Directory_and_Chronicle_1937 — Page 783

+

1

NINGPO

Ning-po

Ningpo, one of the five ports originally thrown open to foreign commerce by the British Treaty of Nanking in 1842, is situated in lat. 29° 55′ 12′′ N. and long. 121° 22 E. at the confluence of Rivers Yung, Fenghua and Yuyao in the province of Chekiang, of which it is the Yung which runs into the sea at Chinhai some 13 miles away. The foundation of Ningpo as a departmental city dates from the 10th century, but the principal interest attaching to its early records arises from the fact that the first development on a large scale of European intercourse with China took place at this point. The place was "discovered" in A.D. 1517 by the embassy to Canton under the Portuguese Fernão Peres d'Andrade, and the first notice of Portuguese trade at Ningpo occurs about A.D. 1522, or a few years after the expulsion of the Portuguese from Kwangtung. The settlement was at Chinhai, and by 1542 there were a senate house, two churches, two hospitals and hundreds of well-built private residences, the com- munity then consisting of 3,000 adults, besides women and children, of whom 1,200 were Portuguese. Their lawless acts in plundering the surrounding villages, however, led to reprisals being instituted in this year by the Governor of Chekiang, and in five hours the settlement was utterly demolished, 800 of the Portuguese being massacred, 25 of their vessels, and 42 junks being destroyed by a Chinese force consisting of 60,000 men and 300 junks. The next attempt at trade was made by the East India Company towards the end of the 17th century, when a factory was established at the island of Chusan, some 40 miles from Ningpo, the nearest point at which foreign merchants were allowed to reside. The experiment, however, proved unsatisfactory and the factory was abolished in 1703. Thence, till 1832 when the "Lord Amherst" visited the port, Ningpo was visited only by two or three, foreign vessels. When hostilities broke out between Great Britain and China in 1839, the fleet moved north from Canton, captured Chinhai in the first week in October 1841 with some 2,200 men and 12 field pieces. On the 13th October Ningpo city was peacefully occupied and a garrison stationed there. On 10th March, 1842 an attempt was made by the Chinese to re-take the city, but the British artillery repulsed them with great slaughter. Ningpo was, however, evacuated on 7th May, and, on the proclamation of peace in the following August, the port was thrown open to foreign trade. For some time, however, there were practically no foreign residents, but in December, 1843 the first British Consul was appointed, and took up his residence in the portion set apart for foreigners on the north bank of the river Yung. In 1857 attention was directed to the port through a repetition of the 1542 massacre of Portuguese, whose lawless piratical acts, after a lapse of three centuries, again drew upon themselves the vengeance of the injured natives on the 25th June in that year. From this blow Portuguese prestige and enterprise have never recovered. Ningpo was easily captured by the Taiping rebels on the 9th December, 1861, its garrison then consisting of between 3,000 and 4,000 men with heavy artillery. The rebels displayed great anxiety to remain on good terms with foreigners, and an active trade in arms, rice, and silk at once sprang up. The native population, however, deserted the city, many of the inhabitants seeking refuge among the foreigners in their settlement. The British and French naval afficers commanding the men-of-war lying in the river were directed to protect this tract of land from any invasion by insurgents. Musket shots from a rebel battery on the city wall directed at this territory and the men-of- war, however, eventually led to a bombardment of the city on the 10th May, 1862, and to its capture on the same day by combined British and French forces. It was immediately handed over to the Imperial authorities, and eventually a monument on the city bund was built of the materials composing the battery and inscribed to the inemory of those foreign troops who had fallen in the action. This monument was restored in 1906, and in June, 1932, was removed to the Foreign cemetery in the Campo, as the place set apart foreign residence is called. An official ceremony of re- dedication was held on May 6,1933.

:

: