Keying

Biography

Imperial Lineage and Early Bureaucratic Ascendancy Qiying was born on March 21, 1787, during the twilight of the Qianlong reign, into the absolute pinnacle of the Manchu nobility. He was a direct descendant of Šurhaci, the younger brother of dynastic founder Nurhaci. His father, Lukang, was a paramount pillar of the Jiaqing court, serving as Grand Secretary of the Dongge Hall and Minister of Personnel. Blessed with immense hereditary privilege, Qiying entered government service in 1806 without participating in the imperial examinations, stepping into the Grand Secretariat as a middle-level secretary. Possessing a suave, polished demeanor, sharp administrative instincts, and a profound talent for courtly sycophancy, Qiying climbed the bureaucratic ladder rapidly under the Jiaqing and Daoguang emperors. Between 1822 and 1828, he served successively as Senior Vice Minister of Works, Senior Vice Minister of Revenue, and Minister of the Court of Colonial Affairs (Lifanyuan). He was subsequently appointed General of the Gendarmerie , commanding the metropolitan garrison responsible for public security across the walled capital. In 1836, Daoguang transferred him to the strategic post of General of Shengjing , where he oversaw banner military training and frontier administration across Manchuria for nearly six years, earning an imperial reputation for administrative competence and diplomatic tact. ### The First Opium War and the Treaty of Nanking In 1840, the First Opium War erupted. British ironclad steamships and naval gunboats pulverized coastal fortifications from Guangzhou to Zhoushan, exposing the complete military obsolescence of the Eight Banners and Green Standard armies. In the spring of 1842, the grand Qing counter-offensive in Zhejiang under Prince Yijing disintegrated in catastrophic rout. Panicked by British advances toward the Grand Canal, the Daoguang Emperor reassigned Qiying from Manchuria to Hangzhou, designating him Imperial High Commissioner with broad powers to explore diplomatic cessation of hostilities. However, before Qiying could establish communication, Sir Henry Pottinger’s fleet sailed up the Yangtze River, captured Zhenjiang in a bloody battle, and anchored off the ancient walls of Nanjing, severing Beijing’s grain supply. Confronted with the imminent bombardment of Nanjing, Daoguang panicked and authorized Qiying and his imperial colleague Yilibu to accept British demands at any cost. On August 12, 1842, Qiying, Yilibu, and Viceroy Niu Jian boarded the British flagship HMS Cornwallis moored in the Yangtze. Confronting Pottinger’s military ultimatums, Qiying conceded to all primary British demands without meaningful resistance. On August 29, 1842, Qiying signed the historic Treaty of Nanking , concluding the first unequal treaty in modern Chinese history. Its provisions were catastrophic:

