254. Victorian Narcos: Fire Monkeys, Iron Gunships, & Peasant Warfare (Ep 8)

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0:29Hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnon. And me, William Durrumpel. Yes, and you join us in the midst of our Victorian Narcos Opium War series. And thank you very much for all your kind comments about this. I'm really glad you're enjoying it as much as we are. Shall I just remind you where we were at the last episode? So we left you with the nemesis, fabulously named, ironclad sort of suit of armour of a ship that's been sent by Palmerston. I think William described it like a stealth bomber last time that is going to be used against the wooden ships of the Chinese. So the British invade China on the pretext of protecting free trade.

1:09That's what they're arguing. Actually, the plan has been entirely formulated by this duo, this dynamic or dire duo, Matheson and Jardine, who has managed to find himself a tiny corner of Palmerston's office and is whispering into his ear constantly that, you know what, if we actually go for this, we can get quite a lot out of this. Hong Kong, for example, this island that actually nobody very much cares about, could be yours. It sits at the mouth of the Pearl River. And then, you know, we could attack Canton and we could get the ports and, you know, nothing could stop us. And then Beijing is just on the horizon.

1:43So all of this is being murmured into Palmerston's ear. And he is being charmed by it, even though there are others saying this is not the right thing to do. So that is why the nemesis is chugging its way over to China. And you've got Charles Elliott, who we talked about in the last episode, who's this rather, I mean, sort of nervous and indecisive, but quite a decent man, I think, who is in charge of British trade in China. And he's trying to keep the peace as best he can and trying to stop lives being lost. And everything that poor old Charles Elliott has had to say is being either ignored or mocked.

2:20And when he offers to defuse the situation by buying up the opium of these traders who are otherwise reaching for guns and it's all going to get very, very ugly, he will get into trouble for that as well because it is a check that he's writing that he has no right to sign. Six million dollars worth of a check. which as we discussed last time is this extraordinary sum of money. Elliot sort of wildly says, oh, don't worry, I'll pay for it. And then the Brits find themselves with this enormous loss that they've promised the opium traders, particularly Jardine and Matheson, that they're going to reimburse their entire opium stocks, which is a considerable sum of money.

2:59It's an enormous bit of the British annual budget. Six million dollars at this time is a lot of money. The British basically end up going to war to try and get that money back. get it back. Can't pay, won't pay, first of all. I don't know what this is all about. And, you know, actually, can we just put an end to all of this nonsense? Because we need to be able to do this trade because we need the money. We're paying too much China for tea. We need to make some of it back. So let's just do something about it. Now, take us to where the nemesis is and how the whole of British diplomacies or a change in British diplomacy is sailing with it.

3:33Before I actually talk about the events, I should talk about the wonderful book that I've been reading to learn about this. There's a lot of books on the opium wars and opium in general. And we've talked previously about Stephen Platt's wonderful book, Imperial Twilight, and we're going to get Stephen on in the next episode. And there's also Amitav Ghosh's extraordinary new book, Smoke and Ashes. Smoke and Ashes is fabulous. But the great book for the actual course of the first opium war, particularly on the diplomacy and the fighting and the detail of different characters like Elliot and Commissioner Lin is Julia Lovell's book, The Opium War, Drugs, Dreams, and the Making of China.

4:14What she's done in this book is to give the Chinese side as well as the English, because obviously the people like Jardine and Matheson are writing diaries that we can all read sitting in the records office. And particularly Jardine's archive is in the Cambridge University Library. And anyone that wants to research it can just go there. But much less accessible is the Chinese records. And Julia spent many decades of her life reading the Chinese records. And what you're going to hear over the next hour is very closely based on Julia's extraordinary new research. No other account goes into the detail or has the extraordinary depth of understanding of what's going on in China at this time and the Chinese sources.

4:53So I have hugely, hugely enjoyed this book and recommended it every bit as strongly as Stephen Platt's and Amitav Ghosh's. So the story begins, as we said, with the nemesis. The course of the Opium War is very different from many other imperial wars. If you think of, I've written about the war in Afghanistan, which is taking place at exactly the same time, 1842, the year that the Opium War reaches its climax is also the year that the troops of the First Afghan War are massacred on their journey back to India. The two things are happening side by side.

