Chen Xiaoping
Zhang Zhidong changed from "clear stream" to foreign affairs, and the British arms dealer Mesny played the primary role. On February 2, 1882, the two met for the first time in Zhili Zhuozhou, and Maxny then served as Zhang Zhidong's foreign affairs staff for 9 months, leaving in response to the Sino-French conflict in Vietnam.
Maxnee wearing Manchu official clothes
Timothy Lee's influence was secondary
Zhang Zhidong's transformation from a "clear stream" to a foreign minister, and the scholarly Hindhartha pointed the key to the transformation to the British missionary Timothy Richard, which seems to have become a "foregone conclusion" in 70 years. This "conclusion" can be said to be the product of misunderstanding, and the cause of misunderstanding is excessive trust in unilateral memories. Timothy Lee's high popularity has led people to overlook the unknown Maxnee.
The British missionary Timothy Lee came to China in 1870, relying on the huge ecclesiastical power, presided over the Canton Society, founded newspapers and periodicals, deeply participated in the Penghu Reform Law, founded the Shanxi University Hall, traveled closely with the upper echelons of China, and was an active figure among the Western Chinese people in the late Qing Dynasty, with a high reputation. In 1916 he published his memoir, Forty-Five Years of the Late Qing Dynasty, on the basis of which Su Huilian published the Chinese edition in 1924 as A Biography of Timothy Lee. During the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, Timothy Lee can be said to be a figure who is often talked about.
After the founding of New China, it was Ding Zeliang who noticed the relationship between Timothy Lee and Zhang Zhidong earlier. In 1951, he published the pamphlet "Timothy Lee – A Typical Missionary in the Service of Imperialism", in which he stated that Timothy Lee "lived in Taiyuan for several years, experimenting with magnets and iron absorption and oxygen combustion in front of bureaucrats and gentlemen, and the bureaucrats and gentlemen were indeed quite interested." ...... These performances caught Zhang Zhidong's attention. Zhang Zhidong became the governor of Shanxi in 1882, admiring Timothy Lee's 'Western learning' and bragging about it everywhere..." Ding Zeliang misunderstood the narrative of his memoirs, and Timothy Lee only mentioned doing scientific experiment demonstrations in front of officials and scholars, and never explicitly mentioned Zhang Zhidong's presence.
In His dealings with Zhang Zhidong in Shanxi, Timothy Lee mostly passed on written materials through middle- and low-level officials, that is, the contact between the two was indirect. For example, Zhang Zhidong found in the archives a suggestion written by Timothy Lee to his predecessor Inspector Zeng Guoquan, "Send a delegation of three people to me" to listen to opinions; "Inspector Li asked me to conduct a survey of the terrain around Taiyuan." I asked Dr. Scofield to help me measure the horizon height and take pictures. We reported our views to the Inspector. (Forty-five Years of the Late Qing Dynasty, Tianjin People's Publishing House, pp. 150-151) According to English newspapers at the time, it was the local official of Taiyuan who asked for Timothy Lee's request for help (The N.C. Daily News, 25th September 1882), not Zhang Zhidong's face to Timothy Lee. Timothy Lee did have a plan to build the Shanxi-Zhili Railway (the "Zhengtai Railway"), but it was submitted to the late Governor of Shansi in 1881. （The N.C. Daily News, 26th May 1882）
Timothy Lee
Zhang Zhidong took office in early 1882 and left the Jin Dynasty in April 1884, during which time there were about 30 reports and newsletters about Shanxi in the English Zilinxi Bao, more than half of which were written by Maxney, and the rest can be inferred to be contributed by Taiyuan church people. In so many news and communications, there are many reports of Maxney entering the Shogunate of Zhangzhidong (in the staff), going to the yamen, and participating in the greeting of the township examination examiner, mentioning that the two met for a long time at least twice, but there is no record of Timothy Lee and Zhang Zhidong meeting. Maxny not only became acquainted with Zhang Zhidong first, but was also a full member of the Zhang Zhidong shogunate, and this kind of contact between the head of the house and the work of the shogunate was generally much closer than that of "outsiders" like Timothy Lee. Zhang Zhidong devoted himself to foreign affairs from the "clear stream", Maxny's influence was the first and direct, and Timothy Lee's influence was secondary and indirect. Maxney was quickly accepted by Zhang Zhidong thanks to some special circumstances.
