Read the book: «A Brief Modern Chinese History»
ibidem-Press, Stuttgart
Contents
1. The Opium Wars and China’s Decline
China and the World before 1840
British Opium Smuggling and Lin Zexu’s Anti-Smuggling Endeavor
The Treaty of Nanjing and Its Aftermath
The Chinese Intellectuals’ Reaction and Solution
Social Changes in Post-War China
2. The Qing Government in Despair
The Taiping Rebellion and Its Socio-Political Experiments
The Aggressive Anglo-French Expedition Against China
Tsarist Russia: A Grabber of Chinese Lands
The Taiping Rebellion in Its Late Phase: Zeng Guofan and the Hunan Army
The Fall of the Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace
3. The Lost Three Decades
Changes of the Central and Local Governments
The Self-Strengthening Movement (SSM)
Reformism in Its Initial Stages
Border Crises and the Sino-French War
Endless Incidents Involving Christian Missionaries
The 1895 Sino-Japanese War
The Treaty of Shimonoseki and the Cession of Taiwan
4. Post-1895 China: Reform, Rebellion, and Revolution
Return of the Liao Dong Peninsula to China and the Imperialist Powers’ Rat Race in the Far East
The Scramble for China
China’s Sprouting National Capitalism
Sun Yat-sen and Early Revolutionaries
The Abortive 1898 Hundred Days’ Reform
The Boxer Uprising: A Chinese Peasants’ Patriotic Anti-Imperialistic Endeavor
The Aggressive Allied Forces of the Eight Powers and Qing’s Response
The Boxer Protocol and a Fully Semi-Colonized and Semi-Feudalized China
5. On the Eve of Great Change
Qing’s New Policies and Ensuing Social Changes
The British Empire’s Invasion of Tibet and the Russo-Japanese Conflict in Northeast China
Tongmenghui and the Debates Involving Revolutionaries and Conservatives
Boycotting American Goods and Restoring China’s Rights
Building China’s Constitutional Monarchy
The Revolutionaries in Action
6. The 1911 Revolution: A Blend of Success and Failure
The Crisis-Ridden Qing
The Huanghuagang Uprising and Railway Protection Movement
The Wuchang Uprising
Sun Yat-sen, President of the Nanjing Provisional Government
The Collapse of Qing and the Rise of Yuan Shikai
7. China at Its Lowest Ebb: The Rule of the Beiyang Warlords
Yuan Shikai and Sun Yat-sen
The Rapid Collapse of the Hongxian Reign
China under the Warlords’ Rule
The Growth of China’s National Capitalism and the Working Class
The New Culture and May Fourth Movements
The Dissemination of Marxism and Socialism
8. The Beginning of China’s Tortuous Path to Progress
The Birth of the Communist Party of China
The Kuomintang’s First National Congress, the First United Front, and the Northern Expedition
The Clash Between the CPC and the Kuomintang and the Failure of the First Revolutionary Civil War
The Convergence of the Wuhan and Nanjing Nationalist Governments and the Nominal Unification of China
Establishing the Armed Independent Regime of Workers and Peasants in Jiangxi
The Kuomintang’s Encirclement and Annihilation and the CPC’s Counterattacks
The Social History Controversy of the 1930s
9. The Deepening National Crisis and the Adjustment of Class Relations
The September 18 Incident and the Nonresistance Strategy
Japan’s Intensified Aggression Against China and Jiang Jieshi’s Increased Nonresistance
China’s Greater Effort to Fight Japan
The Setback for the Chinese Communist Movement
The Sian Incident and China’s New Opportunity to Rehabilitate
10. The Outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japan
The Lugouqiao Incident
The August 13th Incident in Shanghai and the Anti-Japanese National United Front
The National Defense System and the CPC and the Kuomintang’s Strategies
The ERA (Eighth Route Army) and the Battle of Shanxi
The Battle of Shanghai and the Nanjing Massacre
China’s Great Victory in Taierzhuang and the Fall of Wuhan and Guangzhou
11. The Two Battlefields in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression
The Collaboration of the Kuomintang’s Frontal Battlefield and the CPC’s Battlefield Behind the Enemy Lines
The Incident in Southern Anhui
The Pearl Harbor Attack and the International Anti-Fascist United Front
The Kuomintang’s Failure on the Battlefront and the CPC’s Offensive in the Rear
Corruption and Dictatorship in the Areas under the Kuomintang’s Rule and the Growth of the CPC’s Revolutionary Anti-Japanese Bases
The Coalition Government and China’s Counteroffensive
The CPC-Kuomintang Struggle and Two Prospects for China
The Unconditional Surrender of Japan and China’s Final Victory in the War of Resistance
12. The Victory of the People’s War of Liberation and the Founding of the People’s Republic of China
Chongqing Negotiations and the Political Consultative Conference
Changing Sino-Soviet and Sino-US Relations
Outbreak of Full-Scale Civil War
The Crisis-Ridden Areas under the Kuomintang’s Rule and the Stable and Prosperous Liberated Areas
Three Great Decisive Battles
The Broken Peace Talks in Beijing and the PLA’s Capture of Nanjing
The Founding of the People’s Republic of China
13. The Historical Significance of the People’s Republic of China
The Birth of the People’s Republic of China Brings Epochal Change to China and the World
The PRC Lays the Foundation of a New Era of Socialist Development with Chinese Characteristics and the Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation
The Birth of the PRC Witnesses the Tortuous Course Toward Success
Three Fundamental Themes and Four Lessons in Learning Modern Chinese History
Bibliography
Web Sources
1. The Opium Wars and China’s Decline
China and the World before 1840
In 1840 the British Empire launched the dirty First Opium War (1840–1842) against China. This war forcibly stopped the historical course in which China enjoyed a fully independent development, and marked the beginning of modern Chinese history. Chinese society gradually became semi-feudal and semi-colonial. A brief discussion of the global situation before the First Opium War follows.
Revolutions broke out in Britain in 1640 and in France in 1789 that led to the dawn of the capitalist system. Thereafter, the capitalist countries of Europe attempted to colonize the world. Using various means such as piracy, robbery, the slave trade, drug (opium) smuggling, wars of aggression, and so on, these colonialists plundered a large amount of wealth from Asia, Africa, and America. This looted wealth constituted a major source of capital and contributed decisively to the growth of European capitalism. History has proven that European capitalist civilization relied heavily on the colonial loot and plunder that it had taken from Asian, African, and American countries and their people, even though it did help to advance humankind. As a consequence, during the seventeenth century, the capitalist countries grew richer and richer while those in the colonized lands became poorer and poorer.
The 1760s saw the Industrial Revolution in Britain, which embodied the vibrant growth of capitalism in Europe. The following five decades in Britain, France, and the United States witnessed the growth of machine production in their economies. Britain, for example, accounted for 50% of the total industrial production in the world and 70% of global coal production in the 1820s. As a consequence, Europe’s social productivity grew by leaps and bounds. The rising empires then scrambled to grab colonies around the globe. By the 1830s, the north and south of Africa, Canada, Australia, New Zealand as well as Southwest and Southeast Asia were all colonized by the capitalist powers. However, as a great number of nations were being forcibly thrown into capitalism, China’s Qing dynasty (1644–1912) was still independent in Asia. The British Empire, however, set its sights on Qing and began smuggling opium into China. It was under such circumstances that new events took place one after another in China.
Britain and France in the early nineteenth century were the acknowledged leaders of the capitalist world. Old powers such as Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands had declined as early as the seventeenth century. The old powers’ colonies were either taken away by the new hegemons or managed to get rid of their colonial oppressors. Many countries in Latin America, which had been brutally ruled by Spain and Portugal, gained their independence in the 1820s. Some went further, developing into bourgeois republics in a single decade or so.
Yet Spain still ruled over the Philippines; Portugal controlled African states such as Angola; and the Netherlands governed the East Indies (present-day Indonesia).
Bourgeois revolution and the Industrial Revolution made Britain and France the most advanced industrial countries in the world. The British Empire grabbed lands and turned them into markets through aggressive wars and colonial aggrandizement. As early as the seventeenth century, the English (later British) East India Company had colonized Madras, Bombay, Calcutta and Bengal in India. By the 1830s, with the exception of several native states in the center and the north, all of India was reduced to a British colony. The British Empire benefited immensely from the colonization of India and, moreover, used India as a base for the invasion of other Asian countries. The British began smuggling opium produced in Bengal into China, some of which was dispatched from India. The British also occupied Penang in Malaysia, merged Malacca and Singapore and, in 1824, Britain set up the Straits Settlement in Southeast Asia. Canada and Australia were colonized in the eighteenth century by the British. The British Empire, on which the sun never set, then established colonial rule in Gambia, Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast (present-day Ghana) and Cape Town in the early nineteenth century, and in New Zealand in 1839. As a consequence, Britain created a huge colonial empire that covered a total area of 2,000,000 square kilometers and a population of 100,000,000 people.
France was next only to Britain in its colonial quest thanks to the all-powerful French Revolution and the staggering growth of industrial production within France. Nevertheless, France’s colonies in North America and India were almost completely lost to Britain in the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763). In spite of these losses, France still had Senegal and Guyana and in 1830 colonized Algeria by military force. In Asia, France occupied Vietnam, which became France’s new base to invade China.
The United States was originally one of Britain’s colonies; however, it later won the War of Independence (1775–1783) and became an independent country. In comparison to Britain and France, the United States was a latecomer to the club of capitalist countries but grew rapidly. In 1803 and 1819, the United States purchased huge amounts of fertile land from France and Spain. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the United States had the longest railroad network in the world. American traders began moving all over the world and, before long, America’s capitalist class became the British Empire’s accomplice in invading China.
For quite a long time Russia was a European country known to the world for its serfdom. As late as the early nineteenth century, a feudal economy still predominated in Russia. However, Tsarist Russia started to expand as early as the late sixteenth century. In the mid-seventeenth century, Russia annexed Ukraine, conquered Siberia and cast its eyes on China’s Black Dragon River. In 1689, Russia and Qing signed the Treaty of Nerchinsk, which defined the eastern border between the two countries. Thirty-eight years later, the middle part of the Sino-Russian border was drawn in accordance with the Treaty of Kyakhta. Then, in the eighteenth century, Belarus and the Baltic region merged with Russia. At the dawn of the nineteenth century, Poland, Finland, Ciscaucasia and Bessarabia were occupied by the Russian Empire. By the 1840s, Tsarist Russia began to show interest in the northeastern part of China.
Britain, France, the United States and Tsarist Russia were early modern China’s main aggressors. Germany, however, also saw massive growth in the 1830s before the dawn of the German Reich. Japan, one of China’s neighbors, had been ruled by the Tokugawa shogunate since the seventeenth century, but capitalism in Meiji-era Japan in the 1860s and 1870s grew rapidly. Japan, shocked by China’s failure in the Opium War, started to reform. Soon, both Germany and Japan were enrolled in the group of China’s invaders.
At that time, some countries still remained proudly independent. Among them, Qing China was the largest. Qing, the last feudal dynasty of China, was in the twilight of its life. With the exception of its northern neighbor, China’s neighboring countries in the east, south and southwest were either colonized or about to be colonized. The colossal Ottoman Empire (1299–1922), which stretched over Asia, Africa and Europe, was suffering a great decline. Greece gained its independence in 1830, when Algeria was fully colonized by the French Empire. Egypt would soon get rid of Ottoman control. Additionally, the Ottoman Empire itself was subject to the capitalist powers’ aggression.
The remaining great tracts of land that had not been occupied by the Western colonists were the African desert and China. China had not always been the country lying at the center of the world. The traditional Chinese perception of the world—the civilized Chinese are fundamentally different from the barbarians—was hopelessly outdated. Qing’s heyday had gone forever. Many of Qing’s shortcomings and disadvantages grew increasingly obvious. Worst of all, its ossified feudal institutions and conceptions put a stranglehold on China’s productivity growth. According to some demographic studies, the Chinese population increased to 400,000,000 before the First Opium War. As a consequence, cultivated land fell far short of need. The unprecedented population growth exerted enormous pressure on Chinese society. In these conditions drastic land annexation and polarization of the rich and the poor were inevitable. A senior official in the early Qianlong reign (1736–1795) pointed out that a huge number of people who had been in possession of land had no alternative but to become tenant farmers.1 Echoing this, a minister said that when a family, which had once possessed huge wealth, went bankrupt, thousands of (dependent) families would be reduced to a state of abject poverty.2 In these circumstances, social contradictions were inevitably exacerbated. Hong
Liangji 洪亮吉 (1746–1809), a Confucian scholar known to us for his pioneering work in the study of China’s unprecedented population growth, clearly recognized that when population growth outpaced land cultivation, society would be engulfed by instability. To make matters worse, ordinary people led a miserable existence because of repeated natural disasters.
China’s long-running feudal society had an extremely stable landlord economy. As a small-scale peasant economy and still largely traditional, priority was given to agriculture rather than to commerce. This consequently prevented the highly developed handicraft industry in the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta from growing into capitalist industry. As a consequence, China lagged behind Europe in terms of productivity growth. Simply put, China was in decline.
The Qing emperors were completely unaware of capitalist growth in other parts of the world and were still intoxicated with the country’s glory and greatness. Take Emperor Qianlong (r. 1736–1796), for example. He mandated that foreigners were not allowed to do business anywhere in China with the exception of Guangzhou (Canton).3 The British king in 1793 sent a seven-hundred-member diplomatic corps headed by George Macartney, a lord, to visit China to showcase his kingdom’s scientific and industrial prowess and to invite China to join. A high Qing governor mistakenly took Macartney’s mission as a celebration for the Emperor Qianlong’s eightieth birthday and thus treated these British merely as emissaries paying tribute. Macartney and his retinue were granted an interview in the Mountain Resort; however, there was an unpleasant dispute over the etiquette of Macartney’s audience with the Emperor. As a consequence, the two sides failed to reach an agreement. Qing’s ruling elites were all unaware of what was taking place in Britain and Europe, nor did they know that Britain had already emerged as a capitalist power. Rather, they regarded the rising British Empire as a barbarian state. At the same time, the haughty Macartney mission looked down on the Chinese sovereign, refused to observe traditional Chinese etiquette, and was wildly ambitious in trying to cajole Qing to cede territory to their sovereign. In the end, Qing and Britain parted in anger. The Macartney mission revealed the differences between the two civilizations. Qing also failed to seize the opportunity to understand more about the drastically changing world and the advance of capitalism.
Feudal China in its last stages was also plagued by rampant corruption. The ruling landlord class, which had historically been positive for China, did nothing to remedy the accelerating downturn. Emperor Qianlong lived an extravagantly luxurious life, demonstrated in his extensive travels, grand birthday celebrations and in magnificent buildings such as the Old Summer Palace. The ruling Manchu aristocrats turned politically stagnant. The Eight Banners, Qing’s proud armed forces that had once been brave and battle-ready, grew increasingly incompetent.
Heshen 和珅, a notorious top aide of Qianlong, epitomized Qing’s unchecked and contagious corruption. Heshen played a leading role in Qing’s central government for more than two decades and was extremely powerful and greedy. In folk stories he was referred to as the No. 2 Emperor. The new emperor immediately imprisoned Heshen in the wake of the death of Qianlong. The fortune confiscated from Heshen’s family was astonishingly high—850,000 mu of land and 220,000,000 taels of silver. It was five times greater than the state treasury. Some anecdotal evidence said that the confiscation of Heshen’s wealth completely filled the treasury of Jiaqing (Qianlong’s successor).
China then became a hotbed of peasant revolts. Rebellions broke out one after another late in Qianlong’s reign. At the time the White Lotus Society, which was strongly opposed to the Manchu and was very active in Sichuan, Hubei and Shaanxi, posed the greatest threat to Qing. The great mountain ranges between the provinces provided a geographical complexity that appealed to peasants and secret societies. In 1796, the White Lotus Society launched a huge rebellion in Hubei, dealing a heavy blow to Qing and which it took Qing’s government nine years to defeat. Qing’s brutal crackdown on the followers of the White Lotus teachings greatly intensified during this time. Consequently, the number of dispossessed and homeless people increased dramatically.
Meanwhile the British Empire intensified its efforts to smuggle opium into China, contributing to instability inside the country. China launched an anti-smuggling operation, which was as much a struggle against Britain’s aggression as it was against the drug trade. Not hesitating to engage in war to achieve its goal of becoming an unchallengeable global hegemon, Britain dragged China into the whirlpool of global conflicts. Consequently, China’s decline was inevitable.
British Opium Smuggling and Lin Zexu’s Anti-Smuggling Endeavor
As early as the seventeenth century, Britain began purchasing tea, silk and porcelains from China and later bought Chinese cloth. British products in China, however, did not enjoy the same popularity. Nor did Britain have enough commodities to trade with China. Take tea and cloth, for example. The number of dan (a unit of weight) of tea imported by Britain’s East India Company from China increased from 42,065 (from 1760 to 1764) to 235,840 (1830–1833).4 Essentially, the import increased sixfold in seven decades. Where the cloth trade between Britain and China was concerned, Britain’s imports from China at the beginning of the 1830s were 386,364 taels of silver while China’s imports from Britain were merely 246,189.5 Some indicated that within two years (1837–1839) of beginning trade with China,
Britain purchased 4.27 million pounds of Chinese goods and legally sold 0.91 million pounds of British products to China. Consequently, Britain developed a large trade deficit with China. Britain initially attempted to use its own supplies of silver to pay off the trade deficit which amounted to 3,300,000 pounds.6 However, in the 1770s, British traders began to replace silver with opium, essentially making opium smuggling the lifeline of Britain’s trade with China.
There was a dramatic increase in opium smuggling into China (see table below) in the 1820s.
| Years | Amount of Smuggled Opium (chests/p.a.) |
| 1820–1824 | (approximately) 8,000 |
| 1825–1829 | 12,576 |
| 1835–1838 | 35,445 |
| 1838–1839 | (more than) 40,000 |
Usually, British opium was sold at 600–800 taels of silver per chest and on occasion would reach 1,000 taels of silver. Not only did the enormous profits that resulted from opium smuggling substantially reduce Britain’s trade deficit but also brought more riches to the Empire. Most importantly, the flow of silver between China and Britain was reduced. Customs statistics in Bombay, Calcutta and Madras indicated that in six years (1833–1839) the annual outflow of sliver from China to the British Empire was 4,200,000 taels and on the eve of the Opium War China lost 10,000,000 taels of silver every year.7
The Qing government did make a very early—albeit futile—effort to combat British opium smuggling. However, supported by their own governments, the opium traders from Britain and the United States continued to smuggle opium into China regardless of the Qing government’s ban. Some Chinese officials in charge of the anti-smuggling effort took bribes from the smugglers and turned a blind eye to their wrongdoings. Even some officials in the imperial court were involved. Consequently, the foreign opium traders felt confident in carrying out their activities. Karl Marx commented on this:
The next effect of the moral resistance of the Chinaman was the demoralization, by the Englishman, of the Imperial authorities, custom-house officers and mandarins generally. The corruption that ate into the heart of the Celestial bureaucracy, and destroyed the bulwark of the patriarchal constitution, was, together with the opium chests, smuggled into the Empire from the English storeships anchored at Whampoa [Huangpu].8
British opium smuggling had a serious impact on China. Apart from the ever-increasing outflow of silver, some serious social problems emerged as a consequence. One was the growing number of Chinese who began to smoke opium. In 1835, for example, it was estimated there were 2,000,000 opium smokers in China. Many of these were bureaucrats, landlords and even soldiers. The flood of opium led to a serious threat to the existing order and was of grave concern to Qing’s ruling elites.
There were conflicting ideas regarding the best way to combat the opium trade in China. Some deregulationists suggested the Qing government lift its ban on the trade and cultivation of opium whereas the regulationists demanded that the opium trade be forbidden. Take the example of Lu Kun and Xu Naiji, two leading deregulationists. As early as 1834, Lu, then the Governor General of Guangdong and Guangxi, submitted a memorandum to Emperor Daoguang (r. 1820–1850), advising that it would be impossible to expel all British smugglers from Guangdong. He suggested that Qing should retract the prohibition on the opium trade and cultivation and tax it instead.9 Emperor Daoguang did not comment on Lu’s proposal; however, in the following year the Emperor abolished the annual report discussing the ban on opium. Deregulationists saw this move as an encouragement of their proposal. Thus, Xu, a senior imperial official and the principal exponent of deregulation, rearticulated the deregulationist handling of opium trade in an 1836 memorandum to the throne.10
There were three key points in Xu’s program. First, foreign traders were allowed to trade opium for Chinese goods after paying the medicine tax. Second, imperial officials, candidates for the imperial examination and soldiers who were found to have smoked opium should be dismissed but not subject to criminal punishment. Commoners who smoked opium were also to be exempt from investigation. Third, growing poppies would not be banned in China. The Canton Register, a Guangzhou-based English newspaper managed by opium traffickers, printed the full text of Xu’s memorandum. William Jardine, a notorious opium trafficker, even believed that the publication heralded the legalization of the opium trade in China. Emperor Daoguang asked his ministers to discuss Xu’s memorandum and while some agreed with Xu,11 others harshly rejected Xu’s program.12 Some ministers advocated for a strong anti-smuggling approach and persuaded the Emperor to impose a strict ban on the opium trade. However, no conclusion was reached on the opium trade.
Among the regulationists, Huang Juezi was the most vocal. In 1838, he proposed that the central government take harsh measures to combat opium, including executing dependent users of opium who were unable to give up smoking in one year.13 Huang’s proposal won the support of many local governors and some agreed that opium smokers should be more severely punished while others focused on more effective anti-smuggling measures in coastal areas.14
Lin Zexu’s memorandum is particularly worthy of mention. Not only did Lin analyze how the flood of opium into Chinese society would destroy the social economy but would also how it would make the country economically and militarily incompetent.15 Then, in the summer of 1839, the Qing government promulgated The Anti-Opium Ordinance, resolving to eradicate opium smoking and the opium trade. According to this law, those who traded or smoked opium would be subject to severe punishments including the death penalty. It is generally believed that the Ordinance was based on the ideas proposed by Huang and Xu.
Then Lin Zexu, the Governor General of Hunan and Hubei, was summoned to the Forbidden City, where he was appointed Inspector General leading the fight against opium smoking and the opium trade in Guangdong. As soon as he arrived in Guangzhou, Lin, in collaboration with Deng Tingzhen, the General Governor of Guangdong and Guangxi and Guan Tianpei, the provincial Commander-in-Chief of the Navy in Guangdong, immediately consolidated coastal defenses and began arresting opium traffickers and punishing naval officers who had taken bribes. Lin sternly ordered the smugglers to turn over all their opium in three days and formally guarantee that they would not continue to smuggle anymore. Lin also made a public statement at this time, firmly stating that he would only leave Guangdong when the opium trade was completely eliminated.16 He carried out his work to eliminate opium with vigor. By the early summer of 1839, more than 19,000 chests of opium—that is, approximately 1,180,000 kilograms of opium—were confiscated from the Anglo-American traders. The confiscated opium was destroyed publicly in Hu’men, a beach town not far from Guangzhou, a process which took place over twenty days. The Hu’men Act expressed the Chinese people’s strong will to resist foreign aggression. The towering monument of People’s Heroes in Tiananmen Square is a memorial of this heroic act.
The Treaty of Nanjing and Its Aftermath
Once the British discovered that Qing was going to confiscate the British smugglers’ opium, the Anglo-American capitalists and groups with an interest in opium began to rise up against China. On October 1, 1839, Queen Victoria in Britain decided to send troops to China. Five months later, George Elliot, a naval officer, was appointed to lead the invading British forces. More than forty British warships and four thousand British men-at-arms entered Chinese waters south of Macao. The British war of aggression against China had begun. After failing to capture Guangzhou due to strong resistance from Qing’s army, the British headed north. In July, British troops attacked Dinghai in Zhejiang and, in August, arrived at Dagukou, Tianjin, the gateway to Beijing, continuing their attempt to force Qing into submission. At this time, Emperor Daoguang’s resolution to combat opium began to falter. He sent Qishan, a leading imperial official and the Governor of Zhili, to negotiate with the British. Qishan made a promise that the imperial court would punish the hardline anti-opium officials such as Lin Zexu. Convinced by Qishan, the British withdrew to Guangdong. The Qing government then immediately removed Lin and Deng Tingzhen from office and appointed Qishan as the Imperial Envoy to further negotiate with the British. Despite Qishan almost submitting to the British demands, British troops unexpectedly occupied Qing’s two strategic garrisons at the estuary of the Pearl River. Without the imperial court’s consent, the frightened Qishan agreed to cede Hong Kong to Britain, paying six million silver dollars for the losses suffered by opium traders, and to open Guangzhou to foreigners. The first phase of the Opium War ended with Britain’s capture of Hong Kong.
Qing declared war against Britain. Yishan, a high general in the royal family, was sent to Guangzhou. However, before he arrived, British troops seized garrisons in Hu’men and southern Guangzhou. After trying to fight against the British in May, 1841, Yishan and his army withdrew to the inner city of Guangzhou. Yishan then signed an agreement with the British and a ransom of six million silver dollars was paid for the complete withdrawal of Qing troops. marking the end of the second phase of the Opium War. Britain, however, was insatiable and sent more troops, led by Henry Pottinger, to China. In August, 1841, the reinforcements reached the South Sea and then captured Xiamen, Dinghai, Zhenhai and Ningbo. One year later, British warships entered the waters of the Yangtze River near Nanjing. Qiying, one of Qing’s top generals, was commissioned to launch peace talks with the British. On August 29, 1842, the Treaty of Nanjing was signed on board HMS Cornwallis signalling the end of the Opium War.
