Captain Elliot was aware from the beginning that he had settled for far less than Lord Palmerston had demanded of him. The foreign secretary had stressed to him the importance of the Chusan archipelago: ‘It is the intention of Her Majesty’s Government,’ he had made clear, ‘that the Chusan Islands shall be retained until everything shall be satisfactorily settled by the Chinese Government.’ One condition of their military evacuation, he had explained, would likely be that some settlement for British subjects be granted, much like the Portuguese in Macao — in effect a permanent extraterritorial presence. Palmerston, of course, had never ventured within 5,000 miles of Chusan, and had based his choice on the informed opinions of men like Karl Gützlaff and his correspondent in Macao, the trader James Matheson, in whom he had great personal confidence. Though the final choice of island would rest with Elliot, Palmerston’s express preference had been for the island of Chusan itself rather than one of its smaller satellites (and ‘smaller’ was a relative concept — half a dozen of those outlying islands rivalled Hong Kong in extent). Before the outbreak of violence, Elliot had wholeheartedly concurred with Palmerston. In February of 1840 he had written from Macao:
For permanent settlement, I still believe an insular station… is the safest course, and the more I consider the subject, the more does the impression fix itself upon me, that one of the Chusan group will present the greatest advantage for that purpose. [6]
From there, British manufactures would flow down the Yangtze to countless millions of consumers. In his mind’s eye, even Captain Elliot had pictured the Union Jack flying at the peak of an island he had yet to see:
With a British possession on one of the Chusan islands, and the Emperor’s permission that his people may trade with us there, I am sure that Her Majesty’s Government will be satisfied: It will have gained enough. To declare it a Free Port for the ships of all nations, with the establishment of moderate and liberal tariffs, would no doubt be the earliest measure of the Government; and I believe it is not too much to predicate of such a possession on such a footing, that it must soon come to be the very first commercial station in Asia, and very probably one of the very first in the world. [7]
And once he had seen it, Elliot’s considered opinion of Chusan was even more positive:
Nothing can be more delightful than the climate, or more perfectly beautiful than the country. The hills are cultivated with the most exact garden husbandry to the very summits, and the verdure is brilliant. It is not a rich woodland country, but neither is the landscape bare of trees, and taken altogether it certainly is as fair a scene as ever the eye rested upon. If we can but hold this place we will make a second Havanah of it in three years, with the difference that it will be a delightful retreat for mere purposes of change of climate and recreation. [8]
But then had started the messy business of dealing with the infuriating Chinese, and Elliot’s naïve hopes of simply landing upon Chusan and turning it into a model colony had been dashed. Before he had even left Chusan to negotiate at the mouth of the Peiho, he had privately arrived at the opinion that British interests might be better served by accepting less than Palmerston had wanted. Yes, Chusan’s geographical position was perfect, but it had a large native population alienated by the incompetence of invasion and misrule, and, Elliot was sure, ‘no country is worth holding against the good will of the peasantry.’ Sickness had soon left fewer than 1,200 men fit to defend the island, and Governor Burrell had made it clear that he might find it difficult to repel a concerted Chinese attack. A recourse now to yet more violence to force the Chinese into accepting every last one of Palmerston’s demands ran counter to Elliot’s compassionate nature. It was, Elliot believed, ‘a war in which military success must be dearly purchased.’ Victory on Palmerston’s terms would only come ‘with the slaughter of an almost defenceless and helpless people.’ It is hard, after the conflicts of our own time with their ‘collateral damage’ to civilians, not to feel sympathy for Elliot’s decisions. But such humanity was perhaps not the character trait Palmerston had hoped would predominate in a leader entrusted with a costly show of overwhelming strength. Faced with a confusion of assurances and threats, of peace offers and promises of improved conditions, Elliot chose a recommencement of trade and access to Hong Kong over possession of Chusan and the risk of more destruction. [9]
