Merchants of Deceit: Opium, American Fortune & the China Trade (eBook)

1. I, Zhengrui

Qing [pronounced ‘Ching’] Dynasty, partial timeline, relevant in bold)

1722–1735: Yongzheng Emperor (known as, Yìnzhēn), 5th

1735–1796: Qainlong Emperor (known as, Hongli), 6th

1796–1820: Jaiqing Emperor (known as, Yongyan, or Jai), 7th

1821–1850: Daoguang Emperor (known as Minning), 8th

1850–1861: Xianfeng Emperor (known as Yìzhǔ), 9th

According to Zhengrui, Advisor to Three Generations of Qing Dynasty Emperors: Hongli, Jaiqing and Minning, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth in Succession, Sons of Heaven, Ancestral Reign since 1644 over the Timeless Celestial Kingdom.

I, ZHENGRUI, HAVE many concerns today, not the least of which are the health and well-being of my emperor, whom I have served as trusted advisor for many years. That trust was hard-earned, given our tumultuous past. Over many decades of service, I have accomplished much, including that of Grand Minister to this Son of Heaven, Minning. But, more on our current crisis in a moment.

First, though, a word-or-two as to how I came to be here: As a young man, thin as a bamboo shoot, lusting for a glimpse of the world beyond my isolated village, I first served the court of Minning’s grandfather, Hongli. As the son of a Shandong nobleman, I won the attention of the most powerful men in the court’s inner circle. It was near the time of the British mission in the Year of the Water Rat (English, 1793), the emperor, Hongli, made a pilgrimage to Shandong’s Mount Tai—the so-called South Gate of Heaven—to climb the thousand steps and offer his Fengshan sacrifices, paying homage to the earth (at the foot of the mountain), and heaven (at the summit).

There I was, in the company of my father and his mid-echelon, government entourage, in their official role in attendance to the royal court. My excitement ran high, and at twenty years of age, I was willing to complete any task, no matter how insignificant. Qainlong Emperor, Hongli, took notice of my ambition and directed my father to have me sent to his palace staff in Beijing. There was much love between my father and me, but he could not say no to the emperor.

Once I had arrived in Beijing, my privileged background benefited me in two important ways: first, my youth enabled me to move with few restrictions despite the confines and strictly controlled setting of the fortressed Forbidden City; secondly, because of family ties, I managed to retain my masculinity, pledging fealty to the emperor, thereby avoiding joining the ranks of the hundreds of eunuchs, huànguān, in the service of the emperor’s court, as conscripts, male consorts and household staff.

On one particular night, I remained veiled in shadow, observing Hongli, as he stood at the entrance to his sleeping chamber in the Hall of Mental Cultivation. Here was the world’s most powerful man, now just a hulking silhouette in a darkened doorway. The scene reminded me of his beloved great gray crane, Cāng lù as she might be, poised motionless beside the palace pool—on one stilt-like leg, yellow eyes fixed—ready to strike at a shadowy form just beneath the surface. Hongli’s thoughts seem to have drifted away from our earlier conversation regarding the next day’s official schedule. In the sanctity of this space, he was far removed from the hundreds of servants, soldiers, concubines and eunuchs asleep elsewhere on the sprawling grounds of his country retreat—and farther still from the Forbidden City, his sprawling fortress in the center of Běijīng. Here and alone, the emperor’s self-doubt and reflection could reign.

Two heavily armored guards, tall pikes in hand, stand motionless a few meters away, their expressionless faces obscured by highly polished, plumed battle helmets aglow beneath an auspicious full moon. A shrunken, balding ‘ancient,’ a long-time palace eunuch sits huddled under a lamp, flickering in a corner of the enclosed courtyard, a porcelain bowl cradled between his legs. If the emperor decides to relieve his bladder or move his bowels at any time during the night, this man is tasked to quickly whisk it away. But, Hongli is not aroused by any such need, at least not tonight.

