China, Britain and Opium - Part 4: The Second War

So, there was peace for a little while. The British had succeeded; they had taken Hong Kong, opened up a number of ports, reserved the right to live in China, and made trading for them just all around easier to do. The problem is opium was still (technically) illegal, and the British had their worries about the emperor stepping in and issuing a crackdown on all the opium merchants which was the cause of the outbreak of the first Opium War. With those issues in the back of their minds, they began looking for little antagonisms that they could blow out of proportion to allow themselves to attack again, with the result of this war hopefully changing the laws further in their favour.

What eventually led to the war was the decision to detain a ship called the Arrow. Previously used as a pirate vessel, it was captured by the Chinese and eventually resold. It was then registered as a British trading vessel, but by the time of its recapture on suspicion of piracy again, it was no longer under that registration, as too much time had passed and it had expired. A number of British soldiers saw the flag being taken down from the ship, reported it to their commander, and got angry with the Chinese for daring to go after a known pirate ship that was no longer under British jurisdiction. They demanded the release of the sailors, to which the Chinese only released about three quarters of them. Having not completely complied, the British had enough moral ammunition to go to war.

A depiction of one of the battles during the Second Opium War. Someone asked
the artist "just how many corpses can you draw on a bridge?" to
which the man replied "oooh, buddy, just watch me."

Probably.

The issue was not everyone back home was OK with going to fight with China again. As usual, the two camps of "brave soldiers bent on making the world a better place" (money-grabbing imperialists)  argued with the "good-hearted moralists who saw through it all" (bleeding-heart wusses). The one side had a surprisingly modern point of view, saying that the way the British were dealing with the Chinese was country-wide bullying, imposing their will on them in order to sell drugs better, of all things. A valid argument. The other side thought that they had to teach the Chinese how to stop torturing and how to be less awful people, and that war with such lessers was inevitable. One man said they needed to "teach these wretches the common principles of humanity." Well... I mean... it was a different time, then.

Even during a looting, the Summer Palace looks like
quite a nice place. Well... I guess that's why it was looted.
This is why we can't have nice things, Britain.

The funny thing is before these arguments had even completed they were already sending dispatches out east saying that they were to make demands of the Chinese, saying they needed to make opium legal and open China everywhere (not just the coastal regions and trading ports, but the central regions as well). Oops. I guess that decides that debate. Nevertheless, it was a big moral snafu for the British, with money being the obvious driving force behind the decision making and the issue being passed through regardless of the moral cloudiness.

Signing on with the French, they besiege Canton in 1857 - again. The Chinese were already beleaguered by fighting a civil war, so the amount of already behind-the-times ships was limited as it was. Thinking there would be little resistance, the British tried to simply sail up the river to Beijing to ratify their treaty amendments and get things done and dusted without too much wasted time and ammunition. However, the Chinese blocked their path and once more the British would take the war to the forts that were lining the river. Things had changed since the last time, though, and the Chinese had figured out how to fire their cannons properly. After having studied Western battle tactics, the Chinese soldiers were much more effective in their style of warfare. Where previously it would have been a walk in the park, 519 sailors were killed and 456 were wounded. These numbers are a massive increase from the first attempts during the first war, where there would be just a few casualties on the British side.

Prince Gong, a son of the emperor, was the
lead on the negotiations at the end of the second
war. So, so many irresistible "gong show puns".

Amidst all this fighting, the British sent a negotiating party up the river to talk out this treaty. Here, the Chinese made a terrible mistake, and one that goes back to ancient history in the "things you shouldn't do" column. They captured and tortured the negotiating party. This gave the British as much moral ammunition as they could possibly need, and in retaliation they reached the emperor's Summer Palace and looted the heck out of it. Afterwards, the prisoners were promptly returned. Twenty of the thirty were still alive; the rest were literally tortured to death.

Two days later the treaty would be ratified. This Treaty of Beijing amped up much of the costs they were originally meant to pay, allowed for an established embassy, freedom to travel all across China, a greater piece of the area around Hong Kong, and of course, the legalization of opium. It would be around 1949 that opium would begin to see a major downturn, and not until 1997 that Hong Kong would be returned to Chinese control.

Geez. No one comes out looking good in this story. Between the infighting, corruption and selfishness of many of the Chinese military and the British imperialist way of going into a foreign country and deciding that they were to buy their drugs or take a bullet, the "good guy" is largely absent.

China, Britain and Opium - Part 3: Killing All the Way to Peace

Elliot getting replaced was nothing but bad news. The British began looking upon him negatively because his ideas of keeping Hong Kong as a trade port and not completely obliterating every Chinese city in close proximity didn't sit well. His replacement, Henry Pottinger, not one to harbour such old-softie sentiments as trying to slaughter fewer than necessary, was all about the swift and decisive use of force. His first act was to sack Xiamen in what was pretty close to what would be called a brief detour from the main road. No one really put up a fight there, and his initial impressions were that this would be a walk in the park. To be fair, everything leading up to that point can be as close to that as a war would allow.

Henry Pottinger. As Governor of Madras in 1848, he
was preceded by the Marquess of Tweeddale, the
only person on the planet with perhaps a more British
sounding name than Henry Pottinger.