In October of 1843, China and Britain signed the Hu’men Treaty. The United States and France then later coerced Qing into signing the Wangxia Treaty and Huangpu Treaty. The result was that China was drawn into the British colonial system. The British gained huge profits from colonizing China, which included the cession of Hong Kong to the British empire; 21,000,000 silver dollars; five treaty ports (providing the justification for foreign settlements); direct interference in Chinese customs; extraterritorial jurisdiction; the right to navigate in China’s waters; unilateral most-favored-nation treatment; freedom to carry out missionary work (in treaty ports); and so on. The Western powers had made their way into China, pushing China into an abyss of semi-colonialism and semi-feudalism.
The Chinese Intellectuals’ Reaction and Solution
It is inconceivable that, even though Qing lost the war and signed a treaty, Emperor Daoguang was unaware of Britain. Therein lay the shortsightedness of Qing’s ruling elites. However, some officials, scholars and thinkers began to rewrite history and find feasible solutions for what had taken place in China. Take Lin Zexu, for example. He traveled to Guangzhou, where he would lead the work combating the opium trade, though he did not have much knowledge about the world. When he arrived in Guangzhou, he tried to gain more knowledge about the West. He set up a translation office, where information about the West and China was translated into readable Chinese. Some of the informative journals included Selected Reports of Macao Newspapers (澳门新闻报), Reports on China (华事译言), Foreign Laws (各国律例), Reports on the World (洋事杂录), The World (四洲志). Once equipped with sufficient information, Lin successfully launched a campaign against the Anglo-American opium traffickers. Furthermore, Lin and Qing’s generals strengthened Guangdong’s war preparedness. It is worth mentioning that Lin was the earliest prominent scholar-official who tried to understand the law of nations in China. For this reason, Fan Wenlan, an eminent Marxist historian, praised Lin for being the first Chinese to understand the non-Chinese world in a global context.17 In his campaign against the opium trade, Lin did not suggest that trade be stopped between China and other countries. He recommended that China study the advantages of foreign countries while fighting against their aggression. He argued that dealing with Britain depended on sophisticated weapons, superb skills, unbroken courage and significant effort.18 This laid the basis for Lin’s programs of manufacturing guns and ships and mobilizing the masses of the people.
One consequence of the Opium War was that Chinese elites felt it necessary to begin to study the nature of the changing world around them. Take Yao Ying 姚莹, for example. During the war, Yao superintended Taiwan and attacked British troops. Before the outbreak of the war, Yao began collecting foreign books and began to learn about the Western powers as well as other countries in Asia and religions such as Lamaism and Catholicism. Once the war ended, he continued to look for more effective methods of fighting against foreign invaders. For this reason, he correctly predicted that the British were bound to cast their covetous eyes on Tibet once they had finished annexing India and suggested that Qing strengthen border defenses as much as possible.
Yao argued that if China wanted to improve its image, then it was necessary for its leaders to have a better understanding of the world. He argued that the community of educated Chinese was shortsighted and ignorant and their actions caused harm to the country.
Lin Zexu left The Encyclopedia of Geography to Wei Yuan, one of Xu’s friends, after being removed from office. Liang Qichao, a renowned thinker-politician, said it was the precursor of modern Chinese geography.19 This book, which was based on Hugh Murray’s An Encyclopedia of Geography, came out in 1841. More than thirty countries including Britain, France and the United States were briefly discussed in The Encyclopedia of Geography. The book was comprised of history, geography, politics, religions, customs, culture, education, industry, foreign trade and international relations. The goal of The World was to find ways to resist colonial empires by fully understanding them. The World essentially aimed to gain a more global knowledge of history and geography and serve as a window through which the Chinese could see the world.
Wei Yuan, a scholar-official who supported the war against the British, created the Illustrated Treatise of Maritime Kingdoms on the basis of Lin Zexu’s The World. Readers of Wei’s monograph could find information about the history, geography, science, military affairs and social life of people in the five continents. Wei’s book was one of the earliest writings introducing the Chinese to the world. Wei made it very clear from the beginning that this book would be able to help the Chinese more effectively resist foreign aggressors by comprehensively understanding them.20 In the first chapter he emphasized the importance of studying the strong points of the colonialists.21 Wei criticized the conservatives in power, saying that when fighting against the enemy they should not refuse to study the enemy’s good points nor should they make no attempt to thoroughly understand the enemy. Wei argued that in order to successfully resist the invaders, China must follow the West’s example of promoting economic and military growth. He proposed detailed plans for how this could be achieved.22 Wei was especially critical of those who regarded foreign invaders as simply diabolic and wicked, arguing that they were ignorant of the importance of learning from others.23 Apart from his aim of improving China’s military prowess, Wei repeatedly sang the praises of the people’s successful resistance against the British troops in Sanyuanli, Guangdong24 and concluded that, thanks to Sanyuanli’s success, it became clear that the foreign invaders were not unbeatable. Wei’s Treatise later influenced Japan’s Meiji Restoration. The fifty-volume Treatise was printed in 1843; nine years later a hundred-volume edition was published.
Like Lin Zexu and Wei Yuan, Xu Jiyu 徐继畲, a high official of Fujian, tried to bring China into the modern world and was intent on collecting writings related to the West. He completed the ten-volume World Geography: A Concise Introduction (瀛环志略) published in 1849. In this book Xu discussed the geographic positions, historical changes, economico-cultural characteristics and local customs and practices of other countries, in particular the Western countries. This book became known to the Chinese for its rich contents and perfect narratives.
However, it must be pointed out that the (First) Opium War did not completely succeed in bringing changes to the old Chinese dynasty. It is said that the Emperor Daoguang still did not know where Britain was located despite his government signing the Treaty of Nanjing. The efforts made by men such as Wei Yuan and Xu Jiyu to bring China into the modern world did not have a great effect on the Chinese government.
Social Changes in Post-War China
In addition to seriously damaging China’s sovereignty, the unequal treaties signed during the Opium War brought about deep changes in the country’s social economy. Drastic changes were obvious even in the everyday life of the Chinese. First, the five treaty ports, Guangzhou (Canton), Xiamen (Amoy), Fuzhou, Shanghai and Ningbo were located on the southeast coast of China. These ports witnessed great economic prosperity. Of these, Shanghai experienced some of the most dramatic changes. Shanghai was geographically larger than Fuzhou and Ningbo, both of which had slower economic growth. Xiamen was renowned for its trade with Taiwan and the countries in Southeast Asia; however, it was not an ideal commercial hub in the eyes of Western traders. Shanghai was the most popular because it was known for its convenience and also for its proximity to the provinces that sold the best silk and tea. From the mid-1850s, Shanghai accounted for over half of China’s international trade. For these reasons, the Western powers turned their attention to Shanghai in the wake of the Opium War. As a consequence, Guangzhou, which had been China’s center of foreign trade for quite a long time, was replaced by Shanghai.
The British Consul in Shanghai seized a piece of land and turned it into a quarter for the British, marking the beginning of the concession of Chinese land. Soon, France and the United States forced Qing’s government in Shanghai to sign a land lease agreement. Not long afterward, leased territory could be found in all treaty ports. At first, the Chinese government was given the right to intervene in the administrative and legal affairs on the leased land. However, the Western powers later excluded the Chinese authorities and made the land administratively and legally independent of China. The treaty ports on these lands then served as the bases for foreign powers to invade China. Within these territories, foreign companies allowed international trade as well as opium smugglers and human traffickers. Frederick Engels commented in an editorial for an American newspaper that the colonizers retained “not a little of the old plundering buccaneering spirit which distinguished our common ancestors of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.”25 Even the British Consul in Shanghai acknowledged that some foreigners in the colonized territories were “offscum of the European nations.”26
The Anglo-American capitalists were overjoyed that five ports had been created in the colonized territories after the war. The commander of the British forces complacently said he had opened a new world to British traders. He bragged to businessmen about how large the Chinese market was and how the entire production of all of Lancashire’s textile mills could not meet a single Chinese province’s demand. Some businessmen even dreamed that if one Chinese purchased one nightcap a year all of the manufacturers in the whole of England must produce at full throttle. Thus, the British traders shipped a huge amount of cotton textiles and manufactured goods, including tableware such as knives and forks that was rarely used by the Chinese.
Soon China was overflowing with British goods, which were overstocked in China, and, in 1846, the import of English goods began to decrease. Additionally, the low price of British textiles dealt a fatal blow to the traditional Chinese handicraft market. An increasing number of wealthy Chinese preferred to purchase foreign (machine-woven) cloth. In 1855, the total value of goods imported from Britain began to increase again while the traditional household textiles produced on the southeast coast of China began to decline sharply. Consequently, traditional Chinese handwoven cloth from these regions gradually began to disappear.
Opium smuggling was still being used by Western powers to economically exploit China. Of all the Anglo-American merchants seeking money in China, most were engaged in drug smuggling. Due to its failure in the First Opium War, the Qing government chose to remain silent about the opium smuggling. The Anglo-American drug traffickers, disguised as traders, took advantage of the situation. The smugglers expanded their operations northward from Guangzhou to Fengtian (present-day Liaoning). The amount of opium smuggled into China significantly increased each year. In 1843, it was approximately 43,000 chests; in 1855, more than 78,000 chests.27 In terms of market value, it was an increase from 10,000,000 silver dollars to 30,000,000. Qing’s problem of outflow of silver thus seriously worsened. China’s monetary system was inevitably affected. In 1838, one tael of silver was worth 1,600 coppers; four years later, 1,700; and, in 1849, 2,350. This posed a serious threat to China’s state finances and the everyday life of the Chinese.
During this time, the Chinese people tried their best to resist the colonialists. After the war, they grew increasingly patriotic. Xueshe (literally, study societies) played quite a significant role in mobilizing local residents to resist the British invaders. In March, 1847, the British launched a surprise attack on Hu’men, attempting to take the city of Guangzhou. Xueshe sent all able-bodied men to fight against them, forcing the British to retreat. Two years later, the (third) Governor of Hong Kong led some British troops in an attempt to enter into Guangzhou. Xueshe mobilized 100,000 residents to lie in wait for the enemy and forced the British back to Hong Kong.
The existing contradictions between social classes, and between bureaucrats and the people, in particular, were exacerbated by Qing’s failure in the Opium War. China’s last feudal dynasty was failing and even honest officials were unable to restore Qing’s government, to say nothing of the corrupt ones. To make matters worse, many officials in local governments intensified their ruthless exploitation of the common people and plunged poor peasants into despair. Consequently, the relationship between the government and the people deteriorated. In 1843, Qiying, one of the highest Qing governors, said, in one of his memoranda, that the government and the people might as well as have been enemies.28 By the 1850s, one of the best-known secret anti-Qing societies, Tian DiHui accused Qing officials of being more vicious and more ferocious than robbers and beasts, and promised to rescue the woe-struck people by eliminating all of the evil bureaucrats.29
Rebellions against Qing became increasingly fierce. In the south, China’s major rice-producing area, many refused to pay rent or grain levies. Such was the case in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, both of which were renowned for their high production of rice and served as one of the main sources of Qing’s revenue. Tenant farmers frequently stood up to oppose the high rents and levies. Struggles against the payment of levies particularly attracted those from the middle and lower echelons of rural society. A small number of landowners and educated men also played a significant role in organizing struggles. For example, in 1842, a wealthy man renowned for his philanthropic acts, led an anti-levy campaign in Hubei which developed into a rebellion against Qing. Two years later, another struggle against exorbitant grain levies emerged in Jiayi (in Taiwan) and Leiyang (in Hunan). Soon afterward, similar campaigns and struggles took place in Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Jiangxi.
The Qing government’s tough measures to crack down on the anti-rent/levy campaigns resulted in more armed rebellions. Some secret societies such as Tiandihui, or the Society of Heaven and Earth, became active in the south. Tiandihui’s counterpart in the north was Bailianjiao (the White Lotus Society), which had been almost entirely destroyed after the huge rebellions it instigated in several provinces. Tiandihui, however, continued to grow and became the largest and most powerful secret society in China. It aspired to restore the fallen Ming dynasty (1368–1644) and bring justice for the poor. In the first decade after the Opium War, Tiandihui reached into the provinces in the far south. According to some statistics, there were ten or so armed rebellions led by Tiandihui each year in the early Jiaqing reign (1796–1820). Late in the Daoguang reign (1820–1850) there were up to one hundred a year. Many of these rebellions were staged in the neighboring provinces of Guangdong, Guangxi and Hunan. The Qing government had no alternative but to invest much energy in repression. The result was a further decline in the economy and China gradually sank into a state of semi-colonialism and feudalism. It was against this backdrop of a desperate China that the Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864) broke out.
1 Yang Xifu’s 杨锡绂1748 memorial to the throne—“Chou min shi shu 筹民食疏” (How to multiply the sources of food for the people), in the 45th part of Huangqing zouyi 皇清奏议 (A collection of memorials to the thrones of Great Qing).
2 Qian Weicheng 钱维城, “Yangmin lun 养民论” (How to more substantially benefit the people), in the 11th part of Huangchao jingshi wenbian 皇朝经世文编 (The Great Qing’s treatises regarding the betterment of statecraft).
3 For a more detailed discussion, see: Dai Yi 戴 逸, Qianlong di jiqi shidai 乾 隆 帝 及其 时 代 [The Emperor Qianlong and his time] (Beijing: People’s University Press, 1992), pp. 412–413.
4 Xiao Zhizhi 萧致治, Yapian zhanzheng shi 鸦片战争史 [History of the Opium War] (Fuzhou: Fujian People’s Publishing House, 1996), vol. 1, p. 131.
5 Yan Zhongping 严中平, Xu Yisheng 徐义生, Yao Xianhao 姚贤镐, Sun Yutang 孙毓棠, Wang Jingyu 汪敬虞, Nie Baozhang 聂宝璋, Li Wenzhi 李文治, Zhang Youyi 章有义, and Luo Ergang 罗尔纲, eds., Zhongguo jindai jingjishi tongji ziliao xuanji 中国近代经济史统计资料选辑 [Selected statistics in regard to the history of modern Chinese economy] (Beijing: Science Press, 1955), p. 13.
6 Yan Zhongping 严中平, et al., eds., Zhongguo jindai jingjishi 中国近代经济史 [History of modern Chinese economy, 1840–1894] (Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 1990), vol. 1, p. 18.
7 Institute of History (CASS), vol. 1 of Zhongguo jindaishi gao 中国近代史稿 [A draft history of modern China], in vol. 5 of Zhang Haipeng 张 海 鹏, et al., eds., Liu Danian quanji 刘 大 年 全 集 [Complete works of Liu Danian] (Wuhan: Hubei People’s Publishing House, 2016), p. 16.
8 (1)Karl Marx, “Free Trade and Monopoly,” New York Daily Tribune, September 25, 1858. Source: Marxists Internet Archive. Accessed at: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1858/09/25.htm.
9 For Lu Kun’s 卢 坤 memorandum, see: The First Historical Archives of China, Yapian zhan-zheng dang’an shiliao 鸦片战争档案史料 [Archives in regard to the Opium War] (Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 1987), vol. 1, p. 166.
10 For Xu Naiji’s 许乃济 memorandum, see: ibid., p. 202, p. 203.
11 See: vol. 1 of Yapian zhanzheng dang’an shiliao, p. 206.
12 See: vol. 1 of Xiao Zhizhi, Yapian zhanzheng shi, pp. 174–178.
13 For Huang Juezi’s 黄 爵 滋 memorandum to the throne, see: vol. 1 of Yapian zhanzheng dang’an shiliao, pp. 256–257.
14 Mao Haijian 茅海建, Tianchao de bengkui—Yapian zhanzheng zai yanjiu 天朝的崩溃—鸦片战争再研究 [The collapse of Celestial Dynasty: Reinvestigating the Opium War] (Beijing: SDX Joint Publishing Company, 1995), pp. 90–91.
15 For Lin Zexu’s 林则徐 (1785–1850) memorandum to the throne, see: vol. 1 of Yapian zhan-zheng dang’an shiliao, p. 361.
16 Lin Zexu, Lin Zexu quanji 林则徐全集 [Complete works of Lin Zexu] (Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1959), p. 59.
17 Fan Wenlan 范文澜, Zhongguo jindaishi 中国近代史 [The history of modern China] (Shanghai: SDX Joint Publishing Company, 1949; reprint, Shanghai: Shanghai Bookstore Publishing House, 1989), vol. 1, p. 19.
18 Lin Zexu’s letter to Yao Chunmu 姚春木 and Wang Dongshou 王冬寿, in Dao Xian Tong Guang mingren shouzha 道咸同光名人手札 [A collection of personal letters of renowned people in the reigns of Daoguang, Xianfeng, Tongzhi and Guangxu (1821–1908)] (Taibei [Taipei]: Wen Hai Press Company, 1966), p. 14.
19 Liang Qichao 梁启超, Zhongguo jin sanbainian xueshushi 中国近三百年学术史 [Chinese scholarship: A tricentennial history] (Wuhan: Chongwen Publishing Company, 2015), p. 273.
20 Wei Yuan 魏源 (1794–1857), “Yuanxu 原叙” (Author’s preface), in vol. 1 of Haiguo tuzhi 海国图志 [Illustrated treatise on maritime kingdoms] (Changsha: Yuelu Press, 2005), p. 1.
21 Ibid., pp. 1–15.
22 Ibid., pp. 29–31.
23 Ibid., p. 31.
24 Ibid., p. 13, p. 18.
25 Frederick Engels, “A New English Expedition to China”, in vol. 15 of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: Collected Works (New York, NY: International Publishers, 1986), p. 243.
26 Correspondence Relative to the Earl of Elgin’s Special Missions to China and Japan, 1857–1859 (London: Harrison and Sons, 1859), p. 56.
27 Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire (New York, NY: Paragon Book Gallery, 1910), vol. 1, p. 556.
28 The Association of Chinese Historians and Qi Sihe 齐 思 和, eds., Yapian zhanzheng 鸦 片 战 争 [Collected primary sources: The Opium War] (Shanghai: Shenzhou guoguangshe, 1954), vol. 3, pp. 469–470.
29 Yang Song 杨松, Deng Liqun 邓力群 and Rong Mengyuan 荣孟源, eds., Zhongguo jindaishi ziliao xuanji 中国近代史资料选辑 [Selected primary sources about the modern Chinese history] (Beijing: SDX Joint Publishing Company, 1954), pp. 115–116.
2. The Qing Government in Despair
The Taiping Rebellion and Its Socio-Political Experiments
The Taiping rebellion occurred at a time when Qing was facing an upsurge of peasant rebellions. The leader of the Taiping Rebellion was Hong Xiuquan 洪秀全 (1814–1864). Born into an ordinary family in Hua County, Guangdong, he devoted himself to studying the Confucian classics in the hope that he would pass the Imperial Examination and become a candidate for office. However, he did not perform well on the Imperial Examination and this made Hong bitter and resentful. He tried again in 1843 but failed again. He began to read the Christian book Good Words Exhorting the World (劝世良言), which spoke of monotheism and suggested people not worship any supernatural beings other than God. Convinced by these teachings, Hong, who was disillusioned with Confucianism, had himself baptized and became a Christian.
Later Feng Yunshan went to Guangxi, where he preached Hong-style Christianity. Zijingshan (Mount Zijing), the center of the Taiping Rebellion, was the center of Feng’s missionary work. He stayed in his hometown and worked as a teacher while also working on several treatises, expanding his religious ideas. In the spring of 1847, Hong visited Guangzhou at Issachar J. Roberts’ invitation. Roberts was a Baptist missionary from the American South. Believing that Hong did not know much about the Bible, Roberts would not baptize him. Hong then decided to leave for Zijingshan, a mountainous region renowned for its ethnic diversity.
As a result of Feng’s hard work, many local residents joined Hong’s church. In collaboration with Feng, Hong set up the God-Worshipping Society (拜上帝会) and recruited more than 2,000 members. Several prominent figures joined the following, such as Yang Xiuqing 杨秀清 (1821–1856) and Xiao Chaogui 萧朝贵. Yang was a poor farmer and charcoal-burner who lost his father at an early age. Hardship made Yang tough, unyielding and quick-witted. Xiao, a decisive and strong-minded man, lived a life similar to Yang’s and the two were like brothers.
In one of his treatises, Perceiving the Good and the Bad of the World (原道觉世训), which combined Confucian Great Harmony with some Christian doctrines, Hong said that the Great Peace would be fulfilled worldwide very soon and the Heavenly Kingdom would be created on earth. Hong’s teachings offered hope and power to people who were suffering. It was in this treatise that Hong explained that Yanluo (demons) were the chief enemy of God. Hong strongly condemned all types of Yanluo and even led his followers to destroy the image of Confucius. Hong’s God-Worshipping Society won the support of many of the poor working class. A senior general from the Taiping Army later recalled that Hong’s followers were usually from destitute families.
The God-Worshipping Society was strongly disliked by landlords and the local gentry. In 1847, Feng was taken into custody by a militia organization led by the wealthy. It was decided that he should be sent back to his hometown even though he did not do anything illegal. As a result, the stability of the God-Worshipping Society was threatened. However, in April, 1848, Yang declared that the Heavenly Father, or God, had come down to earth and, by doing so, had consolidated the God-Worshipping Society in Zijingshan. Half a year later, Xiao, one of Yang’s closest friends joined the society.
The God-Worshipping Society’s leadership was thus comprised of Hong, Feng, Yang and Xiao; the four became sworn brothers. They revered Jesus as their eldest brother. Later, Wei Changhui and Shi Dakai (1831–1863) joined them. They expanded their leadership, yet Hong took the lead. In the spring of 1850, Hong assumed an imperial yellow robe, usually the exclusive privilege of the emperor, and declared the beginning of Taiping Rebellion. Hong’s followers hailed him as the Heavenly King of Great Peace.1 The armed uprising formally started on November 4, 1850 in Jintian.2 Yang led the rebellion as the top military leader. Yang and Xiao, who were leading army advisers, issued an official proclamation, declaring God’s omniscience, omnipresence and omnipotence,3 and called for all righteous men to join the Taiping army. The rebellion was reported to the imperial court of Qing, which, in the winter, sent troops to put down the rebels. However, Qing was unaware of what a threat the rebellion would pose to the dynasty.
Thanks to Yang’s efforts, the number of Taiping soldiers grew to more than 20,000 by the end of 1850. Yang and Xiao saw themselves as leading a powerful and well-disciplined army and adopted their regulations from The Book of Rites of the Western Zhou (周 礼), one of the most important of the Confucian classics. The following January, the Taiping Army celebrated Hong’s thirty-eighth birthday in Jintian and then began to march eastward. Within half a year, the army grew from five brigades to ten. The rapid growth of the Taiping Army shocked the imperial court. Angry at the corruption and inefficiency of the Guangxi government, it had the political and military governors replaced with new ones. None other than the well-known Lin Zexu was sent to Guangxi to supervise the work of rehabilitating Qing’s armed forces. Unfortunately, Lin passed away en route. Another high-ranking governor was immediately sent to Guangxi. When he arrived, he soon realized that the Taiping rebels constituted a true threat to Qing. He, however, unexpectedly soon died of an illness. The government then asked an aristocrat to lead a united army to crack down on the Guangxi rebellion.
The Taiping Army proceeded to capture Yong’an, the first city that they had successfully captured. More than 37,000 Taiping soldiers marched into Yong’an, where Hong laid out a set of rules and regulations and awarded his generals prestigious titles. As the commander of the central army, Yas was named the East King. Xiao was given the title of the commander in chief of the Front Army Corps and declared the West King. Feng was made the commander of the rear guard and the South King. Wei was appointed the commander of the right army and the North King, while Shi was made the commander of the left army and the Wing King. Hong stipulated that the East King was superior to all other kings. The Qing army tried to take Yong’an; however, they failed to defeat the Taiping Army in large part due to a lack of coordination amongst the top generals. Then, in April, 1852, the Taiping Army successfully broke the Qing encirclement and annihilated more than 4,000 of the enemy. Four commanders of Qing’s army were killed in action.
The Taiping Army then marched on Guilin. When approaching the walls of Guilin, they had grown into a huge army of 50,000 soldiers. However, they failed to capture Guilin, despite capturing one of Qing’s top generals. The rebels then headed north and took Quanzhou, after which they charged toward southern Hunan. This resulted in Feng, the South King, dying in battle. In the following four months, many poor peasants and members of secret societies joined the Taiping Army bringing its numbers to 100,000. Xiao, the West King, was killed later that year in September, after attacking Changsha.
After the death of Xiao, Hong and Yang decided to lead all of their troops northward to Changsha. At the same time, Qing’s army, which numbered more than one hundred thousand soldiers, set its sights on Hunan. The Taiping Army could not take Changsha. Then, in late November, 1852, they discontinued their attack on Hunan deciding instead to push northward to Hubei. It is particularly noteworthy that Hong built the Taiping navy by recruiting thousands of sailors and boatmen.
After two months (December, 1852–January, 1853), the Taiping Army captured Hankou, Hanyang and Wuchang, all Wuhan towns. Wuchang was then the capital city of Hubei and one of the best-known cities in China. The conquest of Wuhan displayed the full power of the Taiping Army. The army then moved east toward the Yangtze River. At this point, the number of Taiping soldiers exceeded 500,000 and many Wuchang residents joined the Taiping Army.4 As they proceeded eastward, the Taiping Army divided into two groups. One group was headed by Hong, the Heavenly King, and advanced by sea. The other group was headed by generals such as Lin Fengxiang and Li Kaifang and they made their way forward by land. Some reported that the Taiping troops were the most gallant.5
In February, 1853 the Taiping army defeated Qing’s army in eastern Hubei and then went on to capture Jiujiang (in Jiangxi) and Anqing (in Anhui). One month later, the Taiping soldiers stormed their way into Nanjing, the most strategic and important city in southeast China. Soon Zhenjiang and Yangzhou, two famous cities of Jiangnan (south of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River), were also taken by the Taiping Army. Hong entered Nanjing in a grand dragon boat and established it as the capital of his Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace. Ten days later, the Qing army set up its Southern Barracks on the eastern outskirts of Nanjing. Qing’s Northern Barracks were established outside of Yangzhou, a strategic city north of Nanjing. These two huge military camps posed a great threat to Nanjing and Zhenjiang in particular. For this reason, the Taiping Army was not able to extend to the more wealthy southern Jiangsu. Regardless, Yang, the East King, second only to the Heavenly King (i.e., Hong), decided to launch the northern and western expeditions.