As early as 1941, the academic community had noticed Maxney's influence on Zhang Zhidong. In this year, Xie Enhui published a long article entitled "Zhang Xiangtao's Economic Construction" in the second issue of the Journal of Economics, pointing out that "the construction of the public is extremely extensive, including military, political affairs, education, economy and other aspects, and its planning is also extremely precise, which may have been influenced by the British businessman Mesny." Maxney said to himself that he had been an advisor to the Public Ocean and had drawn up nineteen construction plans, which were highly praised by the public and adopted."
In his later years, Maxny settled in Shanghai and published the English magazine Mesny' Chinese Miscellany, which recorded in more detail the experience of encounters, deeds, and lobbying qing court officials in the first half of his life, and slightly exaggerated. Judging from the above, Xie Enhui should have read the relevant articles in the Huaying Huitong, and out of caution, only used the phrase "or was influenced by the British businessman Maxsney".
In 1992, Keith Stevens published a lengthy paper titled "Jersey Adventurers in China: Arms Dealers, Customs Clerks, Entrepreneurs, and Generals in the Qing Army (1842-1919)," using autobiographical material from HuayingHuitong to comb through Maxney's 59 years of legendary experience in China. Stevens said that Maxney suggested how to modernize to every senior official who would listen, and once proposed to Zhang Zhidong the "Nineteen Articles of Chen"; Maxney insisted that Zhang Zhidong adopted this package of suggestions, and Stevens pointed out that Zhang Zhidong did not appear in the compromise of Maxney's name. （Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch，Vol. 32，1992）。
In 2016, British travel writer David Leffman published a biography of Maxney, The Mercenary Mandarin: How a British adventurer became a general in Qing-dynasty China, drawing on Maxny's travel journals from the Royal Geographical Society's collection, "Huaying Huitong" Historical materials such as Shanghai and Hong Kong English newspapers, as well as memoirs of contemporaries, "reconstructed" Maxny's legendary life, and are generally a rigorous historical work.
Since traveling to China in 1985, Loewman has been associated with China ever since, especially wandering around the southwestern provinces and writing Chinese travel guides in English. It was in Guizhou that he heard the story of Maxney's participation in the suppression of the Miao people's uprising, and became extremely interested in this traveler's predecessor, spending more than 10 years collecting and sorting out historical materials and retracing the path that Maxny had traveled in China.
Cover of The Mercenary Mandarin
The flaw in Loewmann's book is that it does not use Chinese historical sources. The author used qing dynasty archival documents such as "Zhang Wenxianggong (unpublished) Telegram" and "Manuscript of Qing Dynasty Celebrity Manuscripts Collected in Modern History" to verify Lefman's account and confirmed that there was indeed a special relationship between Zhang Zhidong and Maxny, and that the "general rank" given to Maxnika by the imperial court in 1886 was precisely from Zhang Zhidong's request. There is good reason to conclude that Maxny took the lead in promoting Zhang Zhidong's transformation into a foreign affair, compared with the famous Timothy Lee in a secondary position.
From Zhuozhou to Taiyuan
On the evening of February 2, 1882, Zhang Zhidong and Maxny met in Zhuozhou, and this historic meeting greatly changed the course of Zhang Zhidong for the second half of his life. On January 3, he was appointed to the edict "Inspector of Shanxi with Zhang Zhidong Supplement", which was the first person from the "Qingliu" to serve as a feudal official, and the famous soldiers in the capital were celebrated. After round after round of farewell activities for relatives and friends, Zhang Zhidong resigned on the 27th and arrived in Zhuozhou on February 2 to stay at Zhuozhou Inn.
