249. Victorian Narcos: Doomed Envoy to China (Ep 3)

Summary

Empire Podcast Summary: Episode 249 – Victorian Narcos: Doomed Envoy to China (Ep 3)

Release Date: April 23, 2025
Hosts: William Dalrymple and Anita Anand
Podcast: Empire by Goalhanger

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1. Introduction and Recap

The episode opens with William Dalrymple revisiting the previous installment involving Nandi Lee Das's mission from Great Britain to the Mughal Empire. The British intended to showcase their grandeur to the Great Mogul Empire through extravagant presents. However, the mission faltered as the gifts failed to impress the Mughal court.

William Dalrymple [01:43]:
"From the British Empire to the Ottomans to Ancient India, history is shaped by power struggles and territorial conquests."

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2. The British-Chinese Tea Trade and Opium Dilemma

Dalrymple elaborates on the 18th-century British discovery of tea, which transitioned from a luxury enjoyed by London’s elite to a staple for the broader British populace. This shift had significant geopolitical repercussions, notably exacerbating the Caribbean slave trade to supply sugar for tea.

The burgeoning tea demand led to a massive trade deficit with China. The British were importing vast quantities of tea, paying for it with gold generated from their Indian ventures. To balance the deficit, the East India Company coerced farmers in Bihar and Bengal to cultivate opium poppies. The British abstained from selling this opium directly to China to avoid a complete shutdown of the tea trade. Instead, they auctioned it to private traders, primarily Indian and Parsi merchants.

William Dalrymple [02:33]:
"So suddenly, in the course of the 18th century, China moves from being a place on the very peripheral of British consciousness to its main trading partner."

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3. The Need for Diplomatic Relations

Given the critical nature of the tea trade, Britain sought to establish formal diplomatic relations with the Qing Dynasty in China. The goal was to facilitate smoother trade negotiations, reduce tariffs, and secure a more stable supply of tea without the escalating opium issues.

Anita Anand [05:04]:
"We've done it before. They've done it successfully before. They're very good at missions, they're very good at ambassadorial visits."

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4. Misunderstanding Chinese Diplomatic Protocol

Dalrymple highlights a fundamental misunderstanding by the British regarding Chinese diplomatic customs. The Chinese viewed foreign missions not as equals but as tributary delegations seeking permission to enter the Chinese court. This cultural disconnect set the stage for diplomatic friction.

William Dalrymple [05:19]:
"But what they haven't taken in is that The Chinese for 3,000 years have a very particular way of dealing with diplomatic missions."
— [05:19]

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5. European Perceptions of China

The hosts delve into European admiration for Chinese civilization. Figures like Adam Smith lauded China for its wealth, industriousness, and moral integrity. This admiration, however, was juxtaposed with a patronizing attitude, viewing Chinese achievements as reflections of European superiority.

William Dalrymple [08:44]:
"I have found in the Chinese nothing but the purest morality without the slightest tinge of charlatanism."
— Quoting Voltaire at [09:57]

Anita Anand [08:44]:
"We see an image of themselves, the kind of philosophers of the Enlightenment, in the great philosopher of ancient China."

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6. Assembling the British Embassy

To impress the Qing court, the British meticulously prepared an elaborate embassy. This included assembling impressive scientific instruments, artworks, and technological marvels like a planetarium and a hot air balloon, all intended to showcase British ingenuity and modernity.

William Dalrymple [13:00]:
"They create this gigantic planetarium which has taken nearly 30 years to build and was deemed the most wonderful piece of mechanism ever emanating from human hands."

Anita Anand [14:03]:
"The hot air balloon... making the sky a highway that you can travel."

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7. Key Figures: Lord Macartney and James Dinwiddie

The British delegation was spearheaded by Lord George Macartney, a seasoned diplomat of Scots-Irish heritage. Accompanying him were notable figures like James Dinwiddie, an astronomer and natural philosopher responsible for the planetarium and hot air balloon, and the Staunton father-son duo, Sir George Staunton and his 11-year-old son, George Jr., who were keen to learn Chinese.

Anita Anand [15:07]:
"George Very Jr. Has the distinction of being trained by the Jesuits."

William Dalrymple [16:10]:
"He wanted to make a grand impression in the country that he and most of his entourage had only ever encountered in their imaginations."
— [16:10]

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8. The Voyage to China

The embassy set sail on two ships: HMS Lion from the Royal Navy and the East India Company’s merchant ship, Hindustan. The journey was arduous, spanning a year and navigating through Madeira, Tenerife, Rio, the Cape of Good Hope, Java, and Sumatra before reaching Macau.

