Empire: World History - 253. Victorian Narcos: Drug Dealers Lead Britain to War (Ep 7)

Episode Date: May 7, 2025

How did opium traders convince the British Cabinet to wage war on China? Who was Lord Palmerston? Why was China, one of the biggest empires in the world, so ill-prepared for war at sea? William and Anita discuss how James Matheson launched a propaganda campaign in the British press which led to warships being sent to China, on the way to start The First Opium War… Empire Club: Become a member of the Empire Club to receive early access to miniseries, ad-free listening, early access to live show tickets, bonus episodes, book discounts, our exclusive newsletter, and access to our members’ chatroom on Discord! Head to empirepoduk.com to sign up. For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com.  Email: [e-mail] Instagram: @empirepoduk  Blue Sky: @empirepoduk  X: @empirepoduk Assistant Producer: Becki Hills Producer: Anouska Lewis Senior Producer: Callum Hill Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you want access to bonus episodes reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat community. Discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcast, add free listening and a weekly newsletter, sign up to Empire Club at www.mparpoduk.com. Hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arlen. And me, William Durimple. So previously, if you're just joining us, and you know, if you heard this before, It was a very odd story. Okay, so what you have is a situation in China

where you have a man called Charles Elliott who is in charge of trade with China, but really not really in charge at all because the main trade that is going on is the opium trade. And the opium trade is run by these couple of Scottish ruffians called Jardine and Matheson who pretty much laugh into their sleeves at anything Elliot has to say.

He's a weak-chind Elliot sitting in Macau, who just doesn't really like conflict, who's very conflict-averse. He's a good man. He's a nice man. He's been freeing slaves in West Africa. He's a nice man. And he's just not the kind of person to square up to Jardine and Mathes.

And they have these sort of gangs of brigands. They're fully tuled up. They don't really listen to him. They are the Pablo Escobar of 19th century China. But they're doing it from the British factory in Canton, which is supposedly sort of British soil, although it isn't because the Chinese don't let Britain buy the soil that they've put their factory on. It still belongs to China. All the people

working in there for the British boiling their eggs and starching their collars. They're all Chinese. All the guards around it, they're Chinese as well. So it comes in the last episode two ahead. Commissioner Lin, who's this one fine, upstanding Chinese Mandarin. Plight, efficient, hardworking. But made of sterner stuff than Elliot, in many ways like Elliot, sort of quite decent. But in ways unlike Elliot, you know, made of steel, because he's been sent with this mandate to stop the opium trade. Opium is destroying China and, you know, they've had enough of it. So, you know, despite the fact, initially he says, you know, we can maybe legalise this

and then maybe we can make the money, we can grow the poppies ourselves, that's all, gets shot down. And he goes, let's just destroy the opium trade. First of all, let's destroy the buyers, which is, you know, you give people a year to get clean. And if they're still using, you execute them. It's pretty draconian stuff. and then he goes after the suppliers. The suppliers are all in the sort of British compound, which is cornered the trade.

And we got to this point of impasse. It's sort of high noon at the OK Corral where he surrounded the Jardine and Matheson compound as it pretty much is now and said you hand over all your opium or we're going to hang these people right in front of your eyes. These are the Chinese that you've been doing business with who've been getting very, very wealthy off the back of this trade.

they're your friends, we will kill them, and then let's see what happens. And Lynn then sort of follows this up by writing directly to Queen Victoria saying, look, not your fault. And it's not you. You're an ignorant for it. You don't know. It's them. But you know what?

We're not having this. And consider this a warning. This is the end of that. We're drawing a line. And it all starts ratcheting up and ratcheting up until Elliot rides in to the rescue a decent man. But somehow, manners just to carry this off where he says, you know what, Just hand in all of your opium, okay, all of it, and the British Crown will pay for it. He hasn't asked anybody.

There's no idea how much this is all worth. No waft of this has got to Palmerston or anybody else. And he said, well, you know, we'll just buy it, just stop it. You know, you'll make your profits. Just stop being silly. Stop being so silly now. We're not going to have a fight. We've got a gunship, but we're not going to use it.

