In the Second Opium War in 1856, Ye Mingchen, the governor of Liubu Liangguang, who was known as "no war, no peace, no defense, no death, no surrender, and no departure", was captured and called himself "Su Wu on the Sea".
Ye Mingchen is a famous figure in China's modern history, and his life experiences are almost a "copy" of Lin Zexu, and the positions they hold, the duties they perform, and the revils they receive are almost exactly the same. The difference is that Lin Zexu died in China, but Ye Mingchen was soulbroken in a foreign country - he did not eat British food, emulated Boyi and Shuqi in the Spring and Autumn Period, and starved to death in Calcutta, India.
Ye Mingchen, when he was a teenager, he was "famous for poetry for a while", and Daoguang was admitted to gongsheng in the fifth year (1825) before he was 18 years old. In the fifteenth year of Daoguang (1835), he was admitted to the Jinshi, selected Shu Jishi, and taught editing in the Sankan. After that, he successively served as an envoy of Yanping Road in Shanxi, Yandao in Jiangxi, and Yunnan, and a political envoy in Hunan, Gansu, and Guangdong. Less than 40 years old, he was promoted to inspector of Guangdong and became an independent feudal official. In the second year of Qing Xianfeng (1852), before he was 45 years old, he was actually appointed governor of Liangguang and minister of trade and commerce.
In the twenty-ninth year of Daoguang (1849), together with Xu Guangjin, the governor of Liangguang, he supported the movement to prevent the British from entering the city of Guangzhou after the Opium War, so he was awarded the title of Baron; later, because of his conquest of thieves in Guangdong, he personally executed prisoners and killed tens of thousands of traitors, successfully eliminating the remaining forces of the Worship god Society in Liangguang. At that time, due to the high xenophobic atmosphere in the Qing Dynasty, Ye Mingchen, who belonged to the hardline faction, was highly valued.
Ye Mingchen has a strong personality, is diligent in official affairs, and his subordinates are jealous of his prestige. At that time, the mountain hall of the Heaven and Earth Society took the name of the mountain, these mountain names did not necessarily coincide with the location of the mountain hall or even did not necessarily exist, Ye Mingchen did not know, learned that there was a mountain hall calling itself "Old Wanshan" and ordered his men to go to the real Old Wanshan to check, the result was nothing; in 1854, when the Heaven and Earth Society attacked Guangzhou, Ye Mingchen climbed five floors to order the pacesetters to fight, and the pacesetters scolded, "Get nine dollars a month, let me send to death?" "Gu Zi dispersed, Ye Mingchen ordered the retreat to fire artillery at the enemy before defending, and then because the three countries received diplomatic notes to provide cannons, gunpowder, grain and rice to help guard Guangzhou, Britain and the United States even dispatched the fleet to calm the situation; Ye Mingchen also killed hundreds of people a day, killing three or four hundred people a day is considered to be less, killing 75,000 people in six to eighty-three months in 1855, known as "executioners". Ye Mingchen was arrogant in his treatment of foreign envoys, and would reply only in a few words or even not reply, in order to show the prestige of the great powers, he did not even receive the British minister Bao Ling in the riverside warehouse at the governor's gate.
On September 10, the sixth year of Xianfeng (1856), the Yaro Incident broke out.
In early October 1856, a Chinese merchant ship ,Yarrow, sailed from Xiamen to Guangzhou, anchoring in Huangpu. The sailors on the ship were all Chinese, and the owner of the ship, Su Yacheng, was also Chinese. The ship had been seized by pirates and had obtained a registration certificate from the British government in Hong Kong to facilitate smuggling. On October 8, the Guangdong admiral seized 2 Chinese pirates and 10 suspected Chinese sailors hiding on the ship, and did not want to, but the British consul in Guangzhou, Pasha Li, on the pretext that the ship had been registered in Hong Kong and had a license, insisted that it was a British ship, and even fabricated that the Chinese sailor had ripped off the British flag on the ship, insulted the British, and unreasonably demanded that ye Mingchen, the governor of Liangguang, immediately release the arrested prisoners and apologize to the British. The reality was that the licence expired on 27 September 1856 and had not been flagged for six days before the ship was captured.
