RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j 40 PRIVATE PATRONAGE OF SCHOLARSHIP AND LEARNING DURING THE MID-QING: RUAN YUAN AND THE SCHOLARS AROUND HIM* WEI PEH T'I This paper is an initial essay towards a biographical study of Ruan Yuan (1764-1849), a major scholar-official and patron of scholars of the Qianlong, Jiaqing and Daoguang reigns. I hope that by examining the life and work of a competent and respected scholar-official of this era, 'the prime exemplars of any age'.1 I may be able to bring into focus the critical problems and atmosphere of early 19th century China, the two score or so years immediately preceding the Opium War after which traditional Chinese institutions and values began to change. I have been fortunate in being able to make use of the extant Qing archival documents and Ruan Yuan's own publications for this research. Ruan Yuan left considerable literary remains. I have located 75 titles, including a number of monumental publications that carry his name as author, compiler or editor. There are also prefaces he wrote for his own and other scholars' works, indicating that at least he had known the content of them before publication. Impressive indeed as these achievements were, questions about Ruan Yuan's actual efforts arise. * I would like to thank the following libraries for allowing me access to their valuable collections in preparing this paper: Library of the National Palace Museum, the National Taiwan University libraries; the National Central Library; the Fu Ssu-nien Library of the Academia Sinica; The Library of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the University of Hong Kong Libraries; the Rare Book Collection of the Beijing Library; the Oriental Manuscripts Collection and the Main Collection of the British Library, the Harvard-Yenching Library of Harvard University; the Gest Library of Princeton University; the Library of Congress; the New York Public Library; and Qing letters from the collection of the late Dr Wang Shih-chieh. I am also grateful to the following individuals for their help and comments on an earlier draft of this paper: Chang Ling-sheng, Ch'ang Pe-te, Chuang Chi-fa, Wang Ching-hung, Wang P'u and Wu Che-fu of the National Palace Museum (Taipei), Wang Junyi and Huang Aiping of the People's University; Ji Longwei of Yangzhou Teachers' College; Feng Erkang of Nankai University; Beatrice S. Bartlett, Iona Crook and Stephen Shott of Yale University; F.W. Mote of Princeton University; Elizabeth Sinn, Maureen Sabine and Shih Hsio-yen of the University of Hong Kong; and Deng Linyu and Xu Xiaohui of the Chinese International School of Hong Kong. Of course, they are not responsible for the errors contained in this paper. My gratitude also goes to the Department of History and Centre of Asian Studies of the University of Hong Kong. I have opted to use pinyin to accommodate a particular Chinese software program, but have left the Wade-Giles transliteration in quotations. Page 60 Page 61 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2000 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n 10 Lin Zexu and the Conflict Lin Zexu is not the subject of this paper. However, since he is the central figure of the Symposium, it seems appropriate to devote some little space to this extraordinary man, who no doubt cast a giant shadow on Anglo-Chinese relations. Emperor Qianlong, great emperor though he was, apart from issuing prohibitive edicts seems to have done little to stop the opium trade. Jiaqing (1796-1820) who followed was equally ineffectual. His successor Daoguang (1821-1850), however, was a man of a different mettle. In 1836, Imperial edicts having failed to check the opium trade, the problem was hotly debated in Beijing. There was one faction that favoured legalizing opium importation and so turning it to public profit. To this Emperor Daoguang replied: 'It is true, I cannot prevent the introduction of the flowing poison; gain-seeking and corrupt men will, for profit and sensuality, defeat my wishes; but nothing will induce me to derive a revenue from the vice and misery of my people," noble words by a great monarch. In 1839, deciding to take forceful action, the Emperor appointed Lin Zexu as his Commissioner charged with total eradication of the infamous trade. Commissioner Lin journeyed to Guangzhou and immediately ordered all commerce in opium to be stopped. He further demanded that merchants should surrender all stocks and sign a bond to cease importing, in effect laying the factories to siege. This much is well documented as well as the ensuing course of events which led to the 1st Opium War. Lin Zexu presents an interesting character study of contrasting portraits. For many years the British sources had portrayed him as 'fierce, unscrupulous, and fanatical.'" Most of the known paintings of him show a fierce, pugnacious countenance. It is, therefore, gratifying to include in this paper a reproduction of a rare painting depicting him as a handsome man with a dignified yet kind expression on his face.