When news of the peace settlement reached Zhejiang, it filled Commissioner Yilibu with relief. As reports of the fighting in Canton had filtered back to Peking, the edicts issuing from the Forbidden City had become frantic, and Yilibu had been presented with direct orders to invade Chusan and unseat the British. No more failures would be tolerated. Yet when Yilibu wrote back to Peking, it was with a tangibly desperate insistence that he was unable to obey — he simply had too few ships and sailors even to attempt a landing. For months he had been sailing perilously close to the wind with his abortive invasion plans, and disobedience now would have guaranteed an appointment with the Imperial Strangler had peace not broken out. [10]
And so it was with palpable relief that Yilibu and Governor Yuqian began to prepare for the handover. In long and jingoistic memorials to Peking they began to brag of how their great armies were putting pressure on the barbarians upon Chusan, ready to destroy them if they tarried. They claimed to have had 10,000 liang of silver — some 820 lbs — smuggled onto the island to buy the loyalty of village braves. If the barbarians proved perfidious, they would rise up all around Tinghae to defeat them. Anstruther and the others would be paraded before an army of liberation and beheaded to spur them on. It was just what the emperor had wanted to hear. [11]
The Columbine steamed into Tinghae harbour, and for a week the city and wharves were a scene of frenzied preparations. The men rolled up their mattresses, packed away their kit, stripped their billets of souvenirs, and soon regimental baggage was piled high on the quayside. The arsenals were emptied and the hospitals decommissioned, their medical stores shared out and their sick carried aboard ship. The observatory was dismantled and the Chusan United Service Club held its last meeting. The Chusan Police Force was thanked for its good work and stood down. The bakery was closed (it had been providing bread baked using wheat freshly ground by oxen upon some dozen millstones), as was the garrison’s slaughterhouse. Re-embarkation began in earnest on February 17th, with the Royal Irish boarding the Rattlesnake at dawn. The richer officers bade farewell to their landlords, who would sorely miss their rent. And most importantly, a steamer was despatched to demand that Captain Anstruther, Anne Noble and the other prisoners be released. [12]
On February 23rd, a Chinese deputation sailed proudly out of Ningbo port. When its junks reached Tinghae harbour the next day, a general named Zheng Guohong entered the city with a body of junior officers to accept the formal handover in the Temple of the God of Wealth. The remaining guards were stood down (reportedly prompting a riot of looting at the Confucius Temple where confiscated property was still piled high), British troops marched out of the south gate in crimson ranks, and at noon the next day the Union Jack was struck. Anne Noble meanwhile had awoken to her attendant’s cries of ‘Zhenhai! Chusan!’ and an explanation from the comprador Bu Dingbang that she was to be freed. The prisoners were assembled from their places of incarceration and marched by torchbearers between ranks of Chinese soldiers and past great crowds who had gathered to see them, and then the Europeans were placed in palanquins to be carried the ten miles to the coast. They were breakfasted, and Anstruther was introduced for the first time to Commissioner Yilibu. The old man informed Anstruther that Chusan was to be evacuated right away, and that he had a great army ready to take the island back. At dawn the prisoners, thirty-seven in all, caught sight of an English vessel, and soon Chusan itself became visible through the sea mist. The waterfront had changed dramatically since Anstruther and Anne had last seen it: the acres of white canvas covering the hills and the paddy had disappeared and the wharves had been cleared of rubble. As the bands on the transports struck up Rule Brit
annia, a gig from HMS Blonde conveyed Anne, Anstruther and the rest aboard. Anne, despite her bereavement and her frail state of health (she was by now seven months pregnant), rejoiced in her liberty and only expressed her constant thankfulness to God for his mercy. She strikes one as a woman of the most immense faith and courage. Just as they had when HMS Wellesley had led the first assault eight months earlier, cheers rang out from the soldiers as they set sail for the south. This time, though, they were cheers of relief. [13]
11. Soothing the sores and bruises