That's silly. And so he offers this deal. And the reason we laughed so much is because, The opportunists around, like the Americans, who've just pretty recently got independence from the British, are sort of very quickly rubbing off their American flags from their crates. This is British opium. This is British opium. It is a bill of 10 million dollars.

In the early 19th century, add four noughts. For any government. And especially if you consider that the opium trade is the furnace that is driving the machine. of British India. This is all just catastrophic. So that's where we left it, William Duremberg. Where are we picking up these reins from now? Charles Elliott has issued this IOU and now he has to break it to the British government that they're going to have to pay for it. That is a conversation I would like to have heard actually, very much so, yes. And he writes a letter arguing that failing to pay up could trigger what he calls a commercial convulsion in the Indian trade. And the British view is that although it's morally dubious, the opium trade has been

effectively allowed to exist by Chinese authorities forever tolerated in reality, if not in law, because they've never done anything about it. And therefore, this sudden and forceful seizure is seen as an unwarranted act. But ahead of the IOU goes William Jardine. Jardine and Mathes are always the troublemakers in this story. In 1839, William Jardine realizing now that there's going to be an issue in the repayment because the figures are so much larger than anyone had anticipated, 10 million dollars. And also that his opium is at the bottom of the sea, because, you know, let's not forget,

Commissioner Lynn has just dumped it all into the ocean and written a nice poem apologising to the water. It's not coming back. He's out of pockets. And William Jardine hasn't become as rich as he is without being an operator. and he realizes at this point what is needed is someone in London lobbying the government. And so in a very sort of modern twist, he actually gets on a boat, goes back to London from China, takes $20,000 with him because Matheson has advised him that what he really needs to do is now start creating, what, propaganda effectively in the newspapers.

Oh, cause a ruckus. Get the British people behind you. get the daily mail of its day out and about. And so he takes $20,000 to London specifically to buy journalists who will get opinion pieces in the newspapers and get everybody working. And the guy who's writing most reciferously is an ex-East India Company hand, who's another Scotsman, part of the same group of Scots near-do-world. What is the Scots cabal, man? And this is a guy called Hugh Hamilton Lindsay, who is one of the Lindsay family from Fife. Are they related, William? Tell us now. Well, I hate to say so, yes.

Oh, bloody hell. And they're always getting caught up in situations with my family. For example, there was a James Lindsay who ended up in Tipu's prison with various ancestors of mine in another sort of tight corner. Anyway, Hugh Hamilton Lindsay is basically at this point in the story, William Jardine's sort of PR man, his PR agent in London. And he starts writing all these opinion pieces in the Times and in other English newspapers arguing that, and here's a quote, that a despotic and arbitrary government that had always been unjust and oppressive in their treatment of foreigners, had deprived innocent Britons of their liberty, debarred them from food and water, threatened their lives, dearly will

they pay for the insults and outrages offered to the British nation. So that's really throwing the kind of... I mean, it hits all the buttons, doesn't it? Absolutely. It does. A very modern tabloidy piece. And Jardine's paying for this. He's got a war chest, which he's paying like some sort of Tory donor, pulling out Brexit editorials just at the moment it's needed or founding some dodgy right-wing radio station or TV station to throw out this propaganda. It works because listening to all this and very much of the same time, is this character, Lord Palmerston.

He is the ultimate sort of British bulldog of the early 19th century. He's one of those Anglo-Irish peers, a Viscount, so he's sort of very blue-blooded. The Temple family is his family, so they've got power and they've got influence. And he begins his parliamentary career as a Tory MP in 1807. And he's held some really high offices as well. He's a very grand man. He's a man with a great sense of his own importance, and he has been junior lord of the admiralty. He's served as Secretary of War.

