CHINA'S STRUGGLE FOR NAVAL DEVELOPMENT DELAYED RESPONSE TO THE WEST moval of Lin from Canton in the spring of 1841.The names to be an obvious need-naval reform-was a product of their of Lin Tse-hsui,Teng'T'ing-chen,Ch'i Chuin-tsao,Huang education and political situation.Ignorance of the enemy was Chueh-tzu,Wu Yen-yung,and I-li-pu are attached to these recom- widespread,and is exemplified by the serious report that British mendations(sometimes in a joint memorial,as with Teng,Ch'i, uniforms were so tight that once the British were knocked down, Huang,and Wu in July 1840),but Lin Tse-hsui and Teng T'ing- they could not regain their feet.30 Intelligence was gathered by chen were the only two who made more than one recommenda- fishermen or similarly inexpert observers.Lin Tse-hsti fostered tion.14 These recommendations were usually rather general,call- the early idea that China had rendered "Six Smashing Blows" ing only for larger vessels without further specification.Teng to the British just after the Chuenpi battle of November 1889 and his fellow memorialists called for sixty larger vessels in July because he accepted reports of fishermen who occasionally hooked 1840,large enough to mount thirty or forty guns.In October British naval hats out of the water and construed from such bits 1840,Lin called for larger ships in a long-range plan,suggesting of evidence the proof of Chinese victories.21 One version of the that they be financed from customs receipts.15 In 1841,after his British.withdrawal from Canton in 1841 (after the city in fact removal from office but before his departure from Canton,Lin had been ransomed)was that they left upon seeing the Goddess of suggested to I-shan(who had just arrived to replace Lin's im- Mercy hovering over the town.22 mediate successor,Ch'i-shan)that China make long-range plans, Some officials learned.Lin Tse-hsui gathered Western infor- involving the building of large ships at the rate of five per month mation.Ch'i-shan,who replaced Lin Tse-hsui late in 1840 in for four months,and then at a diminishing rate until 1oo were order to "soothe"the barbarians,came to talk with some ap- built.16 Since Lin could not memorialize directly,perhaps this preciation about explosive projectiles and armed fighting tops.2 last item should not be included in a list of recommendations But there was such a high rate of turnover among these high to the throne.It does not add much to the list in any event, officials,as they were successively punished,that their fragmentary for not even Lin went so far as to openly espouse the building knowledge served little purpose.Lin's power passed to Ch'i-shan, of military steamers by China. who in turn lost some of it to I-shan (who was one of a trio Even these few recommendations,vague as they were,were of emergency trouble shooters who could do no more than ar- only part of a stream of memorials passing to Peking,most of range for the ransoming of Canton in the late spring of 1841), which were of the traditional kind already suggested,or like and I-shan himself was shortly punished.Another example of that of Yui-ch'ien,who in September 1840 assured the emperor high turnover-in Chekiang-has been noted in the first chapter. that British naval guns could not shoot high enough to destroy There were many others.On the other hand,even if the few the Woosung forts,for "if they shoot upward,the bullets will "experts"had not been removed,their knowledge might just go down and consequently lose the force of shooting."17 Even as well have served as a basis for appeasement.Niu Chien,Nan- while calling for larger ships,Teng T'ing-chen laid his emphasis king governor-general in 1842,late in the war saw a steamer's on beating the enemy ashore,and Lin himself,in a recommenda- engine room and so was finally convinced that such ships were tion in August 1840,could in the same memorial call for a sea not driven by hidden oxen-and he prudently attached his name battle of annihilation while later pointing out that "it is not to a plea for peace.24 worth our while to embark on a combat at sea."18 The emperor The high rate of turnover in office was a function of the polit- in any event was not interested in fighting at sea,and when he did ical situation of the high officials.In the absence of a clear line not ignore the recommendations for larger ships he was likely of command,these officials (with the right of direct memorial) to dismiss them,as he did Lin's of October 1840,as "foolish all stood at the ends of separate lines to the throne.This may talk.”10 have been excellent for checks and balances,but it was not good That so few of China's officials saw what in retrospect seems for the emergency sponsorship of naval experimentation.Naval 22 23