At 9 p.m., a deep-eyed, well-rounded Englishman came to visit, and as soon as he opened his mouth, it was the authentic Chuanqian official dialect, and Zhang Zhidong also answered with the same voice, and there was a feeling of "meeting other people in other places". Zhang Zhidong was born and raised in Guizhou, and maintained a Guizhou accent until his old age. His brother-in-law Tang Jiong, a native of Zunyi, Guizhou, settled in Guiyang and led the Sichuan army to aid Qian in 1868. In 1868, Maxny joined this Sichuan army and entered the Qian dynasty, and then under the Guizhou Governor Zhou Dawu, "Prime Minister Guizhou Provincial Foreign Artillery Bureau", married a Guizhou woman, lived in Guiyang until 1877, and then lived in Chengdu and Chongqing, a Sichuan-Qianqian official dialect is very fluent, it is said that he was the only Chinese-speaking Western Chinese at that time without a foreign accent. Both have an extraordinary relationship with Tang Jiong. Tang Jiong was promoted from the Daoist to the post of envoy of Yunnan province and inspector of Yunnan, from the request of Zhang Zhidong's friend Zhang Peilun; Tang Jiong made meritorious contributions to the suppression of the Miao people's uprising, and Maxney was responsible for foreign guns and cannons in the army, and his contribution was irreplaceable. This layer of relationship was further brought closer, and the two soon talked happily.
Zhang Zhidong's brother-in-law and Maxny's boss, Tang Jiong
Maxney met Li Hongzhang in Baoding a few days ago, touched a nose of ash, and was a little depressed. Since 1860, when he was 18 years old, Maxney sold arms along the Yangtze River, opened a copper and iron factory in Hankou, was responsible for foreign guns and cannons in the Sichuan Army, and jointly opened mines with people in Guizhou. In 1881, he set out from Chongqing via Xi'an and Lanzhou to Xinjiang, preparing to persuade Zuo Zongtang to borrow foreign debt, and halfway learned that Zuo Juexiang had been transferred to Beijing, so he continued to enter Xinjiang, went to Hami to meet Liu Jintang, a famous general of the Xiang Army, and then crossed the whole of northern China to Beijing to "chase" Zuo Zongtang. To be honest, his trip was mainly to use his status as a "chinese vice general" to investigate the northwest and north China, which could circumvent the Qing court's restrictions on foreigners traveling to the interior, and the so-called lobbying Zuo Zongtang was still secondary.
In mid-December 1881, when he arrived in Taiyuan, he was said to have lost a piece of luggage filled with precious jade near the New South Gate, and the conservative Shanxi inspector Wei Rongguang ignored his request to find the lost property. He visited Catholics and Christians who were missionaries in Taiyuan and searched for the whereabouts of his luggage while playing around. After staying for nearly a month, he left taixing in the east and came to Baoding to meet Li Hongzhang. When he began to talk about the benefits of mining, railways, and telegraphs, Li Hongzhang said coldly: I know more about these than you. Maxny continued north, arriving in Zhuozhou on the evening of the 22nd and "bumping" into Zhang Zhidong in the inn.
Maxney had done a lot of research in Taiyuan before, and had certain ideas for improving transportation, developing resources, and training troops in Western France. This long night of talking greatly opened Zhang Zhidong's eyes, and he was greatly interested in these "progress plans", and immediately hired Maxny as an advisor on foreign affairs in Shanxi Province, asking to go to the post together. Maxney went to Beijing to meet british diplomats, collect letters, reload, and promise to report to Taiyuan after the Lunar New Year. (The Mercenary Mandarin, pp. 249-250) In mid-March, Maxny rushed to Taiyuan and officially joined the Jangzhidong shogunate.
Taiyuan New South Gate
Calling for "Modern Qin Shi Huang"
Shanxi suffered a heavy blow during the "Ding Pengqi Famine" from 1874 to 1876, and Zhang Zhidong's top priority was to organize post-disaster reconstruction, take effective measures to rectify the administration of officials, build water conservancy, crack down on poppy cultivation, strictly prohibit opium smoking, organize famine reclamation, and increase total grain production, so as to avoid a recurrence of the tragedy. Zhang Zhidong punished the corruption of the officialdom and offended the envoy Bao Heng, and the relationship between the two reached a stalemate. The envoys held the financial power of the whole province, and Bao Heng did his best to delay zhang zhidong's various appropriation instructions. In this case, the development projects proposed by Maxwell are difficult to implement for the time being.