Silence enshrouds the walls of the courtyard, except for the deep roll of thunder that follows flashes of lightning, briefly silhouetting distant hills. A single mourning dove’s plaintive call from a nearby treetop matches the emperor’s sullen mood. In the stillness, I watch his shoulders rise and fall with short, shallow breaths, a portent of anxious days ahead. With more than his share of aches and pains for eighty-two years, Hongli still holds his silk-robed frame erect, even when alone—a force-of-habit after decades of court functions and ceremonies where court minions looked to their sacred leader for evidence of strength and resolve. Too much rich food and a sedentary life while confined behind the walls of the Forbidden City make for his generous gut and round face. The few strands of hair remaining on his balding head shone like tangled silver threads in the moonlight. I can sometimes imagine him as he once was, leading a charge in a long-ago battle—adorned in his elegant leather armor while atop a fiery white stallion—a scene long-since faded from the memories of most.

Later, I stir from my sleep in a nearby chamber, sensing movement in the adjoining room. Hongli is stumbling from his bed. He, a recognized master of zhǔ, the ancient form of calligraphy, now sits holding a long-handled, ermine-bristle inking brush cradled into the curve of thumb and forefinger. His insomnia during these early morning hours, and the comforting, familiar feel of the brush-in-hand, takes the form of a burning resolve to frame an argument on paper, one his court scribes will later shape into a powerful warning to a presumptuous upstart. He labors at his drafting table with inking stone and brush until the sun’s rays break over the top of the garden wall. By sunrise, the outline of a missive has taken shape, one conceived by the Sun God, Ruler of the Kingdom at the Center of the World—the Middle Kingdom, Zhōngguó—to be dispatched to a less worthy adversary, the ‘barbarian’ King George III, of England.

Hongli’s firm stance against representatives from the Western world has helped to re-establish his power and authority in times of strife and faltering influence. Hongli was the first Qing monarch to be chosen through a secret system his father, the Yongzheng Emperor, Yìnzhēn, instated to prevent struggles over succession. And, like his father before him, strict rule means expanding and controlling borders, imposing order, and treating enemies with despotic efficiency. Under his own rule, the fifth in Qing dynastic succession since the sixteen-hundreds, many years of military expeditions and territorial conflicts have depleted the royal treasury, costing thousands of Chinese lives in the process. Hongli has managed to consolidate much of an unimaginably vast empire—including Outer Mongolia, Tibet, portions of Burma, Nepal, and even Viet Nam—far-reaching nation states—eventually subjugating, then demanding tribute to be sent to Beijing, the far-off seat of the Qing empire.

As years have turned to decades of rule, though, the aged Hongli has become disillusioned with power, relying heavily on He-shen, his highest-ranking, most favored minister. I watch in dismay as the day-to-day governance of the country is left in the hands of He-shen, while Hongli himself indulges in luxuries, and his favorite pastime, hunting. But, more recently, with increasing outside pressures being felt to trade with nations far beyond the boundaries of China, the absolute authority of the Qing dynasty—Hongli, in particular—was seen as weak and ineffectual. And, so with word that the English emissary to China is now in the country, intending to apply just that sort of international pressure to the Throne, Hongli senses opportunity, sending a eunuch in the early morning hours for He-shen, demanding his presence to devise a strategy.

The affairs of state in the Hall of Mental Cultivation are conducted in a modest low-ceilinged anteroom, a short walk from the residential wing. This dimly lit, heavily-paneled gathering space for official meetings possesses none of the elegance of the gilded, heavily-carved Dragon Throne Room in the Forbidden City. More a library and contemplative retreat than ostentatious showcase of Qianlong regal authority, Hongli’s modest country retreat, and spaces such as this, are as far removed as possible from court politics, and the daily crush of responsibility in Beijing.

A highly polished black marble floor, scattered silk rugs and a row of thick-legged tables spread with scrolls waiting to be studied, fill one end of this long, narrow space. At the opposite end, on an elevated platform, a low-backed, rosewood chair is positioned, emblazoned with the image of a dragon, symbolic of the Qing dynasty. A red-silk, gold fringed seat cushion adorns this, the only chair in the room. Behind the modest throne, tall panels bearing images of cranes rising from tall grasses beside a stream, have been erected to frame the dais. Much of one side of the room lies in shadow. Diffuse morning light filters through rice paper shoji screens. It streams across the floor in wide yellow bands to the other side of this most private of chambers, a place where a dozen of the emperor’s subjugates await his arrival.

At five feet-ten inches, Hongli projects an impressive figure for his eighty-two years. Known for his affability, he intends to communicate a different message this...