Though they were unaware, Captain Anstruther, Anne, and the other thirty-five prisoners had only narrowly escaped a horrific fate: Yuqian (the mild-mannered Yilibu was less inclined to such barbarity) had been in deadly earnest when he had boasted of plans to execute them to inspire the troops. But Captain Stead of the transport ship Pestonjee Bomanjee knew nothing of Chusan’s evacuation when a month later he landed at Kittow Point on the nearby mainland, hoping to learn something of the fleet’s whereabouts. Instead he was seized and taken to Zhenhai where Yuqian, his ambition to drive the barbarians into the sea foiled by their peaceful departure, declared him guilty of rebelling against the emperor and sentenced him to die by lingchi. Tied to a stake, Stead’s limbs were slowly cut off before finally he was beheaded. His severed head was displayed in a cage, ‘to raise morale and gladden men’s hearts’ as Yuqian would later boast. When two crewmen from the opium clipper Lyra were captured ashore not far away, Yuqian decided on an even more sadistic demonstration of his hatred of these barbarians. The twenty-eight-year-old ship’s mate was bound to a stake, the skin from the tips of his thumbs, up his arms, and across his shoulders and back flayed off in a single strip, apparently just to provide Yuqian with a new horse bridle. Slowly dismembered by lingchi, his head was then displayed to the troops. The other crewman, an Indian nicknamed ‘China’ for his knowledge of the language, was already dead from the beating his captors had doled out, but still his head was placed in a cage. For the ‘white barbarian’, the captors had earned $200; for the ‘black barbarian’ $100. Yuqian had been looking forward to executing Anstruther and offering his entrails as a sacrifice to the spirits of China’s war dead, but Yilibu had hurried the prisoners back to Chusan, foreseeing the devastation that would be unleashed by British warships if this hothead succeeded. Still, the gaol in Ningbo held traitors whom Yuqian might yet make examples of. [1]
One, Yu Guozhen, had been a doctor in Tinghae. He had fled when the British arrived, but in late August had crept back into the city to look around. There Gützlaff had persuaded him to sketch a map of how to reach Ningbo, promising to pay $10 if he would go there and return with news. This Yu had done, consigning what he had learnt to paper. But Gützlaff had in the meantime been taken ill and, on his return, Yu could not deliver the letter. His behaviour had aroused suspicion, and he had been caught red-handed with his accounts of Chinese troop movements. Yu Xiuqing was also a doctor, and come August he too had re-entered Tinghae. Paid handsomely to copy out Governor Burrell’s proclamations in Chinese, his unexpected wealth had similarly betrayed him, and he had been bound and spirited away to Ningbo. A third man, Yang Jianting, had been a teacher in Tinghae. One week after Anstruther’s disappearance it had been Yang who provided Gützlaff with a lead. Promised $50 if he could produce the suspected kidnappers, Yang had led a party of soldiers to Qingling village. Eleven of the kidnappers’ family had been taken into custody, but they themselves had escaped and Yang was given just $12 and a few items of confiscated clothing by way of a reward. Perhaps it was these that cast suspicion upon him. Along with the kidnapped comprador Bu Dingbang, all three were now executed and their heads exhibited beside a placard warning others not to make the same mistake.
Less than a week after Chusan’s liberation, a Bureau for Reconstruction was set up in Zhejiang with Yuqian at the reins. Magistrate Shu Gongshou of Ningbo, the man who had successfully managed the refugee crisis as it swept over his city, was made civil magistrate of Tinghae. For his endless dilly-dallying and his failure to recapture Chusan, a disgraced Yilibu was stripped of his position in the emperor’s inner circle and of the double-eyed peacock feather which had adorned his mandarin’s cap. Impeccable behaviour for eight years, he was told, might see him once more in favour. The island’s gentry, in recognition of the resistance they had led, were rewarded with an increase in the annual quota of degree candidates the island could put forward for the civil service examinations — the future prospects for their sons looked bright. For the moment, however, through Chinese eyes eight months of foreign rule had left Tinghae in a parlous state. The rice in the granaries had been squandered, the city walls were in disrepair, temples and schools had been torn down, fields and market gardens trampled underfoot. The final reckoning was 1,257 houses destroyed. ‘There is scarcely a chicken or a dog to be found,’ lamented Yuqian, ‘and soothing the sores and bruises will not be easy.’ [2]
He began to soothe those sores and bruises by commanding the mass reburial of the human remains from the destroyed cemetery on Josshouse Hill:
The unearthed bones of the island people are scattered in confusion like the stars in the sky, and even the most filial and compassionate of their descendants cannot determine whose are whose.