After a prompt interrogation, Ye Mingchen sent a note to the British consulate: two sailors, Liang Mingtai and Liang Jianfu, were identified as pirates, and the other, Wu Ya, was a witness, and the three of them would continue to be interrogated; the remaining 9 could be returned. During the negotiations, Ye Mingchen argued on the basis of reason, stating that the Yaluo was a Chinese ship, that its British license was purchased by the owner of the ship for 1,000 yang silver, and that the British flag was not flying on board, and there was no insult to the national flag. However, Pasha Li refused to accept it and issued an ultimatum, limiting Ye Mingchen to release all sailors within 24 hours and formally apologizing.
Faced with a British ultimatum, Ye Mingchen decided to give in, and on the same day he replied that he could exchange 10 other people in addition to the pirates. The next day, Pasha Li insisted on the original view. Ye Mingchen had no choice but to send Nanhai County Cheng to personally send all 12 sailors to the British consulate, but resolutely did not apologize. At this time, the British had no intention of talking again, refused to accept the personnel, and immediately shelled the city of Guangzhou— the Second Opium War broke out. Ye Mingchen issued a notice saying: "Yingyi attacked the provincial capital, harmed soldiers and civilians, and committed the most heinous crimes... However, whoever sees a British bandit who has gone ashore and is causing trouble on the ship, and who is painfully arrested, and is allowed to shoot and kill, is still allowed to reward thirty yuan according to his name, and the dismissal of the head rank goes to this department for examination, without waiting and seeing. ”
Ye Mingchen handled the "Yaluo Incident" and from the perspective of pure diplomatic means, he was reasonable, advantageous, and disciplined. The deliberate aggression of the British and Ye Mingchen's handling were recognized by Marx. Two months later, Marx wrote "The Anglo-Chinese Conflict," which was published as an editorial in the New York Daily Tribune on January 23, 1857. The article said: "In the course of all the events, the mistake was made on the Part of the British. In the midst of the condemnation of Ye Mingchen by Western public opinion, only Marx praised him: "Indeed, this Chinese so convincingly solve all the problems." ”
Weak countries had no diplomacy, and the Yarrow incident eventually triggered the Second Opium War between China and Britain.
On 23 October, the British began operations. British Admiral Michael Seymour led 3 British ships through Humen, Ye Mingchen disregarded the war, personally went to the school yard for two consecutive days to test the horse and arrow, ordered the Guangdong Marine Division to retreat, and was not allowed to fire back. On the 24th, British warships bombarded the Fenghuanggang Battery in the southern suburbs of Guangdong, and the defenders of the fort were ordered to take shelter, and the guns were immediately destroyed. On the 25th, the British army successively captured the Haizhu Fort and the area around the Shangguan, and occupied all the fortifications outside the city, directly approaching the city of Guangzhou. On the 26th, Ye Mingchen closed the Guangdong Customs to interrupt trade and mobilized the township brave regiment to practice and create momentum. On the 27th, the British ships shelled the Superintendent's Office, and Ye Mingchen "sat in danger and had no fear." On the 29th, the British army invaded the city, because of the small number of people, looted the governor's office and withdrew, Ye Mingchen was on the incense, avoid being captured, to the imperial court to play the "great victory", and then the Cantonese people burned the merchant houses and foreign companies outside the city, and a British mail ship from Guangzhou to Hong Kong was also robbed.
On December 12, 1857, the British and French troops pressed the border, and the gunboat sailed into the mouth of the Pearl River, the gun port was aimed at the Guangzhou City Tower, and an ultimatum was issued to Ye Mingchen, asking him to open Guangzhou. At this time, the elite troops of guangdong's regular army were basically transferred to Jiangsu and Zhejiang to fight, and Guangdong's financial resources had basically been exhausted in the war to suppress the Taiping Army. There were only 10,000 miscellaneous troops in the city of Guangzhou, such as regimental training and township bravery, and Ye Mingchen was faced with the embarrassing situation of having no effective generals, no troops to send, three with no danger to defend, four without money to use, and five without sufficient military food, and there were traitors inside and strong enemies outside, and there was no possibility of victory in the face of the strong guns of Britain and France and more than 5,600 soldiers.