A newsletter written to the newspaper by a Taiyuan church source said: "It is becoming more and more obvious, and some Chinese know that the development of natural resources in this province has extraordinary potential; the steps of development must be accelerated." How to implement it, and which step to take first, is the test question that has been in front of the inspector for some time. ...... General Maxnee is here, and I am sure he is serving the Governor and will no doubt inform the implementation of the plan to improve the situation in the province. ”（The N.C. Daily News, 25 September 1882）
Zhang Zhidong once asked Maxney how to raise incomes in Shanxi Province and improve people's living conditions. On October 2, 1882, Maxny expounded his various suggestions to Zhang Zhidong in a newsletter: the first priority was to lay railways for the all-weather transportation of all kinds of goods; the second was to develop the rich coal mines in Shanxi, build gas plants near coal mines, use coal refining gas, and transport them through pipelines to cities for power generation, which greatly saved freight, and could also be directly used for lighting, cooking, smokeless, and coal ash; high-quality iron ore is one of the most important resources in the province, and iron ore can be processed into countless products by refining. From cannons to embroidery needles, from armor plates to can boxes, it is necessary to mine them with modern equipment as soon as possible; build a postal network covering all counties, connecting the counties with the provincial capital and the provincial capital with Beijing; encouraging the planting of grapes and potatoes in Shanxi; introducing foreign and foreign high-quality sheep breeds and developing animal husbandry; using Mongolian wool and Shanxi's local coarse wool to develop the wool textile industry; using Shanxi's mineral resources such as nitramine to develop a variety of chemical products; in addition to road construction and the postal system being the responsibility of the government, Private capital investment should be strongly encouraged in other undertakings. （The N.C. Daily News, 6 December 1882）
Zhengtai Railway Yangquan Station
Maxny had been living in China for 22 years and had a deep affection for the country. Feeling that China was poor and weak at that time, Cixi lacked sufficient knowledge, determination and courage to carry out drastic reforms, and the entire gentry class lacked the sense of taking the initiative to respond to western challenges, in an article in early 1883, Maxny called for the emergence of a "modern Qin Shi Huang" in China:
What we want now is a modern Qin Shi Huang who will break through the shackles of all kinds of red tape that binds the present and the past, and let the future fly freely. Let every temple of this empire become an academy for the training of young people in modern skills and science; let every city of this empire be connected by telegraph; let every city be connected by railway to the provincial capital, and let every provincial capital be connected to the great city of Beijing; let every provincial capital establish an army academy, and every great port establish a naval academy... (The N.C. Daily News, 15 March 1883)
Maxny's intention is that only the emergence of a qin shi huang-style strongman can organize a scattered Chinese and promote modernization, and he does not consider the cost. Maxny's wish was largely fulfilled behind him. The Minutes of the May 71 Project, which appeared in 1971, used the term "modern Qin Shi Huang" to refer to Mao Zedong, and Mao Zedong later recognized this title. In 1973, when he met with the vice president of Egypt, he said: "Qin Shi Huang was the first famous emperor in China's feudal society, and I am also Qin Shi Huang..." (Liao Gailong, editor-in-chief: Chronicles of the People's Republic of China, p. 397) Although Maxney himself did not meet the "modern Qin Shi Huang" king, his son Hu-sheng did. Husheng remained in Shanghai and lived until 1963. The most original prophet in modern China is none other than Maxny.
Maxnee casual wear photo
Take the lead in proposing "temple production and rejuvenation"
After 1901, the Qing government, the Republic of China, and the People's Republic of China were highly consistent in the policy of "rejuvenating the study of temples and products", and destroyed most temples and shrines in urban and rural areas in half a century, all for a common goal: to "revitalize assets" in the absence of the national treasury and develop a new type of education oriented to modernization. This rare policy of three dynasties had a profound impact on Chinese society in the 20th century, and in addition to cultivating a large number of "new people" oriented to modernization, it also severed the connection between local beliefs and civil society in the name of "breaking superstitions".