CHINA'S STRUGGLE FOR NAVAL DEVELOPMENT DELAYED RESPONSE TO THE WEST reform would have required full official sponsorship.Yet even better,and issued stern warnings.On the other hand,a similar well-informed officials in that Manchu-Chinese Confucian system lie about a later fire-raft attack at Tinghai (March 1842)was ac- were as a rule too preoccupied to give it.They had to watch out cepted,even after investigation.28 for their individual careers;the emperor could always punish Despite their many precautions,practically every one of the his officials.Confucian values furthermore did not admit the high officials in the war period was degraded or removed from possibility that failure might lie outside of the moral control office.A few escaped disgrace.Yang Fang,one of the trio of of the upright official.Alien technical considerations such as officials who replaced Ch'i-shan in 1841,was allowed to with- were involved in military steamships were looked down upon, draw into private life after a brief tour-"a rare act of clemency while wheel-boats,which had a long history in China,did not for one who had failed."2 Ch'i-ying also survived,but this man, involve such considerations.25 Censors in the distant capital were who was the Manchu negotiator at Nanking in the summer of not likely to weigh technical considerations in the impeachments 1842,entered the struggle late and had many friends at court. which they wrote following news of China's defeats.It was safer That innovation was discouraged by the official system and to hide behind the accepted stereotypes,or,at the most,to write its values is further shown by the fact that nearly all of the in- vaguely of "large ships."There was no protection for the true novations noted above were initiated by men outside of the innovator. official system,or with only subordinate places in it.Hsu Hsiang- If the gestures were orthodox,even punishment might be kuang,Ting Kung-ch'en,P'an Shih-ch'eng,and P'an Shih-yung eased.The ritual self-abasements,the excoriations of the "rebel- (the only one to complete a steamer)were all Canton gentry lious barbarians,"the "wild scramble"for favorable mention in or merchants.Yi Ch'ang-hua and Ch'ang Ch'ing,who were not reports which Waley notes in the Opium War documents2- really innovators,were minor officials at Canton.Kung Ch'en-lin all sprang from the Confucian world view in which all men had was a magistrate at Ningpo,and although he,with two non- a fixed place in a moral order centered on the Son of Heaven. official collaborators,did interest himself in steamers,he did To report defeat at the hands of mere barbarians was doubly not have the right of direct memorial,nor did Yi and Ch'ang at hard.Some quite genuinely found the new situation hard to Canton.The list includes an admiral and Lin Tse-hsui,but the believe.In 1840 Lin Tse-hsti did not want to believe reliable latter was politically discredited during his advocacy of "large advice that a British fleet was en route to blockade Canton.Such ships."The fate of Admiral Wu Chien-hstin will be noted a thing was an impertinence!27 shortly. Officials resorted extensively to falsification in reporting the The personality of the Tao-kuang Emperor was an important course of the war.This may have been partly because the officials, element in this political situation.His long insistence that all moving often from unfamiliar place to place,were forced to court fighting should be on the land,his distrusts,his vacillations, the cooperation of the established local interests and clerks and and his impulsiveness all added to the burdens borne by his so were reluctant to be over-meticulous in checking reports officials.30 It was only when the British had deeply penetrated handed to them for transmission to the throne.There was in the Yangtze in the summer of 1842 that he came to express an any event a consistent effort to gloss over defeat.Naval warfare,in- interest,urgent if vague,in larger ships,although at the time volving foreign ships whose classifications were exotic and whose there was a rising official clamor for peace.a From the start of actions were remote and intricate,lent itself to vagueness and this interest until its end,early in 1843,the emperor issued carelessness about evidence.The emperor could not always be about thirty edicts on the subject,full of phrases such as "it is fooled,however;he had many sources of information.When a necessary to change,"and "we must not follow old methods."32 massive fire-raft attack on the British at Canton (May 1841)was Yet very little came of these commands. falsely reported as a victory,he angrily retorted that he knew Perhaps the most interesting exchange was between Peking 24 25