However, Ye Mingchen also did some things, for example, when the British army launched an offensive, he boosted morale with heavy money, and those who beheaded the british were rewarded with thirty silver dollars, and they must "root out the British army"; he actively adopted the method of attacking and disturbing the war, so that the British army could not rest day and night, and the head and tail could not take care of each other; he sent sand boats at night and loaded with explosives to attack the British troops resting on the shore. At the same time, he also sent rafts to fire attack the British ships, so that the British ships did not dare to approach the shore, thus reducing the artillery suppression suffered by the Chinese Army during the day; he sent people to raid Hong Kong, raided the British patrol, and killed the British officers; in particular, he arranged for people to create bread poisoning incidents, some townspeople secretly put arsenic in the bakery, resulting in many British poisoning..........
To this end, British Minister Erkin also lamented: "Since the beginning of the dispute, we have made many serious mistakes by underestimating the enemy's ability to resist. ”
When the Anglo-French army arrived in Guangdong, Ye Mingchen was misled by the wrong news, thinking that the British army was just bluffing and planning to delay until the British army left on its own, and superstition said that "after fifteen days there will be no trouble."
On January 5, 1859, due to the betrayal of the spies, Ye Mingchen was captured and taken aboard the British ship "Intrepid" moored in Hong Kong. Before being captured, the city of Guangzhou was broken, and he calmly accepted this not surprising ending, and in the case of the yamen running empty, he deliberately put on the top of the flower plume, put on a formal robe, and sat on the top of the lobby, waiting for the arrival of the British.
However, the emperor was typical of him "unloading and killing donkeys". Ye Mingchen refused to let the British enter the city and triggered the British army to attack the city, and the Xianfeng Emperor actually accused Ye Mingchen of "being self-conscious", "handling absurdity", "committing a crime without resignation", and "immediately dismissing him". As an important courtier of the imperial court, Ye Mingchen was captured, and the Xianfeng Emperor did not send personnel to negotiate, tried to rescue, and even avoided the British from threatening the name, stressing many times: "Do not let Ye Mingchen be there, cause the heart to throw rats and rats." The governor has humiliated the country and the people, and it is better to live than to die, and there is no need to care. A sentence in Xianfeng's holy will, "No care for the foot", shows the status of the courtiers in the minds of the feudal monarchs.
During Ye Mingchen's captivity, he always maintained a dignified and noble demeanor, which made the British have to admire. According to the "Hong Kong Chronicle", all the officers on the warship respected him, and occasionally some people on board the ship greeted Ye with his hat, and he also owed him a gift of taking off his hat. After 48 days on a warship, Ye was taken to Calcutta, India, temporarily imprisoned at William's Fort, and later moved to the residence of Torigon, reciting the Lu zu jing every day, and because he was advised not to write his real name when writing calligraphy and painting, he was given the title of "Su Wu on the Sea". He continued to pay attention to the news, rested on time, and asked someone to read the newspaper to him early in the morning.
Ye Mingchen took his captivity as an opportunity to meet the British monarch, and he did not commit suicide at the beginning of his capture, but to leave a life, to explain to the British monarch the Chinese will for peace, and to take the opportunity to ask the British monarch. Ye Mingchen later made this clear to the servants who went to Calcutta with him, but unfortunately this state of mind was not valued by posterity: The reason why I did not die was that the Wenyi people wanted to send me to England. Hearing that his king is known as clear and reasonable, intending to see the king, and theorizing in person, having been reconciled, why did he provoke for no reason? What is right and wrong? In order to convince his heart, he will exist in the state system. ”
On February 29, 1859, when he learned that it was impossible to meet Queen Victoria of England, he resolutely decided to go on a hunger strike. When the grain you bring is finished, how can you eat foreign things! ”
Although there were many interpreters who brought food, Ye Mingchen did not use it. He died of illness after eight days of hunger strike, and died at the age of 52, "dying without saying anything else, only saying that he had failed to live up to the emperor's grace and die without looking at him." Later, the British transported his body back to China.
Ye Mingchen was a complex historical figure; in the middle of the 19th century, he lacked an international perspective, did not understand the general trend of the world, only knew the relations between the clans, and did not understand diplomacy; but he was loyal to the king and patriotic, scrupulously fulfilled his duties, and if he only took the "six noes" as Ye Mingchen's historical evaluation, it would not conform to historical facts, but also be biased and unfair.