The goal of the northern expedition was to capture Beijing and overthrow the Qing dynasty. The commanders of the northern expedition army were Lin Fengxiang, Li Kaifang and Ji Wenyuan, all the bravest and most brilliant generals of the Taiping Army. The Northern Expedition Army (NEA), which was comprised of more than 20,000 soldiers, was renowned for its combat effectiveness, unparalleled in all of the fifty Taiping brigades. The NEA’s vanguard landed at Pukou in May, 1853 and crushed Qing’s defending force. It then captured cities such as Chuzhou. The NEA’s rear guard suffered a setback. When informed about this, Yang, the East King, sent out an order that the NEA must achieve its strategic goals as soon as possible as they were unable to provide more support.6 Despite this news, the NEA still marched forward courageously and entered Henan, where it attacked the enemy without mercy. By late June, the NEA had swelled to a huge army of about 40,000 men and continued north across the Yellow River. However, a very dangerous situation lay ahead for the soldiers.
The NEA spent two months besieging Huaiqing (present-day Qinyang in Henan), but failed to capture the city. As more of Qing’s armies arrived, the NEA had to retreat to Shanxi. The failure of the Huaiqing campaign had a serious impact on the Taiping Army’s northern expedition and it suffered heavy losses. Worst of all, it wasted fifty-six days there. However, in late September it won a series of battles against the Qing army, encouraging the hope that it would be able to launch an attack on Beijing, Qing’s imperial capital, before winter. Yet the NEA was exhausted and couldn’t go further, needing to rest in Shenzhou, a prefecture south of Beijing.
It was rumored that the Taiping Army had captured Dingzhou, which was close to Beijing. This news appalled the imperial court. Emperor Xianfeng (r. 1850–1861) appointed a prince and Sengge Linqin, one of the most renowned Qing generals, to defend Beijing at all costs. Sengge led an army of four or five thousand men to Zhuozhou, a prefecture south of Beijing. At the same time, another high commander stationed his troops in Baoding, Beijing’s southern gate. Qing was determined to fight the Taiping Army to the death. However, the NEA did not head straight for Beijing but instead pushed eastward toward Tianjin. In late October, the NEA arrived in Yangliuqing, a town in Tianjin. By then, the NEA had nine brigades and 30,000 soldiers in total.
The NEA was stationed there for more than three months. It was in this period that the northern expedition began to face problems. The biggest threat at this time was not the opposing forces but the bitter cold of winter. Most of the NEA’s soldiers came from the south and did not know how to protect themselves from the cold. As a result, the NEA lost half of its elite soldiers due to bad weather. Quite a few Taiping soldiers froze to death. In February, 1854, the NEA began to retreat southward and the NEA’s commanders desperately hoped for reinforcements.
In December, 1853, Nanjing arranged relief troops. However, of the sixty thousand soldiers recruited, many were not well-disciplined, nor did they want to head north. By the following April, the reinforcements were utterly defeated. In June, 1854, Nanjing made a second vain attempt to save the NEA. Li Kaifang and Lin Fengxiang, the NEA’s two leading generals, were defeated and captured in the first half of 1855. They were later taken to Beijing and brutally executed. A leader in the Taiping Army reflected that the failure of the northern expedition had a bad effect on the entire rebellion.
The Taiping Army’s western expedition aimed to capture the entire middle region of the Yangtze River and turn the region into a base to provide protection and supplies to Nanjing. Unlike the NEA, which was particularly good at fighting on the ground, the Western Expedition Army (WEA) made the best of its navy. In June, 1853, the WEA left Nanjing with a fleet of more than 1,000 ships. It captured several cities in Anhui and Jiangxi and attacked the strategic city of Nanchang. While attacking Nanchang, the WEA tried its utmost to transport grain to Nanjing. Lai Hanying, the WEA’s commander, underestimated the enemy, and the WEA finally failed to take Nanchang and had to end its siege in September. Lai was dismissed and replaced with Shi Dakai, the Wing King. The WEA began its retreat in October and started to attack Hubei.
In November they concentrated on northern Anhui, attempting to capture Luzhou (present-day Hefei) in one go and in January of the following year, Shi achieved his goal. The Governor of Anhui had to drown himself in the river. The result was that the Taiping Army successfully controlled more than twenty prefectures and counties in Anhui.
In the meantime, the Taiping Army attacked Hubei with greater force. They took Wuchang, Jingzhou and Yichang. When they began to head south, the Taiping Army encountered the Hunan Army led by Zeng Guofan 曾国藩 (1811–1872), the most ferocious yet. In Hunan’s Xiangtan, the southern brigade of the Taiping Army was almost completely wiped out by the Hunan Army. It was here that the Hunan army successfully defeated the Taiping Army. The Taiping Army was forced to give up the strategically important Wuchang. Just a month later both sides engaged in fierce fighting. In the face of the unstoppable Hunan Army, the WEA was put to rout all along the line. The Hunan Army continued its pursuit of victory and began to close in on Jiujiang, a city of strategic importance. It was in Hunan and Hubei that Taiping suffered the most humiliating and most disastrous defeat since the 1851 Jintian Uprising. The Taiping navy was entirely annihilated by the Hunan Army and had to give up their control of the Yangtze River.
Shi Dakai was appointed to restore the western effort and was able to successfully defend Jiujiang, leading the Hunan Army to attack Hukou instead. Shi lured the Hunan Army into the Poyang Lake where it was forced to split in half. In the end, the WEA destroyed thirty-nine battleships of the Hunan navy and was even able to capture Zeng’s flag. Zeng himself fled in panic in a small boat. The WEA in Hukou and Jiujiang inflicted heavy causalities on the Hunan Army and launched a large-scale counteroffensive, recapturing Hankou, Hanyang and Wuchang. As a result, the Hunan Army’s entire offensive collapsed. At this time, Hu Linyi, a famous general of the Hunan Army, was appointed the Governor of Hubei. He did his best to turn the tables on the Taiping Army but the situation in Wuchang grew worse again. Shi sent in more reinforcements and in January, 1856, the insurgents of the Tiandihui of Guangdong joined the WEA, giving Shi’s army an enormous capacity. Shi and his troops swept through Jiangxi, bringing most parts of Jiangxi under their control. Zeng, who was defending the besieged Nanchang, was desperately in need of Qing’s relief troops. Shi, however, was hastily recalled by Nanjing to attack Qing’s Southern Barracks, giving Zeng and his troops some breathing space.
As mentioned above, Qing’s Southern and Northern Barracks posed a great threat to Nanjing, Yangzhou and Zhenjiang. Two years later, the imperial court ordered the Governor of Jiangsu, together with the Southern Barracks, to attack Zhenjiang. The defending forces in the first two months overwhelmed the Qing army and destroyed more than one hundred and twenty of Qing’s military camps. Then, in April, the Taiping Army retook Yangzhou. In May, they killed the Governor of Jiangsu and, in June, they forced the Qing army to retreat to Danyang. Soon, Shi and his troops joined the defending forces. Shi led the united army directly toward the Southern Barracks. He wiped out the Barracks and seized all its armaments and supplies. The head of Qing’s army fled and died in August. The threat from the Southern Barracks was thus neutralized.
The basic socio-political programs of the Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace were religious, utopian and revolutionary. Hong aimed to create a universally harmonious and peaceful heaven on earth. In one of his treatises, he argued that the reason for social ills lay in selfishness and that men and women all over the world should live with one another as if they were the brothers and sisters of one family.7
After the Jintian Uprising, the leaders such as Yang Xiuqing and Xiao Chaogui told the public that their goal was to overthrow the Qing dynasty and liberate all oppressed people.8 They collaboratively started to rebuild after establishing the capital in Nanjing. They decreed that people should change their hair style and way of dressing as well as worship God. Men and women should live in separate camps, all private property should be abolished and replaced by the public treasury. They also strictly prohibited people from smoking opium, drinking alcohol and visiting prostitutes. While many social vices were eliminated as a result, urban life grew increasingly less vibrant. The Taiping administration in the rural areas did not recognize private ownership of land, yet they were not able to exert the strict control that they did in urban centers. The previous top-down taxation system was replaced with a bottom-up tribute. When going westward, the Taiping Army specifically told local residents that they would not cause any harm to their lives nor would they tax them. The peasants enthusiastically welcomed this news and some landlords and scholar-officials said that very many rural residents paid tribute to the Taiping Army.
Gradually a systematic program of social reform was created. In December, 1853 The Land Law of the Heavenly Dynasty (天朝田亩制度, hereinafter referred to as the Law) came into effect,9 the law that laid the blueprint for a completely new world, one giving full expression to the Chinese peasants, denying feudal rule and creating their dream of an ideal society.
Compared to other proposals and plans formulated by other peasant revolts in the past two thousand years, the Law was the most scientific and the most complete. According to the Law, the whole of society should be reorganized in accordance with the military system. The xiangguan (sub-county official) played the leading role in governance at the grass-roots level. The xiangguan would take care of civil affairs as well as local residents’ economico-cultural life. In most cases the xiangguan was from a poor family and was always considered totally trustworthy. The xiangguan system was very similar to that of a military organization. Taiping society was comprised of twenty-five families, all of whom shared one public treasury and one church. The head of this group was the xiangguan and additionally held the title of liangsima (literally, the dual administrator of horses). Under the instruction of the liangsima, the families of this group took part in various economic, political, cultural and educational activities. At least one member of each family joined the armed forces or the police. The men and women enlisted took up farming during peacetime and joined battle in times of war. There were more superior posts in addition to the xiangguan. The Law also included some rules regarding the judicial system.
The core of the Law lay in the regulation of land. One of the basic principles regarding land was that land must be equally shared by the people on a per capita basis, in contradiction to the feudal system of land ownership and the traditional Chinese desire to own land.
Apart from the free and equal allotment of land, the Law tried to create an egalitarian society by abolishing private property. The goal of the Law was to ensure that the poverty, exploitation and the feudal system that dominated Chinese peasants would be eliminated and that the small-peasant economy was well maintained. Not only did the Law epitomize a rural egalitarian utopia, it also showed that the Chinese peasants, who had suffered the shackles of feudalism generation after generation, wanted to try and free themselves and did so as soon as they realized their own worth and value. However, due to the long war, it was difficult to fully put the Law into effect. The Law did, however, play a great role in satisfying the peasants’ spiritual cravings and arousing the peasants’ revolutionary enthusiasm.
As time went by, the negative effects of the Heavenly Dynasty’s socio-economic policies became increasingly obvious. Many urban residents, particularly those who lived in Nanjing, were unhappy with the abolition of private property and those who remained loyal to Qing used this to their advantage. In the spring of 1854, those unhappy with the new regime attempted to secretly coordinate with the Qing army of the Southern Barracks, to the great astonishment of the leadership of the Taiping Army. Despite this, the Taiping-style public treasury did not cease operation until it could no longer survive. As regards the public treasury itself, it worked in the early stages of the rebellion, when the Taiping Army obtained a huge amount of money and grain in Nanjing. But, in the long term, the public treasury was unable to meet the needs of more than one million residents and soldiers. Take the free distribution of food, for example. When capturing Nanjing in March, 1853, all residents regardless of age and sex receive free and equal allotments of rice. Four months later, the distribution had to be based on a more accurate calculation. At the beginning of 1854, Nanjing’s grain reserves could only meet the public need for another four months and, by summer, only rice porridge was available for residents. Finally, in the fall, Nanjing, or the Heavenly Capital, ran out of grain. As a consequence, many had to go out of the city to look for food and some fled altogether.
The Taiping Army’s food supply mostly depended on the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. The primary goal of the western expedition was precisely the collection of grain. The program of abolishing the traditional tax caused great inconvenience to both the Heavenly Dynasty and the peasants. By 1854, the number of residents loyal to the Taiping Army decreased significantly. In some cases, the army was forced to coercively collect grain. This exacerbated the tensions between the Taiping authorities and the local residents. Even the Taiping Army’s sympathizers objected to the army’s behavior to the people. To maintain basic governance, every government in a class society must try to limit social conflicts by establishing a certain order. In the case of the Heavenly Dynasty, the abolition of tax was not sustainable. The Taiping authorities finally decided to restore the traditional taxation system in the early summer of 1854. This dramatic policy change implied that the Taiping leadership recognized the legitimacy of private ownership as a means of production (land, for example). As a result, the Heavenly Dynasty’s economy improved and the people’s trust in the Taiping authorities was restored. In addition to the tax reform, Yang, who, again, was second only to Hong, declared that traditional marriage and family structures would be restored. Life returned to normal. It was at this time that the Taiping Army wiped out Qing’s Southern and Northern Barracks, posing a serious threat to Nanjing.
The Aggressive Anglo-French Expedition Against China
After China was left bruised and battered by the Taiping Rebellion, Britain and France began the Second Opium War (1856–1860). Although the imperialist powers had already gained many privileges after signing the Nanjing Treaty, their appetite for wealth and power still seemed unquenchable. Britain wanted to legalize the opium trade through war, in the hope that their economic interests in China could be protected, and they would stop at nothing.
As early as the 1850s, the British government headed by Lord Palmerston (1784–1865) was planning a war against China. On September 29, 1850, Palmerston wrote that his government would soon launch new strikes and would occupy strategic positions in the lower parts of the Yangtze River, sealing off the Grand Canal. He said, “They [the Chinese] care little for words and they must not only see the Stick but actually feel it on their Shoulders before they yield to that only argument which to them brings conviction the argumentum Baculinum.”10 The following September, Palmerston inquired about the best time to cut off Beijing’s grain supply by disrupting transportation on the Grand Canal and the Yangtze River.
The foreign powers made unreasonable demands to revise existing treaties, which led to war. Britain, the United States and others wanted to grab more privileges by amending the relevant treaties. As early as May, 1853, the British ambassador to China suggested that both sides revise the Nanjing Treaty. Britain demanded that all Chinese cities and ports must be opened to the British. At this time, the Taiping Army was advancing toward Tianjin, a city very close to the imperial capital. In these pressing circumstances, the revision of the treaties was laid aside. In July, the United States said that if Qing would revise the treaties, the foreign powers would in exchange cooperate to suppress the rebellion. The Qing government was suspicious about America’s motives and rejected their proposal. It should be pointed out that Britain’s demand for revising the Nanjing Treaty was totally unfounded, because this treaty was not commercial but political; the most-favored-nation clause could not be included in a revision of the signed treaty.
In 1854, Britain, France and the United States all demanded that the existing treaties be revised. The Qing government refused and instead opened up all of China, legalized the opium trade, increased tax exemptions, granted foreign diplomats permanent residence in Beijing and so on.
The United States, in 1855, appointed Peter Parker, a missionary, the Chargé D’affaires and required that he obtain permanent residence in Beijing and unlimited freedom for Americans to trade and travel throughout China. They said that in order to maximize their interests, the powers must drastically revise the existing treaties and get tough with China.11 He visited London and Paris, where the colonial diplomats reached an agreement. In August, as Parker was about to leave for Beijing and force the Chinese government to amend the treaties, his British counterpart asserted that without seeing the military might of the powers, China would not make significant concessions.12 Convinced by this, Parker gave up the trip. When the Sino-American Wangxia Treaty expired in 1856, Britain, France and the United States attempted to get Qing to revise the treaties in accordance with their demands. The Qing government again refused, making war, once again, inevitable.
The Crimean War ended in March, 1856. Russia lost to France and Britain. Britain then decided to send its warships to China. The adversaries of the Crimean battlefield now became comrades in the partition of China.
The Arrow was a commercial ship registered in Hong Kong. In October, 1856, the Guangdong navy searched this ship and arrested several pirates. The British consul in Guangzhou, at the British ambassador’s request, then alleged that the ship was owned by Britain and that the Chinese sailors had insulted the British national flag. He demanded an apology and the immediate release of those who had been arrested. The governor of Guangdong first wrote a letter to the British, angered at their statements. He later decided to send those arrested to the British consulate. The British army in late August began bombarding the city of Guangzhou; and, by the next spring, the Palmerston government began to frantically clamor for war against China. The opposition in Parliament questioned Palmerston and set a motion of non-confidence against him. An angered Palmerston asked for a new election. Parliament was reshuffled and finally enacted a bill of war. The British army commanded by James Bruce, Earl of Elgin, was sent to China. At the same time, the Palmerston government invited its French counterpart to join this aggressive expedition. France accepted Britain’s invitation in exchange for approval to expand into Vietnam and for support for an imprescriptible, privileged French Catholicism in China. Some French troops led by the Baron Gros joined the British.
The British and French began to arrive in Hong Kong in October, 1857. One month later, they were joined by the Americans and Russians. By the end of 1857, more than 5,600 British and French soldiers were stationed at the estuary of the Pearl River. Soon the British and the French joined forces and stormed into Guangzhou where they captured the governor. Later, this governor was sent to Calcutta, India, where he died in prison. The invaders set up a puppet regime in Guangzhou. They then headed north and pointed their guns at Beijing. In May, 1858, they took the strategic Dagu garrison, greatly threatening Tianjin. At this point, the Russians and Americans started to mediate and the Qing government was forced to hold peace talks. In the first half of June, Qing signed the Tianjin Treaty with Russia and the United States, which stipulated that both sides should demarcate a border as soon as possible. This laid the foundation for Tsarist Russia’s large-scale territorial seizures in China. In late June, the treaties involving China, Britain and France were signed; they stipulated that foreign diplomats should be given permanent residence in Beijing, that ten more treaty ports should be created, that custom duties be further reduced, and that China pay 4,000,000 silver dollars to Britain and 2,000,000 silver dollars to France in war reparations. Then, in November, the powers forced China to sign an additional treaty legalizing the opium trade and stipulating that the China’s customs should be guided by Britain. Emperor Xianfeng had no choice but to approve all of these treaties.
The next year, the British, French and American ambassadors travelled to China in their own fleets in order to sign the documents. On June 25, they launched an unexpected attack on the Dagu garrison. The defending force was commanded by the renowned Sengge Linqin, who destroyed ten enemy warships and annihilated more than four hundred enemy soldiers. The wounded British admiral and his American counterpart had to withdraw. For the first time, Qing had won a huge victory against the Western invaders.
Following the Dagu battle, China and the United States signed an agreement. Britain and France, on the other hand, were preparing for another war. They sent seventy-nine British warships and 20,000 or so British soldiers, together with forty French warships and 7,600 French soldiers. Colonial armies of this size had rarely been seen in world history. In April, 1860 the colonial troops successively captured Zhoushan (in present-day Zhejiang), Dalian (in Liaoning) and Zhifu (present-day Yantai, Shandong) and blocked the Bohai Gulf. One month later, the Russian and American envoys arrived. While officially mediating with the Chinese, in reality they were secretly helping the British and the French. In late August, the Americans and Russians occupied Tianjin. The Qing government agreed to start another round of peace talks; however, these failed due to the colonialists’ harsh requirements. At the Russian diplomats’ instigation, in early September the allied troops began attacking Beijing, which resulted in Qing’s defending forces, commanded by Sengge, finally being destroyed in late September. Emperor Xianfeng had to flee Rehe (present-day Chengde, Hebei). The British troops attacked Beijing in retaliation, looted and burnt Yuanmingyuan, the Old Summer Palace, which epitomized the brilliance of ancient Chinese art and culture. Today, one can see Yuanmingyuan’s broken stone pillars, which survived the attack carried out by the colonialists.
Intimated by the Western powers, Qing had to sign the Treaty of Beijing with Britain and France in late October. As part of the treaty, Tianjin was turned into a treaty port and a new piece of territory was added to Britain’s territory in Hong Kong, and more millions of silver dollars in war reparations were paid. After the Second Opium War, an imperialistic system was formally set up causing considerable damage to China’s sovereignty. The signing of the Treaty of Beijing marked the further decline of China.
Tsarist Russia: A Grabber of Chinese Lands
Russia intensified its efforts to grab land in the northeast and northwest of China after the First Opium War. In September, 1847, the Tsar appointed a general and diplomat as Governor General of East Siberia. The governor’s main duty was to seize China’s Heilong River. Two years later, the Russian navy invaded the river’s estuary and Kuyedao (Sakhalin). By 1853, Russia had expanded into the lower reaches of the Heilong River. At the beginning of 1854, the Tsar approved the Governor General’s decision to arm navigation along the Heilong River. In May, seventy Russian warships and 1,000 Russian soldiers crossed the Sino-Russian border and began to build garrisons in the lower reaches of the Heilong River. The next year, Tsarist Russia even started to transport armed settlers into the territory. In late 1856, the Tsar set up a new oblast (province) on the Heilong River’s lower reaches and Kuyedao.
In May, 1858, when China was facing Anglo-French aggression, the governor of East Siberia forced the Qing general supervising Aihui (present-day Heihe, Heilongjiang) to sign the Treaty of Aihui (Aigun). Under this treaty, Russia grabbed more than 600,000 square kilometers of Chinese territory north of the Heilong River and south of the Stanovoy Range. However, the Qing government disapproved of this treaty and punished the general of Aihui. Russia, however, took Hailanpao, the Chinese city on the north side of Heilongjiang, renamed it Blagoveshchensk and awarded the governor of East Siberia a noble title. Russia continued their expansion into the northwest China and the Tsar’s troops invaded the region east of Balkhash Lake as early as 1846. Then, in the 1850s, Russia crossed the Ili River and seized a huge piece of Chinese territory.
After the signing of the Treaty of Beijing, which involved China, Britain and France, Russia threatened a huge attack against China while also promising to help Qing crack down on the Taiping Rebellion.13 Due to the circumstances, in November, 1860, the Sino-Russian Beijing Treaty was signed under pressure from the Russian Empire. As a consequence, 400,000 square kilometers of Chinese territory east of the Wusuli River was ceded to Russia. In regards to the western Sino-Russian border, this treaty imposed a Russia-drawn border on China. Starting in 1862, China and Russia started to negotiate about the northwestern border. Russians arbitrarily changed China’s original western border to Balkhash Lake. By doing so, huge pieces of Chinese territory could be stolen by Russia. In order to achieve its goal, Russia threatened to attack Kashiga’er (Kashgar) and Yili (Ili). Negotiations resumed in 1864 and Russia stationed its troops outside Tacheng (Tarbagatai), where both sides met. In October, Qing was forced to sign the Treaty of Tarbagatai (勘分西北界约记). China, again, lost another 440,000 square kilometers of land east and south of Balkhash Lake to Russia. In any review of the Second Opium War, it must be recognized that Tsarist Russia grabbed the lion’s share of land, more than 1,440,000 square kilometers of Chinese territory.
The Taiping Rebellion in Its Late Phase: Zeng Guofan and the Hunan Army
The Qing dynasty was in an extremely difficult situation. The Taiping rebels posed the greatest threat to the dynasty. The aggression coming from the colonialists could be solved by making concessions. Qing therefore preferred to expend his efforts on quelling the Taiping Rebellion. In order to annihilate the rebels as quickly as possible, the imperial court chose to depend on the traditional bureaucrats who would play a pivotal role in the large-scale war against the Taiping Army. As Qing’s regular armed forces, the Eight Banners and the Green Standard Army, had already proved weak in their fighting capability, the central government allowed some senior officials to organize local troops. Zeng Guofan, a native of Xiangxiang in Hunan, was praised for his work. Late in the reign of Daoguang, he reached the ministerial level in the imperial service. He organized Hunan militias into a powerful local armed force known as the Xiangjun, or the Hunan Army. Next to this new army, Qing’s regular army paled in comparison. Soldiers of the Xiangjun came from the same town. When recruiting, the Xiangjun officer encouraged men with family ties to join the same camp. Camp members proved very obedient to the head of the camp, their own townsman. The whole of the Xiangjun remained loyal to Zeng. The Xiangjun followed orthodox Confucian ideology, were well-disciplined and well-paid. For Qing, a dynasty in twilight, the Xiangjun were indispensable and irreplaceable. However, in the years prior to 1857, the Xiangjun lost many battles against the Taiping Army. The Xiangjun headquarters, for instance, were destroyed in March, 1856 and, one month later, one of the founding generals of the Xiangjun was killed. Later the Xiangjun grew more powerful and became one of the Taiping Army’s greatest enemies.
Something unexpected occurred in the leadership of the Nanjing-based Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace. In June, 1856, the Taiping Army destroyed the Qing army’s Southern Barracks, successfully reversing the setbacks suffered, but it was still unable to guarantee the political stability of the Taiping government. After establishing its capital in Nanjing, the government’s innovative style of politics was gradually wound up and, regrettably, it reverted to feudal relations. The original brotherhood, comprising the leaders and their top aides, was replaced by a rigid hierarchy headed by the monarch. In these conditions, the contradiction that had developed between Hong Xiuquan, the Heavenly King, and Yang Xiuqing, the East King, grew increasingly acute. Hong did everything possible, including practicing traditional rites and proclaiming conventional Confucianism, in order to strengthen his political supremacy. Despite these efforts, however, Hong was unable to prevent Yang from posing a challenge. According to the early devotional practice of the God-Worshipping Society, which laid the organizational foundation of the Taiping Rebellion, Yang had the ability to speak on behalf of God, and held many prestigious religious titles, thus making him religio-politically superior to almost all others. Many senior officials and generals, even Hong, the Heavenly King, were humiliated, bullied and punished by Yang. A significant number detested the imperious East King.14 The growing number of grievances finally brought about a serious internal conflict in August, 1856, when the Taiping Army crushed Qing’s Southern Barracks.