‘I cannot help my heart breaking and my eyes filling with tears of sadness to think of how my innocent children have endured such bitter poison,’ the emperor added in his own hand to Yuqian’s memorial. As for the barbarian invaders, although some of their graves had been dug barely a fortnight earlier, Yuqian had sent orders that they be disinterred, dismembered as criminals, and tossed into the sea to placate the spirits of the Chinese tombs they had disturbed. When six crates of Christian tracts were discovered in Gützlaff’s erstwhile home, they were publicly burned. A final and unintended slight was Yuqian’s description of Gützlaff’s staunchly Protestant treatises as ‘the evil teachings of Roman Catholicism — those wild and fabulous stories not found in the Confucian canon.’ [3]
A board of commission sent from the provincial capital Hangzhou assessed compensation claims and distributed funds for rebuilding — from the remains of walls and the number of broken tiles it was estimated how many rooms the vanished buildings had contained. But rebuilding homes was just one pressing task; these particular barbarians now had a history of submitting to their masters only to turn violent: ‘If we are not very strenuous in our exertions, they will make of Chusan another Hong Kong,’ Yuqian argued in a memorial to Peking, and he began the fortification of the island. Where Captain Pears’ Madras Engineers had cut short their work, the fortification of Josshouse Hill was completed. As a matter of urgency Yuqian ordered the construction of a three-mile-long earth wall along the shoreline of the harbour, an enormous undertaking carried out behind a screen of junks for fear that opium clippers might espy the goings-on. As destitute refugees trickled back in the weeks following the British withdrawal, their numbers would reach a staggering 35,000, and it was from these that Yuqian found his labourers. At first, women, children, the elderly and the infirm were all exempted, yet their willingness to toil in the rain and mud in exchange for copper cash and a modicum of future protection was such that Yuqian could soon boast of startling progress. [4]
When finished, the wall dominated the foreshore, a great platform of pounded earth and stone some fifteen yards thick at its base and sixteen feet high, faced with wide battlements that could shelter several hundred guns. Two sally ports — they were optimistically named ‘Enduring Peace’ and ‘Long-lasting Governance’ — were now the only means of passage from the landing stages into the vale of Tinghae beyond. The building of this vast rampart left little of the once-bustling commercial wharves, save for a few temples and large houses which now became barracks. To Yuqian’s mind, their destruction marked the removal of a community which for too long had offered succour to foreign ships. He explained his actions to Peking:
Under the Kangxi Emperor, the red-haired barbarians were permitted to trade
in Tinghae. This long ago ceased, but the quays were still commonly known as the Red Hair Wharf, while the remains of the foreign factory lay close by. For nine years now, their ships have each summer appeared off Zhejiang, selling opium to the boat people who live on the quays in exchange for fresh water and livestock. For this reason, I have torn down the Red Hair Wharf and removed all trace of the factory. If outside the wall they find nothing, this will stifle the barbarians’ covetous desires. [5]
As March of 1841 drew to a close, Yuqian set foot on Chusan in person for the first time. A tour of inspection satisfied him that reconstruction was progressing smoothly. Three hand-picked and seasoned generals had arrived on Chusan and were busily preparing their respective regiments for the island’s defence. The first, Ge Yunfei, had stepped into the role of general of the Tinghae station left vacant by the death of General Zhang the previous year. General Ge was a native of the ancient city of Shaoxing, just eighty miles distant and close enough for him to feel a local affinity for Chusan. Born in 1789, the son of an officer stationed on the nearby Grand Canal, he was always destined for the army: his family told of how his birth had been marked by a cloud shaped like a military banner descending into the room. One day while out hunting his father had passed him his full-sized bow. Despite its enormous draw-weight, Yunfei had notched up six hits out of six. Throughout his career, if his eulogies are to be believed, Ge remained a man of simple pleasures, dressing and eating like an impoverished scholar, but a strict disciplinarian who had once whipped a soldier so hard for stealing a single taro root that the man’s wounds bled. Ge had earned a special reputation for capturing pirates, a favourite trick of his being to disguise a war junk as a defenceless honeypot to entice an attack. Zhejiang’s buccaneers, it was reputed, had a saying: ‘Nobody encounters Ge and lives to tell the tale.’ [6]
Chusan Page 13
