at a time where those characteristics are sorely lacking in China makes him immediately likeable. It makes it all the better when they butt heads. Lin, not realizing just how powerful the British are, (you'll see this is a common theme) blockades the river with junks - ancient Chinese ships - and barricades the British in their factories in Canton. Not uncomfortably, mind you, as the citizens of Canton were rather fond of these people that delivered them their opium and made Canton wealthy in the process, and managed to find a way to bring food and water to the sort-of-prisoners. What Lin was looking for was the release of the opium to the Chinese government, as they knew it was illegal to be trading it and are therefore subject to forfeit their wares.

The British didn't take too well to this. For one, they would then see themselves as this persecuted group in China, therefore giving themselves some moral ammunition to use. Holding them up in their factories was some sort of insult to British dignity, two words that when paired together are almost certainly pompous, although the concept has certainly evolved into something new ever since the advent of Benny Hill. Secondly, they had a lot of opium. We're talking 20,000 chests of it, each chest containing about 60 kilograms, and worth in total about £6-10 million. Now, Elliot's reaction here is a strange one. He simply capitulates. Perhaps it's because he finally wants to spur a reaction from the British government that had honestly been giving him a cold shoulder for the past long while in regards to how to handle issues on his end, but really we're at a historical loss as to why he gave in the way he did.

The end result is Lin Zexu gets the opium and in a massive "screw-you" to the British they destroy it 

Pictured: Lin Zexu destroying millions of pounds worth
(like, currency pounds) of opium.
Not Pictured: An understanding on how this may not be
the best course of action.

all. As if matters need to be made worse, the retreating British stop by a shore just off the coast of Hong Kong and decide that the laws didn't really apply to them. They knocked around a bunch of stuff in a temple, and accidentally killed a guy in a wrestling match. When Lin investigates and finds out there's been a bribery attempt to hush everyone up, appealing to the "boys will be boys" idea, he states that they will no longer be serving the British and forces them off land. You know, the sun-never-sets, world super-power, technologically advanced, British.

From here on out, things go for China about as well as one might expect.