CHINA'S STRUGGLE FOR NAVAL DEVELOPMENT DELAYED RESPONSE TO THE WEST and Kwangtung.In September 1842 the emperor ordered the ment until early in 1843.The Kwangtung shipbuilding project Kwangtung officials,as he had others,to build large ships,and was taken over by his successor,Governor-General Ch'i-kung. asked for plans.He also asked the Kwangtung officials for more Late in 1842 Ch'i-kung reported that P'an Shih-ch'eng had started, information on what Ting Kung-ch'en had been doing-although and needed money.As for raising money,Ch'i-kung pointed out this postwar request came,apparently,about thirty months after that total suspension of repairs on traditional vessels would be Ting had first submitted a report on his work to the Canton wasteful.Subscriptions might be realized,but in general Ch'i- officials early in the war.s At about the same time the emperor kung's report stressed the problems involved in such a peacetime asked the Chekiang officials what they knew of one Ho Li-kuei, effort.7 One may doubt that P'an Shih-ch'eng had really started. a Cantonese with about twenty years'overseas experience in In any event,the only concrete steps taken involved the pur- foreign shipyards. chasing by two merchants,P'an Cheng-wei and Wu Ping-chien, The reply from Kwangtung was written by I-shan,and it was of two foreign sailing vessels,the 108-ton Ramiro and the 317- received late in October.His detailed report covered the work ton Lintin.Bernard acknowledged that these had been bought of Hsti Hsiang-kuang,Ch'ang Ch'ing,P'an Shih-ch'eng,and Ad- "at considerable cost,"but wrote further that they were"rather miral Wu Chien-hstin.As for Wu's imitation of an American the worse for wear."a8 With this,naval innovation at Canton came vessel,I-shan recommended that it be of a medium-sized one, to an end. rather than the largest.He attached plans for five types of war- Ch'i-kung may very well have been aware of I-shan's fate,which vessels (those of Wu Chien-hstin,Yi Ch'ang-hua,Ch'ang Ch'ing, had been in no way ameliorated by his support of the emperor's P'an Shih-ch'eng,and Hsui Hsiang-kuang),and recommended ideas on naval change.He was not alone in his lack of enthusiasm. that a suitable naval program should include thirty "large war At the end of 1842,the Nanking governor-general,Ch'i-ying,re- vessels"served by thirty or forty smaller vessels.Although the ported negatively on the five types of war vessels (some of which emperor had shown an interest in "fire-wheel boats"in his in- were traditional),and proposed a building program which would quiry about Ting Kung-ch'en,and I-shan's report did not include center around the T'ung-an (Fukien)traditional war vessel.This plans for a steamer,the emperor was nonetheless pleased,and was granted,and a program established which overlapped P'an decreed that P'an Shih-ch'eng should be placed over a ship-build- Shih-ch'eng's supposed authority.39 In the spring of 1843,Ch'i- ing program which would be centered at Canton and extend ying was sent to Canton as imperial commissioner.Other pro- through Min-Che and Kiangsu.Provincial authorities were to vincial authorities had also taken a dim view of the use of P'an study the five vessel types to determine which would be best. Shih-ch'eng's vessel;for example,the Chihli authorities had ar- Money was to be diverted from the repair of old-style vessels to gued that "the sea by Tientsin is too narrow and shallow for .. this new construction.35 [P'an's ship],and merchant ships will be used instead."Shantung, By the end of October 1842,then,the emperor,now "con- Kiangsu,and Chekiang (the last two by the end of 1842 com- verted"to naval reform,had linked himself with a high provincial mitted to the T'ung-an type)offered nothing more edifying by official(who was also an imperial clansman)in a plan to create way of excuse.40 The emperor's passing enthusiasm for a little- a large-scale naval innovation.But it was not to be.The fate of understood naval reform accomplished no more than to persuade I-shan is instructive.Although still at his Canton post,he had for a few officials that it would be tactful for them to pay a visit to a about a year been stripped of his rank for his failures in 1841,and foreign war vessel,which several did.1 after the Nanking Treaty of August 1842,he was ordered to re- Ting Kung-ch'en's drawings of guns were finally placed before turn to Peking for punishment.He lingered at Canton long the throne,and the provinces here and there did adopt improved enough to make a negative report in December on P'an Shih- sighting devices,but without further experimentation.P'an Shih- yung's steamer,s6 and did not arrive at the capital for imprison- ch'eng's "water-thunder"never got an official test.42 The war had 26 27
