The Opium Wars

354 Pages·2004·1.94 MB·English

by  W. Travis Hanes

O
PThe IUM
WARS

O
PThe IUM
WARS
The Addiction of One Empire
and the Corruption of Another
W. TRAVIS HANES III, PH.D. AND FRANK SANELLO
© 2002 by W. Travis Hanes III and Frank Sanello
Cover and internal design © 2002 by Sourcebooks, Inc.
Cover images © Corbis
Map on pg. 308 from The Opium War, 1840-1842: Barbarians in the Celes-
tial Empire in the Early Part of the Nineteenth Century and the War by which
They Forced Her Gates Ajar by Peter Ward Fay. Copyright © 1975 by The
University of North Carolina Press. Used by permission of the publisher.
Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthisbookmaybereproducedinanyformorby
any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and
retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical
articlesorreviews—withoutpermissioninwritingfromitspublisher,Source-
books, Inc.
Published by Sourcebooks, Inc.
P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hanes, William Travis.
Opium wars: the addiction of one empire and the corruption of another /
By W. Travis Hanes III and Frank Sanello.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. China—History—Opium War, 1840–1842. 2. China—History—
Foreignintervention,1857–1861.I.Sanello,Frank.II.Title.
DS757.5 .S26 2002
951’.033—dc21
2002003136
Printed and bound in the United States of America
LSI 10 9 8 7 6
For Robert Buckley, 1941–1991
—F.S.
For Eddie Glover
—T.H.

Acknowledgments
(cid:2)
T
hanks to Daniel Abraham, Jennifer Andersen, Kris Andersson,
Michael Anketell, Edith and Martin Barcay, Dan Berrios, Professor
Joseph Boone, Dr. Daniel Bowers, A. Scott Berg, Linda and John Branca,
André Brooks, Charles Casillo, Louis Chunovic, Dr. Gary Cohan, Ghalib
Dhalla, Vic Dinnerstein, Michael Dorr, Anita Edson, Mike Emmerich,
Morgan Gendel, Stephanie Goldfarb, Cyrus Godfrey, Lawrence C. Gold-
stein, Mary and Art Goodale, André Guimond, Cary Harrison, Scott Hill,
Dr. Scott Hitt, Chris Hix, Frederick Hjelm, Brad Kane, Steven Kay, Chuck
Kim, Gary Kirkland, Lin and John Knorr, Pamela Landsden, Robert Lent,
Michael Levine, Will Litchfield, Christina Madej, Charlie Medrano, Paul
Manchester, David Marlow, Kevin Moreton, Jim Murphy, Tom Packard,
James Robert Parish, Sia Prospero, Lee Ray, Linda Reinle, Ray Richmond,
Doris Romeo, Marjorie Rothstein, Dr. Maria Santos, Sarkis, Catherine
Seipp, Guy Shalem, Professor Benjamin Sifutentes-Jauregui, Dorie Sim-
monds, Bryan Smith, Monica Trascendes, Christopher Villa, Denise Wal-
lace, Professor Jack Wills, Dan Wise, Dean Wong, and Jeff Yarbrough.
I especially want to thank the editors of this project, Hillel Black and
Peter Lynch; my agent, Mike Hamilburg, for all his hard work on my
behalf over the years; and Gene Balk of the Orange County Register for his
invaluable research guidance.
—Frank Sanello
It is always a pleasure to acknowledge those without whose help and advice
a book would not otherwise see the light of day and, hopefully, reach an
interested public. I would like to simply say “thank you” to all those who
have contributed to this project along the way (you know who you are!),
and especially to Hillel Black, in the New York office of Sourcebooks, who
understood the vision, and Peter Lynch, in the Naperville office, who
understood not only the vision but also the mechanics and artfulness nec-
essary to achieve it.
—W. Travis Hanes III
Table Of Contents
(cid:2)
Introduction: Chemical Warfare. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
Methods and Measures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
Chapter 1. Lord Elgin’s Revenge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Chapter 2. Disastrous Etiquette. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Chapter 3. Zero Intolerance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Chapter 4. Canton Besieged. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Chapter 5. The Black Hole of Canton. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Chapter 6. The Battle in Britain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Chapter 7. Drugs and Guns. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Chapter 8. Diplomacy by Gunboat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Chapter 9. The Economics of Addiction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Chapter 10. Crucifixion and Cages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Chapter 11. Steamed Victory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Chapter 12. A Price on His Head . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Chapter 13. The Sacking of Amoy, Ningbo, and Charles Elliot. . . . 133
Chapter 14. Chinese Masada. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Chapter 15. “Early Victorian Vikings”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Chapter 16. The Trade in Poison and Pigs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Chapter 17. Strange Interlude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Chapter 18. Outrageous Slings and the Arrow’s Misfortune. . . . . . . 175