Just at that moment, Yang forced Hong to confer a much more prestigious title on him. Speaking with mysterious authority on behalf of God, Yang said that he should be given the title of Wansui, meaning Long Life, the grandest title that could be given by the supreme leader. Yang frequently used this special title to enforce obedience to himself, and this had a serious impact on Hong’s authority. As a result, Hong secretly summoned Shi Dakai, the Wing King, and Wei Changhui, the North King, to Nanjing. On the morning of September 2, 1856, Wei and his troops attacked the Mansion of the East King and killed Yang and his entire family. The situation in the following two months grew worse as Wei continued to indiscriminately kill innocent people. When arriving in Nanjing, Shi, who had just fought in Hubei, retaliated against Wei’s brutality and abuses. Infuriated, Wei attempted to murder Shi. When informed about this, Shi had to flee under cover of darkness. However, Shi’s family were all put to death. Five months later, Hong executed Wei and his adherents, putting an end to the carnage.
Shi was then summoned by the Heavenly King to help him. However, Shi soon grew disillusioned with Hong’s unfounded suspicions. In June, 1857, Shi soon decided to form his own army and left for Sichuan with 100,000 or 200,000 men. By departing, Shi left Nanjing in dire straits, and also signed his own death warrant. When leaving Nanjing, Shi was so disheartened that he even wanted to disband his troops. Later he was of slightly better cheer. Even so, his actions were still impetuous and aimless. Three years later, Shi retreated to Guangxi and many of his followers abandoned him. The core of Shi’s army finally (re-)joined the Taiping Army in Jiangxi. Shi had to organize a new army in Guangxi. In 1861, Shi and his new troops left Guangxi, hoping that they could capture Sichuan and create their own kingdom. However, Shi failed twice. Two years later, however, Shi entered Sichuan via Yunnan. In May, 1863, Shi was defeated by the Qing army at the Anshunchang ferry and then captured. One month later, Shi, at the age of 33, was executed in Chengdu.
The bloody events that took place in Nanjing fundamentally changed the situation. Before Nanjing, the Taiping Army had taken roughly the whole of Jiangxi and Anhui and parts of Hubei and Jiangsu, giving them a military advantage. After this, the Xiangjun captured Wuchang and Hanyang, two strategic cities, and made Hubei their central base. After Shi Dakai’s mistake, the Taiping troops in Jiangxi were completely destroyed one after the other. The strategic city of Jiujiang then fell into the hands of the enemy in May, 1858. During this battle, 17,000 soldiers’ lives were lost. However, in October, Qing recaptured Jiangxi as well as the strategic cities in northern and southern Anhui. The Qing army in Jiangsu rebuilt the destroyed Southern and Northern Barracks. The reconstructed Southern Barracks then intensified their attacks on Nanjing and in January, 1858, Qing’s troops approached Nanjing, the Heavenly Capital.
However, Qing had to expend its efforts on responding to the nationwide peasant uprisings and the Second Opium War, and this gave the Taiping Army some breathing room. Hong tried his best to rebuild the army by promoting young, capable generals. Among five of the leading young generals, Chen Yucheng, Li Xiucheng and Li Shixian were the most excellent and the leadership of the Taiping Army was reinvigorated.
One of Hong Xiuquan’s younger cousins, Hong Rengan 洪仁玕 (1822–1864), returned at this time. The younger Hong had been studying in Hong Kong, where he learned about Christian theology and Western sciences. In 1858, he was in Nanjing and when his elder cousin heard of this, he invited him to join the leadership of Taiping government. The younger Hong prepared a new political program known as New Governance (资政新篇) for the Taiping government. This four-part program focused on the reform of the system of manpower, the transformation of old customs and habits, the adoption of capitalist socio-economic policies, and the promotion of a legal system. The young Hong’s socio-economic program set the stage for what would lie ahead in the peasant revolution. In order to promote capitalist development, he suggested that the Taiping government publish newspapers, set up autonomous organizations, create modern industries and international trade. The New Governance was distinct from the 1853 Land Law of Heavenly Dynasty, which advocated for an egalitarian kingdom with a peasant economy. The 1859 New Governance, on the other hand, argued for a capitalist kingdom as the younger Hong realized that capitalism would most likely triumph over feudalism.15 After reading his younger cousin’s program, the elder Hong wrote very detailed instructions and comments agreeing with most of the younger Hong’s suggestions. Here lay the possibility of a fundamental transformation of the Taiping Rebellion. Unfortunately, due to the endless wars, the New Governance could not be put into practice. The younger Hong and his political program were not able to substantially influence the politics of the Heavenly Dynasty.
At this time, the Taiping Army had successfully rebuilt itself.16 They contacted the Nian army, which was fighting in the northern region of the Yangtze River, and asked for their support, which they granted. The Taiping Army then won a series of victories. In September, 1858, it destroyed Qing’s Northern Barracks and, two month later, annihilated more than 6,000 soldiers of the Xiangjun. The following March, they again destroyed the Southern Barracks and freed Nanjing. Even Zeng Guofan, the founding leader of the Xiangjun, had to acknowledge that the second destruction of the Southern Barracks was the Taiping Army’s pièce de résistance.17 Soon the Taiping Army headed east and attacked wealthy Suzhou and Changzhou. In the space of two months, a number of Qing’s high officials and generals were killed in battle and 50,000–60,000 Qing soldiers surrendered to the Taiping Army. However, when attacking Shanghai, the joint Anglo-French forces attacked the Taiping Army, claiming the lives of several hundred Taiping soldiers. Li Xiucheng, then the leading general of Taiping Army, remained under control and ordered his troops to withdraw from Suzhou.
The Fall of the Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace
One of the goals of the Anglo-French expedition in China was not to overthrow Qing but to prevent China from collapsing. These colonial governments knew that only when Qing was stable would they be able to squeeze more profits out of China. One British official said, “if anarchy ensue, our trade and our tea will be nil.”18 When the Taiping Army attacked Suzhou and Changzhou, Qing’s leading officials in Jiangnan and the leaders of the invading armies met in Shanghai to work together. That summer, Yang Fang, a Qing official in charge of grain affairs in Jiangnan, asked the French troops to defend Shanghai and other strategic cities and towns. At the same time, Yang funded the Foreign Rifles Squad headed by Frederick T. Ward, a hooligan from Massachusetts in the United States. Ward’s Squad attacked the Taiping Army and occupied Songjiang, a prefecture adjacent to Shanghai. When fleeing to Shanghai, the high Governor General in control of Jiangnan suggested that the central government give in to the invaders’ demands in exchange for their cooperation in suppressing the Taiping rebels. The Anglo-French leaders responded, specifically saying that they would prevent Shanghai from being attacked by any strangers.19 The Anglo-French invaders then continued their northern expedition against Qing at the same time that they partook in Qing’s southern expedition against the Taiping Army, even calling it a miracle. The Western powers believed that they would definitely reap much higher profits if Qing survived the rebellion.
The Qing government grew increasingly dependent on foreign aid during the crackdown on the Taiping Rebellion after the 1861 coup. The Empress Dowager Cixi, who was the de facto supreme leader of Qing, in February, 1862, issued an imperial edict in the name of the Emperor Tongzhi (r. 1861–1875), asking ministers and generals to discuss the feasibility of borrowing troops from the colonial powers. Although leading ministers such as Zeng Guofan disagreed, the local authorities in Shanghai, to take but one example, decided to go ahead with the idea. Consequently, with funding from high local officials, some Western opportunists organized and trained some army personnel equipped with foreign arms. Among them the Foreign Rifles Squad, later renamed the Ever Victorious Corps, were the most notorious. In the meantime, Zeng Guofan attacked Anqing, which played a pivotal role in defending Nanjing. Zeng invested an army of 50,000 men, led by his younger brother, in attacking Anqing. In response to this, the Taiping Army decided to capture Wuchang, hoping that this would relieve the pressure on Anqing. The Anqing campaign would prove crucial to both sides.
Chen Yucheng, one of the leading generals of the Taiping Army, in March, 1861, approached Wuchang. Unfortunately, due to the late arrival of the supporting troops led by Li Xiucheng, and the British diplomats, Chen finally gave up attacking Wuchang and returned to Anqing. Strategically, capturing Wuchang was the best solution to saving Anqing. In the following months, both sides engaged in bloody battles in Anqing, which fell in September, 1861, with 16,000 Taiping warriors slain. The fall of Anqing dealt a heavy blow to the Taiping Army, which grew increasingly weak. While the Taiping Army lacked unity and coordination, Zeng’s Hunan Army proudly displayed its firm strategy, military flexibility, and strong command. Xiangjun was destined to triumph.20 The next summer, Chen Yucheng, a twenty-six-year-old King and brilliant general in the Taiping Army, died a martyr’s death after the betrayal of a rebel leader.21 Chen’s death marked the Taiping Army’s complete failure on the battlefield west of Nanjing.
Li Xiucheng was another excellent military leader in the Taiping government. In December, 1861, he recaptured Hangzhou, placing almost all of Zhejiang under the control of the Taiping Army. One month later, Li launched a second attack on Shanghai. In February, 1862, the joint Anglo-French forces, together with Ward’s Squad, began fighting against the Taiping Army. Two months later, Li led his elite troops and attacked Songjiang, where Ward’s Squad was stationed. One of the senior officers in the French navy was killed in the battle. Later Li recalled that the foreign devils did not dare to confront the Taiping Army,22 which was confirmed by Xuo Zongtang, the commander of the Qing army in Zhejiang.23 At that moment, the Xiangjun led by Zeng Guoquan, Zeng Guofan’s younger brother, captured a strategic city, posing a grave threat to Nanjing. Li had to give Shanghai up and withdraw the army back to Nanjing. After taking Anqing, Zeng Guofan divided the Qing army into three columns. The first column, commanded by Zuo, marched into Zhejiang and started to attack Hangzhou. The second, led by Zeng Guoquan’s Xiangjun headed for Nanjing. The third was led by the newly-founded army Li Hongzhang, who was based in Shanghai, and pointed his guns at Suzhou and Changzhou. Nanjing was therefore placed under great threat. Thus, in spite of their great efforts to fight against the Qing army, the Taiping troops were not able to break the siege.
The Taiping Army failed to rescue Nanjing from the siege not only because of the commander’s excessive steadfastness but also because of the leader’s suspicions and misuse of the right of investiture.24 By June, 1863, despite Li’s painstaking efforts with the Taiping Army’s battle in the east of Nanjing, it inevitably went downhill. In November, Suzhou and Wuxi fell, and, in March, 1864, Hangzhou was abandoned. Then, in April, Changzhou was captured by the Qing army. The Taiping defense in Jiangsu and Zhejiang totally disintegrated and some Taiping troops retreated to Jiangxi, where they preferred to die in a ditch to starving to death in Jiangnan.25 Li suggested Hong Xiuquan leave Nanjing. However, Hong refused. He passed away on June 3, 1864. Zeng’s Xiangjun were determined to capture Nanjing at all costs. One month later, the Xiangjun stormed into Nanjing and committed a massacre. According to Zeng Guofan’s memorial to the throne, more than 100,000 rebels were killed, and their dead bodies clogged the long Qinhuai River.26 When trying to save Hong’s young son,27 Li was arrested and brutally tortured by Zeng’s younger brother. After his imprisonment, Li wrote down his confession in which he detailed the ten worst mistakes made by the Taiping leadership. Li’s written confession is still open to dispute. After the fall of Nanjing, Hong Rengan and Hong Xiuquan’s younger son went to Jiangxi where both were captured; later they were executed in Nanchang.
The legendary Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace collapsed. Nevertheless, the remaining Taiping troops and their Nian comrades continued to fight for another four years. Based southwest of Fujian and in the east of Guangdong, the southern Taiping troops in the strategic Zhangzhou of Fujian bravely held high the banner of the Heavenly Kingdom. In the north, the Taiping soldiers and the Nian army joined together to attack Qing’s army. Their courage and blood marked the end of the Taiping Rebellion.
1 See: Jiang Tao 姜涛, “Hong Xiuquan ‘dengji’ shishi bianzheng 洪秀全 ‘登极’ 史实辨 正 (Reexamining the date when Hong Xiuquan proclaimed himself the Heavenly King)”, Lishi yanjiu 历史研究 (The historical research), no. 1 (1993), pp. 146–147.
2 Ibid. See also: Zhang Haipeng et al., eds., Zhongguo jindai tongshi 中国近代通史 [General history of modern China] (Nanjing: Jiangsu People’s Publishing House, 2009), vol. 2, pp. 266–271. For the more traditional opinion, see: Luo Ergang 罗尔纲, Taiping Tianguo shi 太平天国史 [History of the Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace] (Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1991), vol. 1, p. 31.
3 For this proclamation, see: Taiping Tianguo lishi bowuguan 太平天国历史博物馆 (The Museum of the Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace, Taiping Tianguo wenshu huibian 太平天国文书汇编 [A collection of Taiping Tianguo’s official documents] (Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1979), pp. 107–108.
4 See: Zhongguo shixuehui 中国史学会 (China Association of Historians), et al., eds., Taiping Tianguo太平天国 [Collected primary sources: Taiping Tianguo] (Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 1957), vol. 4, p. 572.
5 See: Ibid., vol. 3, p. 141.
6 For this decree, See: Taiping Tianguo wenshu huibian, p. 175.
7 For this treatise, see: Taiping Tianguo lishi bowuguan, ed., Taiping Tianguo yinshu 太平天国印书 [Publications of Taiping Tianguo] (Nanjing: Jiangsu People’s Publishing House, 1979), vol. 1, pp. 15–16.
8 See: Taiping Tianguo, p. 164.
9 For the full text of the Law, see: Vol. 1 of Taiping Tianguo yinshu, pp. 409–420.
10 For Palmerston’s note, see: William Conrad Costin, Great Britain and China, 1833–1860 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1937), pp. 149–150.
11 Ibid., p. 195.
12 Liu Danian, Zhongguo jindaishigao, p. 101.
13 See: Zhongguo shehui kexueyuan jindaishi yanjiusuo 中国社会科学院近代史研究所 (Institute of Modern Chinese History, CASS), ed., Sha E qinhua shi 沙俄侵华史 [History of Tsarist Russia’s invasion of China] (Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 1978), vol. 2, p. 188.
14 See: Vol. 1 of Taiping Tianguo yinshu, p. 486.
15 See: Vol. 2 of Taiping Tianguo yinshu, p. 678.
16 See: Taiping Tianguo wenshu huibian, p. 491.
17 See: Vol. 20 of Zeng Guofan quanji 曾国藩全集 [Complete works of Zeng Guofan] (Changsha: Yuelu Press, 2011), p. 584.
18 William Concrad Costin, Great Britain and China, 1833–1860 (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1937; reprint, 1968), p. 307.
19 Charles B. Maybon and Jean Fredet, Histoire de la Concession française de Chang-hai (上海法租界史), trans. Ni Jinglan 倪静兰 (Shanghai: Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences Press, 2007), p. 165.
20 Zhang Haipeng, “Xiangjun zai Anqing zhanyi zhong qusheng yuanyin tanxi 湘 军 在安庆战役中取胜原因探析” (The reasons why the Hunan Army defeated the Taiping Army in the Anqing Battle), Jindaishi yanjiu 近代史研究 (Studies in the modern Chinese history), no. 5 (1988), pp. 25–50.
21 Luo Ergang, Taiping Tianguo shiliao kaoshi ji 太平天国史料考释集 [Examination and interpretations of primary sources in relation to Taiping Tianguo] (Beijing: SDX Joint Publishing Company, 1956), p. 204.
22 See: Taiping Tianguo wenshu huibian, p. 524.
23 See: Vol. 4 of Zeng Guofan quanji, p. 362.
24 See: Taiping Tianguo wenshu huibian, p. 491, p. 496, p. 543.
25 Shen Baozhen 沈葆桢, Shen Wensugong zhengshu 沈文素公政书 (Political essays of Shen Baozhen), Chapter 1.
26 See: Vol. 7 of Zeng Guofan quanji, p. 299.
27 See: Taiping Tianguo wenshu huibian, p. 538.
3. The Lost Three Decades
Changes of the Central and Local Governments
The Taiping Rebellion dealt a heavy blow to Qing’s empire, as well as having a fundamental effect in changing politics in Qing’s late regime. As a result, new political groups began to emerge and the traditional pattern of political power began to transform. This change was embodied in the shift of top-down power and the increasing prominence of Han officials in the imperial court as well as in the rise of the Self-Strengthening Movement (SSM). In the fall of 1861, a palace coup took place in Beijing. In order to gain a monopoly of power, some Princes were executed and the Empress Dowager Cixi 慈禧太后 (1835–1908), who was the mother of the Emperor Tongzhi, wielded the scepter. In the following decades, Cixi was the most powerful woman in China and played a dominant role in central government politics. The Anglo-French forces left Beijing in November, 1860. The news overjoyed the Qing government as they knew that this would lead to the return of the old socio-political order. Among Qing’s ruling elites there was a consensus that the colonial powers preferred peace at gunpoint to the total collapse of the Qing empire. Yixin 奕 䜣, one of the leading ministers at this time, in one of his memoranda to the throne repeatedly emphasized this. They believed that as long as Qing abided by the unequal treaties and acted in accordance with the colonial powers’ demands, the dynasty would benefit.1
In January, 1861, Qing set up an imperial official in charge of foreign affairs—总理各国事务衙门 hereinafter referred to as Zongli yamen. He appointed several aristocrats as supervisors in his agency, which pleased the diplomats of the European powers,2 as they planned to turn Zongli yamen into one of the primary tools to control the Qing government. A British man was appointed as Inspector General of the Imperial Maritime Custom Service. Soon he was replaced with Robert Hart, also from Britain, and was in charge of Qing’s customs for more than four decades.
It was at this time that Britain, France and Russia established their embassies in Beijing. From then on, the colonial powers paid greater attention to getting the high Qing officials to recommend that China rebuild itself in light of the Western experience. Gradually, as a pro-Western ruling elite, which consisted mostly of leading aristocrats and officials such as Cixi and Yixin, came into being, the highest superintendent of Zongli yamen was created. This change was historically significant and had a decisive influence on China’s political course in the second half of the nineteenth century. The colonial powers were satisfied with the rise of Cixi and Yixin, and the top British diplomat in China in March, 1862, said that a pro-Western elite had already been in power in China and that he, to some extent, had become one of the advisers of the Chinese government.3
Aside from gaining support from the colonial powers, Qing spent his time regulating the relationship between the imperial court and the political group led by Zeng Guofan. Zeng rose to prominence at this time due to his outstanding performance in putting down the Taiping Rebellion. In the fall of 1860, Zeng was appointed the Governor General of Jiangnan and Jiangxi and in the winter, he was given the title of supreme lord in charge of military affairs in Jiangsu, Anhui, Jiangxi, and Zhejiang; and, the following January, he was awarded many more prestigious imperial titles. Thus, Zeng played a crucial role not only in defense but also in civil administration. Zeng was given free rein to rule and, as a consequence, the Zeng faction of the Xiangjun became the most powerful politico-military complex in China. It firmly controlled the armed forces, as well as the manpower and financial resources. Li Hongzhang’s 李鸿章 (1823–1901) elite community centered in the Huaijun (the Anhui Army) was similar to the Zeng faction. In the following decades, officials and generals from the two factions dominated late Qing politics. It should be pointed out that the imperial court had to allow powerful governors and generals of the Zeng and Li factions to impose and collect taxes in order for them to remain devoted to suppressing the Taiping rebels. This concession meant that the Qing government gradually lost control over local finances. Even Zeng Guofan admitted that the governors, however powerful, grew increasingly unruly.4 These governors could be likened to warlords.
Since the founding of the Qing dynasty, the Manchu sovereigns assigned only candidates of Han nationality to imperial posts. When the Taiping Army started to sweep through the south, the Manchu aristocrats had already been incapable of fighting. In order to survive the rebellion, the emperor had no alternative but to put all his hopes in the Han officials. Some enlightened Manchu princes supported this change.5 Zeng Guofan, for example, was recommended by Sushun, a member of the royal household. Cixi, the de facto supreme leader of the imperial court, assumed a very tolerant attitude toward Han officials. According to statistics, by 1864, when the Xiangjun captured Nanjing, twenty-one generals from this army were appointed governors. In fact, an increasing number of Han officials rose to prominence in imperial politics and demonstrated that the Manchu political monopoly had already been broken. Under such circumstances, some Han bureaucrats began to rethink the fate of the Manchu Qing. In a diary, one of Zeng Guofan’s closest aides said that total collapse (of Qing) might take place in less than five decades.6 Zeng himself did not disapprove of it.
The Self-Strengthening Movement (SSM)
When fighting, the Xiangjun and Huaijun used cold weapons. In comparison with the foreign armies who were equipped with modern arms, these two armies were much less powerful. Qing’s high ministers realized that modern weapons played a significant role in war. Thus, in 1861, Yixin, together with two other top imperial secretaries, proposed a general plan for modernizing Chinese weapons to the throne. Zeng Guofan suggested the emperor purchase Western guns and warships so that he could quell the rebellions as soon as possible.7 These two steps constituted the three-decade-long SSM’s basic program. Li Hongzhang, later one of Qing’s most influential statesmen, arrived in Shanghai in 1862, where he, with the help of the colonialists, set up small troops equipped with foreign arms and modern arsenals. Li was enthusiastic about having China’s weapon production modelled on that of the West. He optimistically said that, if China were to possess weapons as powerful as Western ones, China could not be humiliated and invaded.8 Yixin believed that China and the colonial powers would peacefully coexist if China grew militarily stronger by modernizing its weapons arsenal.9 The ruling elites, such as Yixin, Li, and Zeng attempted to manufacture modern arms not only to suppress the Taiping Rebellion, but also to increase China’s national strength. They all strongly believed that a combination of advanced Western technology and well-established Chinese feudalism would bring stability and prosperity to Qing’s China. Essentially, SSM was both imperative and feasible. They took for granted that the colonial powers wanted to help China move toward modernity. This movement lasted for more than thirty years and focused on the creation of a modern industry, a modern navy, and modern education in China.
In 1861, in Anqing, Zeng Guofan set up an ordnance depot, where technicians began to manufacture modern arms. In less than a year, they successfully made China’s first marine steam engine. In the same year, Li Hongzhang hired a British veteran and built his first modern arsenal. Later he employed more foreign technicians and purchased more modern equipment. Thanks to his efforts, the factory expanded and was able to produce more than four thousand small guns a month. Li, in collaboration with Zeng, bought a Shanghai-based steel plant owned by an American businessman. Soon China’s first large military factory, the Jiangnan Arsenal (江南机器制造总局), was created in Shanghai, and therefore was also known as the Shanghai Arsenal. This arsenal developed into a huge complex consisting of fifteen branches as well as a foreign language school, a technical school, and a translation studio. There were more than 3,500 workers in this factory which proudly boasted world-class mechanical equipment. By the 1890s, the Shanghai Arsenal had produced around 600 or so modern artilleries, more than 50,000 breechloaders, and approximately 10 million bullets. The annual output of the attached steel plant was hundreds of thousands of pounds, which freed the Arsenal from its dependence on imported steel. It was here that China’s steel industry began. In 1868, The attached shipyard produced the first steamship and went one to build warships and other vessels. It was this shipyard that eventually led to the first shipyard in the Jiangnan Shipyard, the champion of present-day China’s shipbuilding industry.
There was also an attached translation studio, which had active members from Britain and the United States, among whom John Frye, Alexander Wylie, and Young John Allen became well-known. These translators rendered, in total, two hundred or so foreign books into Chinese. Most of their translations were of science and technology books; however, they also translated politics, economy, and history books. In addition, this studio published a quarterly devoted to world affairs. These books and journals introduced the Chinese to the world. They built schools which recruited young students aged 15 to 20. When admitted, students joined a four-year program, where they were taught sciences and foreign languages. Historically, these schools produced the first generation of Chinese engineers and technicians.
The Shanghai Arsenal had several counterparts which could be found in Jinling (Nanjing), Fuzhou, Tianjin, Hubei, Xi’an, Lanzhou, Shandong, Sichuan, and Jilin. There were 21 large and medium-sized modern weapon manufacturers nationwide. The Fuzhou Arsenal was second only to the Shanghai Arsenal. It was founded by Zuo Zongtang 左宗棠 (1812–1885) and comprised fourteen branches as well as a shipbuilding school. This arsenal employed roughly 2,000 workers. French experts played a leading role in its initial stages and were later all replaced by Chinese specialists. In 1869, the Fuzhou Arsenal built the first military carrier and, by the late 1890s, more than thirty ships had been manufactured. Some of them were powered by a 2,400-horsepower engine. This arsenal served as the base for China’s four fleets of warships.
The leading SSM proponents realized that wealth was indispensable to strength. In other words, they were determined to broaden the sources of income for the country. Beginning in the 1870s, these highly influential motivators started to invest in civil industries. The startups included the Shanghai Merchants Steam Navigation Company (上海轮船招商局), the Shanghai Cotton Cloth Mill (上海机器织布局)、the Kaiping-based China Engineering and Mining Company (开平煤矿), the Tianjin-based Imperial Chinese Telegraph Administration (天津电报总局), Mohe Gold Mining Company (漠河金矿 in Heilongjiang) and the Wuhan-based Hanyang Steel Mill (汉阳铁厂), to name only the most famous. Unlike weapon manufacturers, over all of which the Qing empire had a monopoly, these civil corporations were jointly managed by both government and private business. Such joint management was conducive to the economic development of early modernizing China, when few people dared to invest their money in modern industry. By the 1890s, there were more than 40 modern civil corporations in China and it was from these enterprises, most of which were supervised by the government and run by businessmen, that early Chinese capitalism began.
Seeing Qing’s worry when faced with powerful foreign navies, governors and generals recommended that the imperial court make a greater effort to build a modern Chinese navy. In the 1860s, Yixin entrusted Horatio N. Lay with the task of purchasing foreign battleships. Lay, who then controlled Qing’s Customs Service, spent more than one million taels of silver on eight British warships. However, Lay demanded that China’s naval commander be British and the only direct liaison between the Chinese emperor and the navy. Qing’s government dismissed Lay and gave these battleships up. In doing so, Qing lost a huge amount of money.