1. Cession of Hong Kong Island in perpetuity to the British Crown;
2. Payment of a war indemnity and opium compensation totaling twenty-one million Spanish silver dollars;
3. Opening of five primary coastal cities—Guangzhou, Fuzhou, Xiamen, Ningbo, and Shanghai—as treaty ports for British residence and commerce;
4. Abolition of the Cohong monopoly system;
5. Establishment of a "conventional tariff" schedule, stripping the Qing of autonomous tariff determination. To the Daoguang Emperor, Qiying’s concessions were viewed not as national humiliation, but as a brilliant bureaucratic success that "pacified the barbarians and preserved the dynasty." Qiying was rewarded with high honors and appointed Viceroy of Liangjiang. ### The Treaty of the Bogue and Extraterritoriality Recognizing that the Treaty of Nanking left commercial and judicial mechanisms vaguely defined, British diplomats demanded a supplementary treaty to institutionalize their privileges. In the spring of 1843, Daoguang appointed Qiying Viceroy of Liangguang and Imperial High Commissioner for Foreign Trade, stationing him permanently in Guangzhou. Meeting Pottinger at the Bogue (Humen) forts in July and October 1843, Qiying displayed a staggering lack of comprehension regarding modern sovereign jurisprudence. Viewing legal jurisdiction over foreigners as a troublesome administrative nuisance rather than an inviolable sovereign right, Qiying freely granted Britain's core demands. On October 8, 1843, Qiying signed the Treaty of the Bogue , which embedded two lethal legal mechanisms into Chinese foreign relations:
6. Consular Jurisdiction (Extraterritoriality): Stipulated that British subjects accused of crimes or involved in civil lawsuits in China would be judged solely by British consular officials under British law, completely immune from Chinese courts;
7. Unilateral Most-Favored-Nation Treatment: Decreed that any future privileges, tax exemptions, or immunities granted by China to other nations would automatically and unconditionally extend to Great Britain. In his secret memorials to Daoguang, Qiying boasted: "Restricting the barbarians within five ports and permitting their consuls to govern them avoids domestic friction. This is truly the supreme method of pacifying outsiders with imperial benevolence!" ### Expanding Privileges: Wanghia and Whampoa The British treaties immediately triggered a stampede of Western powers seeking identical rights. In early 1844, American special envoy Caleb Cushing arrived in Macao aboard the frigate USS Brandywine, threatening to sail directly to Tianjin unless China granted the United States equal commercial status. Daoguang commanded Qiying to handle the Americans. Adopting a policy of "soothing all barbarians equally to prevent them from uniting," Qiying met Cushing at the village of Wanghia (Wangxia) outside Macao. On July 3, 1844, Qiying signed the Treaty of Wanghia . Cushing’s draft expanded upon the British treaties, establishing explicit extraterritorial mechanisms, permitting American warships to anchor freely in Chinese treaty ports, and introducing a clause permitting treaty revision after twelve years—a clause that Britain and France would later use to launch the Second Opium War. In October 1844, French plenipotentiary Théodore de Lagrené arrived with a naval squadron, demanding identical terms. Aboard the French corvette L'Archimède at Whampoa, Qiying signed the Treaty of Whampoa on October 24, 1844. Beyond commercial privileges, Lagrené pressured Qiying into granting sweeping religious protections for Roman Catholicism. The following year, Qiying successfully petitioned Daoguang to rescind the century-old imperial prohibitions against Christianity, opening the interior of China to Western missionary penetration. ### The Guangzhou Crisis and Slander of Patriotic Heroes During his four years as Viceroy of Liangguang (1844–1848), Qiying’s appeasement policy faced explosive popular resistance in Guangzhou. Under the Treaty of Nanking, British merchants claimed the right to enter the walled city of Guangzhou. However, the local gentry and civilian militias—proud veterans of the Sanyuanli resistance—fervently opposed foreign entry, threatening armed rebellion if foreigners set foot within the walls. Caught between British gunboats and armed Chinese crowds, Qiying resorted to duplicity. In his interactions with British Governor Sir John Davis, Qiying adopted an obsequious posture, dining intimately with British officers, allowing Western women into government yamens, and even adopting Davis’s infant son as his godchild. In 1846, to delay armed British retaliation, Qiying secretly signed an agreement