He's a big deal. He switches allegiance, is interesting. I do know a bit about Palmerston because he just flips over to the Whigs in 1830. And as a reward, if you like, for flipping parties, he is made Foreign Secretary in 1839. So, you know, his sentence is swift and considerable. He is a great defender of British, as he sees it, defender of British rights, defender of British interests, any British citizens should be able to claim that like a Roman citizen once had, that he could just step out. And therefore, he is exactly the right man for Jardine and Matheson to home in on.

Soon enough, he's, after being turned down on the first few requests, William Jardine is in his study, feeding him all this directly and advising him what to do. And what Jardine and Matheson want is they want a full-scale war. They want to send gunboats. They want to have said, a fleet to China, and they tell Palmerston that it'd be a very easy thing. They have this very dim view of the Chinese. They're saying that it will take absolutely nothing. It'll be over by Christmas. It'll be over by Christmas. There will be no effective response from the Chinese, and we can have the right to sell what we like, where we can open up all the ports, we can grab a few territories, we could get that island Hong Kong. And he's feeding all this Palmerston, who is absolutely a ready,

Lapping it up. Lapping it up. Also in Jardine and Matheson's favour is the cabinet at this point. Among the people there is our old enemy McCauley, who we last met in the Irish famine episode of the Irish series. If you remember, McCauley's brother-in-law, Charles Trevelyan, was the man responsible for not sending aid to the starving Irish. And McCauley also is exactly the sort of person who loves beating up some natives as he sees it. extending British influence and showing the power of the British. So Jardine and Matheson, who want to war, find they've got a cabinet who, in part at least, is very much on their side. And they feed this line to Palmerston and his fellow Hawks that a little show of force, you don't even need to send a huge fleet, a little show of force will make the Chinese back down

and that they will provide all the ports, all the facilities that we'll. We need, we can get opium legalised once and for all, get this trade going again and recover the money. Otherwise, he says, where are you going to get this 10 million from? What are you going to do? We're still on the hook for 10 million. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Even for a government at the peak of British power, this is not a sum that's easy to just whip out of the budget. So, I mean, this has a phrase that we've all come to know now.

And I wonder if the origins are from this conflict, which is gunship diplomacy, which is where you put your biggest cannons and your biggest guns. around and then you say, you know what, let's talk now. This is absolutely Palmerston's modus for Vendee. He is Mr. Gunship. You know, Jardine, are we clever man, though, to sort of buy off editors and start getting this stuff seeded? And also, presumably, to give a wholly inaccurate account of, you know, sort of men starving to death in whatever the Chinese version of the black hole of Calcutta is. I mean, he will paint a picture, won't he, if they didn't get food, they didn't get water? You were saying, you know, chickens were coming regularly over the back.

The chickens were coming in, pigs, everything was being let in the back quietly. They just didn't know how to cook it as well as their Chinese cooks. And they had to pull up their own stockings. But we weren't in a starvation situation, but that is the imagery that he has come with. And that's what's inflamed the people. And then given already a hawkish parmiston, his causes spell eye, or at least causes, gunship diplomacy eye, whatever that is in Latin. Now, there are a few voices against this, because even in the... the early 19th century, even at the height of British imperialism, there are many people in Britain

who regard the opium trade as an abomination. And among those arguing that the British have got no right at all to demand conversation is our old friend George Staunton. Do you remember George Staunton? I do remember George Staunton. The embassy story, the McCartney Embassy. So this is young George Staunton who had been reciting, who had been trying to speak perfect Chinese at the age of 11. He was learning it. Yes, he was, that's right. They took him on as a, he was a translator, who may have over-egged his CV a little bit about just how much he knew. Now little George has grown up into big George Thornton and he's saying, no, this is not, I don't recognise this. And he's an MP. He's apparently the worst speaker in Parliament. He can't get his words out at all any better than they could do with the Chinese Emperor. He's no better on the floor of the House. But he is regarded as the kind of the great Chinese expert. He's the only person in Parliament who's been to China. And he's Chinese and by the stage properly. Now he does. He is very clear that the British have no right to ask this compensation.