In 1874, Japan invaded Taiwan. High ministers and generals intensively discussed China’s coastal defense. Li Hongzhang suggested that coastal defense be given top priority and the imperial court decided to build the Fleet of the Northern Ocean (hereinafter referred to as the Northern Fleet). Li Hongzhang was appointed to supervise the building of China’s first modern fleet. In the following decade, he built and bought warships to create his dream fleet. The fleet was completed in 1888 and was comprised of two superior ironclads, seven cruisers, six gunboats, six torpedo boats, three training ships, and one carrier. Two bases were also built in Lüshun (in Liaoning) and Weihai (in Shandong). The commanding officers of the fleet were usually trained overseas and were renowned for strict discipline, tough training, and high standards. Around the same time, modern naval troops were created in Guangdong, Fujian, and Shanghai. At this stage, the Chinese navy had, in total, more than 130 battleships. Even the Japanese navy paled in comparison.
At this time, SSM was desperately seeking young and talented people. Thus, in the early 1860s, new, Western-style schools were founded as part of the Self-Strengthening mission in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. Students in these schools were taught foreign languages, sciences, engineering, and international law; the schools encouraged practical education. The shipbuilding institute attached to the Fuzhou Arsenal is an example. According to their employment contract, the foreign experts working there were required to organize training sessions for the Chinese workers and students apart from building ships. A similar program was put in place in SSM’s mining and telegraph companies. Additionally, military schools devoted to weapons, medicine, and drill were set up after the creation of the new fleets. In 1885, Li Hongzhang founded a military academy in Tianjin (天津武备学堂) and this became China’s first army school. Wanting to rapidly master modern Western science and technology, SSM leaders sent many young students to study abroad. According to statistics, 120 went to the United States and 85 went to European countries such as Britain and Germany. These young people later played a great role in the modernization of China. Zhan Tianyou, for example, built the well-known modern Beijing-Zhangjiakou railway. A number of students specialized in telecommunications and helped free China from its dependence on foreign experts. The majority of the commanding officers in the navy studied in the West. Some of these, like Liu Buchan, Lin Yongsheng, and Lin Tai, for example, died bravely for their country, while others became leading officers in the Chinese navy. Yan Fu 严复, a brilliant officer who had studied in England’s Royal Naval College, became a translator and translated many well-known English books in the social sciences, which played a significant role in promoting the Enlightenment in early modernizing China. In addition, quite a few foreign-educated students later became active Chinese diplomats.
It could be said that China’s move into the modern world was the result of invasion by the colonial powers. Because of Western colonialism, history did not leave China with many opportunities to peacefully undergo the changes that would lead to modernity. It was at gunpoint that the top echelons of the Qing dynasty had to abandon the old order and move toward modern life. However, divisions persisted regarding whether China should modernize or not. Some officials were reform-minded while others remained ultraconservative and loyal to the old regime. The leading SSM motivators, which included Yixin, Wenxiang, Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang, Zuo Zongtang, among others, were intellectually open-minded and enlightened. Their crusade for modernity aimed to rebuild a lethargic Chinese nation, as well as lay the foundation for future endeavors. In this sense, they should be recognized as the pioneers of Chinese modernization and for playing a significant role in Chinese history in breaking through the almost indestructible, thousand-year-old conventional ways of thinking.
Class conflicts began to ease after the failure of the Taiping Rebellion and as the colonial powers slowed down their activities in China. As a result, the Qing empire enjoyed two decades of peace and stability. At this time, some of the ruling elites started to rethink the development gap between China and the West and began to create new opportunities for socio-economic growth. It was in this same period that Japan also saw great changes and rapid economic and military development. In Qing's empire, some of the SSM motivators, took much more moderate measures to modernize this 200-year-old dynasty. While promoting their programs, they did not try to bring about fundamental changes to the existing social order and ideological system. Despite this, the (ultra-)conservatives were hostile to these reform-minded officials. A prominent imperial adviser, for example, firmly believed that traditional Confucian virtues such as loyalty, propriety, and righteousness were essential to fighting the invaders. The SSM motivators’ endeavors to modernize the dynasty were in the conservatives’ eyes entirely unorthodox, meaningless, and useless. The conservatives particularly objected to having conventional Chinese education, based on Confucianism, be replaced by a modern education that was centered around Western knowledge. The SSM proponents continued to defend their beliefs.
Cixi, who was by nature conservative, allowed the SSM motivators to implement their programs while allowing the ultraconservative critics of SSM to go unchecked. It is clear that the Empress Dowager instructed these two rivals to work against each other. In this way, not only would the two political factions not challenge Cixi, but she would place them both under her control. However, SSM could not be promoted throughout China, only in the provinces supervised by the SSM motivators. Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang did an excellent job in Nanjing, Shanghai, and Tianjin; as did Zuo Zongtang in Fuzhou and Lanzhou, and Zhang Zhidong in Wuhan.
In contrast, Japan’s Meiji Restoration and modernization were the result of state actions. Even Ito Hirobumi, then Japan’s Prime Minister, was aware of this and said that Qing’s rehabilitation of its armed forces was merely empty talk.10 The Northern Fleet’s staggering defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) demonstrated that SSM was finally a failure.
Reformism in Its Initial Stages
Reformists, thinkers, and intellectuals participating in SSM started to rethink China after the end of the Second Opium War. Among them, Wang Tao 王韬, Zheng Guanying 郑观应 and Ma Jianzhong 马建忠 debated the fate of China and looked for the best way out of its crisis. Wang Tao repeatedly failed the Imperial Civil Service Examination (hereinafter referred to as the Examination). He finally abandoned the attempt and became an editor at a Shanghai-based publisher managed by a British resident. While working there, Wang read some Western books, and these gradually led him to change his ideas.
Wang later went to Britain, where he was employed as an assistant translating Chinese classics. For three years (1867–1870) Wang did an on-the-spot investigation of Western society. By doing so, he became epistemico-intellectually enriched, successfully transforming from a member of the feudal literati into an advocate of bourgeois reformism. In 1873, Wang founded a newspaper called the Universal Circulating Herald (循环日报) in Hong Kong. This newspaper advocated Wang’s ideas, such as the free registration of private companies, and recommended that China create a new political system in which the sovereign and the people would share power.11
Zheng was from the countryside of Xiangshan, Guangdong. He was also unsuccessful in his attempt to pass the Examination at the lowest level. Many compradors were natives of Xiangshan. As Zheng’s uncle and elder brother worked for foreign firms, at the age of 17 Zheng was granted an apprenticeship at a Shanghai-based Hong (a company run by foreigners). Later he became the leading comprador in the Swire Group and made a fortune. In his work, Zheng witnessed not only the hardships that traders had to endure but also the effects of the foreign capitalist invasion of China. While he dreamed of running his own company, Zheng well knew that the fulfillment of his dream depended on a pro-business and wealthy state. Based on his studies, Zheng asserted that having an advanced weapons system was not enough; a well-organized and efficient parliamentary system was equally important to lay a solid foundation for a stable and prosperous state.12 Ma, who originally dedicated himself to completing the Examination, decided to abandon the old Chinese learning system and instead opted for a Western education, reflecting that Qing had been so easily defeated by a small Western force. Ma spent much time learning foreign languages, hoping that, by doing so, he would find the key to the West’s success.13
The above-mentioned educated Chinese who partook in SSM were all aware that China was undergoing a drastic change. Inspired by the new knowledge imported from the West, they unanimously decided that Chinese society needed to change. Feng Guifen 冯 桂 芬, for example, argued that the creation of treaty ports had created a huge change in China.14 Wang Tao said that China had a historic opportunity;15 and Xue Fucheng 薛福成 believed that both China and the world would witness dramatic changes.16 Educated Chinese such as Zheng and Wang attempted to propose programs that would allow China to cope with changes and grasp new opportunities. They suggested that Qing learn from the West and try its utmost to turn disadvantages into advantages. This kind of self-strengthening endeavor, they argued, would help China adapt to the modernizing world. Feng argued that China should adopt the West’s strong points,17 while Ma pointed out that strength depends on wealth and a strong state so that people can live a prosperous life.18 They further argued that the growth of wealth depended on commerce and industry, and that China’s development of commerce and industry should be modeled on that of the capitalist countries. Where education was concerned, they argued that modern education was indispensable to the self-strengthening mission and for abolishing the Examination and reforming the traditional Confucian education system to help build a more modern education system.
The aforementioned reformist proposals posed a great challenge to the traditional Chinese way of thinking and to the established method of governance in particular. By the 1880s, the SSM intellectuals who included Zheng Guanying, Chen Chi 陈炽, He Qi 何启, and others, discussed more intensely China’s road to rehabilitation. Zheng, an old SSM hand and a businessman turned thinker, in his well-known Admonishments to People Living in a Prosperous Age (盛世危言), developed some original ideas about reform. Chen was an imperial officer who had worked for several departments of the central government. He was open-minded and pro-reform and visited in person the coastal areas of Hong Kong and Macao. He Qi was a Hong Kong-based lawyer and doctor. These reformists shared a common intellectual outlook, that China must militarily and economically resist the colonial powers’ invasion after failing twice in the Opium Wars. They all argued that only when China was economically prosperous would the colonial powers be deterred from bullying China. Zhen even created the slogan of Shangzhan (economic war), which he argued would be superior to military war. He suggested the central government do its best to protect private industries and commerce, since Chinese industry, competing in the global market, would finally lead China out of decline and crisis. A series of proposals promoting Chinese industry and commerce were put forward by these reformists. First, they suggested joining government and private business. Second, the industrial and commercial taxes as well as the lijin (a special tax exclusively collected for putting down the Taiping Rebellion) must be abolished or at least substantially reduced. Ma Jianzhong said that it did not make sense that foreign firms were exempt from lijin while the Chinese had to pay.19 Third, the government must formulate laws and institutions to effectively protect Chinese industrialists and businessmen.20 Fourth, the government should encourage people to engage in creative work, just as Western governments had done.
Wang Tao strongly criticized the government’s excessive participation in business and said that many SSM programs merely scratched the surface of modernity.21 Ma had written a memorandum to Li Hongzhang, the SSM leader, pointing out that the foundation of the West’s strength and wealth lay not in weapons and armies but in education and politics (such as the parliamentary system).22 In particular, the Sino-French War (1883–1885), which China lost, reminded the Chinese people that after two decades of SSM leadership, they had yet to carry out successful reforms in the country. Corruption was also a problem among officials, and this resulted in ordinary people rarely benefiting from SSM. In view of all this, the reformists called on Qing to politically reform and establish a Western constitutional monarchy, thus signalling significant intellectual progress among the community of educated Chinese. They realized that China should not only study Western weapons and technology but also do its best to develop industry and commerce as well as formulate laws and regulations that would protect the national economy, create parliamentary politics, and reform both education and culture. These ideas advocated for the growth of Chinese logical thinking as well as for the evolution of Chinese society. To sum up, the early Chinese reformists generally believed that national sovereignty and unity must be safeguarded, that China should take the capitalist route, and that political reforms, such as the founding of a constitutional monarchy, should be put on the agenda.
Border Crises and the Sino-French War
During the period of SSM, Qing tried to solve the crises on its borders. In 1864, some of the elite among the ethnic groups in Xinjiang launched a rebellion. Yakubu Beg (阿古柏), a military leader of the Khanate of Kokand (浩罕国), supported by Britain, invaded and occupied the entire southern region of Xinjiang as well as parts of northern Xinjiang. Tsarist Russia sent troops into Yili in order to ensure social order,23 and occupied Yili for a decade. In 1875, Qing sent Zuo Zongtang to recapture the lost lands. It took Zuo a year and a half to crush Yakubu Beg’s army but in February, 1878, he retook Xinjiang. A senior imperial official then visited Russia to negotiate for the return of Yili. He signed a treaty with Russia without the permission of the central government. As part of this treaty huge pieces of land south and west of Yili were ceded to Russia. This infuriated the Chinese and, in 1880, Qing signed a new treaty, in which the larger pieces of land south of Yili were retaken. Four years later, Xinjiang was formally made a province of China and a new governor was appointed. Qing had managed the border crisis in the northwest.
As far back as the early Ming dynasty (1368–1644), the Ryukyu Kingdom had already developed a very close relationship with China. However, in 1873, Ryukyu was forced to submit to Japan. At the beginning of 1874, Japan sent three thousand soldiers to Taiwan on the pretext of protecting Ryukyu fishermen from being kidnapped by Taiwanese residents. The Japanese troops landed on the shores and looted the coastal areas of Taiwan. Shen Baozhen, a high governor in Qing’s army, led the fight against the invaders. However, after the United States and Britain, both of whom were in favor of Japan, mediated the dispute, Qing and Japan signed a treaty in Beijing. Qing paid Japan 500,000 taels of silver in war reparations and the Japanese troops pulled out of Taiwan. In this treaty, Qing mistakenly called the Ryukyu fishmen subjects of Japan. Japan made use of this and in 1875 sent officials to Ryukyu. Four years later, Japan brazenly deposed the King of Ryukyu and downgraded this kingdom to a prefecture known as Okinawa. Qing immediately protested against this. Negotiations over Ryukyu continued for several years. In 1888, Japan withdrew from the negotiations. Qing did not recognize the Okinawa Prefecture, only the Ryukyu Kingdom.24 Qing grew aware of the strategic importance of the southeast coast. In order to prevent Japan from invading Taiwan, Qing strengthened its defense and, most importantly, established Taiwan as a province in 1885. This greatly increased the importance of Taiwan to the Chinese nation.
In the meantime, Japan began to interfere in Korean affairs. In 1875, Japan invaded Korea’s Ganghwado. The following year, Japan forced Korea to sign the Ganghwado Treaty (a.k.a. the 1876 Japan-Korea Treaty of Amity), where Japan addressed the well-established close relationship between China and Korea. Six years later, an anti-Japanese coup was staged in Korea, which led to Japan intervening militarily. The Korean government begged Qing for help, hoping that Qing would be able to stop a Japanese invasion of Korea. In 1884, Japan instigated a revolt in which the Korean king was abducted and a pro-Japanese regime was installed. Led by Yuan Shikai 袁世凯 (1859–1916), the Qing army stationed in Korea quashed the riot. The following year, Ito Hirobumi visited Beijing, where Li Hongzhang granted an interview to the Japanese Prime Minister. Both sides agreed to withdraw their troops immediately and to let the other know if they were sending an army to Korea. This meant Japan had gained the same right to send troops to Korea that Qing enjoyed. This was the beginning of the fierce conflict between China and Japan in the near future.
At the time that the British Empire was seizing India and Myanmar, it cast its eyes on Yunnan. In 1874, the British attempted to enter Yunnan via Myanmar. The British Embassy in Beijing sent an interpreter to greet them, though they clashed with the Chinese at the border. The Qing government tried its best to prevent the situation from growing worse while the British Ambassador exploited the incident and asked for a more powerful military presence from London.25 Robert Hart, who then supervised Qing’s Customs, wrote in his diary that he would not hesitate to use force to punish the Chinese.26 The British forced Qing to sign the Yantai Treaty in 1876. Not only were the British given indemnity but they were also given permission to enter Tibet, Yunnan, Qinghai, and Gansu. The British Empire continued to extend its tentacles further into China.
Exploiting the Yantai Treaty, the British attempted to invade Tibet. In 1884, British troops illegally entered Tibet (the region of Rikaze 日喀则 [Shigatse]) via Sikkim. The British tried to drive a wedge between the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama, the two most significant spiritual leaders of the Tibetan people. Two years later, Britain stationed its troops east of Yadong, Tibet. In 1888, the British started to attack the Longtushan 隆吐山 Garrison. The defending army and local people rose up to resist the invaders. Finally, the Qing government dismissed the imperial agent in Tibet and signed two treaties with Britain. According to the two treaties, Sikkim would be placed under the control of Britain and Yadong would be made commercially open to the British. France and Russia also tried to involve themselves in Tibetan affairs at this time.
The SSM motivators, most of whom were high governors or generals, adopted the policy that China should avoid direct conflict with the colonial powers and should instead promote reforms internally as much as possible. Li Hongzhang, who was then regarded as Qing’s leading diplomat, almost conceded to the foreign power’s demands in exchange for peace. Consequently, not only was China’s sovereignty trampled on, but the invaders also grew increasingly arrogant and avaricious. Put simply, making concessions and compromising could in no way guarantee friendly and beneficial international relationships for China, as confirmed by the Sino-French War (1883–1885).
As early as the seventeenth century, France began its invasion of Vietnam with the intention of turning all of what was then called Indo-China into a French colony. Vietnam thus became the base for French aggression against China. In the last two decades of the nineteenth century, France launched a full-scale invasion of Vietnam. China, Vietnam’s suzerain state, could not overlook this. The Qing army stationed in Vietnam at first remained controlled. The Black Banner Army, which was made up of the rebels who had taken part in the Taiping Rebellion and who had finally retreated to Vietnam, took the offensive and defeated the French troops. Vietnam’s sovereign appointed the leader of the army as high governor to help the government army defend north Vietnam. In 1883, the French army captured Vietnam’s capital and forced the Vietnamese king to sign the Treaty of Hue, making Vietnam a French protectorate. In the last month of 1883, the French started to attack Qing’s army as well as the Black Banner Army. The next year, French troops began to advance toward the Chinese border. Some of Qing’s leading officials, including Zuo Zongtang, Zhang Zhidong, and others, recommended that China fight against the French invaders. Others, such as Li Hongzhang, pushed for peace talks.27 The Empress Dowager Cixi chose to begin negotiations with the French. Li, on behalf of the Qing government, signed a short treaty with France in Tianjin, recognizing France’s right to protect Vietnam.
The French army, however, began to seize land even before the withdrawal of the Chinese troops. The Chinese soldiers were forced to fight back. Enraged, French media outlets began calling for war. France’s Chargé D’affaires in Beijing demanded that the Chinese troops immediately withdraw from northern Vietnam and that the Chinese government should pay compensation of 250,000,000 francs. Should China fail to comply with these demands, France threatened to occupy China’s ports.28 In July 1884, the French fleet closed on Mawei, a strategic naval port in Fuzhou. One month later, some French gunboats attempted to invade northern Taiwan but were driven off by Qing’s defending army. Then the French pointed their guns at Fuzhou.
Although the enemy was already at the gates, Qing did not prepare for war but instead pinned its hopes on negotiations. However, the French navy began attacking and Chinese warships were sent to the dock. A day later, Qing’s fleet was destroyed by French torpedoes. In this battle, the Fujian Navy lost nearly thirty warships and eight hundred men. The French troops began killing, burning, and looting; shockingly, foreign reporters called it not a war but a massacre. The reason for China’s failure was twofold, the first being Qing’s passivity and the other the differences between the French and Chinese navies (see table below).
| French Navy | Chinese Navy | |
| Number of warships/total tonnage | 8/14,514 | 11/6,500 |
| Types of warships | 2 iron battleships 5 cruisers | 9 small wooden gunboats |
| Number of artillery | 77 | 45 |
| Types of artillery | heavy breechloader | light muzzleloader |
Qing formally declared war on France after the Mawei Battle and severed diplomatic relations.29 Liu Yongfu 刘永福 (1837–1917), the leader of the Black Banner Army, was formally given an imperial title. His army continued to fight against the French invaders. The Chinese people were furious and many enlisted to fight against the French colonialists.30 Even Chinese living overseas participated in the campaign against the French invaders. In Hong Kong, for example, workers refused to repair a damaged French warship on the grounds that it had bombed Taiwan and attempted to enter Fuzhou. The Chinese in San Francisco, Kobe, Yokohama, Singapore, and Cuba donated money to the war effort against imperialistic France.31
Fighting broke out in Zhennanguan, a strategic garrison on the Sino-Vietnamese border. In March, 1885, the French army attacked Zhennanguan. Zhang Zhidong, then Governor General of Guangdong and Guangxi, appointed Feng Zicai, a veteran general, to supervise the defense. Defending this garrison, Feng, who was in his seventies led his troops against the French and annihilated more than 1,000 of the enemy. Qing’s army pursued the remaining enemy troops and recaptured the key region of Liangshan, or Lang Son, in north Vietnam. This campaign directly led to the downfall of France’s Jules Ferry government. General Feng planned to drive all French troops out of north Vietnam. However, the Qing government decided to start peace negotiations instead of fighting. In April 1885, China and France signed a truce in Paris. Two months later, Li Hongzhang and the French delegates formally signed a treaty in Tianjin. This treaty was Qing’s acknowledgement of France’s colonial rule over Vietnam. The Black Banner Army was brought back into China and then sent to Taiwan. Despite their military victory, Qing’s army did not receive an equal deal in the signing of the treaty.
Endless Incidents Involving Christian Missionaries
Ambitiously aspiring to conquer the entire globe for Christ, Christian missionaries began arriving in China as part of the colonial project. Jiao’an (literally, the Christian cases), which refers to the historic incidents involving Christian missionaries in China, was the result not only of the contradiction between foreign imperialism and the Chinese nation, but also of the conflict between Chinese tradition and Christian culture. To some extent, Christian missionaries were at the center of the West’s colonial aggression. Charles H. Denby, then the leading American diplomat in China, confirmed that the information collected by missionaries was very helpful to the American government. In fact, as early as the 1850s and the 1860s, William
B. Reed, one of Denby’s predecessors, acknowledged that Christian missionaries and their endeavors greatly contributed to America’s interests. Some Christian churches in China were actually operating as agencies of secret services. A top Russian diplomat corroborated this, saying that the Beijing branch of the Orthodox Church gave him accurate advice, which he could use to follow the right path in negotiating the Beijing Treaty. As a reward, the Russian government granted the Church huge pieces of land grabbed from China and paid its clergy.
Western missionaries were allowed to enter China due to the treaties signed in the Second Opium War. Not only were they allowed to do missionary work but they also had the right to rent or purchase land. Under such circumstances, conflict between the Western missionaries and local residents was inevitable. Needless to say, missionary work in early modernizing China was supported by the Western powers’ guns and artilleries. For this reason, some missionaries were reliant on the colonial powers. Some Chinese regarded the missionaries as spokesmen for the colonial powers and, for this reason, felt much resentment toward them. Land disputes involving missionaries and residents were not uncommon at this time. The missionaries forcibly spread their faith at the cost of others’ land and property, which aroused great discontent among local residents. They bullied people who tried to resist the invaders. Missionaries complained to the consulates, which then pressed Qing’s government to comply with their demands. Local governments had no alternative but to suppress the Chinese residents.
Gradually, the foreign churches grew into privileged and powerful interest groups. The Christian churches in China rarely took the local governments seriously. These all-powerful spiritual halls were appealing to local ruffians and hooligans. On the other hand, it should be pointed out that some missionary societies did do their best to help China and its people by founding modern hospitals and schools, as well as offering sympathy and help to people in need. Nevertheless, they could not bring any fundamental changes to the imperialist powers’ invasion of China.
The foreign missionaries continued to swarm into China after the Beijing Treaty was signed and continued to grow increasingly powerful in China. The growth in the number of churches, clergy, and followers was remarkable. In 1860, there were 20 missionary societies; in 1884, there were more than 30. The number of missionaries increased from 180 in 1864 to 1,296 in 1890. In 1860, there were 14 missionary residents scattered across the treaty ports of six coastal provinces in southeast China. In 1884, this number reached 238, spread over all the coastal provinces, the Yangtze River, and some inland provinces such as Shanxi, Gansu, Guizhou, and Yunnan. The number of Christian converts was 400 or so in 1857; by 1893, this number had increased to 55,000. In 1860, there were nine Catholic missionary societies; in 1894, there were 21. The number of Catholic parishes increased from 10 in 1844 to 34 in 1883. A club of foreign-born Catholic priests was also established that had 100 members in 1846; by 1885, it numbered 488 members. These priests wandered around China, leaving their footprints in many remote provinces such as Tibet, Taiwan, Heilongjiang, and Hainan Island. Statistics indicate that, in 1850, China had 320,000 Catholic converts; four decades later there were more than half a million Catholics.32 As for Protestantism, by 1877 there were 473 missionaries, 91 missionary societies, 511 branches, 321 churches, and 13,035 converts.33 The largest missionary society was the China Inland Mission (CIM),34 founded by James Hudson Taylor, a British missionary, in 1865. When it first started, it had only three members; however, three decades later, it comprised 650 priests, 270 outposts, and approximately 5,000 followers.
The Catholics built a cathedral in each parish. Usually, such grand churches were situated in metropolises such as Beijing or regional centers like Ji’nan, while some were built in remote rural areas in Hubei and Hunan. The Orthodox Church’s missionary corps was financially supported by the Russian government and, for this reason, followed the Russian authorities’ instructions. Orthodox churches were established in Tianjin, Harbin, Shanghai, and Xinjiang after the signing of the Beijing Treaty.
Four decades after signing the Beijing Treaty, China witnessed more than four hundred incidents involving Christian missionaries which provoked the resentment of many local residents. The most well-known incident took place in Tianjin. The French had built a cathedral and an affiliated care center that adopted children. On occasion, money was given to those who brought children there and consequently, a few ruffians kidnapped children and gave them to the church in exchange of cash. In the summer of 1870, some adopted children died of infectious diseases and were buried in a mass grave. Because of poor burial, stray dogs feasted on the dead bodies of children. Some believed that these children had been tortured by the church. It was even rumored that the children’s eyes were gouged out and their hearts torn out. At this time, a child trafficker was captured by the local authorities and confessed that one of his accomplices was a Catholic. When informed about this, the magistrate immediately asked for instructions from Chonghou, the highest imperial official in Tianjin. Chonghou delivered a formal note to the French consul in Tianjin, notifying that the suspect be examined by the investigators. Soon residents and staff from the French Consulate clashed. The Consul ordered Chonghou to suppress the residents by force. The clashes were fierce and resulted in the French Consulate, some foreign banks, and Christian churches being destroyed by fire.35 In total, twenty foreigners, including the consul and his secretary, as well as sixteen Chinese Catholic converts lost their lives in this incident.
