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13 The Golden Years: Retirement in Yangzhou, 1838–49 After repeated requests to the Daoguang Emperor, Ruan Yuan was finally permitted to retire on 4 July 1838. An imperial edict was issued, awarding him the honorary title of Grand Tutor to the Heir Apparent (Taizi Taibao 太子太保) and a pension of half-pay.1 For 50 years Grand Secretary Ruan Yuan has served competently and with integrity for the benefit of the country as well as the foreigners who had come to trade and reside within these shores. Now in poor health, he has repeatedly requested to be relieved of his government responsibilities. Permission is hereby granted for him to retire at halfpay . He has informed me of the date of his departure from the capital. With deep affection, I am awarding him the title Grand Tutor of the Heir Apparent. I send him my best wishes for a serene retirement in the hope that he will return to the capital to help me celebrate my sixtieth sui birthday.2 Younger colleagues asked why Ruan Yuan had made up his mind to retire at that time. They wanted to know whether his health was deteriorating. Ruan Yuan replied. I am not suffering any life-threatening disease or serious pain, but my increasing forgetfulness is becoming a problem. I experience a shortness of breath from time to time, lately of such increasing frequency that it appears as if I were gasping all the time. Both my knees are weak, so I cannot kneel. Should I be called to the imperial presence, I would not be able to observe the proper etiquette by kneeling.3 He regretted that he was not able to bid the emperor farewell in person. ‘I am so sorry that I cannot see the emperor before I go. My right foot is in such poor condition that I can hardly walk.’4 1. Half-pay means half of the annual salary of a rank 1A official, which was one hundred and eighty taels, therefore ninety taels. 2. As quoted in Diziji, 7:36. 3. YJSJ, Additional Supplement 3:12b–13. 4. Diziji 7:35. 284 Ruan Yuan, 1764–1849 The Return Journey Ruan Yuan left Beijing for the last time on 12 October 1838, a fortnight after the Mid-Autumn Festival that year, three months after he received permission to retire. Travelling by water, he boarded his boat at Tongzhou (通州), and arrived at Yangzhou on 30November. The journey by canal was leisurely. Family tradition maintained that the departure was delayed because Ruan Yuan had to raise enough cash for the journey.5 The story connected with these family legends is interesting, but perhaps apocryphal. The fact that Ruan Yuan owned a craft (hongchuan 紅船) has been established. Liang Zhangju has written that ‘the safest boat on the rivers today is that owned by Ruan Yuntai (Ruan Yuan’s hao), built when he was Governor of Jiangxi’.6 So the delay in Ruan Yuan’s departure was not due to the need to make arrangement for transportation. It was more likely on account of the travellers trying to avoid the summer heat. With his advanced age and poor health, his sons probably considered it wiser for him to wait for cooler weather before embarking on this arduous journey. They could also be waiting for a more auspicious date. Family legend, however, insisted that Ruan Yuan’s sons and personal staff felt that a single boat did not make an impressive enough homecoming after fifty years of government service. To provide for a more elegant triumphal return (yijin huanxiang 衣錦還鄉), they loaded several other boats with eighty wooden crates filled with bricks, to create the illusion that Ruan Yuan had amassed a fortune in silver and gold ingots.7 When the emperor learned of the boats loaded with bullion, so the story continued, he sent a messenger to Ruan Yuan to tell him to exercise some discretion in transporting the spoils from his office home. When Ruan Yuan denied the existence of such a private fortune and the emperor discovered the ruse, he was supposed to have exclaimed, ‘I am so grateful to have had the service of such an honest man!’8 Thereupon, he assigned sixty-one small islets in the lower Yangzi off the coast of Yangzhou to Ruan Yuan and his descendants in perpetuity. These were the islands that produced reed, which, when dried, was the major source of fuel in the area. The emperor also gave him the river...

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