5:30more differently. Because while the Afghan story is an extraordinary story of triumph by the Afghan resistance, and these guys not only managed to drive the British out, but to massacre every last soldier that comes into the country, the course of the war in China is the exact opposite. There are virtually no British casualties sitting in their ironclad dreadnought, almost this nemesis, the stealth bomber 184 by 29 foot iron steamer specifically commissioned for the war in China and which arrives in time to fight it with iron sides accurate guns a very shallow draft to allow it to go up the rivers and it has a massive psychological impact because whatever the Chinese do they're constantly sending fire junks down to try and burn the British ships and you can't burn the nemesis.

6:20It's this incredibly unequal war. And the British, who are very much up for a good imperial fight at this period of their history, longing in the Victorian way for blood and glory, find themselves disgusted by the open war, not just because it's morally questionable whether there's any need or right to go to war to sell drugs, that at the time is very consciously realized by many of the participants. But also the fact that the Chinese really have no protection against the British weaponry of this period. The Afghans have their long jazales, sort of sniper rifles, and they can sit at the top of their mountains with greater range than the British brand best muskets.

7:02And so the British are on the back foot in Afghanistan. But it turns out that the Qing Chinese army is completely unprepared for war in the way that the trained sepoys of India are ready to fight and discipline fighting force. And particularly the Navy, because this is a naval campaign as much as anything. You have the nemesis, this fleet of British ships, they're sailing up a river. It's rather like, you know, remember Heart of Darkness when those dreadnoughts are sailing up African rivers and sort of shelling randomly into African jungle. There's a bit of that in this war. It's just these terrible ships that the Chinese can't deal with in any way, wreaking destruction and occasionally gorging out troops into the countryside to commit massacres.

7:45So, I mean, we've talked about this and, you know, China's inability to respond. And it's partly it's the tech, you know, the Brits have got the tech with this ironclad ship. But it's also partly, you know, China's always sort of looked, it's had such a vast empire, which is sort of contiguous, and they haven't had to sail over water to get to their bits of their empire. You know, it's just a massive landmass. So naval concerns have not been their concerns for years and years. And so this is just completely, you know, wrong-footed them entirely. It just hasn't been a thing that they've been developing.

8:18It's a very good point you're making, Nita. They don't have a navy that's designed to fight other navies. What the navy's been doing is basically policing pirates. And so it's more like a coast guard. It's the Chinese equivalent of the coast guard that's there to stop the selling of opium. And then when the opium payments and the money begins to pour into China, this is one of the forces that is completely corrupted by the opium trade in that the captains of these coastguards just take bribes to let the, what are called the crabs, these very fast ore ships that can dodge into creeks and pick up opium from Western ships on islands like off Hong Kong, and then dive down the different waterways and smuggle it into the center of China.

9:03And from the beginning, this starts off as a naval campaign. And we left you, I think, on the last episode, when in the first big conflict of the first opium war, the British attack Zaoshan Island. And there's this massacre of the ships followed by a massacre on that. And this continues. and the British continue to demand the money from the Chinese government that they're not willing to pay, war finally breaks out again. And 1841, at the beginning of the year, we see the nemesis engaging with the Chinese fleet at the mouth of the Pearl River. And I'll read an account of what happens in that first conflict, because it kind of sets the tone for everything that follows.

9:52So this line of Chinese war junks is blocking the nemesis at the mouth of the river. And then the nemesis brings its Congreve rockets into range. We were talking in our last bonus episode about Tabool Sultan. This is an Indian technology, the use of war rockets, which is adopted by the British and then put into action. When we say rockets, we're talking about sort of repurposed fireworks in a way, are we? That's what it is, isn't it? fireworks with with with added boom yeah the nemesis has these Congreve rockets which are the British version of Tipu's rockets that Tipu has used in war in 1799 against the British and a guy called Congreve brings them into the British army and they now are very popular as weapons in the navy one of the British sailors called Captain Hill sets off these Congreve rockets into the line of war junks blocking the British path into the Pearl River and he describes one of the junks it blew up with a terrific explosion launching into eternity every soul on board and pouring forth its blaze like a mighty rush of fire from a volcano the smoke and flame and the thunder of the explosion with portions of dissevered bodies scattering as they fell were enough to strike with awe the stoutest heart that looked on.

