Shanghai (13 page)

Finally, talks were arranged, but not onboard the British warship—rather, in a temple outside the town's walls. A commission was handed over by Gough. The Chinese responded that they would need time to examine the document, and that while they did the British should call off their offensive. Pottinger responded, “There has been enough dilly-dallying. The next thing you heathens will hear will be the sound of Her Majesty's cannons as they knock down the walls of Nanking.”

The next morning a messenger arrived on the flagship to tell Gough that Ilipu and Kiying had read the commission and were prepared to appear for formal talks. A skeleton of the treaty was hastily drawn up in both languages and the meeting was set.

At precisely ten o'clock the next morning Kiying and Ilipu paid a ceremonial visit to the
Cornwallis.
They handed over an agreed-upon version of the treaty and were shown around the ship, offered tea and cherry brandy. It was the first opportunity for the British to see Kiying, and they liked what they saw. He had a fine, manly countenance, with a pleasant overall cast to his
person. But Ilipu, with whom the British had dealt in the past, looked like a broken old man.

When the two Mandarins entered the Captain's cabin they noticed a picture of Queen Victoria. When Gough explained who she was, the Mandarins bowed.

The rest of the negotiations that day were straightforward. It was clear from the beginning that the primary concern of the two Mandarins was the immediate departure of the English fleet. “How many times do we have to tell these heathens that we're not leaving until we have a signed treaty?” Pottinger, ever the diplomat, spat out in disgust.

Negotiations over the minutiae of the treaty itself finally began.

Two days later Pottinger and Gough received a formal invitation to view Nanking. They were welcomed to the city by a crudely organized twelve-gun salute. Then, at the very end of a long working session, the real reason for the war was at long last broached—the opium trade. But the Chinese refused to talk about opium in any public forum whatsoever and adamantly rejected any official discussion of the matter.

“If I may, sir?” asked Richard.

“Go ahead,” Pottinger said, with an openly bored shrug.

“Suggest to them that the subject of opium is better discussed unofficially. It is, after all, a private matter that needs quiet consideration by men of wisdom.”

“More horse thwap.”

“Do it,” said Gough.

Richard spoke to the Mandarins, who were visibly relieved by the suggestion and quickly entered into an animated conversation. “Why do you English permit the cultivation of the opium poppy in your Indian colony?”

Pottinger offered up the stock British answer. “If we stopped its growth there it would simply move to other locales.” From his “figuring” Richard knew the economics of the opium trade and knew this was not necessarily true. “Besides,” Pottinger continued, “if your people are virtuous they will desist from the evil practice; and if your officers are incorruptible, and obey their orders, no opium can enter your country.”

“This is no answer,” said Kiying, “and as you well know neither virtue nor incorruptibility is in vast supply in any society.”

“Especially in heathen worlds like yours,” Pottinger muttered.

But before Pottinger's slander could be translated Gough asked, “Why not legalize it? At least then you could tax it and your government could collect money to help your people.”

The Chinese refused to honour the suggestion with a response.

Richard listened and translated for days and days. In the middle of the seventh day he realized with a shock that the other issue, close to the hearts of all the British negotiators—namely, the opening of China to foreign missionaries—was not even going to be mentioned. As the official negotiations ran their course nary a word was spoken on the subjects of religion and opium! God and opium, the two major causes of the war, never entered the discussions that led to the final draft of the treaty.

The final agreement saw the Chinese paying an indemnity of twenty-one million silver dollars, six million of them earmarked to pay compensation for the twenty thousand chests of opium thrown into the sea by Canton's Commissioner Lin. More importantly for Richard, five ports were opened to trade: Canton, Amoy, Foochow,
Ningpo, and of course Shanghai. The Hong trading system was abolished. Consuls were to arrive and be treated as equals, and a schedule of customs duties was to be accepted and not amended at the will of any local Mandarin.

Beijing's acceptance came before the end of the month, and the signed treaty was laid out on the Captain's table of HMS
Cornwallis
—four silk-bound copies in both English and Chinese.