William Dalrymple [28:04]:
"This is a big Embassy. There are 400 passengers on HMS Lion before you include the crew."

The British were confident in impressing the Qing Empire with their naval prowess and the grandeur of their ships, anticipating a warm reception.

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9. Arrival and Initial Impressions

Upon reaching the Yellow Sea near Tianjin, the British were met by Chinese officials who, adhering to ancient protocols, treated them as tributary envoys. However, logistical mishaps were evident as their advanced diplomatic kit, including the planetarium and hot air balloon, remained in Beijing.

Anita Anand [32:00]:
"They are almost right from the get-go, dwarfed by the scale of this meeting."

William Dalrymple [33:09]:
"They’ve been on the road exactly a year now, realizing that as they approach Johol, it's exactly a year since they set off from the Thames."

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10. Cultural Missteps and Realizations

The British delegation, optimistic and unprepared for the actual reception, soon recognized that their sophisticated gifts might not translate into diplomatic goodwill. Their lack of understanding of Chinese customs and the Emperor’s absence in Beijing complicated matters further.

Anita Anand [34:29]:
"They think they're going to turn up and just buy a force of mulberry suit. We're here, they've got none of their stuff."

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11. Setting the Stage for Conflict

As the episode concludes, Dalrymple and Anand hint at the impending friction between the British and Chinese empires. The episode sets the groundwork for the ensuing Opium Wars, framing them as a consequence of deep-seated misunderstandings and conflicting imperial interests.

Anita Anand [26:00]:
"We try and explain what's going on in the world today through the lens of history."

William Dalrymple [36:50]:
"But there is a big but. And we will find what that but is in the next episode."

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12. Notable Quotes

• William Dalrymple [02:15]:
  "The Portuguese have come up with really good ones, really good presents and I mean half of them were broken."

• Anita Anand [05:04]:
  "They've done it before. They've done it successfully before. They're very good at missions, they're very good at ambassadorial visits."

• William Dalrymple [09:57]:
  "I have found in the Chinese nothing but the purest morality without the slightest tinge of charlatanism."
  (Quoting Voltaire)

• Anita Anand [14:03]:
  "The hot air balloon... making the sky a highway that you can travel."

• William Dalrymple [33:09]:
  "They’ve been on the road exactly a year now, realizing that as they approach Johol, it's exactly a year since they set off from the Thames."

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Conclusion and Cliffhanger

The episode masterfully intertwines historical narrative with engaging dialogue, painting a vivid picture of the British mission to China. It underscores the complexities of imperial diplomacy and sets the stage for the dramatic conflicts that would reshape Sino-British relations. Listeners are left eagerly anticipating the next installment, which promises to delve deeper into the pivotal moments that defined this fraught diplomatic encounter.

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Transcript

[William Durrymple]

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[Anita Anand]

Hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Anand and me, William Durandpur. Previously on this podcast we did an episode with Nandi Lee Das about a mission that was sent from Great Britain to the Great Mughals. And in this mission Britain wanted to impress upon the Great Mogul Empire just how great it was. And they sent these presents that they thought were fabulous to the Mughal court and well, frankly, poor Thomas Rowe found out very quickly that all his presents were crap and the Mughals just couldn't get worse.

[William Durrymple]

The Portuguese have come up with really good ones, really good presents and I.

[Anita Anand]

Mean half of them were broken. There was a carriage that got shattered on the way over and this has got echoes of that. But we're not talking about India today. We continue to talk about China because we're the we are concerned with opium and the Opium War. So just tell us where we're picking up the baton from last time.

[William Durrymple]