11:19And I think both sides are incredibly shocked by this. No one's expected, I think it's been a bit of a fluke that obviously one of these Congreve rockets has landed in the gunpowder of one of the war junks, but the whole thing has just gone up. The explosion is tremendous. And I love that line, you know, sort of launching into eternity, every soul on board and what the number of souls that we're talking about. It's an hour and a half that they're facing off against each other and fighting and then this huge explosion happens. And the Chinese lose 280 people, 462 are wounded. So this is absolutely a bloodbath on the water for them.

11:52And the English, in comparison, they have 38 wounded and not one single death, not one person dies on the English side. It's not even David and Goliath. It's like a steamroller just rolling over the Chinese efforts to defend their own territory. And in terms of ships, 11 war junks are destroyed, 173 Qing cannons are removed or spiked or captured. And the damage to the nemesis is a little damage on her paddle box. That's all that happens. So the Chinese discover at this point that there's almost nothing that they can do once you're in the nemesis sailing up the river. They have no defenses against this.

12:31So the plan that Jardine has come up with is very simple. They've got to go back to Canton, which has been the foothold where the British and the American and the French factories are all sitting on the riverbank. And as we know, and as we discussed in earlier episodes, for 100 years, these European factories have been sitting there doing business, initially buying tea, but more and more getting involved in the opium trade. The British and the French and the Americans have never been beyond the factories. They're not allowed into the city of Canton even. They're stuck in this tiny little sort of no man's land on the river.

13:05And what we see as their first plan of attack laid down by William Jardine in Palmerston's war office is to capture Canton. So on the 25th of February, the British arrive at the outer defenses on the river. And these are the forts upriver from Canton on the edge of the city. I mean it's this sort of tragic and almost comic horror story the Chinese in order to try and scare off the Brits arrange for the garrison which is not as large as it should be to go round and round the hill but they have to change their clothes on each circuit so that the Brits think there's more of them than there are so they walk round and round with different coloured clothes on In Home Alone Macaulay Culkin does a similar thing with sort of cutouts in the window just to make it look like there are more people at home than just him.

13:57This doesn't work. But I mean, apart from the people changing their clothes, the emperor does take this very seriously and is starting to mobilize troops because eventually there will be some 17 ,000 troops from seven different provinces who will converge on Canton because he knows as well, this is a prize. This is a jewel. This is a port that has marshaled an enormous amount of trade, not just in Opium, but in other things. And he Yeah, at the beginning, it's almost comical in his lack of men and having to look like they're much more muscular and there are many more of them than there were. But, you know, he's not taking it lightly.

14:35He knows what's at stake here. And he's actually put down three million ounces of silver, which is a considerable fortune to fight this battle. Anyway, by the 21st of May, the nemesis is sitting off the factories. Now, you may remember from the last episode that the British had withdrawn and all the other Americans and everyone else had withdrawn from the factories, leaving them empty, and they'd been looted and gutted by the people of Canton. So on the 21st of May, the nemesis arrives off the factories to this place where the British had been for 100 years, and they find utter silence. The factories have all been looted.

15:12There's no one around. And as they park their ships off these looted factories, and as night comes, they suddenly realize that there is an attack being planned on them. The Chinese have got all these fireboats, these junks and rafts, and they're all stuffed with oil-soaked cotton. So the first move that the Chinese have is to wait until the right time and the current is at its height. And they let these flaming ships out on the British fleet. Of course, not yet realizing that the nemesis is made of metal. This is their answer to torpedoes, isn't it? I mean, it's just get them as close as you can and let them blow up and take as much out as they can.

15:55Exactly that. And then at the same time, the Chinese have hidden among the ruins of the factories and Canton houses opposite all their artillery. So just as darkness comes and the fire ships begin to float towards the British fleet on the ebb tide, a whole load of artillery opens up from hidden positions. So it looks as if it's quite a serious defense that they plan for this and the British have walked into the trap. But of course, it all starts to go wrong. The fireboats drift in the wrong direction and don't get anywhere near where the British ships are parked. The British unload troops, which immediately put out the artillery.

