Show Notes
For two days in mid-October, ash fell like snow atop Beijing. All that remained of one of the greatest cultural storehouses in all of human history, put to the torch as an extremely personalized punishment... after everything not nailed down inside it had already been looted off, of course.
But the man it was meant to punish... wasn't even there. He'd already slipped out the back door of the Forbidden City weeks before - leaving an opera troupe to play on and cover his escape, as he left his own capital behind to its conquerors for the last time.
What was left was a city ready to be conquered, a conqueror who didn't want it at all, and who would negotiate a very favorable credit-extension deal instead... with a computable interest in the survival of the government he'd just humiliated, and in the quiet of the very ports the Taiping had spent all summer marching toward.
Time Period Covered:Aug.–Dec. 1860 CE
Major Historical Figures:The Qing:The Xianfeng Emperor [1831–1861]Prince Gong, the emperor's half-brother; imperial plenipotentiary [1833–1898]Senggelinqin, Mongol prince; commander in the north [1811–1865]Zaiyuan, Prince of Yi, imperial commissioner [1816–1861]Muyin, imperial commissionerHengqi, Qing officialZeng Guofan, imperial commissioner against the Taiping [1811–1872]The Qianlong Emperor [1711–1799]
The British:James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin, High Commissioner & Plenipotentiary [1811–1863]Frederick Bruce, British Minister to China [1814–1867]Harry Parkes, interpreter & negotiator [1828–1885]Henry Loch, Elgin's private secretary [1827–1900]Thomas Bowlby, correspondent of The Times [1818–1860]Gen. Sir James Hope Grant, commanding the British force [1808–1875]Rear Adm. Sir James Hope [1808–1881]Capt. Charles Gordon, Royal Engineers [1833–1885]Robert Swinhoe, interpreter [1836–1877]Lord Macartney, ambassador to the Qianlong court, 1793 [1737–1806]Lord Amherst, ambassador, 1816 [1773–1857]King George III [1738–1820]Queen Victoria [1819–1901]
The French:Baron Gros, French PlenipotentiaryGen. Charles Cousin-Montauban, afterward Comte de Palikao [1793–1877]Felice Beato, photographer [c. 1832–1909]Jean Denis Attiret, Jesuit painter at the Yuanmingyuan [1702–1768]
The Russians:Count Nikolay Ignatiev, Russian envoy [1832–1908]
The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom:Hong Rengan, the Shield King [1822–1864]
Major Works Cited:Giles, Herbert A. A Glossary of Reference on Subjects Connected with the Far East.Gros, Baron. Négociations entre la France et la Chine en 1860.Hake, Alfred Egmont. The Story of Chinese Gordon.Leavenworth, Charles S. The Arrow War with China.Platt, Stephen R. Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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