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.