In recent years, a very rich academic achievement has emerged in modern China's "temple production and rejuvenation of learning", and as for who took the lead in proposing this idea, so far the claims have not been true. Some believe that Kang Youwei was the first to propose it, which was found in the recital of the Guangxu Emperor during the Pengshu Reformation; many people attributed it to Zhang Zhidong, which was embodied in the "Persuasion Chapter" finalized in the spring of the year of Wushu. Both Kang Youwei and Zhang Zhidong proposed this policy in 1898, and Maxny had proposed the idea of using temples to run schools in 1882-1883, much earlier than anyone else.
In March 1883, in a Shanxi newsletter to Zilinxi Bao, Maxney repeated his reform policy proposals to Zhang Zhidong, explicitly proposing that "Cause every temple in the Empire to be turned into a school for the training of the young in modern." arts and sciences）。 (The N.C. Daily News, 15 March 1883) On September 26, 1895, he published an additional English version of "Nineteen Articles of The Empire" in the Journal of Chinese-English Huitong, the ninth of which was "The establishment of Public Schools, in every temple through the Empire."
Maxny's temple running ideas come from his experience in running schools in Guiyang. In 1871, he settled in Guiyang, and out of a simple sense of charity, he used a Jade Emperor Temple to set up a school for the children of the poor, funded the purchase of textbooks and hired a young teacher, Chen Yü–t'ang, to teach. Running a school through a temple is a successful experience that he has personally verified, which can save a lot of money and time in building a new school building. In 1882, he proposed to Zhang Zhidong the idea of running a school through the temple, and wrote it into writing, which was published in the "ZilinXi Bao" the following year.
For more than a decade, there was still no awareness of universal education, and the Maxny Temple's initiative to run schools did not receive more response. After the Sino-Japanese War, the scholar finally felt the crisis of the subjugation of the country and the extinction of the species. In 1898, Zhang Zhidong wrote in the "Persuasion Chapter": "The number of schools under the heavens is tens of thousands, and the state has such financial resources to give them. ...... It can be changed to the Buddhist Taoist temple view. Today, under the temple view, there are more than tens of thousands. There are more than 100 districts in the capital, dozens of large counties, and more than ten small counties, all of which have land properties, and their properties are all derived from charity. If it is converted into a school, the buildings and fields will be available. This is a further development based on Maxny's thinking, which not only expropriates temple buildings, but also collects the land property belonging to the temple and collects rent for the school.
Maxney gave advice to Zhang Zhidong
"Nineteen Articles"
Maxny proposed modernization to Zhang Zhidong, and there was a process of continuous revision, supplementation, and improvement. Many years later, based on his memory, he finalized this series of proposals as "Nineteen-point Plan", which was published in the magazine he edited, published in English in 1895 and Chinese in 1905. The full text of the Chinese edition of "Article 19 of Article Chen" is as follows:
(1) Telegraph offices shall be established in each provincial city and in all prefectures, departments, prefectures and counties;
2. Coal and iron are the most important mining in various provinces;
3. Provinces open railways, the most important ones are Beijing to Hankou to Guangdong;
4. Recruit three teams of horses, infantry, and artillery of the army, with a total of one million people, divided into ten armies, each army of 100,000 people, all using high-grade new method guns and cannons, if there are officers and soldiers who have contributed to the work and are too old to practice the new law, they will be issued and honest;
5. Set up a navy, build a variety of new steel armor warships, high-class top fast cruise ships;
6. All provinces, governments, prefectures, and counties throughout the country shall set up postal services, which shall be able to communicate with both China and foreign countries;
7. The capital and all provinces shall set up gold, silver, copper and treasure money bureaus. One dollar per gold dollar, one or two pieces of silver, can be used as silver twenty-two; for every silver dollar, one dollar can be used as silver one or two, two or one dollar. One yuan is heavy, both inside and outside the capital, and can be completed with money and grain, customs duties, and gold. The general copper dollar is used as a ten-piece piece of money, so that trade flows;
8. It is forbidden to plant or sell opium smoke;