Others who are arguing that the opium trade is an abomination, which the British cannot go to war to defend an illegal trade with a drug that poisons the people. There's also a whole group of people in Parliament and the cabinet who point out the financial costs and the risks of the war. This is the largest empire in the world. Remember that at this point the British are having a very uphill. struggle in Afghanistan. It hasn't yet turned into the catastrophe. It will do in 1842 when an entire British army is lost retreating from Kabul. But it's already being clear that by the end of 1839,

that it's going to be an expensive and difficult thing to hold. And it's not the moment to start sending more fleets to other ends of the world in more dubious missions. Then there's a whole group of people in Parliament that point out that, you know, there's a perfectly peaceful resolution possible. We don't need to start sending war fleets to literally the other end of the world in order to negotiate with a people who, many people in Europe regard as a model state, which has kept the largest empire in the world for many, many centuries. Yeah, I mean, just pause there, just remind people, before you carry on, because there are two narratives about China, and we talked about this at the beginning of this series.

The one, which is, you know, comes out from the 1700s onwards where the tastes for Chinese goods, is shinwasari and you have people writing like Voltaire, writing about what civilised people these are, the absolute height of civilisation, they're really, you know, people we need to emulate. And then you've got the Jardine and Matheson version, which becomes all pervasive that these guys are, you know, they're less than us, they're savages really, they don't know how to run their own country, they're all corrupt, they're all venal. And it is the struggle of these two ideologies. So it is almost like newspeak, you know, which is forget all that you thought about the Chinese, everything that you've ever said about the Chinese.

Great Britain. I know you've liked them in the past, but that's not what the imagery is. So it really is a very contemporary picture this. This is a propaganda war that's going on about China. And we should say that one of the people who's very active at this point in Parliament against a British intervention is William Gladstone, who we've also met behaving very well uniquely with the Irish. In a period when the British behaved very badly to the Irish and trample on their rights, Gladstone was a voice of moderation. And he was a voice of moderation. Here he is again now in Parliament and he makes these fantastic speeches. He says, I'm in dread of the judgments of God upon England for our national iniquity towards China.

And he's very clear, the British are poisoning the Chinese people. This is an unjust war. There is absolutely no reason. But he's not in power. Palmerston is in power. He's also a better speaker than George Staunton, to be fair. And people listen to Gladstone generally. Your day sort of nod off and go to the loo when he's speaking.

But the wind is not behind him. It is behind Palmerston. Exactly. So egged on by Jardine and Madison, particularly Jardine, who's now actually got access, sort of Elon Musk-like, into the study of power, the equivalent of the Oval Office. And in August 1839, it goes to the cabinet. What are we actually going to do? Can we just repay these traders with our own money?

And, of course, the Prime Minister doesn't want to do that. He doesn't want to go to the people and tell them that he's paying $10 million for some illegal opium that you can't sell that to the electorate. Can't sell it to anyone. It's at the bottom of the ocean. It's not going to be sold to anyone in particular. And Palmerston characteristically favors a forceful response to protect British interests. He says it's not about the opium.

This is about British honour. But he plays that card. He says in the language of hawks at all periods of history that the Chinese need to be taught a lesson. And they need to pay for the destroyed opium. and there's a little bit of disagreement in the cabinet, but McCauley comes to Palmerston's aid. He's the young kid in the block. He's just his first time in the cabinet.

He's just got in there, and he immediately clings to Palmerston and encourages the war. And so the settlement, the compromise, is that they will send a naval squadron, but it will be of limited size. So they're going to send a small squadron in order to obtain reparation. from China for Commissioner Lynn's bad treatment of Charles Elliott and other British subjects.

That's how it's been framed. And also there's a quote from Palmerston. The way Palmerston reads this is obviously through the filter of Charlie. He says, you know, talking about Commissioner Lynn, he says he refused to grant Elliot the power necessary to control the British subjects within the dominions of China. Just break that down for a second. Elliot did have the power. No one listened to him, first of all. And the second, you know, within the dominions of China.

