A Paradise Lost: The Imperial Garden Yuanming Yuan

Chapter 7. The Sacking

| 133 Chapter 7 The Sacking The fall of the Yuanming Yuan to foreign invaders must be understood in the context of Sino-Western confrontations in the nineteenth century. Although the post-Opium War (1839–1842) treaty system had secured British commercial interests that neither Macartney nor Amherst had been able to obtain, Britain sought to expand her privileges on the China coast. On the other hand, the newly ascended Xianfeng emperor, ashamed of losing to the British national interest, struggled to recover the Qing’s honor and was certainly not willing to yield more rights. The British demand for treaty revision, to acquire further concessions from China, thus met stubborn resistance and eventually led to the outbreak of the second Opium War and the burning of the magnificent Yuanming Yuan imperial garden. The Gathering Storm In October 1856, following unsuccessful negotiations, Harry S. Parkes (1828–1885), the British counselor in Guangzhou (Canton), provoked a confrontation with Ye Mingchen (1807–1859), the governor-general of Guangdong. Eventually, Governor-General Ye was captured by the British and died on the way to Egypt (cf. Lane-Poole and Dickins 1894, 140–185; Jiang Tingfu 1931, 1:188; Wong 1976; Cordier 1906, 1–2). China’s trouble was not just with Britain. Napoleon III of France was furious about the execution of the priest Abbé Auguste Chapdelaine in Guangxi for engaging in illicit activities (Jiang Tingfu 1931, 1:195). Consequently, France and Britain joined hands to seize Guangzhou on December 28, 1857, with the moral support of both Russia and the United States. Under formidable military pressure, the hapless Qing court signed the humiliating treaty of Tianjin on June 26, 1858, which allowed Great Britain and other Western powers to acquire new rights and privileges in China. The Qing court was especially troubled by the opening of the interior river  ports for trade and the establishment of diplomatic representation in Beijing (cf. Jiang Tingfu 1931, 1:204–236). It is no secret that the Xianfeng emperor approved the treaty very reluctantly (Jia Zhen et al. 1930:3, 961–962). The new treaty, however, required ratifications. The Qing o‰cials had tried to dissuade the Westerners from coming to Beijing for ratification but soon backed down. The remaining problem was what route the foreigners should take to the imperial capital. The English minister Frederick Bruce refused to take the route assigned by the Qing government , which he considered a former tributary route. On the other hand, the Qing government objected to the route the British preferred because it required going through the heavily fortified Dagu Fort. China was also disturbed by the British request that a large number of troops be allowed to escort diplomats to Beijing. When the Chinese government appeared reluctant to accept the British terms, Bruce instructed Admiral Hope to intrude into Baihe by force on June 25, 1860. The Chinese forts at Dagu fired on Hope’s fleet and incidentally inflicted heavy losses of men and ships. The Dagu repulse immediately escalated the crisis (Hsu 1960, 212–213). Although Bruce acknowledged his poor judgment for the unwarranted action and his government blamed him for the incident, the British remained adamant about their choice of route to Beijing for treaty ratification. In fact, the Dagu fiasco “sanctioned the British hard line” (Fairbank 1978, 257). In August 1860, London dispatched Lord Elgin (1811–1863) to China with an expeditionary force of 11,000 men, a substantial number of whom were Indian soldiers, commanded by General Hope Grant. This military prowess made Elgin feel no need to compromise. On the Chinese side, intoxicated by the unexpected victory, Dagu’s supreme commander Sengge Linqin (?–1865) was also not willing to compromise. The general even thought it was about time to teach a lesson to “the o¤ensive and avaricious foreign barbarians” (Sengge Linqin 1860, 6:1284–1285). He confidently told Xianfeng in a memorial dated July 14, 1860, that there would be “no more vainglory of the barbarians if we deliver a few more blows to them, and our country will then enjoy some decades of peace” (cf. Tsiang 1929, 18). Moreover, General Sengge Linqin believed that the Dagu repulse had given China the upper hand, as he remarked that “it is an old established practice with the foreign barbarians that after a war between two countries, the country seeking peace must pay an indemnity to the country consenting to it.” In his wishful thinking, the Englishmen should now...