9. The whole country shall set up tongmeng and higher schools, and the temples of all provinces, prefectures and counties throughout the country shall be converted into schools, and the temple property shall be used as the school funds, and if the monks can pass through the arts and sciences, they can be used as teachings, and those who do not understand the arts and sciences can also print the books and newspapers of the school and cultivate the temple fields, and they must always be given to cultivate honesty;
10. The two capitals in the north and south and the provincial cities shall set up Tongwen University Hall, examination sheds, and tribute courtyards;
11. Where there is a guanda road rural river trunk can plant fruit trees, free from pedestrian sun exposure, but also can stabilize the riverbank;
12. The barges of large and small rivers must be strengthened, and the bottom of the river must also be deep, so that ships carrying grain and goods can go fast;
13. Each province shall set up a gas plant, coal shall not enter the city, and the gas can be entered into the city with iron pipes, lamps can be lit, rice can be cooked, smokeless, ash-free, coal-free, and can be used for efforts;
14. Each province may set up an electrical bureau, the power of which can work on behalf of others, and the light can be lit;
15. In all provinces and localities, if cotton is produced, textile gauze can be made, such as silk can be woven satin, such as hemp can be spun with thickness and thickness, and camel wool and wool can be woven into mud and mud;
16. Where coal and iron are produced, an iron political bureau can be set up to manufacture various steel materials;
17. There are new methods for the sulfur and minus (alkali) salt produced in the ground;
18. Small railways may be set up in urban and rural areas at ports in various provinces in order to transport grain and local products, and may also carry officials and merchants to take passengers;
19. Can astronomy, geography, arithmetic, chemistry, gezhi all kinds of academic affairs, can go to the entrance examination, if the best learning, can be in the jinshi, Hanlin, Dingjia. (Huaying Huitong, vol. 4, p. 474)
The English version of the "Nineteen Articles of The Articles" is more accurate and detailed than the Chinese version. At that time, many new Western terms were not yet accurately translated Chinese, and when Maxwell himself translated them into Chinese, he attached Chinese names and caused some distortions. A considerable part of These ideas of Maxney were secretly absorbed, transformed and put into practice by Zhang Zhidong, for example, in 1889, he proposed the plan of trunk railways (first to build the Beijing-Han, continue to build the Cantonese-Han Railway), but never mentioned Maxny's contribution. In general, Maxny paid attention to "material construction" and practical education while ignoring institutional reform and ideological and cultural transformation, which was also the limitation of the Western affairs movement itself.
Cover of the photocopy of "Huaying Huitong"
Sino-French War
In 1882, Maxny served as a member of the Foreign Council in Taiyuan for nine months, but suddenly left Zhangzhidong in early December and arrived in Yunnan via Shaanxi and Sichuan. Maxny has a convincing explanation for this abrupt decision. He wrote in his resume published in the Huaying Huitong that Guangxu "eight years ago, Tang Yanxiang, a political envoy from Yunnan before Mongolia, served in military affairs." In view of the French constant invasion of Vietnam and the threat to Yunnan, the imperial court promoted Tang Jiongchao of Daotai to the position of envoy to Yunnan and led some of the Sichuan army and the Yunnan army to the Sino-Vietnamese border. His old superior, Tang Jiong, urgently summoned him to Yunnan to assist in military affairs.
On November 30, Zhang Zhidong specially issued a pass card to Maxny Chi Yi for this purpose: "Bingbu Shilang and Right Vice Governor Yushi, Inspector Shanxi and Governor Yan Zhengyin, Taiyuan City Guard Zhang, for the governor." According to the authority to grant the deputy general the British man Maxnee as capable, he is now dispatched from the city of Shaanxi Province to the Yunnan military camp, with ding and his party together, riding five horses, needing three cars, and needing grain, food, firewood, and grass every day, which should be dealt with by the states along the way according to the rules, and the joint trip is known, so that the card is raised, from the city of Shanxi Province to the city of Yunnan Province, and the states and counties along the way are in compliance with the response, and the deputy general must not ask for harassment and non-violation. Required cards. This card starts from Yangqu County, Shanxi to the city of Yunnan Province. The right card is allowed to pass through the states and counties. October 20, 1988. Inspector General. (Appendix to the fourth volume of "Huaying Huitong") For Maxwelly, who loves to travel, this trip at public expense is very enjoyable.