Seven Western countries—Britain, France, Russia, Germany, Belgium, Spain, and the United States—protested and sent their warships toward Tianjin. A French admiral threatened to burn Tianjin to a cinder. The United States’ Minister to China, Frederick F. Low, in his letter to Hamilton Fish, the Secretary of State, said that many more menacing threats were made such as beheading all Chinese officials, overthrowing
the Chinese government, and turning China into a protectorate.36 The threats frightened Qing and it ordered Zeng Guofan, who was on medical leave, to immediately return and handle the affair. Zeng knew that China had no choice but to compromise.37 Despite knowing who was responsible for the incident, he removed the top government officials in Tianjin and sentenced 20 people to death and sent another 25 people into exile. In addition, 500,000 taels of silver were paid to France as compensation. Chonghou went to France, where he, on behalf of the Qing government, offered a formal apology. Zeng admitted that the case was not handled well.38 Some accused Zeng of being a coward.39 Zeng also felt ashamed because of his poor handling of the Tianjin incident.
The Sino-French War was a stimulant to the jiao’an that took place in Fujian and Zhejiang, where some churches were burnt. More than 40 missionaries were expelled from Guangdong and Guangxi and 50 or so churches were destroyed. There were huge protests against the missionaries in Sichuan and Hebei. In Dazu, a county of Sichuan, a poor miner in September, 1890, launched an armed revolt, rallying the people to resist the established power of the church. The next summer and fall, resistance to the church swept through the middle and lower regions of the Yangtze River. In the Chengde of Zhili (present-day Hebei), tens of thousands of local residents dealt a heavy blow to the Catholic church. Four years later, the Chengdu incident broke out and dozens of Catholic and Protestant churches were burnt to the ground in Sichuan.
Jiao’an was representative of China’s relationships and conflicts with the West. The Beijing Treaty granted foreign Christian churches the right to do missionary work in China. However, conflict between the foreign churches and Chinese residents was inevitable due to the cultural differences and the conflicts of interest regarding land. In many cases, the foreign missionaries gave protection to Christian converts whenever they were involved in disputes. To make matters worse, the foreign governments backing the missionaries used the unequal treaties to pressure the Chinese authorities. They even applied extraterritoriality to Chinese Christian converts. As a consequence, few local governments dared to get involved in disputes involving missionaries and their protégés, and, as a result, Chinese residents often had to endure injustices. Evidence that China was further in decline.
The 1895 Sino-Japanese War
Ancient Japan devoted great attention to learning from China. In the 1860s, Japan started its own self-strengthening movement known as the Meiji Restoration. However, next to Japan’s national endeavor, China’s SSM paled in comparison. Although the two Asian counties stood on the same scratch line, Japan soon left China, its old teacher, far behind. Japan’s Meiji Restoration was based on economic growth, military advancement and cultural reconstruction, whereby Japanese society could be totally overhauled in light of Western modernity. In contrast, after three decades of SSM, China struggled to modernize, particularly where the powerful ultraconservatives were concerned.
Some said that in three decades (1860–1895) China invested, in total, 53,000,000 taels of silver in founding approximately 60 modern corporations. Each year, China set up two factories and invested 1,700,000 in each. Of these, 21 were for the military complex and accounted for almost 70%ercent of the total assets. For the rest, there were 120 capitalist enterprises with total assets of 58,000,000. Every year, four civil corporations were founded and each was worth less than 2,000,000.40 In Japan, it is estimated that more than 5,600 companies were created over more than two decades (1868–1892) and the total investment was 289,000,000 yen. Thus, Japan founded 225 enterprises every year and each was worth 11,000,000 yen or 7,000,000 taels of silver.41
Indeed, Japan developed much more rapidly than China at this time. The Japanese government redeveloped the whole of society on the model of Western capitalism. Japan had transformed itself into a laissez-faire capitalist constitutional state. Japan sold state-owned enterprises cheaply to private owners, revealing that capitalist Japan had already taken shape. Such actions were not possible in nineteenth-century China, which was still steeped in colonialist practices and semi-feudalism.42
As early as the sixteenth century, some Japanese politicians attempted expansion. Japan’s Meiji Emperor attempted to extend his territory to Ryukyu, Korea, and Taiwan. Yoshida Shoin 吉田松阴, who pioneered the Meiji Restoration, recommended that Japan take Manchuria (in northeast China), Taiwan, and Luzon (belonging to the Philippines). Fuzuzawa Yukichi 福泽谕吉, an educator renowned for his radical Datsu-A Ron (an editorial advocating that Japan completely abandon its Asian roots and fully integrate itself into European [Western] civilization), said Japan should treat China in the same manner as the West treated China and Korea.43 These politicians, thinkers, and educators advocated for the preparation for an aggressive war against China. At the same time, Japan did its best to develop a navy and an army, set up a general staff under the direct control of the emperor, as well as send a huge number of spies to China. In 1887, Ogawa Mataji 小川又次, a Japanese general, wrote The General Plan of Conquering China (征讨清国方略), analyzing in detail China’s economy, politics, and defense, recommending that Japan strike preemptively and deploy eight divisions to storm Beijing and capture the Chinese emperor.44
Three years later, Yamagata Aritomo 山县有朋, then Prime Minister of Japan, in the inaugural National Diet (1890) said that Korea was indispensable to Japan’s national interest and that Japan must capture China in order to protect itself. The Japanese Emperor at the fourth Diet (1892–1893) gave voice to Japan’s long-held dream and said, “thereafter the capital may be extended so as to embrace all the six cardinal points, and the eight cords may be covered so as to form a roof” (兼六合以开都掩八纮而为宇).45 Here lay Japan’s wild ambition to create a Pax Nipponica. In other words, the Japanese Emperor had given his approval for war and the invasion of China. In 1893, the Japanese government set up a war materials special committee and formulated the relevant regulations, an important step toward war. Meanwhile, a senior officer led a team of military spies to Korea and China, where they collected as much information as possible and prepared the details of the military operation. Spies concluded that Japan was sure to succeed in the coming war. Japan built a nationwide espionage network within China. By contrast, China was almost completely unaware of what was going on in Japan. When war broke out, Munakata Kotaro (宗方小太郎), a Japanese spy who had direct access to the Gunreibu (the Imperial Japanese Navy General Staff) and the Gaimusho (the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan), was still spying on the Northern Fleet that was anchored in Weihai, a naval port. Revealed, the spy managed to escape using a false identity and returned to Japan safe and sound.46
In February, 1894, the Donghak Peasant Revolution broke out in the south of Korea. The peasant army aspired to annihilate all the Japanese invaders and wipe out the established aristocracy. Three months later, the rebels captured Jeonju. The Korean king begged Qing for help. Qing sent an army of 1,500 men to Korea and informed Japan of this operation. Japan took immediate action and set up the Daihonei (General Headquarters during war) sending 8,000 soldiers to Incheon, Korea. The Japanese troops occupied strategic garrisons and took full control of Seoul, Korea’s capital. It was here that the military confrontation between China and Japan began.47 War was near. However, Qing was looking for a way to achieve peace quickly. Li Hongzhang, the leading official of the imperial court, agreed to work toward seeking peace rather than engaging in war, and even suggested that the Korean government reform itself in exchange for Japan withdrawing its troops. Li decided not to send reinforcements to Korea, and ordered Qing’s army in Korea to stay where it was.
Li suggested China and Japan withdraw their troops simultaneously; however, this did not work. He called upon Russia and Britain to mediate. At that time, Russia was building the Trans-Siberian Railroad and was too busy to interfere. Russia demanded that Japan hold its hand. But Japan ignored it. Britain attempted to turn Japan into a counterweight to Russia. Meanwhile, Japan wanted to win support from Britain. Britain signed a new treaty with Japan and openly recognized Japan’s Korean policy. Qing’s government ordered its troops to march into Pyongyang. In late July, the impatient Japanese army occupied the imperial palace and imprisoned the Korean king. The Japanese then set up a puppet regime and began attacking Qing’s navy. A Chinese warship was sunk and 800 men were killed.
At the same time, the Japanese army was ferociously attacking Qing’s garrison. Terrified, the commanding general of Qing’s army fled shamefully. Japan then declared war on China in August, which resulted in the First Sino-Japanese War breaking out. Japan moved the Daihonei to Hiroshima where the Japanese Emperor visited as the Generalissimo. This revealed that the Japanese command system, wherein the whole nation acted in concert in war, had taken shape. As a consequence, all of Japan was enthusiastic about conquering China.
China was at war. Li Hongzhang had to abandon his pursuit of peace and instead turned to passive defense. He did not follow the Emperor Guangxu’s suggestion that the imperial court should send reinforcements to join Qing’s army in Korea and combine forces to attack Seoul, but instead ordered the Qing troops to defend Pyongyang and fight steadfastly. Li gave priority to protecting the warships rather than attacking the enemy. Li dreamed that his battleships anchored in the Bohai Gulf would prove to be the fiercest fighting ships. However, this involved giving up the command of the Yellow Sea, which would mean Japan could safely transport troops over water.
The land battle was fought in Pyongyang. The Qing army stationed there had 15,000 soldiers, 28 mountain guns, 4 field guns, and 6 machine cannons. The Japanese army had over 17,000 men in possession of 44 mountain artilleries. The Japanese vehemently attacked Pyongyang, resulting in a general from Qing’s army dying in battle and Qing army’s commander fleeing once again. Pyongyang fell into the hands of the enemy.
The Yellow Sea Battle then took place. Japan spent much time planning this battle. For this reason, the Japanese fleet was superior to China’s Northern Fleet (see table below).48
| Chinese Fleet | Japanese Fleet | |
| Number of warships | 10 | 12 |
| Total tonnage | 31,366 | 40,849 |
| Total strength | 2,000 | 3,500 |
| Average speed (nmi) | 15.5 | 16.5 |
| Number of artilleries | 173 | 171 |
| Number of quick-firing guns | 0 | 97 |
The Northern Fleet’s performance was clumsy in the face of the Japanese navy’s surprise attack49 and it suffered heavy losses. The Northern Fleet lost five battleships and a number of excellent naval officers. Fortunately, most of the capital ships were saved. The Chinese navy inflicted heavy losses on the Japanese, including five battleships being severely damaged and more than 300 soldiers and officers killed or injured. The Northern Fleet lost for a number of reasons. First, Li Hongzhang’s operational plan was too passive. Second, Qing’s navy lagged far behind Japan’s in terms of modernization. The Qing navy desperately lacked money, the leadership was inconsistent, and the navy itself was poorly commanded and poorly trained. The Zhiyuan 致 远, the fastest battleship of the Northern Fleet, vigorously pursued and fiercely mauled the Yoshino吉野, one of the largest Japanese warships. When realizing that it had run out of ammunition, the Zhiyuan decided to ram the Yoshino; however, it was sunk by the enemy.
Frightened by the Yellow Sea Battle, Li Hongzhang prohibited Chinese warships from going to sea, arguing that the Northern Fleet should only be used for defense. Japan had naval supremacy and consequently began landing their army in China, an operation which took place over nine days. The Northern Fleet took no action when the Japanese army attacked bases in Lüshun and captured Jinzhou and Dalian. Li Hongzhang had spent tens of millions of taels of silver building the naval port of Lüshun, which was nicknamed the Iron Garrison. It was stocked with a huge number of powerful, advanced Western weapons and this was the reason why the Japanese troops did not risk a frontal attack. After taking Jinzhou and Dalian, the Japanese decided to launch an assault on Lüshun. Li resolved to defend Lüshun at all costs,50 and sent reinforcements of 20,000 men. At this time, Qing’s army turned and marched toward Jinzhou; however, the Japanese troops were caught in the crossfire between the two Qing armies. In 1894, Lüshun fell. The Japanese army massacred 20,000 civilians,51 which caused outrage throughout the world and condemnation of Japan. Mutsu Munemitsu 陆奥宗光, Japan’s foreign minister, later recalled that after this massacre, Japan was seen as no more than a brutal and cruel monster.52
On the same day the Japanese army landed at Huayuankou, some Japanese troops led by their commander-in-chief crossed the Yalu River and attacked the Chinese garrisons. The Japanese army had slightly more than 10,000 soldiers in contrast to Qing’s defending army of 70 camps and 20,000 soldiers in total. It took the Japanese merely two days to break Qing’s defense. On the first day of December, 1894, the Japanese army occupied the strategic city of Haicheng. Qing’s army of 60,000 men then attacked this city. The battle lasted until February, 1895, when Japan’s reinforcements arrived and helped to secure the city.
Japan’s next target was Weihai, another key naval port belonging to Qing. 20,000 Japanese soldiers arrived in Weihai, which was protected by eight batteries with more than one hundred powerful Western cannons. Weihai was the headquarters of Qing’s navy. After the Yellow Sea Battle, the rest of the Northern Fleet, which included seven battleships, six gunboats, 13 torpedo boats and two training vessels, lay at anchor in Weihai. Li Hongzhang did not allow any ships to leave this naval port, hoping that his fleet would avoid more losses. However, he repeated the same mistake as in Lüshun.
After several days, the Japanese destroyed the batteries and killed more than 1,000 defenders. The Japanese army then blocked all exit points and turned all the Chinese warships into sitting ducks. In spite of resisting fiercely, the entire Northern Army fleet was wiped out. Some foreign employees and Qing’s naval officers orchestrated a mutiny, forcing Ding Ruchang, the highest commander in the Qing navy, to surrender to the Japanese. Ding ordered them to desist; however, they would not listen. Finally, Ding and other senior officers chose to commit suicide rather than surrender. Japan seized the remaining Chinese warships and a large quantity of equipment in the naval base. The Northern Fleet, the symbol of China’s three-decade SSM, was erased from history. Disappointed at Li’s military inability, Qing’s imperial court placed its hopes in the Hunan Army, which played a pivotal role in putting down the Taiping Rebellion. However, the Hunan Army did not have success. The leader, the Governor General of both Jiangnan and Jiangxi, was not able to respond properly. The Japanese troops soon captured western Liaoning and the advancing army posed a great threat to Beijing.
Emperor Guangxu made concessions for peace; the conservatives, such as Cixi, did too. However, after Japan’s capture of Lüshun, the West started to worry that Japan could harm its own interests. Britain warned Japan that if they attacked Beijing and Qing collapsed, Japan would gain nothing. The United States warned Japan that if the war was continued, they would try to end it at the expense of Japan’s stability and prosperity. At this stage, Japan’s troops were almost exhausted. Ito Hirobumi, who was then heading the Japanese government, concluded that toppling Qing would lead to the Western powers’ intervention. Japan forced Qing to sign a peace treaty, which was to its own benefit. Japan however, refused to receive the Chinese delegation headed by several senior ministers, and said that only Li Hongzhang or Yixin (the leading prince) was qualified to negotiate. Thus, Li was sent to Japan.
The Treaty of Shimonoseki and the Cession of Taiwan
As part of the negotiations, Japan demanded that China cede several pieces of territory to Japan. China should also recognize Korea’s dependence on Japan and pay war reparations. Li Hongzhang was given the right to decide whether to agree to these terms.53 The Emperor and high ministers discussed giving up land, though they did not agree.54 They sent word to Qing’s de facto paramount leader, Cixi; however, they received no reply. Li was left to decide by himself.55 In March, 1895, the Chinese and Japanese delegates met in Shimonoseki. The Japanese said that their conditions included, 1) Japan’s occupation of Dagu, Tianjin, and Shanhaiguan; 2) Japan’s management of the railroad connecting Tianjin and Shanhaiguan; and 3) China’s commitment to pay all war expenses during the truce. Li argued that the Japanese were too greedy and decided not to go through with the negotiations. Unexpectedly, a ronin (i.e., an impoverished Japanese samurai) attempted to assassinate Li, which resulted in him being seriously wounded. The global media was in an uproar. Worrying about foreign powers intervening, the Japanese government approved a 21-day truce. However, the truce was not applicable to Taiwan and Penghu 澎 湖. In the beginning of April, Japan told Li, who was still injured, that peace was based on the fulfillment of China’s recognition of Japan’s full control of Korea; the cession of Taiwan, Penghu, and Liaodong Peninsula to Japan; and China’s payment of reparations of 200,000,000 taels of silver to Japan. Li wrote a long letter, attempting to persuade Japan to change its demands. However, he was unsuccessful and the Japanese repeatedly threatened to attack Beijing. On April 10, Japan issued an ultimatum to Li, demanding an answer to its demands. Li sent a telegram to Emperor Guangxu, telling him that he could not do anything about the situation. Seven days later, Li signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki giving Japan what it desired, land, money,56 and various privileges in China.
Japan had long since decided to take Taiwan from China. The Prime Minister, Ito Hirobumi, wanted Japan to occupy Taiwan by force and then compel China to cede it to Japan. He even prepared a detailed program whereby Japan would capture Weihai and destroy Qing’s Northern Fleet, while sending troops to Taiwan.57 The Japanese media went crazy, wanting China to permanently cede Taiwan to Japan. Fuzuzawa Yukichi, the father of Japan’s modern education system, said that Japan should annex the whole of northeast China and turn Lüshun into east Asia’s Gibraltar. They should make Dalian into China’s northern Hong Kong, occupy Shandong and Taiwan, and demand billions of silver dollars in compensation.58 Before the peace talks, Japan had already decided to seize Taiwan. During negotiations, Ito Hirobumi kept quiet about the Japanese troops advancing on Taiwan. Li Hongzhang however, said that Taiwanese residents would never bow to the Japanese invaders.59 The Japanese Prime Minister responded by saying that his government and, in particular, his army would be able to handle the situation.60
By coercing China into signing the Treaty of Shimonoseki, Japan inflicted much humiliation on China. Chinese society was taken aback and many called for Li Hongzhang, who signed this treaty, to be executed. Li returned to Tianjin, saying his life had been ruined.61 Emperor Guangxu was close to approving the treaty and a large number of members of the royal house, high governors, and imperial officials wrote memoranda to the throne in an attempt to stop him.62 Five imperial officials, all of whom were from Taiwan, issued a joint statement, expressing their strongest condemnation of the treaty, saying that Taiwanese residents would rather die rather than submit to the Japanese.63 They became known as the Five Righteous Men of Taiwan.64 Chinese media, such as Shanghai News (Shun Pao申报), also published a series of editorials denouncing the treaty. Kang Youwei 康有为 (1858–1927), who was later the architect of the 1898 Hundred Days’ Reform, mobilized 1,300 Examination candidates to protest against the treaty, and also recommended that Qing stop ceding territory, relocate its capital, and fight to the last.
Qiu Fengjia 丘逢甲 asked Tang Jingsong 唐景崧, then Qing’s Taiwan governor, to tell the throne, on behalf of Taiwan’s residents, that they would fight the Japanese invaders to the end. Qiu and others sincerely hoped that Tang would stay in Taiwan and lead the resistance to Japan. The Treaty of Shimonoseki came into effect on May 8, 1895. Taiwan decided to save itself by founding a government that was independent of the rising colonial Japanese empire; at same time, they remained loyal to Qing.65 17 days later, the People’s Republic of Taiwan (台湾民主国, PRT) was founded and called Yongqing 永清 (literally, perpetually loyal to Qing). Tang was chosen as the president; Liu Yongfu, the war hero of the Sino-French War, was the commander-in-chief; and Qiu was the leader of the militias. This new government expressed their loyalty to Emperor Guangxu. Considering, the fact that Taiwan would soon be colonized by the Japanese, the founding of PRT was a valiant effort to defend Taiwan and China’s national sovereignty. In this sense, PRT could be regarded as the starting point for modern China’s resistance to Japanese aggression. On June 2, Taiwan was formally handed over to Kabayama Sukenori 桦山资纪, the first Japanese governor of Taiwan. Taiwan continued to be one of Japan’s colonies until 1945. Japan sent its elite troops, the Konoe Shidan (the Imperial Guard), to suppress popular resistance.
This troop was divided into two groups. One was headed by the governor and the other by one of the princes.66 Soon the Japanese captured Taibei (Taipei), where the new colonial master of Taiwan received his inauguration.
With the exception of Liu Yongfu, many leaders of the resistance, such as Tang Jingsong and Qiu Fengjia, left Taiwan. The local militias constituted the main force fighting against the Japanese army. Wu Tangxing 吴汤兴, Jiang Shaozu 姜绍祖, and Xu Xiang 徐骧 (1858–1895) were the best-known fighters. Liu Yongfu was hailed as the leader of resistance. At that time, there were 26,000 or so fighters against Japan in Tainan 台 南.67 Japan took more than fifty days to take Xinzhu, a key city in northwestern Taiwan. Liu’s Seven-Star Corps, renowned for its combat effectiveness, ambushed the Japanese army when they were crossing a river and inflicted heavy casualties. The fiercest battle took place at Baguashan, Zhanghua 彰化, where the army fought hand to hand with the enemy. Finally, one of the Japanese generals was hacked to death and all the soldiers of the Seven-Star Corps died in battle. Xu Xiang fought his way out and retreated to Tainan. Liu brought in a huge number of troops to retake Zhanghua; however, because of lack of armaments, his plan failed. By the end of September, the number of Japanese troops increased to more than 40,000. In early October, Liu’s troops almost ran out of ammunition and food. Despite these privations, they fearlessly defended Jiayi 嘉义 and Tainan. During a battle, Liu’s troops annihilated more than 700 hundred of the enemy and seriously wounded a Japanese prince, who died soon afterwards. In defence of Tainan, Xu Xiang led troops composed mainly of the Gaoshan people. More than 20,000 soldiers all fought to the death against the Japanese army. Xu was the most experienced fighter against the Japanese and vowed to fight to the death for the land.68 Fulfilling his vow, Xu died a glorious death in Xinzhu. Japan spent half a year taking over Taiwan with a huge army of more than 50,000 men, including the elite Imperial Guard, 26,000 servants, and most of its warships. More than 10,841 Japanese lost their lives, four times the casualties of the nine-month war prior to the Treaty of Shimonoseki.
Japan brutally repressed the people of Taiwan and imposed colonial rule on them. The laws promulgated by the Japanese government allowed the governor of Taiwan to act as a tyrant. He was given a monopoly over the military, legislative, administrative, and judicial powers. In November, a draconian law was enacted, whereby the ruler could imprison and execute whoever resisted the colonial authorities. According to statistics, in four years, more than 11,900 Taiwanese were brutally executed by this regime.69 In 1911, Liang Qichao (1873–1929), visited Taiwan, still under Japanese colonial rule, and concluded that there was all was void but the god-like Sotoku (governor).70
Taiwan under Japanese rule was no more than a police state. Within a period of two months—September and October, 1895—795 Japanese police officers were sent to Taiwan and installed at all levels71 (see table below).72
| Number of Police Agencies | Number of Police Officers | Number of Patrolling Inspectors | |
| 1896 | 17 Police Departments 31 Sub-Departments 15 Police Stations | \ | \ |
| 1899 | \ | 228 | 4,061 |
| 1901 | \ | 173 296 alternate officers | 3,469 1,734 alternate inspectors |
Japan installed not only rigid laws put also sought to control the Taiwanese people’s thoughts. For the people, there was no distinction between the government and the police.73
It is generally believed that the Treaty of Shimonoseki marked China’s degeneration into a semi-feudal and semi-colonial society. Before the outbreak of the First Sino-Japanese War, the Western powers could not tell who would emerge the winner. China’s extremely poor performance in the war demonstrated its weakness and its proud status in Asia was gone forever. The rising Japanese empire overshadowed all others in Asia; however, it presented difficulties for the colonialists’ partition of China. A spokesperson of the Western colonialists said China was merely the “sick man of the Far East,”74 and on his deathbed, even openly discussing how to carve up China and grab its riches.75 The competition between the imperial powers for China lay at the core of Far Eastern internal relations and largely meant that China would not get the chance to rise again.
1 See: Chapter 71 of Chouban yiwu shimo: Xianfeng chao 筹办夷务始末 (咸丰朝) (The management of foreign affairs in its entirety: The Reign of Emperor Xianfeng), 18; Chapter 4 of Xianfeng chao chouban yiwu shimo buyi 咸丰朝筹办夷务始末补遗 (A supplement to Chouban yiwu shimo: Xianfeng chao), Part One, p. 680.
2 See: Chapter 71 of Chouban yiwu shimo: Xianfeng chao, p. 28.
3 See: Liu Danian, Zhongguo jindaishigao, p. 117.
4 See: Vol. 7 of Zeng Guofan quanji, pp. 84–85.
5 Zhao Erxun 赵 尔 巽 et al., Qing shi gao 清 史 稿 [A draft history of Qing] (Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1977), vol. 38, pp. 11686–11687.
6 See: Vol. 3 of Taiping Tianguo shiliao congbian jianji 太平天国史料丛编简辑 [Selected primary sources in relation to Taiping Tianguo] (Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1962), p. 411.
7 See: Vol. 3 of Zeng Guofan quanji, p. 186.
8 See: Gu Tinglong 顾 廷 龙 and Dai Yi 戴 逸 eds., Li Hongzhang quanji [Complete works of Li Hongzhang] (Hefei: Anhui Educational Publishing House, 2007), vol. 29, p. 218.
9 See: Chapter 25 of Chouban yiwu shibo: Tongzhi Chao (The management of foreign affairs in its entirety: The Reign of Emperor Tongzhi), pp. 1–2.
10 See: Vol. 10 of Qing Guangxu chao Zhong Ri jiaoshe shiliao 清光绪朝中日交涉史料 [Primary sources in relation to the Sino-Japanese relations in the reign of Emperor Guangxu] (Beijing: The Palace Museum, 1932), p. 2.
11 Wang Tao 王韬, Taoyuan wenlu waibian 弢园文录外编 [Supplement to Collected Works of Wang Tao] (Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1959), p. 22, p. 23.