He's saying the Chinese authority have no right to say anything within their own dominion. It's a real sea change in foreign policy and it is going to grate against a lot of people. Nevertheless, the ships are on their way. How many ships? I mean, what are we talking about? What's sent out here? The decision made is that because there's opposition in Parliament, they're not going to send a massive fleet, but they're going to send a small squadron and a much.

Among the vessels that are going to be sent is the world's very first oil iron war steamer, which is called the nemesis. And no one's ever seen a ship like this before. This is the, what's the, I could have today kind of stealth bomber or something. It's a completely new generation of warship. And remember that at this point, the Chinese have just got wooden junks. And so you've got this sort of sinister vessel that the Chinese called the devil ship, which they're putting into action. It's the latest technology. And the hope is, in the brief discussion that is given to this matter in Parliament,

that sending a limited naval squadron will be enough to put enough pressure on to get the money out of the Chinese and repay the British government for all the opium that's been taken. They also realise that they can call in troops from India. India. India's not that far away. I was just thinking Elliot's family member, you know, he's not far away. He can dispatch. and they've got lots of people in India. Exactly.

So the order is sent to the government of India to support this squadron with East India Company forces. So we suddenly find lots of Sikhs, lots of Punjabis being added to this force. The manpower is Indian. The fleets are from England and they make this decision

in just three quarters of an hour. And they all pat each other on the back. Well, there's some really appalling things. They're sort of jokerly talking to each other about this, clearly not taking this very seriously. I'm also convinced of, you know, the turning up of the Targaryen dragon at the gates that everything's going to cave in just at the sight of the nemesis. They sort of are saying to each other, we have just made war on the master of one third of the whole human race. I mean, are we clever. So there is this nervousness.

Yeah. They've already seen that Afghanistan is putting up a much greater resistance than they had planned. and now they're taking on something far greater than Afghanistan, this enormous empire in China. And they've never made war on China before. They don't know what Chinese troops are going to be like. It's like playing a football match with a team that you have no knowledge of. And this is one third of the human race, an empire the size of Europe. But the decision is made. And because they've given the whole day for discussing this,

imagining that it might be such a contentious issue that they would be debating into the night. but it's over by about three in the afternoon. And Lord Broughton decides that it's a nice day. So he goes off for a two-hour horseback ride with Queen Victoria through Windsor Park to tell her the latest update on this small crisis. Right. The rain comes and closes play on their ride, but the decision is made. Gladstone is furious when he hears this.

In the next debate in Parliament, he states that a war more unjust in its origin, a war more calculated in its progress to cover this country with permanent disgrace I do not know of and have never read of. Let's take a break. Join us after the break where we find out what happens when the nemesis reaches Chinese waters. Welcome back. Okay, so the nemesis, this ironclad gunship, the people have never seen like of before the devil ship, is in Chinese water. What is going on the Chinese side? At what point do they know that this is what the British Parliament has decided? with a blessing, it would seem, if the queen, you know, to just take off. And it's a declaration of war. They must have seen it as that.

Or what do they think? But they're not at all worried, as they've seen it. Or certainly as Commissioner Lynn sees it. Those guys in the factory weren't much to worry about. Yeah. They've caved in over five days. That they are barbarians from the other side of the world. We have no need of their manufacturers.

They have need of us. And so Commissioner Lynn thinks that we've got to be very nice. nice to these foreigners. We've showed them their place. And then he writes a private dispatch to the emperor. And it's very interesting what he says. He basically says there's absolutely nothing to worry about. After I arrived in Canton, I investigated the feelings of the foreigners. On the outside, they seem intractable, but inside they are cowardly. If in future we fear them setting off border provocations, the ulcer of trouble they bring will grow day by day. They are in minority and we must not forget we are the majority. Though their ships are strong and their guns

quick, they can be only victorious at sea. They cannot play their tricks in the port and Guangdong Canton is well fortified. Although there have been some ups and downs so far, the situation as a whole is under control. And he writes that those that went on smuggling were courting destruction and that they could easily be destroyed by the fire rafts and the militants. that he's hired from the local fishing populations. He's saying, we don't even need to send troops from the centre. Just the local militia will do. And then he writes another letter on the 1st September. He doubles down on his idea that the British are absolutely nothing to be feared. He says, despite their guns, the foreign soldiers are not skilled at infantry engagements.

