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.