12 See: Zhongguo shixue hui, Wuxu bianfa 戊戌变法 [Hundred Days’ Reform] (Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 1957), vol. 1, p. 40.
13 See: Ma Jianzhong 马建忠, Shike zhai jiyan 适可斋记言 [Writings in the Appropriateness Pavilion] (Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1960), p. 9.
14 See: Feng Guifen 冯桂芬 and Ma Jianzhong, Cai xixue yi—Feng Guifen Ma Jianzhong ji 采西学议——冯桂芬马建忠集 [On learning from the West: Selected writings of Feng Guifen and Ma Jianzhong] (Shenyang: Liaoning People’s Publishing House, 1994), p. 47.
15 See: Zhongguo shixue hui, Yangwu yundong 洋 务 运 动 [The Self-Strengthening Movement] (Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 1961), vol. 1, p. 504.
16 Xue Fucheng 薛福成, Xu Fucheng xuanji 薛福成选集 [Selected writings of Xue Fucheng] (Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 1987), p. 22.
17 See: Cai xixue yi—Feng Guifen Ma Jianzhong ji, p. 84.
18 Ibid., p. 125, p. 134.
19 Ma Jianzhong, Shike zhai jiyan, p. 77, p. 79.
20 See: Zhao Jing 赵婧 and Yi Menghong 易梦虹, eds., Zhongguo jindai jingji six-iang ziliao xuanji 中国近代经济思想资料选辑 [Economic thoughts in the modern China: A selection] (Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1982), vol. 2, p. 84.
21 See: Wang Tao, Taoyuan wenlu waibian, p. 301, p. 22.
22 Ma Jianzhong, Shike zhai jiyan, p. 31.
23 See: Xinjiang tuzhi 新疆图志 (An illustrated annals of Xinjiang), Chapter 54, the 2nd part of Jiaoshe 交涉 (Foreign relations), p. 2.
24 Zhang Haipeng and Li Guoqiang 李国强, “Lun Maguan tiaoyue yu Diaoyudao wenti 论《马关条约》与钓鱼岛问题” (The Treaty of Shimonoseki and the Diaoyudao Issue), Renmin ribao 人民日报 (The People’s Daily), 8 May, 2013, p. 9.
25 See: Zhang Zhiyong 张志勇, Hede yu wan Qing Zhong Ying guanxi 赫德与晚清中英关系 [Rober Hart and Sino-Britain relations in the late Qing] (Shanghai: Shanghai Bookstore Publishing House, 2012), p. 76.
26 Ibid., p. 51.
27 For Li Hongzhang’s argument, see: Vol. 33 of Li Hongzhang quanji, p. 228.
28 See: Vol. 3 of Qing ji waijiao shiliao 清季外交史料 [Primary resources in relation to the late Qing’s foreign policies] (Changsha: Hunan Normal University Press, 2015), p. 809.
29 Ibid., vol. 45, p. 14.
30 “Shelun: Lun Zhongguo muxia qingxing weiyou yizhan 社论: 论中国目下情形惟有一 战” (China has no alternative but to fight under such circumstances), Shun Pao 申 报 (Shen Pao, or Shanghai News), 17 July, 1884.
31 See: “Sir H. Parkes to Vice-Admiral Sir W. Dowell,” in Correspondence Respecting the State of Affairs in China, p. 38.
32 Liu Danian, Zhongguo jindaishigao, p. 351.
33 Wang Lixin 王 立 新, Meiguo chuanjiaoshi yu wan Qing Zhongguo xiandaihua 美 国传教士与晚清中国现代化 [American missionaries and the late Qing’s pursuit of modernity] (Tianjin: Tianjin People’s Publishing House, 1997), p. 18.
34 Gu Changsheng 顾长声, Chuanjiaoshi yu jindai Zhongguo 传教士与近代中国 [Missionaries and the modern China] (Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 1981), p. 118.
35 Qi Qizhang 戚其章 and Wang Ruhui 王如绘, Wan Qing jiao’an jishi 晚清教案纪事 [Annals of incidents involving the Christian missionaries] (Beijing: The Oriental Press, 1990), p. 109.
36 For this letter, see: Vol. 5 of Qing mo jiao’an 清 末 教 案 [Incidents involving the Christian missionaries in the late Qing] (Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 2000), p. 31.
37 See: Vol. 11 of Zeng Guofan quanji, p. 509.
38 See: Ibid., vol. 12, p. 83; vol, p. 31, p. 405.
39 See: Chapter 79 of Chouban yiwu shimo: Tongzhi chao, p. 3198.
40 For the statistics, see: Fan Baichuan 樊百川, Qing ji de yangwu xinzheng 清季的洋务 新 政 [The Self-Strengthening Movement in the late Qing] (Shanghai: Shanghai Bookstore Publishing House, 2003), p. 22.
41 Ibid.
42 See: Zhang Haipeng, “Shijiu shiji Zhong Ri liangguo zaoqi xiandaihua bijiao yanjiu 19世纪中日两国早期现代化比较研究” (Tentatively pursuing modernity in nineteenth-century China and Japan: A comparative reexamination), in Zhang Haipeng, Zhongguo jindai-shi jiben wenti yanjiu 中国近代史基本问题研究 [Basic questions with respect to modern Chinese history] (Beijing: China Social Sciences Press, 2013), p. 355.
43 For a more detailed discussion about Yoshida Shoin and Fukuzawa Yukichi, see: Mizuno Akira 水野明, “Riben qinlue Zhongguo sixiang de yanzheng 日本侵略中国思想的验 证” (An investigation of Japan’s conceptions of invading China), Kang Ri zhanzheng yan-jiu 抗日战争研究 (Journal of China’s Resistance Against Japan), no. 1 (1995), pp. 195–204.
44 See: Ogawa Mataji 小川又次, Qing guo zhengtao fanglüe 清国征讨方略 (The general plan of conquering China), ibid., pp. 207–218.
45 Kiyoshi Inoue 井上清, trans. Institute of History (Tianjin), Riben lishi 日本历史 [History of Japan] (Tianjin: Tianjin People’s Publishing House, 1974), vol. 3, p. 668. For the English translation of the Japanese Emperor’s words, see: Nihonggi 日 本 纪: Chronicles of Japan from the Earliest Times to A.D. 697, trans. William George Aston (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., Limited, 1896), p. 131.
46 See: Qi Qizhang ed., Zhongguo jindaishi ziliao congkan xubian: Zhong Ri zhanzheng 中国近代史资料丛刊续编: 中日战争 [A sequel to Primary Sources regarding the Modern Chinese History: The First Sino-Japanese War] (Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1993), vol. 6, p. 123, p. 132. It is based on two pieces of Munakata Kotaro’s diary. A full Chinese translation of this spy’s diary is now available; see: Munakata Kotaro 宗方小太郎, trans. Gan Huijie 甘慧洁, Zongfang Xiaotailang riji 宗方小太郎日记 [The Diary of Munakata Kotaro: 1887–1923] (Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 2017), vols, pp. 1–3.
47 For a detailed discussion of this embezzlement, see: Chen Xiansong 陈 先 松, “Xiujian Yihehuan nuoyong ‘haifang jingfei’ shiliao jiedu 修建颐和园挪用 ‘海防经费’ 史料解读” (Reexamining the primary sources regarding the embezzlement of naval funds for building the Summer Palace), in Zhang Haipeng et al., eds., Jiawu zhanzheng de bainian huigu—Jiawu zhanzheng 120 zhounian xueshu lunwen xuanbian 甲午战争的百年回顾—甲午战争120周年学术论文选编 [Rethinking the War: Symposium on the 120th Anniversary of the First Sino-Japanese War] (Beijing: China Social Sciences Press, 2014), p. 42.
48 Qi Qizhang, Jiawu zhanzheng shi 甲午战争史 [History of the First Sino-Japanese War] (Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 1990), pp. 126–127.
49 For a much more detailed description of this battle, see: Ibid., revised edition (Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 2005), pp. 116–144.
50 See: Vol. 25 of Li Hongzhang quanji, p. 103.
51 For the Lüshun Massacre, see: Guan Jie 关捷, “Ri jun Lüshun tusha yanjiu 日军旅顺屠 杀 研 究” (An investigation of the Lüshun Massacre perpetrated by the Japanese army), in Zhang Haipeng et al., eds., Di’er jie jin bainian Zhong Ri guanxishi guoji yantao hui lunwen ji 第二届近百年中日关系史国际研讨会论文集 [Symposium on the Sino-Japanese relations in the last century] (Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1995), pp. 3–10.
52 Mutsu Munemitsu 陆奥宗光, trans. Yi Sheshi 伊舍石, Jianjian lu 蹇蹇录 [Kenkenroku] (Beijing: The Commercial Press, 1963), p. 63.
53 For the appointment of Li Hongzhang, see: Zhongguo shixue hui and Shao Xunzheng 邵循正eds., Zhong Ri zhanzheng 中日战争 [The First Sino-Japanese War] (Shanghai: New Knowledge Press, 1956), vol. 3, p. 470.
54 See: Weng Tonghe 翁同龢, Weng Tonghe riji 翁同龢日记 [The diary of Weng Tonghe] (Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1997), vol. 5, p. 2782.
55 See: Vol. 16 of Li Hongzhang quanji, p. 31.
56 For the war indemnity, see: Qi Qizhang, Jiawu zhanzheng peikuan wenti kaoshi 甲午战争赔款问题考实” (A textual investigation of the war indemnity ensuing from the First Sino-Japanese War), in Jiawu zhanzheng de bainian huigu, p. 729; Jiang Liwen 蒋立文, “Jiawu zhanzheng peikuan shu’e wenti zai tantao 甲午战争赔款数额再探讨” (Reexamination of the amount of money paid by China to Japan as war reparations), ibid., pp. 730–754.
57 Shunpoko Tsuishokai 春亩公追颂会/Kaneko Kentaro 金子坚太郎 ed., Yiteng Bowen zhuan 伊藤博文传 [Ito Hirobumi den, or the life of Ito Hirobumi] (Tokyo: Shunpoko Tsuishokai 春亩公追颂会, 1940), pp. 136–137.
58 藤村道生 (Fujimura Michio), trans. Mi Qingyu 米庆余, Ri Qing zhanzheng日清战争 [Nisshin Senso, or The First Sino-Japanese War] (Shanghai: SH Translation Publishing House, 1981), pp. 133–134.
59 See: Dongxing sanlu东行三录 [Records of the journey to the east] (Shanghai: Shanghai Bookstore Publishing House, 1982), p. 245.
60 Ibid., p. 238, p. 245, pp. 252–253.
61 Wu Yong 吴永, Gengzi xishou congtan 庚子西狩丛谈 [Cixi’s 1900 trip to the West] (Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 2009), p. 120.
62 See: Mao Haijian 茅海建, “Gongche shangshu kaozheng bu yi ‘公车上书’考证补 (一)” (Supplement to the textual investigation of the 1895 Joint Petition Against the Treaty of Shimonoseki: Part One), Jindaishi yanjiu, no. 3 (2005), pp. 1–43.
63 For this joint statement, see: Vol. 10 of Qing Guangxu chao Zhong Ri jiaoshe shiliao, pp. 35–36.
64 See: Zhang Haipeng and Tao Wenzhao 陶文钊 eds., Taiwan shigao 台湾史稿 (A draft history of Taiwan) [Nanjing: Phoenix Publishing House, 2012], p. 159.
65 Huang Zhaotang 黄昭堂, Taiwan minzhu guo yanjiu 台湾民主国研究 [Exploring the history of the People’s Republic of Taiwan] (Taibei [Taipei]: Qianwei chubanshe, 2006), p. 61.
66 Qi Qizhang, Jiawu zhanzheng shi, p. 446.
67 Sanbo Honbu 参 谋 本 部 (General Staff Office of Imperial Japanese Army), trans Xu Peixian 许佩贤, Gongtai zhanji 攻台战纪 [Records of capturing Taiwan] (Taibei [Taipei]: Yuanlliu chubangongsi, 1995), p. 396.
68 Lü Shiqiang 吕 实 强, “Yiwei ge Tai qijian Taiwan shenmin suo biaoxian de minzu jingshen 乙未割台期间台湾绅民所表现的民族精神” (The national spirit embodied in the Taiwanese gentry and commoners’ resistance against in the 1895 cession of Taiwan to Japan), in Qi Qizhang and Wang Ruhui eds., Jiawu zhanzheng yu jindai Zhongguo he shi-jie 甲午战争与近代中国和世界 [The First Sino-Japanese War, modern China, and the world] (Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 1995), p. 716.
69 Institute of Modern Chinese History (CASS) ed., Riben qian Hua qishi nian 日本侵华 七 十 年 [A seven-decade crime: Japan’s aggression against China] (Beijing: China Social Sciences Press, 1992), p. 625.
70 See: Liang Qichao 梁启超, Yinbing shi heji 饮冰室合集 [Complete works of Liang Qichao] (Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1989), vol. 4, p. 200.
71 Li Li 李理, Ri ju shiqi Taiwan jinghcha zhidu yanjiu 日据时期台湾警察制度研究 (A study of the police system of Taiwan under the rule of Japan) [Nanjing: Phoenix Publishing House, 2013], p. 15.
72 For the numbers in the table, see: Ibid., p. 23, p. 34.
73 Chen Kongli 陈孔立ed., Taiwan lishi gangyao 台湾历史纲要 [Taiwan: An historical sketch] (Beijing: Kyushu Press, 1996), p. 340.
74 Valentine Chirol, The Far Eastern Question (London and New York: Macmillan, 1896), p. 66.
75 Ibid., pp. 150–151, p. 195.
4. Post-1895 China: Reform, Rebellion, and Revolution
Return of the Liao Dong Peninsula to China and the Imperialist Powers’ Rat Race in the Far East
The Treaty of Shimonoseki caused a political tsunami in the Far East. Russia and Germany, both of which were anxious to expand their power, together with France, formed an alliance to intervene in Japan’s annexation of China’s Liaodong Peninsula. This powerful alliance told Japan that it must immediately give up the Peninsula; otherwise, Japan would be faced with a coastal blockade. Six days after the signing of the Treaty, the Russian, German, and French ambassadors to Japan issued a formal memorandum to the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The top Russian diplomat said openly that Japan’s occupation of Liaodong not only posed a threat to China’s capital but also made Korea’s independence merely nominal. Worst of all, he concluded, Japan’s aggression seriously damaged peace in the Far East; it would be much better for Japan to show restraint.1 Germany and France took a similar position. While this was taking place, Russian warships in Japanese ports were preparing for war. The German and French navies also took action. It was also rumored that a Russian army of 50,000 men was marching south. Japanese troops began to feel very nervous. They knew very well that they stood no chance if confronted with three European powers. Thus, this rising empire decided to make concessions to the alliance while also taking a tough stance with China.2 Japan tried to win support from Britain and the United States. However, taking into consideration the fact that Japan’s expansion in the region would harm Anglo-American interests in the Far East, Britain and the United States suggested that Japan accept the demands, rejected Japan’s attempt at bargaining, and told Japan that it must give up all of Liaodong. Japan had no alternative but to agree. Finally, in November, 1895, Japan and China signed a treaty. According to this treaty, Japan would return Liaodong to China and China would pay 30,000,000 taels of silver as compensation. After this incident, the imperial powers intensified their efforts.
The Scramble for China
It was a newly capitalist Japan that was able to beat the Chinese empire in the nine-month-long First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895). The rising Japanese empire exposed China’s weakness by destroying their world-class Northern Fleet and crushing the Xiang and Huai armies, renowned for their modern equipment. The Treaty of Shimonoseki was far more unequal than all of the treaties imposed on China by the Western powers. Following the war, the imperialist countries poured into a weakened China, where they competed and colluded. Not only did the foreign powers rake in huge profits by exporting capital to China, but they also began to carve up China into several spheres of influence.
Germany, new to the imperial game, took a piece of coastal land. In November, 1897, German Christian missionaries began the capture of the strategic Jiaozhou Bay (in Shandong) by force. The following March, Qing’s government signed a treaty giving Germany a 99-year lease of the Bay. Afterwards, in December, 1897, Russian warships entered Lüshun and demanded that the ports be leased to them. Four months later, Russia successfully took possession of the port by forcing Qing to sign a lease agreement. It also coerced the Qing government to allow Russia to build railroads in northeast China, putting all of northeast China under its control. The following year, the Russian government renamed the leased territory Kvantunskaya oblast (关东州) and appointed a governor to supervise the region.
At this time, France was casting its eyes on southern Chinese provinces such as Yunnan, Guangdong, and Guangxi. In June, 1895, a special Sino-French treaty stipulated that Yunnan’s two border towns be administered by the colonial French government in Laos and that they be open to foreigners. Additionally, China would ask France for advice before mining and building railroads in Yunnan, Guangdong, and Guanxi. Two years later, France forced Qing’s government to promise that it would not allow any of the regions within China to be completely controlled by a single country. France’s own regions included the aforementioned three provinces as well as Hainan Island.
Although Japan had already occupied Taiwan, it tried to get more land under its control. In April, 1898, the Qing government pledged that Fujian, separated from Taiwan by only a strip of water, would be leased to any country except Japan.
At that time, the lion’s share of China was dominated by Britain. Not only were the British politically and economically influential in the entire Yangtze Valley but they also extended their tentacles into the south, southeast, and northeast of China. In February, 1897, Britain seized several pieces of land that originally belonged to China by forcing China to sign a treaty concerning the China-Myanmar border. One year later, under pressure from Britain, the Qing government had to recognize that the Yangtze Valley was exclusively under the control of Britain. After France declared that the Chinese provinces bordering Vietnam fell within their sphere of influence, the British government demanded that Qing promise that Yunnan and Guangdong would only be controlled by Britain. In June, 1898, Britain forced Qing to lease it more land and thus created Hong Kong’s New Territories (新界). They argued that Qing’s lease of Guangzhou Bay to France threatened the security of Hong Kong. The New Territories were eleven times the size of old Hong Kong, giving Britain much greater influence over the south of China. Britain went even further and leased Weihai (in Shandong) in the same year, arguing that it was necessary to counter Russia’s increasing influence in the northeast of China. According to this treaty, Britain had the right to build batteries and to station an army in certain parts of Weihai.
The conflicts over land in China continued. At the beginning of 1896, Britain and France reached an agreement that both would share Yunnan and Sichuan. In September, 1898, it was declared that Britain would control the Yangtze Valley and Germany would take Shandong. In April, 1899, Britain and Russia made a deal to build railroads in China. Russia would build a railroad north of the Great Wall and Britain’s would run through the Yangtze River Basin.
The United States, new to the imperialist consortium, became an active participant in the scramble for China. While in 1898, the Americans' attention was mostly on occupying the Philippines, after taking it from the Spanish, and so missed the opportunity to take land in China, they advocated for the Open Door Policy (ODP) at the end of the Spanish-American War. The ODP gave the United States an equal right to exploit China by creating a free, open Chinese market; in this way, their own immediate and long-term interests in China were protected. In this sense, the ODP was the pièce de résistance of the United States’ diplomatic endeavor.
After the First Sino-Japanese War, the imperialist powers exported a large amount of capital to China, which was dependent on the unequal treaties that the foreign powers imposed on it. Due to stipulations agreed upon regarding tariffs and extraterritoriality, the Qing government was not able to tax this foreign capital nor was it able to restrict the foreign powers in accordance with Chinese laws. Their capital helped the foreign powers reap huge profits from China and gave them more power to influence China and control the country. At that time, Qing, whose annual revenue was 80,000,000 taels of silver, was not able to pay the hundreds of millions of taels of sliver demanded by Japan in the Treaty of Shimonoseki. This gave an opportunity for the Western powers to lend Qing the money in exchange of more political concessions. For example, in May, 1895, Russia offered to lend China the money.3 They even founded a loan syndication system that consisted of six French and four Russian banks. Two months later, the Chinese ambassador was forced to sign a loan contract with the Russia-backed loan syndicate and borrow 400,000,000 francs (roughly equivalent to 99,000,000 taels of silver). According to the contract, “the bonds of the present loan will bear interest at 4% per annum upon the nominal principal” and “the loan will be amortized in 36 years” and secured upon the Chinese customs revenue.4 The Declaration stipulated:
In consideration of this loan the Chinese Government declares its resolution not to grant to any Foreign Power any right or privilege under any name whatsoever concerning the supervision or administration of any of the revenues of the Chinese Empire. But in case the Chinese Government should grant to any one Power rights of this character, it is understood that from the mere fact of their being so granted, they should be extended to the Russian Government.5
In December, the Tsar approved of the founding of the Russo-Chinese Bank, which was headed by the Russian Minister of Finance and funded mostly by French money. This bank was actually “a hybrid politico-financial institution which in reality was but a slightly disguised branch of the Russian treasury.”6 The Russo-Chinese Bank from the start was a powerful tool which Tsarist Russia could use to politically and economically invade China. After signing this loan contract, Russia and France were given the right to send people to supervise Qing’s Imperial Maritime Customs Service. This caused a conflict with Britain, which had dominated the Customs Service for decades.
In 1896, Qing began to raise money to make the second round of compensation payments demanded by Japan. Britain resolved to seize the right to lend China the money at any cost. Germany, which was dumped by Russia and France in the previous year, joined Britain. Britain’s HSBC and Germany’s Deutsch-Asiatische Bank won the right and lent China 16,000,000 pounds (97,600,000 taels of silver) against the security of China’s customs revenue. The Agreement stipulated that “the administration of the Imperial Maritime Customs of China shall continue as at present constituted, during the currency of this loan.”7 In other words, no changes would be allowed, with the British fully controlling China’s Customs Service. In 1898, there was cut-throat competition between the Russo-French and Anglo-German syndicates over the third round of loans. Finally, with the help of Robert Hart, then Inspector General of Qing’s Imperial Maritime Customs Service, the Anglo-German syndicate beat its Russo-French adversary and gave a new loan of another 16,000,000 pounds, to China. This loan was secured not only upon China’s customs revenue but also on the lijin (a special commercial tax) collected from rich regions such as Jiangsu and Zhejiang. By doing so, Britain and Germany tightened their control of Chinese finances.
Contractually, China could get 309,000,000 taels of silver from the above-mentioned three loans. However, they were only given 262,000,000. After paying war reparations to Japan, there was little left over. Adding in the loan interest, we find that China actually paid approximately 600,000,000 or 700,000,000 taels of silver for the First Sino-Japanese War. Japan and the European countries pocketed this money, something which had a great impact on the growth of the economies of Japan and Europe. Following this, Japan robbed China of a total of 350,000,000 yen, which amounted to four times Japan’s national revenue. Japan invested 70% of these funds. Even the Japanese Emperor himself craved for this pork barrel, grabbing 20,000,000 yen. China, however, was not able to promote its modernization programs because of a lack of funds. China had to pay interest on 20,000,000 taels of silver, the equivalent of the Customs’ annual revenue. China found itself caught in an international web of financial capital.
After the war, the Chinese government decided to build a railroad and develop a mining industry. The State Administration of Railroads and Mining was set up in August, 1898. However, as China was heavily dependent on foreign technology and capital, the foreign powers took the opportunity to export more capital to China. The investment in China’s railroad-building work became a focus of competition. For the foreign powers, extending their tentacles into China’s railroad-building programs was not only economically profitable but also politically advantageous, as it would allow them to expand their influence. The foreign powers also tried to exploit China’s burgeoning mining industry. The competition over the railroad and mining industries turned fierce and characterized foreign power exploits in China at this time.
In 1896, Li Hongzhang was invited to attend the coronation of Tsar Nicholas II. Li arrived in Petersburg, where he was treated warmly and entertained affably. In early May, the Tsar secretly granted an audience to Li in which they discussed the idea of building a railroad in China. One month later, Li and the Russian Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Finance signed a secret treaty, which stipulated that China would allow Russia to build a railroad in Jilin and Heilongjiang. The contract was to be drawn up collaboratively by the Chinese Ambassador to Russia and the Russo-Chinese Bank. Russian archives reveal that Li took a bribe of 2,000,000 rubles from the Russian Ministry of Finance.8 Soon thereafter Russia started building the Eastern Railway (中东铁路), which ran eastwards and connected Manzhouli, Harbin, and Sunfeihe. Apart from building the railroad, the Russians had the right to appoint police officers, to excavate coal, and to develop industries in areas along the railroad. Li hoped that the secret treaty with an expansionist Russia would ensure two decades of peace for China. This was, however, just a dream.
Russia, Germany, and France forced China to allow them to build the Eastern Railway (plus the branch known as the South Manchuria Railway [南满铁路]), the Qingdao-Ji’nan Railway (胶济铁路) and the Yunnan-Haiphong Railway (滇越铁路). In 1896, Qing planned to build a long railroad stretching from Beijing south to Wuhan at an estimated cost of 50,000,000 taels of silver. The Qing government did not have the funds for this ambitious plan; thus, it decided to borrow money from the foreign powers which would be secured by the railroad itself. Upon learning of this, companies in Britain, Germany, and the United States rushed to become involved.
However, as there was a lack of trust toward these three states, Qing finally picked a Belgian railroad company. However, the major stockholders in this Belgian company were actually from Russia and France, meaning that the construction and management rights of the railroad fell right into the hands of the Russo-French bloc. This provoked a strong reaction from London, on the grounds that the railroad would extend southwards toward the Yangtze Valley, Britain’s traditional sphere of influence in China. Wanting to stop Russia’s expansion into the south, Britain forced Qing to borrow the money from Britain to build the railroad connecting Shanhaiguan and Niuzhuang (present-day Yingkou, Liaoning), while at the same time demanding that Qing propose another five railroads in the north, center, southeast and south of China. Fearing that Britain’s ambitious plan would harm their territory, Shandong, Germany stood up against the leading European power’s expansion. Qing could not afford to offend any powers and finally awarded the Tianjin-Zhenjiang Railway (津镇铁路) to Britain and Germany; the other four railroads were awarded to Britain alone. Britain and German reached an agreement over the Tianjin-Zhenjiang Railway. The railroad stretching from Tianjin to southern Shandong was built by Germany; the remaining part, extending down to Zhenjiang, was built by Britain. After the completion of the construction work, both Britain and Germany would jointly manage the railroad. Envious of the gains made by Britain and Germany, the United States refused to be pushed aside and forced Qing to sign a contract to build the Guangzhou-Hankou Railway (粤汉铁路). According to statistics, by 1914, foreign powers had coerced Qing into signing 59 railroad contracts that proposed a huge railway network of roughly 30,000 km extending through almost all of China.