16:41The first skirmish has taken place. The next day is Queen Victoria's birthday. So they begin with a high noon salute on the 24th of May. And then 2 ,300 British troops, most of whom are actually sepoys sent from British India, storm around Canton. And remember, this is a city they've never been allowed to enter in all the time that they've been trading there. And they tramp over the rice fields and the burial grounds on the outskirts of town. dragging these four enormous howitzers, field guns and powder guns, and lots of more concrete rockets onto the hill. Zushian, the mountain of transcendent excellence, which overlooks Canton.

17:24And for the first time ever, the British look down onto Canton. They've never been able to see beyond the walls. You can't see over the walls when you, for a hundred years, there's just been the same picture that all the Brits who are there take back of the walls of Canton. Now they get onto this hill and they're looking down and they prepare on the 27th of May to shell the city of Canton, which is full of people. It's a city of a million people. It's an enormous metropolis. 40 ,000 Qing troops against 3 ,500 East India Company sepoys. So, you know, the numbers seem to be in favour of the Chinese, but not if the East India Company sepoys have howitzers at their command.

18:03So as soon as the howitzers start fighting, there is absolute disarray. You can just imagine it, this constant thud, thud, bang, bang of the cannon. And one of the descriptions says the cannon did not fall silent for a single moment. That's from a Chinese source. When night fell, the fires burned as bright as day. Neither officials nor soldiers dared come out to help. All you could hear was the noise of burning and death. and the next morning the infantry think it's their moment to actually charge into the city and take the city uh in a full-scale assault and they're just revving up getting ready for this getting their tot of rum before running down the hill into the gates of canton when a single rather plump british officer spotted blundering his way through the paddy fields announces that the Chinese have backed down.

18:58They're going to pay a$6 million ransom. They're going to withdraw their troops from Canton. There's no need for the British to take the city by rape and plunder. Haven't they just blown it to smithereens though with the sounds of screaming? They've already killed many, many people by artillery, but there's not actually going to be bernets in the city walls. So there's a really interesting story about the bloke blundering to give this message because couldn't he have got there a lot earlier, but he got lost and he had asleep in a paddy field. So he goes to sleep in a paddy field. And I wonder whether if he would have got there just a tiny bit earlier, whether, you know, the bombardment might not have gone on as long as it did, or, you know, the loss of life went on as long as it did.

19:37So what happens then? So then there's an example of what, you know, could have been if the Chinese had got their act together a bit more. Because on the next day, the troops who've been about to attack the city suddenly realise that they've got a free day off. And so the troops just run off into the countryside and swarm around the little hamlets and villages and the burial grounds with their blood up, these guys begin to get into mischief. They start opening the tombs, taking the bodies out, which obviously is a deeply offensive thing to do. And there are accusations that the Punjabis have been raping the local women.

20:15And they call them black devils in the Chinese sources. But they also say things that it is a shame to even speak of because this is a society that's so utterly outraged and deeply ashamed of what happens. But that's what happens. I mean, you've talked about this before in Delhi as well. You know, when you have sort of troops who are thinking that they've got one day of fighting and putting their lives on the line and it suddenly disappears or they've taken a city and they still have their blood up, Roman soldiers would be allowed to go and vent themselves. Soldiers in all periods of history, tragically.

20:50Yeah, so it's horrific. British troops are now basically taking a holiday, moving around people's villages, disturbing the dead, making mistress of themselves. And just taking what they like. I mean, there's a lot of looting reported as well. Remember that there's a big difference between the Manchu Empire, which is Manchus from north of the wall who are the government, and the local Chinese. And the local Chinese are not going to take the ceasefire as a solid thing if the British are still molesting the women and disembodying the troops out of their tombs. So the local farmers line up in a sort of peasant militia, and armed with spears, shields, and swords, they fall on the British troops, who are not expecting any resistance at all.

21:37And so the day after the ceasefire, the British suffer a major peasant revolt in the villages outside Canton. These guys are, you know, wandering around paddy fields, smoking their cheroots, having a nice time on their day off, when suddenly they find this enormous peasant militia armed with swords and shields and spears coming down on them with a vengeance. The British think, OK, there's a man with spears and shields. What are they going to do? So they send a detachment out to go and get rid of them and just, you know, scare them back. Fire in the air a bit, they'll run away. But about after three miles of sort of pursuing them into their fields and trying to get them to go home or go away or kill them.