CHINA'S STRUGGLE FOR NAVAL DEVELOPMENT DELAYED RESPONSE TO THE WEST no more effect on strategic thinking.Although Wei Yuan,in his much-quoted Hai-kuo t'u-chih of 1842,did advocate naval ing this struggle there was only a sporadic official interest in the strengthening,he still argued confidently that "to defend the use of steam war vessels.There was a much greater official interest open sea is not so good as to defend the ports,and this is not in enlarging and improving the supply of ordnance.Tseng Kuo- as good as to defend the inland rivers."4 fan and Tso Tsung-t'ang,the great Chinese scholar-generals who The Opium War only weakened the traditional water force. did so much to save the Manchu Confucian dynasty,set up And in 1844,the Chinese Repository advised its readers that"the ordnance plants in Hunan.Tseng sought foreign guns.Tso tried late Admiral Wu has recently been deprived of official rank . unsuccessfully to bring Kung Ch'en-lin to his arsenal in 1854.In On his first degradation he was sent to sea,on the coast of this 1855,Governor-General Yeh Ming-ch'en at Canton employed province,to retrieve his character,by the eradication of piracy. P'an Shih-ch'eng to set up a cannon factory.The need for guns After cruzing [sic]five months,and spending several thousands and ammunition in the struggle against the rebels was obvious to from the Imperial Treasury,he reported the capture of three all officials engaged.45 pirates."4 Here was the fate of another innovator. One official who did try to buy or rent foreign ships,including Also in 1844,Caleb Cushing,whose presence as treaty negoti- steamers,was the Shanghai taotai,Wu Chien-chang.In 1853- ator for the Unted States symbolized the new era,came to China. 54,when Shanghai was beseiged by imperial forces,he was active He brought with him technical works on guns,ships,forts,and in buying ships for defense of the city,although he was unable military and naval strategy,for presentation to the Chinese gov- to obtain steamers.In 1856 the Shanghai authorities purchased ernment.But they were not used.China was not yet ready for a 430-ton ex-Russell and Company steamer,the Confucius.46 naval innovation. Shanghai and Ningpo merchants also bought two steamers to clear the interport route of pirates.Yet when these two steamers were China's next challenge came from within.The devastating sent in 1856 to Hsiang Jung,the imperial commissioner directing Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864)was rooted in popular grievances the war against the Taipings,he said he did not need them and against an officialdom which was increasingly corrupt and inept; that they would only bring foreign influence into the interior.47 it was also directed against agrarian and social inequities.Indeed, There was no policy aimed at the use of steamers in the river it was only the greatest of a series of uprisings that had scarred water force;instead,there were only personal reactions to the the earlier decades of the nineteenth century in China.Here exigencies of battle.In 1856 Horatio Nelson Lay,the chief of were the signs,unmistakable to China's Confucian officials,of the infant Imperial Maritime Customs service,proposed that dynastic decline.But the Taiping Rebellion also symbolized the China buy steamers to crush the rebels.Money was placed in Western impact,for the ideology of the movement was a pseudo- his hands for this ostensible purpose,but the ulterior objective Christianity,originally propagated by the leader of the rebellion, of the officials dealing with Lay was to test his honesty.Nothing Hung Hsiu-ch'uan.In its later phase the rebellion also brought came of the episode.4s Ho Kuei-ch'ing,governor of Chekiang foreign intervention on behalf of the dynasty-that is,on behalf from 1854 to 1857,urged naval reform,but was discredited.40 of a dynasty which in 186o had been forced by the West to make The disinterest in steamers may have been caused in large part additional concessions to Western commerce and diplomacy.Dy- by the fact that the rebels themselves fought with traditional nastic decline in the nineteenth century was like no other phase river water forces.In the mid-1850's,Tseng Kuo-fan's naval com- of the dynastic cycle in China's long history-although,as we manders Yang Yueh-pin and P'eng Yu-lin gained important vic- shall see,China's officials were ready to explain it in the old way. tories by combined land-water efforts on the Yangtze and on The Taiping Rebellion was a far more serious threat to the Poyang Lake.In one victory of December 1854 these commanders existence of the dynasty than the Opium War had been,but dur- broke through strong rebel river and land lines about forty miles above Kiukiang on the Yangtze,and the emperor used the 28 29