He arrived in Kunming on 14 April 1883. Born in Jersey, England, and then moved to Alderney Island, both of which spoke English and French, he also had close ties with the French in the Far East at that time, and the governor of Yunnan, Cen Yuying, suspected him of being a French spy and did not let him go to the Vietnamese front, but sent him to the Fujian Shipping Bureau. He traveled east along the West River to Guangzhou to Fuzhou, and soon returned to Hong Kong. From September 1884 onwards, he began to open a foreign firm in Shanghai to procure arms for Zhang Zhidong. On November 24, Zhang Zhidong called: "Mai Xierong: I am sorry to receive a letter. I would like to buy dozens of Norden cannons, Grimm cannons, Andhag cannons, 2,000 Mauser guns, and millions of ammunition. If there is no Mauser, then another kind of breech gun can also be obtained, arriving within one month, and sending it to Huangpu Fang in Guangdong Province is good, but it is not necessary if it is too late. The goods must be fine, and the price must be fair. i.e. complex. Guangdu Zhang Sent. Seventh grade. (Zhang Wenxianggong (Unpublished) Telegram, vol. 13, p. 5655) Xie Rong is an honorific title for the vice admiral.
Maxny was an arms expert, with close ties with foreign companies, and quickly procured a large number of "sophisticated" weapons. On December 10, when Zhang Zhidong replied to the telegram, in order to try to complete the task of "Jitai" (smuggling ordnance and military salaries to Taiwan) issued by the imperial court, he put a top hat on Maxny and said, "Your Excellency's loyalty is commendable", hoping that the other side can risk escorting arms across Taiwan. (Ibid., p. 5871) Maxnecht ultimately did not make the trip. In this round of arms transactions, Zhang Zhidong entrusted Shao Youlian of Shanghai Daotai to inspect and pay on his behalf, and Shao Youlian had a lot of criticism of Maxney's commission, and Zhang Zhidong explained that "this person is still of much use." (Ibid., vol. 14, p. 6223)
Around the spring of 1885, Maxny was summoned to Guangzhou. In June 1886, Zhang Zhidong played "Bao Prize Raising Dian Gui Gui Weapon Adventure Relief Abnormal Contributors", and Maxny was listed in the "List of Foreigners". On August 13, he offered an edict to "confer the rank of Chinese deputy general Maxny" on him.
Maxny traveled in a 4-person sedan car
In Guangzhou, Maxney continued to advise on armaments. According to him, several German officers were very favored in front of Zhang Zhidong, and there was a fierce quarrel between the two sides on whether to buy arms and warships from Britain or Germany, and slandered each other. Soon after Zhang Zhidong's arrival in 1884, the Hong Kong businessman Ho Xianqi introduced the German officer Willersy to Sui to train the Cantonese army, and then Zhang Zhidong hired several Germans, who were very satisfied with their diligence and "obedience". At the same time, Li Hongzhang and Zhang Shusheng, the giants of the Huai Army, were very appreciative of German weapons, which also affected Zhang Zhidong's choice. Maxney was very dissatisfied with this, and Zhang Zhidong was impatient with Maxney's big fight over orders, and the two finally parted ways. Maxney then left Guangzhou and settled in Shanghai to run her own business until her death in Hankou in 1919.
Maxny was the first to let Zhang Zhidong jump out of the limitations of traditional learning and began to pay attention to "foreign affairs" such as Western-style weapons and training, mining and smelting, and the construction of railways. In 1877, Maxney and the British explorer William Gill opened a shipping route from Yunnan along the Hongshui River to Vietnam, an experience that helps to understand why Zhang Zhidong made three consecutive recitals in 1883, making very detailed strategic suggestions for Sino-French negotiations with Vietnam, and then appointing the governor Liangguang to preside over the war against France. Although the two fell out in 1886, it should still be realized that Maxny was the first enlightener of Zhang Zhidong's transformation into foreign affairs, followed by Li Timothy; after arriving in Guangdong, Zhang Zhidong was influenced by He Xianqi, Zheng Guanying and others, thus beginning a large-scale foreign affairs career in the second half of his life. The influence of these western enlighteners is almost invisible in the "Complete Works of Zhang Wenxianggong" selected by his protégés and former officials, and only unfiltered archives and English newspapers and periodicals allow us to glimpse some of the truth.
Editor-in-Charge: Zhong Yuan
Proofreader: Yan Zhang