March 3 1857 – The United Kingdom and France Start the Second Opium War

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*Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons In the midst of the most extensive expansion of European colonization in centuries, the Qing Dynasty — head of a closed Chinese society — decided to upend trade agreements with Britain, France and the United States. Five months after Qing officials arrested a dozen suspected pirates operating under the British flag, the British House of Commons narrowly pushed through a resolution to investigate reportedly hostile action by China on March 3, 1857. In an attempt to force new trade alliances on their terms, Britain and France would launch attacks on Guangzhou in the months to come, opening the Second Opium War. The Qing first resisted the spread of European trade almost a century before, when merchants from foreign countries were forced into confined areas to exchange goods — “Thirteen Factories” near Guangzhou. Despite the heavy restrictions on who the Europeans could do business with and prohibitions against entering other parts of China, those who made the long journey to the Far East often made a modest profit selling the wares they purchased to shops in Britain, France or elsewhere. In a bid to control Western influence, the Qing Qianlong Emperor forced buyers to pay solely in silver after 1793 — bartering with products of their own, as was done in India or other Asian colonies, was not allowed. The British quickly ran up significant trade deficits, an economic shortfall remedied by the explosion of the opium trade in the early 1800s. Realizing the advance of the product limited the supply of silver, the Qing government intervened to stop imports in 1839 and inadvertently caused the First Opium War. Crushed by the professional British military, the Qing were forced into an unbalanced settlement, the Treaty of Nanking, in August 1842. Over the next 15 years, China slowly weakened as other nations — France, Russia, the US — arrived looking for similar “unequal treaties” of their own. In the mid-1850s, as agreements expired or trading partners sought new and better terms from an increasingly unwilling China, tensions arose once again as Britain hoped to maintain its “most favored nation” status. The chief concern for the British was the restrictions placed on boats flying its flag. Instead of having to stop on islands near Guangzhou and allow smaller Chinese ships to move goods into port, administrators hoped any ship with the Union Jack could sail in on its own. The Qing refused. On October 8, 1856, a small boat with a 12-man crew slipped into Guangzhou, known to the British as Canton, under the flag of Hong Kong. The crew of the Arrow, representing the ship as registered with the British territory despite the expiration of their permit, were promptly (and correctly) arrested for piracy by Chinese officials. Administrators from Britain appealed to authorities in Guangzhou, citing the Treaty of Nanking as a source of protection for the men. Certain they were within their legal rights, the Chinese returned the men to the British and impounded the boat. Two weeks later, British forces launched an attack on forts along the Canton River, resulting in resounding victories by the close of operations on November 13th. With the Qing engaged in the suppression of the Ting Rebellion, the already-overmatched Chinese defenders had no means for reinforcement to survive the bombardment. Yeh Mingchen, governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, encouraged the soldiers to avoid battle altogether. Though not fighting on the fields, the Chinese still attempted to strike back. A plot to assassinate the British Superintendent of Trade, Sir John Bowring, and his family was put into motion that January. The attempt failed, as the chef in charge of poisoning the Bowrings’ bread put too much arsenic into the recipe, which caused the family to vomit excessively but survive with a relatively minor illness. When the story hit the British press, politicians split upon party lines in discussing the proper response. Following intense debate in the British House of Commons, with the Tories backing an investigation of Chinese non-compliance with the Treaty of Nanking and the Whigs supporting the Qing administrators, a resolution passed 263 to 249 on March 3, 1857. Furious the moderate Whig policy won out, Tory Member of Parliament Henry Temple, the Lord Palmerston, fired off a public tirade questioning the patriotism of his opposition in time to shift the elections that opened on March 27th. The Tory victory that followed in the 1857 elections put Palmerston in charge as Prime Minister, allowing the British government to push an agenda built on Chinese repayment for the handling of the Arrow incident. Delayed in gathering an army by a rebellion in India, the British submitted requests for military support to France, Russia and the United States. All three sent representatives, with only the French committing a sizable number of soldiers to the effort, due largely to public outcry over the execution of French missionary Father August Chapdelaine. By the middle of 1858, the Europeans and Americans secured the Treaty of Tianjin after a string of British and French victories, creating a wider network of trading areas for merchants from all four countries and allowing them to establish embassies in Beijing. The next year, the Qing attempted to prevent the British and French ambassadors from entering the capital and were routed once again. This led to a second round of combat and larger sums of money paid to the victors by the Chinese when the Treaty of Tianjin was revised in 1860. Defeated despite outnumbering the Europeans militarily by a factor of ten, the Second Opium War forced the Qing to acknowledge a need to modernize. With the Emperor dead after fleeing his Summer Palace when the British and French advanced on Beijing in 1860, moderate voices in the Chinese government were able to maneuver themselves into positions to push a new agenda. Over the next four decades, a rapid Self-Strengthening Movement was underway to construct warships and weaponry to compete with Western forces. 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