Gough immediately ordered the English fleet back downstream—toward the Bend in the River—where Richard and Maxi, their obligations to the British Expeditionary Force completed, fully intended to jump ship and begin life.

The Chinese locals saw the ships heading downstream and assumed the armada had been defeated by the glorious armies of the Emperor. But it wasn't just the uninformed populace who claimed victory.

“Why are they celebrating?” Pottinger asked Richard as the
Cornwallis
passed by jeering crowds on the banks of the river.

Richard knew that the ruling Manchus believed the treaty they had signed hadn't really cost them anything. They were sure that the extremely restrictive access to
Canton would simply be repeated in five other ports. Allowing consuls to come to these ports was fine with Beijing since, as far as they were concerned,
Fan Kuei
should be superintended by a
Taipan—
a business leader—of their own, who should, naturally, report to his Chinese superior. As for the other provisions the English insisted on—namely the acceptance of an English ambassador in Beijing, the demand to dismantle the Hong merchant system, and standardizing tariff rates—well, these were niceties that could be sidestepped as the Manchus deemed necessary. From the Manchu point of view nothing important had changed.

But Richard suspected the Chinese were wrong this time. Terribly wrong. He assumed the western powers wouldn't carve up China as they had Africa. They would not take over China as the English had India or the Russians had central Asia. What they would probably do was riddle China through and through—like water carves out tunnels in limestone. Shortly, the Europeans would be able to work and live and sell their opium—and proselytize—at will. With, in fact, an absolute colonial confidence.

London's response to the treaty was less than enthusiastic. One newspaper opined, “It secures us a few round millions of dollars and no end of very refreshing tea.” Another editorialized that the best thing about the treaty was that the English populace would no longer have to be bothered with reports of “sweeping away whole crowds of poor pigtailed animals with cannon or bayonet.” Neither paper ran the story on the front page; both gave several more column inches to the recapture of Kabul.

The Protestant community and their press, however, were joyous. One of their more effusive newspapers
stated, “Since clearly God had chosen England to chastise and humble China so He will likely employ her to introduce the blessings of Christian civilization.”

The American Evangelicals were equally enthusiastic. They saw God's work as preparing the way for their imminent success
.

The opium merchants on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean didn't bother expressing their pleasure with the treaty in print but simply began to plan for the full opening of China. The offices of Dent and Company in London, Oliphant and Company (also known as the House of Zion) in Philadelphia, Jardine Matheson Traders in Edinburgh, and of course the Vrassoons' British East India Company were hives of activity as they mobilized to move, en masse, into the new treaty ports.

* * *

IN PARIS a certain Madame Colombe looked at her sternly handsome Jesuit son and asked, “Are you and your order ready for a serious return to China?” He smiled, kissed his mother's hand, then took his leave.

When he was gone, Madame Colombe's other child, Suzanne, entered the room. “Are you and your girls ready for a sea voyage,
ma cherie?
”

“It is time to extend our business, Mother, and this
Shan-geh-hi
sounds ideal. Will you be joining me?”

“I'm too old for the travel, but I do envy the adventure that awaits you, my darling.”

“Will my brother be doing whatever it is he does in China as well?”

Madame Colombe shrugged her shoulders and smiled. Whores and priests, priests and whores—the
women in her family had given birth to both in equal numbers for generation upon generation.

* * *

IN A FAR WING of his palatial estate in Hampstead, the Vrassoon Patriarch pocketed the urgent message and took his leave of the staff of Bedlam, who were paid to carefully dress as lords and ladies for what he thought of as his mad girl's Mid-Winter Eve's Ball.

“Don't go now, Daddy!” The girl's shrill voice came all the way across the vast room. He turned and glared at the nurses dressed as duchesses at her side, then quickly crossed to her. She sat in the large chair in her expensive party dress, her eyes alive with pleasure. This was, after all, her yearly treat. The Vrassoons' Mid-Winter Eve's Ball—a falsehood within a secret—the last vestige of Eliazar Vrassoon's heart's obligation to a creature he once loved.