22:17There's a spectacular rainstorm that breaks out. It is a downpour that is so heavy, so torrential. It's like the sky is falling down. You can't see even just meters in front of your face. And the guns are completely useless. So, you know, that advantage those British troops have is lost completely because you can't fire a gun. You're not quite as scary, you know, even if the people you're pursuing have sticks and stones and shields. So what happens is that the paths are all washed out, they can't fire their guns, they don't know which way they're going because as you quite rightly said, these are places they've never been before.

22:54And they're bogged down in the paddy fields. Well, the paddy fields, it looks like water. If you've seen the paddy fields, it's just sort of a lake with things sticking out of it. There is no land. Everything seems to be covered with water. So that's when the peasants start jabbing back with a bit more success. They start running away from these troops pursuing them and they start fighting back. And it's the Qing government who gets the British off the hook. They've signed this peace. So they suddenly turn up and tell the peasants to go back home and not to resist anymore. And this, of course, is hugely unpopular because the peasants have got the British troops on the run.

23:30And they say, since the peace is signed, you must let the foreigners go. But this, of course, is now in modern China a major moment. It's been turned into a big visitor center, and it's a major part of all school textbooks. And it's called the San Yuan Li People's Anti-British Struggle. You go there today, and Judy McFarlane says there's an enormous, very phallic monument to mark this reversal of the British troops. But again, it just shows that, you know, with a slightly different configuration, this war could have gone very differently. But it remains the, you know, the Manchu imperial forces who are underarmed against the British and the Chinese in the sense that are actually the local Chinese that barely take part in this in this war.

24:15So at this point, the British carry on a little bit further up the river. They take a place called Zen He. There are at this point 1 ,500 Chinese dead for only 16 British casualties. They then take another place further upriver called Ningbo. And at that point, they decide to settle down for the winter and hope that the Qing will give in to their demands. And I think we should take a break there while the British are wintering in Ningbo.

24:48Welcome back. So just before the break, we had this sort of slightly now lionized version of a peasant's revolt where the peasants say, you know what, actually, we had enough of your nonsense, Brits, we're going to fight you back. And they're quite successful. I mean, with the help of a huge downpour in pushing the British back, but it is their leadership. It is the emperor himself who says, no, signed a bit of paper. You lot, stop that. Go home. We've got to do what we've said we're going to do and we're basically giving up. So this is a huge success for the British. But what do they do? Well, they sack Eliot immediately.

25:22So, you know. Well, we're on that. One of the people who rather disloyally does for Eliot is his own cousin, Lord Auckland. While Auckland is making his own mess in Afghanistan, he's pointing at his cousin Charles Elliot and saying that Elliot's making an even bigger mess in China. And it's his letters to Palmerston that actually result in Elliot getting sacked. Oh, really? He's being slagged off by his own family member? Oh, that's hilarious. And Emily Eden writes these very spiky notes about him, how hopeless he is and how slow and how dithery in her words. And so poor Charles Elliot, this is now the winter break.

26:02They've got as far as Ningbo. The Chinese have hunkered down for the winter too. Everyone sort of realizes this is a break and there's going to be a pause in the fighting during the Chinese winter. Elliot goes off for some fun to Macau, the Portuguese colony, which has hotels and bars and today it's famous for its casinos. And it's a place where at this time people go for a bit of a break. And he's only just arrived. He has a nightmare trip to Macau. I think his ship sinks or he ends up on an island, he's nearly captured by the Qing, everything goes wrong. And he finally gets to Macau, walks up the beach and is told he's been replaced by Henry Pottinger who's arriving in 48 hours from India.

26:43It's the equivalent of getting a text message saying don't come in tomorrow. But I mean, you say it's Auckland who slagged him off and said he's just made a hash of this. But it is actually Jardine and Matheson who really have done for Elliot because they have not rested at all in slagging him off, slagging the way that he has been getting in the way. He hasn't been musking enough. They've been telling him for ages that Canton could have been taken. Why are we, you know, sort of kowtowing to these people? Well, we just take it. We're, you know, we're much better off. So really, the opium smugglers have won this war on their own.