The foreign powers were also in a mad rush to exploit China’s mineral resources. Russia, Germany, and France all seized the opportunity to open mines along the railroads they were building. In 1896, the United States signed contracts with the Qing government, obtaining a permit to mine in Beijing, Shanxi, Sichuan, and Hebei. Britain had a mining monopoly in five prefectures in Shanxi, as well as being allowed to mine in all of Sichuan and parts of Henan. In Xinjiang, the Russians controlled the gold mines. France mined iron ore and gold in Sichuan. By 1912, Qing was forced to sign 42 mining contracts and agreements resulting in the mining industry expanding throughout the country.
The SSM’s three-decade endeavor to modernize China was a total failure, one which could best be represented by the First Sino-Japanese War. The Chinese had to rethink their country’s fate and future.
China’s Sprouting National Capitalism
China’s failure in the First Sino-Japanese War and the ensuing scramble for China, physically and spiritually, both hurt and stimulated the Chinese. Suffering humiliation at the hands the colonizers, many Chinese suddenly realized that national subjugation might be imminent and China must find a way out. The politicians were the first to attempt to economically rehabilitate the country.
One part of the Treaty of Shimonoseki demanded, for the first time, that the Japanese be allowed to run industry and commerce in China’s treaty ports. This could be applied to all powers in accordance with the most-favored-nation clause. It meant that foreign countries could illicitly set up factories in China. Three days after signing the Treaty of Shimonoseki, the Emperor Guangxu told his ministers that, from then on, they should stand together and work hard to make the country economically prosperous and militarily powerful.9 Many high ministers enthusiastically discussed this issue and generally agreed that the fundamental reason for China’s failure in the war was the nation’s accumulated poverty and weakness. Some even criticized the SSM promoters’ inability to develop the Chinese economy. One pointed out that the government intervened excessively in economic affairs10 while another governor said that there was a lack of protection for businesses.11 By then, China was in a deep financial crisis. Despite its hard work, Qing failed to substantially rehabilitate the national economy. As a result, the imperial court decided to abandon the conventional practice, wherein the state played a leading role in the nation’s economy, and instead encouraged private business.
In 1896, the Qing government set up the State Administration of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce (SAAIC) and its provincial branches. In regards to the railroad-building project, the government allowed wealthy merchants to found their own railroad company and promised that the state would not interfere in their business. Private mining companies were also supported and protected by the government. As a consequence, the first modern private commercial and industrial enterprises were founded nationwide. Some of them were well-known (see table below).
| Enterprises | Founder(s) |
| The Nantong-based Dasheng Cotton Mill (大生纱厂) | Zhang Jian 张謇, a zhuangyuan (the candidate ranking first in the highest Examination). |
| The Yantai-based Zhangyu (张裕) Winery | Zhang Bishi 张弼士 (Cheong Fatt Tze), an overseas Chinese living in Southeast Asia. |
| The Hangzhou-based Heyihe Silk Mill (合义和丝厂) | Lou Jinghui 楼景晖, a merchant. |
| The Shanghai-based The Commercial Press (商务印书馆) | Xia Ruifang 夏瑞芳, a businessman |
| The Shanghai-based Yuanchang Rice Mill (源昌碾米厂) | Zhu Dachun 祝大椿, an entrepreneur |
| The Changsha-based Hefeng Match Factory (和丰火柴厂) | Wang Xianqian 王先谦, a scholar-official |
In 1897, Qing’s Ministry of Revenue founded China’s first commercial bank, the Imperial Bank of China (中国通商银行), which was fully modeled on established foreign banks. The Qing government promised that they would not interfere in the bank’s affairs. Qing also reorganized SSM enterprises that were performing poorly and had them exclusively managed by businessmen. The Hubei Iron Mill was an example of this reform. As a result of Qing’s rehabilitation endeavors, Chinese capitalism began to emerge after the end of the First Sino-Japanese War.
In five decades (1858–1911), China founded 953 civil industrial enterprises, each of which had starting capital of at least 10,000 silver dollars. The total capital of these enterprises was more than 200,000,000 silver dollars.12 Among these enterprises, 650 were founded in the first decade of the twentieth century and their total generated capital amounted to 140,000,000 silver dollars. In Qing’s last decade, the dynasty witnessed a new surge in modern industry and played the predominant role in China’s economic growth. Industries devoted to cotton, silk, flour, match, hydroelectricity, and mining developed rapidly. The first decade of the twentieth century can serve as an example (see table below).
| Industries | Numbers | Total capital (in silver dollars) | Compared to that of the last six decades (1840–1900) |
| Textiles | 82 | 13,321,000 | 3 times the number of factories, slightly more than 3 the capital, |
| Silk | 70 | 5,569,000 | 50% of the number, 50% of the capital |
| Flour | 53 | 7,868,000 | 5 times the number, 7 times the capital |
| Match | 28 | 1,300,000 | 3 times the number, 3 times the capital |
| Hydroelectricity | 60 | 38,138,000 | 50 times the number, 381 times the capital |
| Machinery | 20 | 3,521,000 | 2 times the number, 10 times the capital |
| Mining | 73 | 22,729,000 | A slight increase in the number, a slight decrease in the capital |
The growth of the railroad and shipping industries is also worth mentioning. In the first four years of the twentieth century, 16 railroad companies were set up. By 1911, these companies generated about 60,000,000 silver dollars, which accounted for 30% of the estimated total funds. The companies that built railroads in Guangdong, Sichuan, and Zhejiang were the most prosperous and built, in total, 422 km of railroad in China.13 As regards the shipping industry, in the previous four decades, 74 steamship companies were founded that together held a worth of 2,739,000 silver dollars. In the following decade (1901–1911), another 138 companies with a total capital of 14,507,000 silver dollars were set up in China.14 Customs statistics indicate that the total number and tonnage of Chinese steamships increased from 517 and 18,215 in 1900 to 901 and 901,169 in 1911.15 China’s national shipping industry continued to grow and, although Chinese shipping companies could not be placed on a par with their Western counterparts, they developed rapidly.
As a result, domestic trade in the 1890s witnessed a 63.9% increase in comparison to that of the previous decade. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the rate of increase was more than 70% each decade.16 The number of Chinese treaty ports also grew to 82 in the same period.17 Gradually these ports grew into commercial centers, including Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hankou, Tianjin, and Dalian. In a period of three years (1909–1911), these five ports accounted for 67.7% of China’s foreign trade. Shanghai alone made up 44.2% of China’s foreign trade.18 Shanghai was undoubtedly the most vibrant commercial hub in China.
Some researchers have concluded that as early as 1911 the industries run by merchants had already played a leading role in China’s burgeoning capitalism. At that time, Chinese capitalism was marked by several features. Light industry accounted for 43.2% of the total capital, with textile, flour, and food industries making up 57.7%. In contrast, mining industries were weak, and machinery and shipping industries lagged far behind despite their rapid growth. Chinese capitalist enterprises were too small. Their average capital was merely 229,000 silver dollars. Of the 896 Chinese capitalist enterprises, almost one-fifth, 18.9%, of them were registered in Shanghai.19
The Chinese bourgeoisie emerged with Chinese capitalism. It is estimated that, before 1911, China’s capitalist class amounted to 60,000–100,000 people. More than 90% of them belonged to the national bourgeoisie, 7% were the comprador bourgeoisie, and a tiny minority were the bureaucratic bourgeoisie. 86% of capitalists worked in commerce, 8% in finance, and 6% in industry. Taking the amount of capital into consideration, the overwhelming majority of Chinese capitalists were actually petty bourgeois and only a very small number amassed great wealth.20 In 1903, Qing’s government implemented a law regulating the founding of the chambers of commerce (CC) nationwide. Shanghai took the lead in setting up CC, followed by Tianjin and Suzhou. Eight years later, there were 835 CC throughout China. The CC were the organizational embodiment of the capitalist class and contributed greatly to the socio-organizational integration of the bourgeoisie of every hue. Most importantly, the CC gave the capitalist class the ability to fulfill their desire for political participation. In this sense, the founding of the CC nationwide demonstrated that the Chinese bourgeoisie already had its own class consciousness.
The emergence of a capitalist class and its acquisition of class consciousness meant that Chinese society could be substantially rehabilitated. Nevertheless, it must be pointed out that due to the predominance of the petty bourgeoisie, this new social class was not very powerful.
As a consequence, the Chinese bourgeoisie was weak politically, something that could be seen in the performance of the political agents of China’s capitalist class. Chinese society could therefore not be fundamentally revived by the Chinese bourgeoisie alone, as demonstrated by the 1898 Hundred Days’ Reform and the 1911 Revolution.
Sun Yat-sen and Early Revolutionaries
The Chinese bourgeoisie historically took the stage in the wake of the initial development of China’s national capitalism. The emergence of the Chinese bourgeoisie and national crisis went together. The Chinese bourgeoisie were economically unstable; however, they were intellectually advanced in comparison with the established social classes in China. The bourgeoisie endeavored to reform and revolutionize the system. Two groups emerged at this time, the reformists and the revolutionaries. The leading figure among the revolutionaries was none other than Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925).21
Born into a poor peasant family in Xiangshan (present-day Zhongshan, Guangdong), Sun left home when he was 13 years old to live with his elder brother, a farmer in Hawaii. Sun was educated in an English-language school and living overseas broadened his horizons and inspired him to rebuild China in light of the Western model.22 Later, Sun studied medicine in Hong Kong and obtained a Master’s degree in 1892. Sun, young and well-educated, then became a doctor working in Macao and Guangzhou. In 1894, driven by his strong feelings of patriotism, Sun wrote a letter to Li Hongzhang, the leading minister of Qing’s central government, recommending that China carry out more fundamental reforms. He also critically pointed out that the SSM failed in its point.23 His letter was ignored, and Sun concluded that the Qing dynasty was too corrupt to be rebuilt, and that the country could only be revived by revolution.
Sun tried to mobilize the Chinese living in Hawaii to fight against the Japanese empire. Sun found comrades in Honolulu and, on November 24, 1894, they together founded a small revolutionary group, composed of more than 20 members, known as the Reviving China Society (兴中会). Sun prepared the Society’s Constitution, wherein he proposed a draft of two of his Three People’s Principles, nationalism and democracy.24 Sun and his party resolved to remold China entirely by overthrowing the Qing dynasty. They took steps to raise money in Hawaii, Hong Kong, and Guangdong, and enthusiastically prepared for armed rebellion. The Society had its headquarters in Hong Kong. They planned to capture Guangzhou by force and then use Guangdong as the base for a northern expedition to fight against Qing. In October, 1895, the Society’s weapons were seized and key members were arrested by the Qing army. Some of the founding members of the Society were executed. Sun fled to Japan, where he won the support of the Chinese community living there, and set up the Society’s Yokohama branch, still determined to follow a Western model.
In 1896, Sun went to the United States and Britain, where he spoke about his revolutionary ideas. Officers of Qing’s embassy in London arrested Sun and detained him in the embassy. Finally, with the help of Sun’s British supervisor, the British Foreign Office called for the release of Sun and he was freed.25 Later, Sun published Kidnapped in London in English, which led to Sun as a revolutionary becoming known worldwide. Sun lived in London for roughly one year and intensively read about Western politics and economy, trying his best to find out how European society worked. In doing so, he created sanmin zhuyi, or the Three People’s Principles: nationalism, democracy and (economic) egalitarianism. In 1900, he launched a second armed uprising against Qing. Unfortunately, this rebellion also failed, with one of their leaders dying in the fighting.26 Sun became famous for his rebellions against Qing. Some even called Sun the pole star of the revolutionaries.27 He focused much of his revolutionary zeal around his ideological beliefs28 and became a popular revolutionary leader who awakened the masses. A great social revolution was soon to dawn.
The Abortive 1898 Hundred Days’ Reform
Qing’s failure in the First Sino-Japanese War shocked Chinese intellectuals. Upon hearing the news, Tan Sitong 谭嗣同 (1865–1898), who later died a martyr’s death in the 1898 reform, wrote a poem expressing the Chinese’s pain and hate: “the four hundred million Chinese people are all crying, at a complete loss to what lies ahead for their beloved country.”29 When a small number of revolutionaries, led by Sun Yat-sen, were attempting to overthrow the Qing dynasty, the new Chinese bourgeoisie preferred to rebuild China by means of political reform. The leading reformists were Kang Youwei 康有为 (1858–1927) and Liang Qichao 梁启超 (1873–1929).
Kang came from a bureaucratic family in Nanhai, Guangdong. He had immersed himself in the Confucian classics and ancient texts; however, he gradually realized that traditional Chinese scholarship was not conducive to rebuilding China. Kang visited Hong Kong and Shanghai, where he was greatly impressed by the Western style of social administration.30 He decided to study Western books in order to expose himself to new kinds of knowledge.31 Being deeply disappointed at Qing’s poor performance in the Sino-French War, Kang severely criticized the imperial court in a letter he wrote to the throne and recommended that the emperor rebuild China through strong reforms.32 However, Kang’s letter was too bold to be accepted by the central government. Kang then decided to spend his time discussing the new and old Confucian classics with a scholar. He favored jinwen jingxue (traditional scholarship based on the old-text Confucian classics) because it focused on exploring the meaning and practical dimensions of the traditional Confucian texts. Kang attempted to creatively use jinwen jingxue to attack well-established doctrines.
Kang created his own academic system in which he could justify his theories and ideas of political reform. The Kang-style Confucian scholarship was centered around santong (three intellectual orthodoxies) and sanshi (three historical periods). According to the theory of santong, each dynasty had a specific tong (orthodoxy) which was bestowed by Heaven. When the old dynasty acted against the will of Heaven, there would be a new tong. Whenever a new dynasty acquired Tianming (the mandate of Heaven), the old orthodoxy would be replaced with a new one; and a new set of basic institutions would be created. In ancient times, the Xia dynasty (2100–1600 BC) had the black tong; Shang (1600–1100 BC) had the white tong; and Zhou (1100 BC–221 AD) had the red tong. Institutional changes took place in accordance with the changes of tong in each dynasty. History was by no means static and consisted of the constant alternations of santong (the black, white, and red orthodoxies). Kang made key concepts such as mutability and adaptability more prominent within this theory. This laid the theoretical foundations for the 1898 Hundred Days’ Reform (hereinafter referred to as the 1898 Reform). Corresponding to santong, Kang separated history into three phases, juluan (the period of chaos), shengping (the period of peace) and taiping (the period of Great Peace) in light of Master Gongyang’s Commentary on Spring and Autumn Annals (春秋公羊传). Kang was revolutionizing Confucianism by inserting his ideas into the traditional theory. He created a political roadmap in which absolute monarchy would be replaced by a system of shared governance between sovereigns, then shared governance in a complete democracy, arguing that Confucius had made a similar attempt in antiquity.33 Simply put, Kang proposed a political evolution of successive alternations of centralized politics, constitutional monarchy, and a republic. He went further, pointing out that because Confucius was not able to fulfill his grand political ideal, China should aspire to share governance and at the same time lay the foundation for the period of Great Peace. In doing so, Kang prepared the theory and blueprint for the 1898 Reform.
Kang firmly believed that his theory was the purest embodiment of the most genuine Confucian Way. He argued that jinwen jingxue was the orthodox Confucian teaching and guwen jingxue (traditional scholarship based on the old-text Confucian classics) was false and had been forged by politicians and scholars of the Han dynasty (202 BC–8 AD). In addition, he portrayed Confucius as a great reformer, who pioneered key political concepts such as democracy, equality, and civil rights.34 Kang himself was, undoubtedly, a loyal follower of Confucius. Kang’s Great Peace was an assemblage of beautiful Sino-Western social ideals, one entirely freed from the limits brought about by conventional marriage, family, state, nation, ownership, and politics. Kang secretly wrote a book, The Grandest Human Society (人类公理), depicting his dream society. In order to spread his theories, in 1891, Kang set up a school, The Thatched Cottage in the Woods (万木草堂), in Guangzhou. Many of the young people studying in this school later became Kang’s right-hand men. Liang Qichao was Kang’s most brilliant student. Liang was from an ordinary peasant family in Xinhui, Guangdong; at just 17 years of age, he passed the Examination at the provincial level. For this reason, Liang was hailed as a wunderkind.
Kang and his students discussed Chinese and foreign governance in the hope that they could find a solution to the crises plaguing China. Kang produced two well-known books, A Critical Reexamination of the Forgery Involving the New-Text Confucian Classics (新学伪经考, hereinafter referred to as the Reexamination) and An Inquiry into the Institutional Reforms Led by Confucius (孔子改制考, hereinafter referred to as the Inquiry). These two monographs articulated Kang’s reformist ideas and programs, which included his denial of the orthodoxy of Qing’s Confucianism. The true value of Kang’s Reexamination did not lie in its academic contribution but in providing the historical and philosophical justification for the 1898 Reform. It was for this reason that the Qing government banned the book as soon as it was published.
In April, 1895, Kang and his students arrived in Beijing, where they would take the highest Examination. When preparing for the Examination, they learned that the government was going to sign the Treaty of Shimonoseki. Angry at Qing’s stupidity and cowardice, Kang immediately started a petition and mobilized candidates from all over the country in the hopes that their efforts could prevent the government from signing and ratifying the treaty. They gathered together in front of an imperial agency, demanding that their petition be presented to the throne.35 More than 1,300 candidates from 18 provinces gathered at the former residence of a renowned official of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). Kang delivered an impassioned speech and prepared a written petition that would be submitted to the emperor, arguing that changes could only be accomplished by reform. However, the petition was rejected because the Treaty had already been stamped by the imperial government. This incident, which was historically known as Gongche shangshu (literally, the public vehicle petition), had historic significance. Not only did it contain reformist ideas but it was also the first modern, democratic public meeting in China. This had a deep influence on Chinese society. Qing’s government took no action to crack down on Kang and his comrades, which suggested that the reformist political endeavor led by the intellectuals might be allowed by the imperial government. Thus, reform became of great interest in Chinese society.
Shortly after the petition, Kang passed the Examination at the highest level and was appointed to an imperial post. He continued to write memoranda to the throne. One was presented to Emperor Guangxu, who was unwilling to be submissive to the imperialist powers. Inspired by Kang’s thought-provoking memorandum, the Emperor asked high officials nationwide to discuss key issues such as governance and development. Gradually, some prominent ministers openly supported political reform. Kang then founded a pro-reform organization known as the Society for Strengthening China (强学会) in Beijing. Quite a few prominent figures, such as the militarily powerful Yuan Shikai 袁世凯 (1859–1916), joined this Society. Liang was appointed its secretary and created for the first time a modern, Beijing-based newspaper entitled China and World News (中外纪闻). This newspaper was devoted to introducing Chinese society to modern politics, economy, and science. Although the Society and newspaper were banned by conservative politicians, the reformists and Liang in particular realized that modern newsprint was the best tool to promote political reform. In late 1895, all of Kang’s pro-reform activities were based in Shanghai. Winning support from Zhang Zhidong, a powerful Governor General, Liang founded the famous Currents Affairs (时务报), a major Shanghai-based Chinese newspaper (or journal). Apart from Liang, who was editor-in-chief, there were a number of highly influential contributors, such as Huang Zunxian 黄遵宪, a veteran diplomat. Liang put much effort into editing this newspaper and produced 40 popular editorials. Liang’s newspaper was sold in more than 70 cities in China, as well as being circulated in Hong Kong, Macao, Japan, and Singapore.
Liang became the spokesman of the coming 1898 Reform. With the help of modern media, Liang rapidly disseminated the ideas of surviving by reform among the Chinese. Current Affairs was the de facto mouthpiece of the 1898 Reform. Stylistically, Liang’s writings in this newspaper were creative, powerful, and attractive; and his liberal-minded editorials were particularly appealing to Chinese youth. In spite of being denounced by conservatives, Liang’s writing style influenced generations of Chinese. Even Hu Shi, who was said to be a pioneer in promoting modern vernacular Chinese, said Liang’s writings played a pivotal role in China’s social revolution. Liang’s best-known essay in Current Affairs was the 60,000-word An Overall Description of Reform (变法通议).36 In this widely-read essay, Liang went beyond the traditional Chinese ideas of change and adopted Western evolutionist concepts.
Yan Fu 严 复 (1854–1921),37 a native of Houguan (present-day Minhou) studied in Britain and then obtained a teaching position in the Tianjin-based Naval College. He finished translating the first half of Thomas H. Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics, titling the Chinese translation Tianyan lun 天演论 (literally, social evolution directed by Heaven). Apart from Evolution and Ethics, Yan translated several other well-known Western books, Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, Herbert Spencer’s The Study of Sociology, Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Laws, amongst others, into Chinese. At the same time, he wrote editorials for some Tianjin-based newspapers, introducing his readers to Western socio-political ideas such as evolutionism, and promoting reformist thinking. Yan was one of Liang’s close friends as well as a sponsor of Current Affairs. For this reason, Liang read Tianyan lun even before it was published. The evolutionist thinking in this book empowered Liang both ideologically and intellectually, Kang was also greatly inspired by Yan’s translations and essays. Liang realized that evolutionism was more appealing to the Chinese than traditional Confucianism because evolutionism showed that human society was always changing and that change always brings good results. Liang demanded immediate reform,38 demonstrating his greater intellectual growth in comparison with Kang.
Liang’s political program could be found in the above-mentioned long essay, which was centered on education and argued that educational reform lay in bringing change to the existing Examination and overhauling the established bureaucracy.39 Liang argued that only when the traditional education system was completely changed would a new generation of talents emerge and reform be initiated. The goal of Liang’s style of political reform was to radically change the political system, that is, to replace the monarchy with a more democractic, Western system.40 Tan Sitong, a brave young reformist thinker, attacked the old monarchy. Tan was from Liuyang in Hunan and his father had been the governor of Hubei.
Tan was a student of philosophy and liked to read Western books. He wrote the Book of Benevolence (仁学), arguing that monarchy was abnormal and inhumane.41 While the book was not published, it had a big influence on Liang, who also criticized the absolute monarchy in his published essays.
Zhang Zhidong, the prominent Governor General of Hunan and Hubei was hesitant about the reform advocated by Liang and his comrades. Upon hearing that the Empress Dowager Cixi was displeased with calls for reform, Zhang demanded that Liang tone down his radical views. Liang abandoned Current Affairs and went to Hunan where the young reformists were very active. They founded the newspaper, The Hunan News (湘学报), and organizations such as the Society of Southern Learning (南学会), as well as a modern school known as the Institute of Current Affairs (时务学堂). Recommended by Huang Zunxian, Liang was appointed the Chief Chinese Professor of the Institute, where he and his students fearlessly discussed democratic politics, criticized absolute monarchy, and expressed anti-Manchu nationalist feelings. Liang recommended that the governor of Hunan practice local self-government and lay the foundation of democracy in the near future. Thanks to their efforts, Hunan was politically and economically reformed. Hunan’s leading officials and renowned scholars frequently visited the Institute, where they lectured on politics and economics. The local gentry joined them and democratically exchanged ideas. Hunan set up several modern agencies such as the Center for Political Training and the Police Bureau, both of which were unprecedented in China. However, soon Liang’s radical speeches were reported to the more conservative imperial authorities and Hunan’s conservatives accused Liang of being rebellious. The governor of Hunan was forced to make a concession and dismissed some of the outspoken lecturers; he also reorganized the Institute. Soon Liang received a summons to Beijing from Kang.
The people were disappointed at Qing’s poor performance in the First Sino-Japanese War. Fearing that the people’s anger would grow uncontrollable, the Qing government relaxed its grip on thought and culture. As a consequence, many modern newspapers, books, and societies were created by intellectuals. In three years (1895–1898), more than 100 modern societies were set up nationwide. Some were focused on political issues, such as reform; others on Western knowledge; and others still on the improvement of social customs, such as banning opium. Even a few high imperial officials joined these societies. The Changsha-based Society of Southern Learning was the most remarkable, its lectures often attracting thousands of listeners. Thanks to these societies, Chinese society grew increasingly more open politically. The aforementioned Shanghai-based Current Affairs was the best-known. The Macao-based New Knowledge (知新报) was also very influential, more outspoken, and served as the reformists’ mouthpiece after the failure of the 1898 Reform. The Tianjin-based National News (国闻报), which was founded by some renowned figures such as Yan Fu, was widely read in the north. Yan himself published more than 40 editorials advocating for enlightenment and reform. Yan even drew a caricature ridiculing the utilitarian (ultra)conservatives and pointed out that established traditional scholarship must be destroyed lest it led to disaster for the country.42 The Hunan News and Hunan (湘报) were the most influential newspapers in central China. Tang Caichang 唐才常, an active reformist, played a pivotal role in the editorial work of the two newspapers. The ideas of one of the Hunan contributors were too radical and infuriated the conservative Governor General, who demanded that the Hunan government pay close attention to subversive speech.43 At that time, Shanghai was the center of China’s modern press and produced more than a dozen newspapers. In addition to Shanghai, a number of cities, including Hangzhou, Wuxi, Wenzhou, Guilin, Guangzhou, Chongqing, Chengdu, amongst others, also published modern newspapers. Books also began to be printed at this time. In 1896, Liang Qichao wrote a detailed bibliography. One year later, the reformists in Shanghai set up the Great Harmony Publishing House (大同译书局) and published books advocating for fundamental reform. The rapid growth of China’s modern media and press was a great impetus to the 1898 Reform.
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