And then he gives his reasoning. Their legs and feet, he says, are closely bound by tight trousers, which makes bending and stretching inconvenient when they're. reached the shore, they are less powerless, and their strength can easily be controlled. Well, see, until at this point, I thought Lin was, you know, an intelligent man, but I mean, he sounds like an idiot. He just doesn't understand, does he? That actually, when it comes to naval prowess, the Brits have a reputation quite rightfully. You know, they have India. There are mobilisable troops not very far from where you are. He's completely underestimated the situation. It's not that he's not clever. He is brought up in a system, which is always regard

China is the center of the world, the center of civilization, and that foreigners are barbarians who have got to be humored, but must not be allowed to get above themselves. And he has literally no conception of the power of mid-19th century Victorian weaponry. He doesn't realize that the wooden junks, the bows and arrows, the spears. And this is a very tragic story, which is now unraveling. Because you have these characters who've done, you know, behaved extremely honourably by their own lights. They've stopped gangsters.

They've stopped a terrible poison, which is eating into their society. And with tact, as they see it, and with good manners, they've made the foreigners behave themselves and won. I see that. But can I just also point out this is a country then and a Chinese government with spectacularly bad intel. I mean, honestly, spectacularly bad. Because three times Lin gets news that there is a flotilla heading in his direction, that this is serious, you know. And three times he just kind of wafts it off like, oh, don't worry about it.

He keeps telling the emperor, don't worry about it. In fact, he keeps saying, you know, when they can almost see them on the horizon, it's like it is not a rumor. They're actually coming. They are coming. They are nearly here. It's an opium smuggling flotella. Don't worry about it. We'll deal with it with our burning rafts. We can make short shrift of this. He doesn't recognise it at all for what it is, which is tragic. You say, but also just, you know, sort of diplomatically daft. If you are that isolated, you know, you don't see the problems on the horizon. I mean, you're right. Of course you're right. But you've got to remember that the Manchus had a terrific military reputation. They'd just. just conquered great chunks of Western China. On land? On land? Yes, but they, in their eyes, they were the supreme warriors of the world. They had no conception of how far they'd fallen behind in terms of technology.

And nothing they've seen so far, the British leaves them to believe that they're anything to worry about. What unfolds is a series of complete miscalculations by the Qing court. And that begins now to unfold. So at 9 a.m. on the 4th September, 1839, the first three small ships of the fleet come. They take on the Qing junks at Kowloon that are blocking British access to fresh food and water in the factories. They still haven't completely let up the siege. And off the mainland, Elliot has got his interpreter, Karl Gutslav, and he tries to hand the,

letters to the captains of the war junks telling them that if they did not withdraw, violence would result. And the Chinese captains simply refused to take the letters. They won't open the letters and they won't read them on the grounds that they weren't empowered to do so. So at 2pm, on the 4th of September 1839, with the Cantonese sun blazing down, Elliot says that if they did not allow them to get provisions in half an hour, he would open fire. And when the deadline came, Elliot stuck to his word.

And sadly to everyone's consternation, the junks did not flee, but very bravely stood their ground and returned far. And at 4.45, as the junks drew alongside the ships, Elliot writes, we gave them three such broadsides that it made every rope in the vessel grin again. We loaded with grape the fourth time and gave them gun for gun. The shrieking on board was dreadful. But it did not frighten me. This is the first day I ever shed human blood and I hope it will be the last. So already there's this awareness among the Brits that, you know,

if they do fight with the Chinese, the result is always something. a massacre. Okay. They're not equal, a fair fight, so to speak. Can I ask you this? Is a full-blown war at this point inevitable, or is there a way back from that? Well, it is inevitable in the sense that the Chinese don't realize what's coming, and therefore are in absolutely no mind to back down.

