CHINA'S STRUGGLE FOR NAVAL DEVELOPMENT TRADITIONAL CHINESE WATER FORCE war cano)were in the'sreplaced by professional Westem was drawn up.Britain was given some of her demands,and Elliot praise of China's modern steam fleet. returned the Chuenpi forts and Tinghai.To the Tao-kuang New ships were assembled,but the dynasty did not use them emperor,who discovered that Ch'i-shan had been dishonest in fectively.Leadership was of course involved in this inefficiency, reporting the convention,it gave far too much.In any event,the but there were able as well as inept men in the hierarchy. agreement was repudiated by both sides. Ability is conditioned by attitudes and organiation;that is by The second phase of the Opium War began under new leader- institutions.Hence the explanation of the dynasty's nineteenth ship on both sides.Ch'i-shan,who had replaced the disgraced century failure to defend itseon theseausnove the Lin Tse-hsui,was himself replaced as military commander by tional structure of Confucian China.The term"institutionwill I-shan and as governor-general by Ch'i-kung(note the division of here include such phenomena as the political organization of the power).The British leader,Captain Elliot,was succeeded by empire and the civil service xamination system:and the Sir Henry Pottinger.In February 1841 the British advanced on thesis of this book is that traditional Chinas instittions workd Canton,taking all the river forts and forcing the Canton officials against effective naval modernization. to ransom the city-which the helpless I-shan financed with the China's traditional water force had its first sustained modern aid of Canton merchants.This second truce lasted until Pottinger encounter in the Opium War.Britain fought the war in the arrived with instructions to retake Tinghai and present British name of freer trade,diplomatic equality with China,and x demands in the north.A second niorthern expedition started traterritoriality,and also for compensation for the opium which in August 1841;Tinghai was reoccupied on October 1.A winter Commissioner Lin Tsehs confiscated and destroyed in. hiatus followed,and then Pottinger,reinforced,resumed hos- in his root-and-branch extirpation of the smuggling which had tilities in the spring of 1842.He advanced up the forbidden but ongstrained Anglo-Chinese relations I geera Britain souh largely undefended Yangtze in June 1842,and finally forced to destroy theageod Confucian tribute ystem,by which Chn China,now represented by a new imperial commissioner,Ch'i- had subordinated trade to a ritual supposed to demonstrate bar ying,to sign a treaty at Nanking. barian veneration of the Son of Heaven. So China was propelled into a new era.Her water force had Naval fighting began in the Chuenpi battle of November189. not defended her against this latest "barbarian"thrust.It had in which the war junks of Admiral Kuan Tien-p'ei were defeated. not really been an "opium war";it was a clash between cultures. After several inteBritain terminated the warnherown In the following pages we shall make a systematic survey of the terms,in August at Nanking.The first phase of the fighting traditional water force.Much of the illustrative material will be took the British in theummrof(their fleet of nearlyfft taken from the Opium War.It will not be necessary to review all ships incuded four steamers)uptothe mouth of the Pei-ho,near of the battles,even those which were primarily naval ones;there the capital,Peking.In thisfirstte naval expedition,Britain are already many accounts of them.s That China's traditional entered and blockaded several coastal ports,and took strategic water force was in need of drastic reform will be clear enough. Tinghai on Chusan Island (July 5,1840).Britain's object was In the early nineteenth century,the average Chinese war junk to present her demands to China's highest officials.Ch'i-shan, was a small vessel,displacing at the most between 250 and 300 gov of Chhli,nterviewed Captain Charleso tons.Speed and handiness aside,such craft were of about half and persuaded him to his fleet toCanton.Extended talks the displacement of American China packets built in the 183o's, were promised.In December Ch'i-shan and Elliot started and were smaller than a sixth-rate battleship of Nelson's day, their negotiations near Canton.Elliot reinforced his demands which had twenty to twenty-eight guns,a 12o-foot lower gun deck, by taking the Chuenpi forts,which guarded the estuary ofthe and displaced about 6oo tons.4 Traditional Chinese sketches Pearl River.In February the socalled Chuenpi Convention show war junks of perhaps 1oo feet in length,with two or three 3