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Authors: Jung Chang
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friendly letter of farewell when he departed, in which he expressed the wish that future foreign affairs in China be put in the hands of Prince Gong.
Emperor Xianfeng authorised the treaties, telling Prince Gong he had done well. The emperor then had the treaties announced throughout the empire, by sending them to all provinces and having posters put up in Beijing. ‘Those who are thinking of taking advantage of the war to start a revolt will now think twice when they know peace has been restored,’ he said. One diarist saw the notice and wept: the Chinese emperor was listed on an equal footing with the British and French monarchs, which the man regarded as ‘an utterly unheard of thing, ever, and an unbelievable fall in our status’.
The country that gained most from the war was a third party, Russia, China’s neighbour to the north. On 14 November, Prince Gong signed a treaty with the Russian envoy, Nicholas Ignatieff, which ceded to Russia hundreds of thousands of square kilometres of territory north of the Amur River and east of the Ussuri, defining the border to this day. This area, which was commonly held to be ‘a great wilderness’, had been surrendered to Russia back in 1858 by the Manchu garrison chief of the territory, General Yishan, apparently in a moment of panic when the Russians made warlike noises. The General had in fact proven himself a lying and hopeless coward during the Opium War. Consisting of three paragraphs and filling less than a page, the document was never endorsed by Emperor Xianfeng.
But now this highly irregular piece of paper was accredited by Prince Gong, who had its contents incorporated in the Treaty of Beijing with Russia. Nicholas Ignatieff claimed to the prince that it was he who had persuaded the British and French to accept a peaceful settlement and that his country therefore deserved to be rewarded. Prince Gong told the emperor that Ignatieff did nothing of the sort; in fact he had ‘nudged the British and the French to invade’. Now he was only ‘taking advantage of their presence in Beijing to exact what he wants’. But regarding Ignatieff as ‘an exceedingly cunning and immovable character’, the prince was worried that he would ‘make mischief’ and ‘stir up unpredictable troubles’ with the allies, and so he counselled accepting his demands. Emperor Xianfeng cursed Ignatieff, calling him ‘the most loathsome’, but gave his consent – even though it is hard to imagine what trouble could have been stirred up, given that the allies were impatient to go home. And so the Qing dynasty suffered the biggest loss of territory in its history. ‘With this treaty in his pocket,’ writes Nicholas’s great-grandson, Michael, ‘Ignatieff and his Cossacks saddled up for Petersburg’, and:
having traversed the whole of Asia on horseback in six weeks . . . he was received by the Tsar, decorated with the Order of St Vladimir, promoted to general and shortly thereafter made head of the Asian department of the Foreign Office. Without firing a shot, he had secured for Russia a wild terrain the size of France and Germany combined and the hinterland of Vladivostok, the new empire’s port on the Pacific.
The fact that Prince Gong yielded without a fight indicates a lack of nerve in his character, which his father had foreseen, and which was to manifest itself in other critical circumstances. As for Emperor Xianfeng, his preoccupation at the time was how to avoid an audience with the Western envoys in Beijing, who had been asking to present their credentials to him. He found the prospect of being face-to-face with his enemies unbearable and told Prince Gong to refuse their request, in such a way that the issue would never arise again. Otherwise, the emperor threatened, somewhat petulantly, ‘if I get back to Beijing and they come and ask again, I will hold you responsible and punish you’. Prince Gong argued that the Europeans had no malevolent designs, but the emperor
Emperor Xianfeng authorised the treaties, telling Prince Gong he had done well. The emperor then had the treaties announced throughout the empire, by sending them to all provinces and having posters put up in Beijing. ‘Those who are thinking of taking advantage of the war to start a revolt will now think twice when they know peace has been restored,’ he said. One diarist saw the notice and wept: the Chinese emperor was listed on an equal footing with the British and French monarchs, which the man regarded as ‘an utterly unheard of thing, ever, and an unbelievable fall in our status’.
The country that gained most from the war was a third party, Russia, China’s neighbour to the north. On 14 November, Prince Gong signed a treaty with the Russian envoy, Nicholas Ignatieff, which ceded to Russia hundreds of thousands of square kilometres of territory north of the Amur River and east of the Ussuri, defining the border to this day. This area, which was commonly held to be ‘a great wilderness’, had been surrendered to Russia back in 1858 by the Manchu garrison chief of the territory, General Yishan, apparently in a moment of panic when the Russians made warlike noises. The General had in fact proven himself a lying and hopeless coward during the Opium War. Consisting of three paragraphs and filling less than a page, the document was never endorsed by Emperor Xianfeng.
But now this highly irregular piece of paper was accredited by Prince Gong, who had its contents incorporated in the Treaty of Beijing with Russia. Nicholas Ignatieff claimed to the prince that it was he who had persuaded the British and French to accept a peaceful settlement and that his country therefore deserved to be rewarded. Prince Gong told the emperor that Ignatieff did nothing of the sort; in fact he had ‘nudged the British and the French to invade’. Now he was only ‘taking advantage of their presence in Beijing to exact what he wants’. But regarding Ignatieff as ‘an exceedingly cunning and immovable character’, the prince was worried that he would ‘make mischief’ and ‘stir up unpredictable troubles’ with the allies, and so he counselled accepting his demands. Emperor Xianfeng cursed Ignatieff, calling him ‘the most loathsome’, but gave his consent – even though it is hard to imagine what trouble could have been stirred up, given that the allies were impatient to go home. And so the Qing dynasty suffered the biggest loss of territory in its history. ‘With this treaty in his pocket,’ writes Nicholas’s great-grandson, Michael, ‘Ignatieff and his Cossacks saddled up for Petersburg’, and:
having traversed the whole of Asia on horseback in six weeks . . . he was received by the Tsar, decorated with the Order of St Vladimir, promoted to general and shortly thereafter made head of the Asian department of the Foreign Office. Without firing a shot, he had secured for Russia a wild terrain the size of France and Germany combined and the hinterland of Vladivostok, the new empire’s port on the Pacific.
The fact that Prince Gong yielded without a fight indicates a lack of nerve in his character, which his father had foreseen, and which was to manifest itself in other critical circumstances. As for Emperor Xianfeng, his preoccupation at the time was how to avoid an audience with the Western envoys in Beijing, who had been asking to present their credentials to him. He found the prospect of being face-to-face with his enemies unbearable and told Prince Gong to refuse their request, in such a way that the issue would never arise again. Otherwise, the emperor threatened, somewhat petulantly, ‘if I get back to Beijing and they come and ask again, I will hold you responsible and punish you’. Prince Gong argued that the Europeans had no malevolent designs, but the emperor
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