with Davis promising that Guangzhou’s gates would be opened to foreigners in two years’ time. When the news leaked, furious mobs attacked the viceregal yamen, pelting Qiying’s carriage with stones. Simultaneously, Qiying committed one of the most infamous betrayals in late Qing history. During the Opium War, Taiwan Defense Intendant Yao Ying and General Da Hong'a had achieved stunning defensive victories, ambushing and sinking British gunboats, killing hundreds of British troops, and capturing dozens of prisoners. Furious at this setback, Pottinger falsely accused Yao Ying of "slaughtering shipwrecked merchants" and demanded his execution. Eager to appease Pottinger and secure the peace treaties, Qiying submitted confidential memorials slandering Yao Ying and Da Hong'a as "fraudulent liars who provoked foreign wrath." The Daoguang Emperor fell for the deceit, arresting Yao Ying and casting him into prison. ### Disgrace under Xianfeng In 1848, with the two-year deadline for opening Guangzhou expiring and popular insurrection looming, Daoguang recalled Qiying to Beijing to defuse the crisis, appointing him Grand Secretary of the Wenyuan Hall. In 1850, Daoguang passed away and was succeeded by his twenty-year-old son, the Xianfeng Emperor. Unlike his father, Xianfeng was an ardent nationalist who despised the appeasement faction. In early 1851, Xianfeng issued a blistering imperial decree condemning Grand Councillor Mujangga and Grand Secretary Qiying: > "Qiying in his Guangdong administration was muddle-headed, cowardly, devoid of moral backbone, and dedicated solely to flattering foreigners while sabotaging the realm!" Xianfeng stripped Qiying of his Grand Secretaryship, deprived him of all official ranks, and demoted him to an unranked imperial clansman, casting him into political exile in Beijing for seven years. ### Humiliation at Tianjin and Death by Suicide In 1858, the Second Opium War escalated dramatically. An Anglo-French expeditionary fleet stormed the Daku Forts and occupied Tianjin, placing Beijing within striking distance. In desperation, Xianfeng recalled the seventy-one-year-old Qiying, believing that his decades of diplomatic experience might charm the foreign invaders into withdrawal. Arriving in Tianjin with imperial credentials in early June 1858, Qiying donned his ceremonial robes and requested an audience with British plenipotentiary Lord Elgin at Haiguang Temple. Lord Elgin refused to see him. Instead, he sent young interpreters Harry Parkes and Thomas Wade to confront the old mandarin. Stepping into the chamber, Wade produced a bundle of confidential imperial documents captured by British soldiers from the viceregal yamen in Guangzhou. Before the assembled diplomats, Wade read aloud from Qiying’s confidential 1844 memorial to Daoguang. In the text, Qiying had detailed his diplomatic philosophy for the throne: > "The foreigners possess the nature of dogs and sheep; they are brutal, greedy, and ignorant of Confucian morality. They cannot be guided by virtue, but must be pacified through clever trickery and flattered with smiles, drawing them into our snare without their knowing!" Wade looked up and demanded: "Is this not your own handwriting and your own seal, Lord Qiying? You flattered us to our faces, adopted our children, and then called us dogs and sheep behind our backs! How can the British Crown negotiate with a man of such contemptible duplicity?!" The confrontation was devastating. Converted from a cunning master of ceremonies into an exposed fraud, the aged Qiying trembled violently, broke into a cold sweat, and fled Haiguang Temple in humiliation. Elgin immediately informed the Qing commissioners that Britain would never negotiate while Qiying remained in Tianjin. Terrified that the British would arrest him and haunted by the prospect of imperial punishment, Qiying panicked. On the morning of June 23, without requesting imperial leave or notifying his colleagues, Qiying slipped into a sedan chair and fled Tianjin for Beijing. Desertion by an Imperial High Commissioner in the face of the enemy was a capital offense. When news reached the Forbidden City, an incensed Xianfeng Emperor ordered Qiying arrested and thrown into the dungeons of the Imperial Clan Court. The court found him guilty of cowardice, desertion, and bringing disgrace upon the empire, sentencing him to beheading. Mindful of his imperial bloodline and his decades of service, Xianfeng commuted the sentence to forced suicide. On the evening of June 29, 1858, officials presented a white silk cord inside his cell. Qiying wept, placed the noose around his neck, and hanged himself at the age of seventy-one.