But Elliot wants a compromise. Elliot's a man who compromises. I mean, he's not doing this, opening fire, thinking actually I'm starting a war. He's thinking, I mean, with an Elliot brain, there must be a way to row back from this. Correct. And he hopes very much that they will row back. But the fleet is now on its way. The first ships have arrived. Commissioner Lynn is sticking to his original position that the British are welcome to come and trade in Canton. But anyone who wants to come will have to sign a bond promising not to trade in opium forever. It's not unreasonable. It's not unreasonable at all. You know, stop pumping drugs into our country. That's all we're saying you can come in. It's not firing it. We don't need all this silliness. Just stop, you know, poisoning. us with your drugs? So again on the 2nd November you have another confrontation between the

Qing war junks and these ironclad British ships. And the English warship, the hyacinth, begins cannonading and the Chinese admiral again bravely returns fire, standing erect before the mast wielding his sword and roaring death to deserters. He does not flinch even when injured by a cannon ball that also took off one of his main masts. Elliot has to write these letters back to England saying we ran down the Chinese line, pouring in a destructive fire, the terrible effect of which was soon manifest. One war junk blew up at about a pistol shot distance, three others were sunk, several others obviously waterlogged.

The Admiral's conduct was worthy of his station, manifesting a resolution of behaviour honourably enhanced by the hopelessness of his efforts. So this is not a nice war to be involved in, if you're Elliot, because these guys effectively can't fire back. Well, you're just mowing down human people, you're mowing down men who are honorably sticking to their station, but have absolutely no chance of sustaining even a small response to what's going on. After these two engagements, when you've had two episodes of British ships just instantly sinking, massacring Chinese naval forces, still the Chinese understand that the Qing ships cannot win this war against the fleet once it arrives.

And when the full fleet turns up, which is the following July, with the nemesis, they have Palmerston's battle plan, which has basically been knocked up in his office with William Jardine. William Jardine is sitting in London. He's got access now to the foreign office. He's walking into Palmerston studies. One of very few people in London that's been to China. that knows the landscape and Palmerston is lapping up all that he wants. Palmerston trusts him, he thinks he's a reliable source. It couldn't happen today. Imagine a businessman with a dodgy reputation walking into the most powerful office of the land.

Somebody, you know, with a huge business interest in a certain field could come in and whisper sweet nothings into a powerful man's ear. No, it wouldn't have to. We have luckily moved on a long way from that, exactly. Ancient history. But that is exactly what's going on. And so the battle feet arise, and it's got, it has to be said, a very efficient and effective battle plan, which has basically been given to Palmerston already written by William Jardine. And what they said they should do is that they should bypass Canton, that they shouldn't go straight to Canton, which is where all the action has been so far. but instead they should go for the jugular,

go for the Empire's centre of food distribution on the south-east coast, the point at which the capital's grain supply set off, which is Nanjing on the Grand Canal, and then sail up, if there's any more resistance, up to Beijing. They're not messing around with Canton, they're going straight for the capital. I don't think we said how many are in the British fleet, because we're talking about 22 warships, 27 transports, 3,600 Scottish, Irish and Indian infantrymen.

I mean, this is a considerable force. This is not messing about at all. It's not a fleet, but it's a flotilla. A flotilla, okay. It's a flotilla. And their first point is to control the island of Zushan, which controls the entrance to the river. So on the 4th July, battle begins, and the 22 warships, which is quite a lot of warships. It's a lot.

And on the morning of the 4th July, they approach. Zushan Island and by 8 in the morning all is as ready it's ever going to be. There's 15 British ships lined up opposite these poor unfortunate Qing war junks. And the British, again, keep hoping that the Chinese will just buckle and having seen what happened last time. Yeah, look what we can do. Look what we can do. Back down.