** Gradually the picture has changed and Lin is being recognized as an intelligent and learned man, a capable and resolute official, a competent administrator, and a fair and just dispenser of the law; most importantly, he was incorruptible. A modern, progressive man, he observed, however, all the Chinese ceremonies, made sacrifices at temples, and made offerings to the spirits of his ancestors. He liked poetry, which he practised for his own leisure. A man who, at the height of the opium ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2000 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n 12 الرقاب we wanted might have been got, if it had not been for the unaccountably strange conduct of Charles Elliot - not Admiral Elliot, for he was obliged to come away from ill-health who completely disobeyed his instructions and tried to get the lowest terms he could......Albert is so much amused at my having got the Island of Hong Kong...' (author's italics). Waley compares Lin and Elliot, the opponents in the opium dispute, and finds similarities; for instance, both were civil servants carrying out tasks imposed on them from above, both being cashiered for failing to fulfil these tasks. Strangely, Waley does not mention what is perhaps the most significant similarity: they both detested the opium trade. Elliot saw it as a disgrace and a sin and the blackest stain on the British character. It has even been suggested that Elliot, under instructions to protect the opium traders - a task he resented - deliberately disobeyed his orders and demanded less from the Chinese than the Government at home had ordered him to do. 21 Lin was dismissed in late 1840. He left Guangzhou in May 1841, exiled to Xinjiang (Turkestan). He failed through no fault of his own; he was sent on a “mission impossible." Booth sums it up by saying that Lin had powerful forces massed against him - the military power of the British, the corruption of the Chinese government, and the devious immorality of the opium dealers.'22 The Opium War settled nothing. The long line of an unprotected Chinese coast threw the opium trade, in Elliot's words, 'into desperate hands.' Opium smuggling became totally out of control, and relations between Britain and China remained unstable and hostile. The measures Emperor Daoguang took to stop the opium traffic may have led to war, but it would be inaccurate to say that they caused it. It has been strongly argued that they merely gave an excuse for the war, which certain groups in Britain had been long demanding. It would be wrong, however, to assume that British public opinion was solidly behind the government and its war with China. Elsewhere in the Symposium it will be pointed out that a strong anti-opium sentiment existed in Britain, which in the end could not be silenced and led eventually to the end of the infamous trade. Two examples will suffice here: The Times, upon receiving the news of the Treaty of Nanjing wrote that the moment had come for Britain to extricate herself from her involvement with opium. Some moral compensation was owed to China 'for pillaging her towns and ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 54 China Coast Pidgin English in JHKBRAS, Vol.35, pp.113-141. See also note 75 below. 56 Morse, International Relations, Period of Conflict, p.75. 57 cited in Parkinson, op.cit., p.341. 58 See pp.179-180 of my The Hong Kong Region 1850-1911: Institutions and Leadership in Town and Countryside. Hampden, Conn., 1977. 59 Chinese text at No.28 in Vol. 1 of the three volume set of Hong Kong's Historical Inscriptions published by the Hong Kong Urban Council in 1986. 60 Inscribed tablet dated 11th lunar month of the 6th year of Daoguang (1826) at the "New Temple" near the Barrier gate at Macau, which refers back to an earlier tablet on the subject dated in early Jiaqing. 61 China No.4 (1864) Commercial Reports from Her Majesty's Consuls in China for 1862, p.62. 62 Ibid, p.39. 63 Ibid., p.67. 64 See Bodde, Derk, and Morris, Clarence (1967). Law in Imperial China, Exemplified by 190 Ch'ing Dynasty Cases. University of Pennsylvania Press. 65 Morse, Chronicles of the East India Company, op.cit., Vol.III, pp.263-9 66 Ibid., Vol.IV, pp.281-3. 67 The journal kept during his imprisonment was later published. See 'Edited by a Barrister', Journals kept by Mr. Gully and Capt. Denham during a captivity in China in the Year 1842. London, Chapman and Hall, 1844. This episode, and the much worse one involving the nearly 300 passengers and crew of a military transport from India, the Nerbudda, are also mentioned by Ouchterlony, pp. 499-509). 68 Journals, op.cit., pp. 3-4. 69 Gutzlaff, Sketch of Chinese History, op.cit., p.42. Page 105 Page 106 ================================================================================