The Opium Question Remained Over To Again Disturb The Harmony Of
Our Relations.
As has been said before, it would be taking a narrow view of the question
to affirm that opium
Was the principal object at stake during this war.
The real point was whether the Chinese government could be allowed the
possession of rights which were unrecognized in the law of nations and
which rendered the continuance of intercourse with foreigners an
impossibility. What China sought to retain was never claimed by any other
nation, and could only have been established by extraordinary military
power. When people talk, therefore, of the injustice of this war as
another instance of the triumph of might over right, they should recollect
that China in the first place was wrong in claiming an impossible position
in the family of nations. We cannot doubt that if the acts of Commissioner
Lin had been condoned the lives of all Europeans would have been at the
mercy of a system which recognizes no gradation in crime, which affords
many facilities for the manufacture of false evidence, and which inflicts
punishment altogether in excess of the fault. It is gratifying to find
that many unprejudiced persons declared at the time that the war which
resulted in the Nankin treaty was a just one, and so eminent an authority
on international law as John Quincy Adams drew up an elaborate treatise to
show that "Britain had the righteous cause against China." We may leave
the scene of contest and turn from the record of an unequal war with the
reflection that the results of the struggle were to be good. However
inadequately the work of far-seeing statesmanship may have been performed
in 1842, enough was done to make present friendship possible and a better
understanding between two great governing peoples a matter of hope and not
desponding expectancy.
CHAPTER XVIII
TAOUKWANG AND HIS SUCCESSOR
The progress and temporary settlement of the foreign question so
completely overshadows every other event during Taoukwang's reign that it
is difficult to extract anything of interest from the records of the
government of the country, although the difficult and multifarious task of
ruling three hundred millions of people had to be performed. More than one
fact went to show that the bonds of constituted authority were loosened in
China, and that men paid only a qualified respect to the imperial edict.
Bands of robbers prowled about the country, and even the capital was not
free from their presence. While one band made its headquarters within the
imperial city, another established itself in a fortified position in the
central provinces of China, whence it dominated a vast region. The police
were helpless, and such military forces as existed were unable to make any
serious attempt to crush an opponent who was stronger than themselves. The
foreign war had led to the recruiting of a large number of braves, and the
peace to their sudden disbandment, so that the country was covered with a
large number of desperate and penniless men, who were not particular as to
what they did for a livelihood. It is not surprising that the secret
societies began to look up again with so promising a field to work in, and
a new association, known as the Green Water Lily, became extremely
formidable among the truculent braves of Hoonan. But none of these
troubles assumed the extreme form of danger in open rebellion, and there
was still wanting the man to weld all these hostile and dangerous elements
into a national party of insurgents against Manchu authority, and so it
remained until Taoukwang had given up his throne to his successor.
In Yunnan there occurred, about the year 1846, the first simmerings of
disaffection among the Mohammedans, which many years later developed into
the Panthay Rebellion, but on that occasion the vigor of the viceroy
nipped the danger in the bud. In Central Asia there was a revival of
activity on the part of the Khoja exiles, who fancied that the
discomfiture of the Chinese by the English and the internal disorders, of
which rumor had no doubt carried an exaggerated account into Turkestan,
would entail a very much diminished authority in Kashgar. As it happened,
the Chinese authority in that region had been consolidated and extended by
the energy and ability of a Mohammedan official named Zuhuruddin. He had
risen to power by the thoroughness with which he had carried out the
severe repressive measures sanctioned after the abortive invasion of
Jehangir, and during fifteen years he increased the revenue and trade of
the great province intrusted to his care. His loyalty to the Chinese
government seems to have been unimpeachable, and the only point he seems
to have erred in was an overconfident belief in the strength of his
position. He based this opinion chiefly on the fact of his having
constructed strong new forts, or yangyshahr, outside the principal towns.
But a new element of danger had in the meantime been introduced into the
situation in Kashgar by the appointment of Khokandian consuls, who were
empowered to raise custom dues on all Mohammedan goods. These officials
became the center of intrigue against the Chinese authorities, and
whenever the Khan of Khokand determined to take up the cause of the Khojas
he found the ground prepared for him by these emissaries.
In 1842 Mahomed Ali, Khan of Khokand, a chief of considerable ability and
character, died, and his authority passed, after some confusion, to his
kinsman, Khudayar, who was a man of little capacity and indisposed to
meddle with the affairs of his neighbors. But the Khokandian chiefs were
loth to forego the turbulent adventures to which they were addicted for
the personal feelings of their nominal head, and they thought that a
descent upon Kashgar offered the best chance of glory and booty. Therefore
they went to the seven sons of Jehangir and, inciting them by the memory
of their father's death as well as the hope of a profitable adventure, to
make another attempt to drive the Chinese out of Central Asia, succeeded
in inducing them to unfurl once more the standard of the Khojas.
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