“Just for a minute or two, then I'll be back, dearest.” He looked sternly at her nurses.

“And you'll dance with me, Daddy?”

“Of course I'll dance with you. Would a Mid-Winter Eve's Ball in your honour be complete if I didn't dance with you?” He pecked at her dusky cheek, turned, then hurried to his waiting carriage.

Forty minutes later he entered his private office in the British East India Company. There he was met by his eldest son, Ari, and his two lead China hands.

“So?” he demanded.

“It's not ready yet.”

“Bollocks!” Eliazar Vrassoon shouted—no longer the Duke of Warwickshire, now simply what he truly was, a bare-knuckle street-fighter protecting his hard-earned
territory. Then he turned to his son. “Where are those Baghdadi boys?” Despite the fact that Richard and Maxi were both in their thirties they would always be boys in the eyes of Eliazar Vrassoon. Dangerous boys.

An image flashed into his mind: a young boy's hand pushing open a door to reveal the madwoman as a beautiful little girl asleep in her tiny bed. He remembered exactly what he had said: “Your father has agreed, boy. Your father has agreed.”

“Our …”

“Your father … has agreed,” he had said sternly.

He shoved the memory away and looked out the window. It was the longest night of the year, but the blaze of light from the thousands of candles in the ballroom would banish the darkness. An eerie chill went through him. Some cultures thought that when you felt that, it was a cat crossing your grave. Other cultures believed that your death had found your whereabouts. But Vrassoon was from neither of these cultures. He shook off the feeling and repeated his question.

“Where are the Baghdadi boys?”

* * *

ON THE VERY LAST DAY OF 1842, Richard and Maxi shared a bottle of exquisite champagne, then completed their plans for Shanghai's upcoming concession auction.

As they did, in London, the Great Seal of England was affixed to a copy of the Treaty of Nanking at the Lord Chancellor's house on Great George Street. Six blocks away, Queen Victoria danced in the new year at Buckingham Palace.

* * *

AS HER GRACIOUS MAJESTY danced in London, Richard breathed the opium deep into his lungs and forced his mind back to how all this began. In the flickering brazier light, through the haze of opium smoke, he read his journal entries, beginning with the night after he and Maxi had left the opium farmers, over fifteen years earlier.

¨ ¨ ¨

J
OURNAL
E
NTRY
—A
PRIL
1828

The two small earthen jars, each packed to the brim with raw opium that Ahmed has given us in return for our three months of labour in his fields, will be our entrance fee to the world of the Works at Ghazipur and the second part of our education in opium.

The raw opium arrives at the Works in early April. It is weighed and then poured into wide stone vats in a covered warehouse. The product resembles a molasses-like tar but smells like freshly mown hay.

It smells of promise.

Opium absorbs moisture from the air quickly and needs to be thoroughly dried before it is packed for shipment. The dry, dust-rich winds of Ghazipur in late April, May, and June are perfect for the task. Once the dry weather establishes itself, small portions of the paste are taken from the storage vats and spread in shallow wooden trays on raised concrete platforms to dry.

Eventually there are hundreds of gallons of opium in the drying trays, stirred by mechanical mixers that often break down—at which point Maxi and I step in with our spades and rakes. For months Maxi and I have stirred the
stuff in the stifling heat, exposing every ounce of the drug to the air.

¨ ¨ ¨

The monkeys have been our only real distraction during these long hot days. Although the animals have the run of the Works they never eat the opium from the drying trays—but they do drink from the nearby stream, and always seem a bit soused. One day, near the end of our first month, we stopped our stirring and watched a clearly dopy monkey walk on its back legs out along a tree branch that overhangs the Work's wall by some six or eight feet.

He almost got to the end of the slender limb when he let out a screech, teetered forward, and fell the thirty or so feet to the hard ground, head clunking when he hit. He lay there for a moment, then got up, smiled at us, gave a toothy chatter, took one step … and fell over dead.