CHINA'S STRUGGLE FOR NAVAL DEVELOPMENT DELAYED RESPONSE TO THE WEST account of this traditional battle as a model which naval officials Fatshan Creek engagement of June 2,1857,in which seven British throughout the empire were to emulate.50 ships'boats did most of the fighting against twenty war junks, If the rebels provided no stimulus to naval reform in the brought some losses to the British.In commenting on this en- early 1850's,neither did the treaty powers.Relations were nom- gagement,the British Admiral Seymour wrote that it had opened inally peaceful until 1856,and the fact that Britain took an active "a new era in Chinese naval warfare."8 He may have been refer- part in the suppression of coastal piracy further encouraged a ring to the number of junks involved,or to the determination of comfortable passivity about naval reform on China's part. the defenders;for technical improvements in the Canton area By the late 1850's,however,China found herself once again at were limited to improvements in fire rafts (they were packed war with Britain,and this time the British were militarily sup- with explosives,not merely with combustibles)and in the defen- ported by France and receiving varying degrees of diplomatic sive arts of mining.It has already been noted that many imperial support as well from the United States and Russia.The Sino- war junks were in fact only armed merchant junks.At one American treaty of Wanghsia (1844)had provided for revision point in the fighting near Canton,imperial forces seized a foreign in twelve years,or 1856;by the most-favored-nation clause,the steam-packet,the Thistle (this they did by the strategem of dis- other treaty powers were similarly entitled to revisions.There guising troops as passengers),but they then burned the ship. had been Western dissatisfaction with the Nanking treaties.Amer- No one thought of using her steam engines in the imperial cause, ican attempts at revision had been ignored.Then Britain and either against the British,or against the Taiping rebels in the France joined in the revision effort.The British were further vicinity.Strategy was unchanged.This was no "new era." angered when at Canton in 1856 Chinese officials seized the crew The most famous of the Second China War battles was the of the lorcha Arrow on suspicion of piracy,though the Arrow repulse of the Anglo-French force at Taku in 1859.In 1858,bent was registered at Hong Kong and flew the British flag.The French, on treaty revision,a Western fleet of thirty ships(twenty-four on their part,charged that certain Chinese provincial officials, were steamers)came to Taku.Chinese defenses were massive and who had executed a French missionary illegally traveling in the traditional,although some of the ammunition for the 140-odd interior,had perpetrated a "judicial murder."From these com- guns in the great shore emplacements which guarded the ap- bined irritations the so-called "Second China War"(1856-1860) proaches to Tientsin and the capital was cannister and hollow broke out.But the dynasty,facing attacks from within and with- eight-inch shot like that used in the Royal Navy.After taking out,was no more prepared to offer naval resistance than it had the Taku forts in 1858 in a severe fight,the allies moved on to been at the end of the 18go's.Indeed,it was less prepared,for Tientsin and dictated the Tientsin treaties.Ratifications were its principal Western antagonists in the Second China War, to be exchanged in 1859 in Peking itself.7 Britain and France,had since the Opium War embarked on a China made a vigorous but traditional response to this inva- competitive naval revolution which was taking them from sail sion.The Tientsin water force,disbanded in 1767,was reacti- to steam,from wood to iron,and from muzzle-loading single- vated;the Taku forts were rebuilt and extended,and supple- cast ordnance throwing solid shot to breech-loading,built-up naval mented by stakes,a chain,a timber boom,and solid shore-to- rifled guns using explosive shells.51 shore raft.5s When the allies returned to Taku in 1859 to advance A careful examination of the battles of the Second China War, to Peking for the exchange of treaty ratifications,they were re- at both Canton and Taku,shows that China's naval defenses were pulsed.The steamers Lee and Kestrel were sunk;their mates unchanged.52 Canton was finally opened in December 1857 (the Plover and Cormorant were abandoned aground.About 100 of British insisted that they had a right to enter the city after the the attackers were killed,and 350 wounded.s This sharp victory Opium War,but had been excluded nonetheless).The fighting for China seemed to vindicate the traditional defense system. which opened the city was all in the city's river approaches.The In 1860 the allies returned with about 100 ships and close to 30 31