So there's this standoff between 8.30 in the morning when the British fleet lines up opposite these junks, and they hold their fire until 2.30 in the afternoon, hoping the Chinese will reconsider the offer they've made of unconditional surrender. But of course, the Chinese are not going to do that. And so then Lord Jocelyn, who is Ellet's military secretary, writes in his diary what happens. The broadsides begin. The broadside, for those that don't know, is that is one side of a ship firing all its cannons. Where all the portholes are. Where the portholes are. As before, there is just a massacre. This is what he writes.

The crashing of timber, falling houses, and the groans of men resounded from the shore. When the smoke cleared away, a mass of ruin presented itself to the eye. Crowds were visible in the distance, flying in all directions. The British had fired for only nine minutes, but when they landed on the shore,

they just found dead bodies, bows and arrows, broken spears and guns. And then there's one small settlement on this island, which is called Dingai. The Madras Regiment has given the task of taking it. It trains four guns on it. By 10 o'clock that evening, the inhabitants just run away. The governor drowns himself in a small pool. This is another thing that happens continually in this story, and we'll see it again and again.

This habit of ritual suicide in the face of humiliation. And so when the British do go into Canton, they find that half the... citizens just commit suicide. They walk into this massacre scene of people that have killed themselves. So the British flag, by the following morning, is fluttering over the city walls, but nearly a million people have fled the island. Half-smoked pipes, cups of untasted tea, abandoned pots. Just nine minutes of fire has seen a million people flee.

And the grotesque discrepancy in the strength between the British and the Qing forces is replayed again and again. Can I just say, I mean, you know, that kind of massacre, that kind of overpowering strength, you know, it's not a fight. And if you are a fighting man and you see you're just mowing down, you know, people who are largely defenseless, but brave, but defenseless, there is, you know, a body of writing from British officers who took part in this that shows the sort of self-discussed pounding and broadside after broadside against wooden junks that just splinter.

Can I read a bit from one of them? So this is one description of a British officer involved in that. He says the sea is a scene of horror, quite blackened with floating corpses after a battle. The insider of a fort, he says, is bespattered with brains. Another confesses in his journal that many most barbarous things occurred that are disgraceful to our men. So, you know, they're not filled with honour. These are honourable men. You know, they're going to fight at cause.

And when they see what they're, you know, they're basically facing, flating matchboxes in comparison, that's not sport. That's a massacre. And so they don't feel terribly proud of themselves either. It's quite telling that the only single victory in the entire course of the war, which we're going to hear about next episode, is when there's one minor skirmish.

And the people who defeat the British is, It's a village of angry peasants with pitchforks who've had their fields overrun. It's not the Qing army. The Qing army is instantly so demoralised by what's happening and knowing that there's no way that they can touch these invaders, that the officers, in almost all cases, start locking the gates of their forts so that the soldiers won't run away. Wow.

Well, there's so much more to talk about. One thing I'd like to say before we finish is talk up the two. extraordinary books, which I have hugely enjoyed reading and learning from while I was researching this episode. One is Julia Lovell's The Opium War. Julia is a great historian of China. She is also the wife of my wonderful friend Robert McFarlane, the nature writer. And her book on Maoist won the Kundle History Prize, but she produced this from, I think, her thesis. And the Opium War, drugs, dreams in the making of China is one of the very first books by a British author to really grapple with the Chinese sources for the Opium War,

because it's a massive subject in Chinese historiography, and Julia knows that material like no one else, and it's a detailed day-by-day look at the first Opium War. Then the other book, which I've hugely enjoyed, and which I've also drawn a lot from in this episode, is Stephen Platt's Imperial Twilight, the Opium War and the End of China's last Golden Age. Like Julia, this is by Historian of China, who's focused very much on the Chinese end of the story and uses Chinese sources impeccably. But it's slightly wider angle. We get a much longer time to. It's not just the 1839 Open War. It's the whole period. Very difficult to choose between the two. I love them both and I'd heartily recommend both to

all empire listeners. Till the next time we meet, it is goodbye from me, Anita Arnden. A goodbye from me, William Duremple.