Major Activities

Diplomatic Treaties 1. Sino-British Treaty of Nanking (1842): Chief negotiator and signatory of China's first modern unequal treaty, which ceded Hong Kong, opened five ports, imposed indemnities, and created the treaty port system.

1. Treaty of the Bogue (1843): Formulated the operational statutes for maritime trade while formally conceding consular jurisdiction (extraterritoriality) and unilateral most-favored-nation status.
2. Treaties of Wanghia and Whampoa (1844): Concluded foundational treaties with the United States and France, institutionalizing naval port access, religious toleration, and regular treaty-revision mechanisms. ### Diplomatic Strategy - *The "Tethering" (Jimi) Doctrine*: Championed a traditional appeasement approach that treated modern Western empires like ancient steppe nomadic confederacies, trading sovereign rights for temporary military truces.

Personal Relations

• Father: Lukang, Grand Secretary of the Dongge Hall and Minister of Personnel.
• Sons: Enhua and Qinghua, served as imperial household clerks. ### Sovereign-Subject Relations - Daoguang Emperor: Patron monarch who rewarded Qiying with supreme civil offices for concluding peace in 1842.
• Xianfeng Emperor: Successor monarch who despised Qiying’s appeasement record, cashiered him in 1851, and ordered him to commit suicide in 1858. ### Diplomatic Peers and Subordinates - Yilibu: Co-commissioner at Nanjing who shared the burden of negotiations.
• Huang Entong: Governor of Guangdong and key legal counselor during the 1843–1844 treaty sessions.
• Guiliang and Huashana: Qing commissioners at Tianjin in 1858. ### Foreign Counterparts - Sir Henry Pottinger: British plenipotentiary at Nanking and Bogue.
• Caleb Cushing: American envoy at Wanghia.
• Théodore de Lagrené: French envoy at Whampoa.
• Sir John Davis: Governor of Hong Kong whose infant son was adopted by Qiying.
• Lord Elgin: British High Commissioner in 1858 who refused to meet Qiying.
• Harry Parkes and Thomas Wade: British interpreters who humiliated Qiying at Tianjin. ### Victims and Political Foes - Yao Ying and Da Hong'a: Taiwanese defense heroes slandered and imprisoned due to Qiying's machinations.
• Xu Guangjin: Successor viceroy who abandoned Qiying’s appeasement policy.

Historical Assessment

Official Dynastic Histories - 《Draft History of Qing》(Qing Shi Gao), Volume 373, Biography 160: "Qiying was an imperial clansman of high rank who, having grown up in peacetime, lost all composure when confronted with unprecedented crisis. From Nanking onward, he dedicated himself entirely to appeasement, believing peace could be preserved forever. When America and France followed, concessions multiplied. ... When recalled to Tianjin, Wade confronted him with his own past memorials; humbled and terrified, he fled to the capital and met his doom. At the close of the Daoguang era, the court rejoiced in tranquility, congratulating itself on its clever diplomatic tethering. They failed to realize that without military strength, foreign ambition only expanded, culminating in the calamities of the Xianfeng reign. The Appraiser notes: In times of national crisis, when grand ministers fail to stand upon righteousness and instead manipulate deceptive stratagems to buy momentary peace, disaster is inevitable. Qiying was truly the tragic forerunner of such ruin." ### Modern Historians - Jiang Tingfu (Modern Chinese History): "Qiying was a tragic archetype of the traditional scholar-official encountering the modern world. Completely ignorant of international law and global power dynamics, he assumed Westerners were no different from ancient northern nomads who could be pacified with commercial bribes, sweet words, and adopted children. He had no conception of what sovereignty, tariffs, or extraterritoriality meant to the survival of a modern state."

• Fan Wenlan (Modern Chinese History): "Qiying was the foremost capitulationist of the Daoguang and Xianfeng eras. From Nanking to Wanghia and Whampoa, China's territorial, judicial, and fiscal sovereignty was handed away with his brush. He treated patriotic citizens with ruthless brutality while bowing low before foreign invaders, going so far as to frame heroes like Yao Ying. His final death by suicide was the ultimate historical verdict on his treasonous career."
• Mao Jiaqi (History of the Opium War): "Qiying possessed no diplomatic training; he was merely the royal agent of an authoritarian court desperate to preserve its throne. His policy was designed solely to protect imperial sovereignty from internal rebellion and foreign war. When his duplicitous memorials were read aloud at Tianjin, the psychological collapse of the traditional Confucian grandee was complete."