However, he's about to find a new guy in town. Prepared to defend Zhoushan the newly assigned Yuqian, the latest of the revolving door of generals, steps up to the plate. Upon entering the city, his first course of action is to take many of the British corpses that have died from disease and chopped them up, disposing of the pieces in the river. There are few ways in which you could make a stronger opening statement - except for what happens next. When one unfortunate British soul happened to get lost and landed by mistake at Zhoushan, Yuqian decided it was time to take out his anger on this poor fellow. In a move straight out of the most gruesome of slasher flicks, the general flayed his back while he was still alive, and supposedly made reins for his horse out of the flesh. That's a choice that's pleasant for absolutely no one. Is that even practical? Do flesh-reins even hold together? Do they not rot? Someone has to ask the tough questions here.

So this grim, determined general stands in the way of the British onslaught which has slaughtered countless of his people already and seems near unstoppable. He prepared for the coming assault, attempted to rally his troops for battle and... lost miserably. Two British soldiers were killed in taking his city. Managing to escape, Yuqian follows the tradition of flagrantly lying about the size of the attacking force. Meanwhile, the people that had just seen their army devastated carry on trading with the invaders as if the whole thing had never happened. The destruction around them was just background scenery to the daily trade. The army had a case of the Mondays.

Truly, the fight embodies everything that was wrong with the defending Chinese force, and how an army so incredibly massive was consistently destroyed by one of a far inferior size. First, the soldiers cared little for the fight itself, and that is clearly seen from the response of the people. To continue trading as if the battle hadn't happened shows a total lack of cohesiveness in the country, which is mostly due to a split between different social classes (the Manchu people given much higher standing than the rest). Further, the consistent stream of false information being sent up the ranks is going to send any army into disarray. Lastly, the willingness of the people to go immediately back to trading is playing perfectly into the British's hands. Keep in mind the purpose for this war; to open up China to the opium trade, which works through bombing these cities and then letting the people carry on trading. The people returning to trade almost instantly lets the invaders see that the simplest, most effective solution is to keep bombing. This is all happening without the emperor even knowing what these attacking forces want. That critical piece of information isn't even passed on up the line, meaning that you can't even really blame the emperor on this save for the fact that he seems all too willing to believe these generals that seem to fight valiantly against overwhelming odds in every fight, but nevertheless have the situation perfectly under control.

The battle tactic of running directly at the
enemy's most powerful weapon was surprisingly
unsuccessful.

So what happens to our good friend Yuqian? He moved on to defend the garrisons before the next city in line; Ningbo. Hundreds of Chinese would die there, to a higher albeit still small sixteen British. What really crushed the Chinese there was one particularly well-placed cannon that repeatedly fired down a densely populated narrow street. Upon hearing this the emperor is furious with Yuqian, about ready to denounce him when he gets word that Yuqian honourably committed suicide. He then changes his tune, feeling a little awkward about speaking ill of the dead, and decides to respect his memory and call him a great hero of China.

With Yuqian gone, the emperor needs to assign a new military leader. Thinking that nepotism is a sure-fire way to succeed, he assigns his blundering nephew, Yijing. He's terrible pretty well instantly. He doesn't care, has no respect for the problem of regional troops that might not want to fight for a common cause, and while tasked with a difficult assignment of retaking the lands back that they had just lost, he makes a mess of it in really incredible fashion. One of his plans was to - I kid you not - use attack monkeys. Not ridiculous enough? Lets amp it up. The attack monkeys would have firecrackers tied to them to start fires on British ships. The idea was abandoned not because of the almost comically obvious problems associated with it but due to no man being willing or able to get that close to the ships to toss said monkeys.

That has to be my favourite historical problem of all time. No one could get close enough to the British to lob the firecracker monkeys.

Naturally, the assaults he sent to retake Ningbo, Zhenhai and Zhoushan and place them into Chinese control again failed about as miserably as you could imagine. Ningbo lost hundreds in the assault with not a single British death. Zhenhai had a similar fate. Zhoushan's assault fell apart in the process and didn't even make it there.

Things changed a little bit when the British would arrive in the next two cities on the imperialism schedule; Zhapu and Zhenjiang. These weren't just regular Chinese citizens anymore, but people of the privileged Manchu population. They really fought this time, overwhelmed by superior technology and fighting power rather than mismanaged resources and lack of investment from their soldiers. The scene inside the cities was dreadful; men killing their wives, people committing suicide in the streets, parents drowning their children, all in the name of avoiding capture. Reports would vary on this. Of course the British would falsely say they were clean of any wrongdoing, and the Chinese would likely have exaggerated the ransacking of the cities, but both sources say that the other group raped and pillaged without mercy. The truth is likely in between, with neither describing themselves with any real honesty. The only certainty here is the image inside the city walls was one of fear and brutality, and perhaps one that would finally begin to shake the emperor.

The peace agreement, signed amongst a sea of punchable British faces.

Peace came shortly after. Two men were given the role of securing a peace agreement with the British by the names of Yilibu and Zhang, but even this becomes a slapstick misadventure. Upon deciding on giving up all trading access, privileges, millions of pounds, and the right to settle in China to the British, the two men - somehow - lose the agreement! They agree to it with forged documents from the "emperor" right before the British are about to bomb a city when the agreement's deadline was right at the end. So for now, the fighting comes to a close, but sadly it's only temporary. This simply ends the first of two Opium Wars.