So we had two episodes at the start of our Victorian narco series and we set up the fact that in the 18th century the British discovered tea and that it went from something that a few smart ass sort of courtiers in London were sipping as a fashionable item to being the mainstay of the entire British public. And this had dramatic effects geopolitically around the world. It led horrifically to the Caribbean slave trade in order to grow enough sugar for people to put in their tea in the Caribbean slave plantations. But, and this is the focus of what we're doing on this series, it also led to a massive trade deficit with China. The Chinese were receiving all the gold that these indie company was making in India, plus more to pay for the tea that they wanted then to sell to the British and then on to the colonies. Remember, this is the same time as the Boston Tea Party and it's East India Company tea that's being dumped in Boston Harbour because of, and this is obviously very topical at the moment because of tariffs and tax on that tea. Anyway, the way that the British solved this problem was characteristically dodgy way for the imperial times. The East India Company began to force farmers in Bihar and parts of Bengal to plant large quantities of opium poppies. And while they couldn't themselves sell the opium to the Chinese because then the Chinese would ban them from trading in the tea trade, they auctioned off their opium at the Keys in Calcutta and leaving it for private traders, many of them Indian and a lot of them Parsi. And we're going to hear more about that in the next episode. So suddenly, in the course of the 18th century, China moves from being a place on the very peripheral of British consciousness to its main trading partner. And it's very important for Britain that it has good relations with China, not least because the British government has found that it can tax tea very heavily and that it's gaining a great deal of its revenue from the tea tax. So if something goes wrong with the tea trade, not only do the British not get a cup of tea, but more worryingly for the government, they haven't got any revenue or a great chunk of their revenue disappear. So, with all this in mind, the British decide to send a mission to the Qing court in China to open for the very first time diplomatic relations with China, which sounds like a relatively straightforward thing.

[Anita Anand]

Well, they've done it before. They've done it successfully before. I mean, they're very good at missions, they're very good at ambassadorial visits. You know, the brocade and the epaulettes and all of that stuff has managed to impress many foreign potentate around the world. And so that's the playbook that they intend to go with here.

[William Durrymple]

That's the playbook they intend to go go with. But what they haven't taken in is that The Chinese for 3,000 years have a very particular way of dealing with diplomatic missions, which the Chinese regard as begging missions to be admitted to their presence. And all ambassadors, not representatives of potential trading partners, who must be treated with respect and care, but instead as barbarians coming to offer fealty at the heart of the world, which is the Chinese court.

[Anita Anand]

But I mean, partially as well, talking about sort of the kind of relationships between these countries. China stands alone as a country that has been long respected by the British. I mean, they've, they've kind of been in awe of them. There's a, you know, wonderful quote you pinged over to me by Adam Smith in the wealth of nations, which describes China as one of the richest, that is one of the most fertile, best cultivated, most industrious, most populous countries in the world. And he, Adam Smith, you know, who is sort of a hero to many economists or, you know, sort of. What's the word?

[William Durrymple]

Hello, Lowland Scott, was that what you're looking for?

[Anita Anand]

No, never, never that. Never ever that. But free marketeers. That's right. That's what the word phrase I was looking for. But for him, China is the model. And I'd really think it'd be really helpful to our listeners and our viewers. Hello. To describe the Qing Empire, because it is sort of China at the height of her powers. I mean, how wealthy, how influential is the Qing dynasty at this time?

[William Durrymple]

The first thing I'd like to do is just complete that thought that you opened up there about the European attitudes to China, because it was surprising to me, I have to say, because I spent a lot of the last 20 years reading about European attitudes to India, which are almost from the beginning resolutely racist and derogatory. There are occasionally travelers who say nice things about Mogul buildings and, and Mogul.

[Anita Anand]

Architecture and so diamonds and rubies and spinels. I mean, they like. They like the bling.

[William Durrymple]

They like the bling, yeah. But in general, you know, you get what you expect from 18th and 19th century travelers, which is, you know, Europe is the moder model of all things and everything else should conform to it. And where India is different from Europe, they Criticize it. What is fascinating is that partly because none of them have ever really been to China, and they're just imagining it because the Chinese, very sensibly like the Japanese, throughout the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, have stopped people coming, except in the case of China, for one small waterfront in Canton, which is where foreigners are meant to come if they want to trade with China. And they're locked, and we'll hear more about this in a second, they're locked into these, what they call factories that the East India Company term for a trading station. It doesn't mean a sort of dark, satanic mill churning out cloth or anything. It means a place where factors live. In other words, members of the East India Company brotherhood. And when Europeans are writing about China at the same time as they're writing about degenerate Oriental despots in Istanbul or Delhi, they imagined to themselves an Eden in China. And so characters like Voltaire, for example, in his philosophical dictionary of 1765, writes, Confucius had no interest in falsehood. He did not pretend to be a prophet. He claimed no inspiration. He taught no new religion. He used no delusions. And so they see an image of themselves, the kind of philosophers of the Enlightenment, in the great philosopher of ancient China.

[Anita Anand]

I find this fascinating as well, because, you know, again, like you, I've looked at sort of early accounts of what they think Indians are like, and there is a moral bankruptcy that's always associated with being a native from everywhere else. Basically, if you're not English, you're not as good. And I wonder if that stark gulf is because they don't go, they're not allowed in. But what they get back is the art of China. So chinoiserie and the, you know, beautiful paintings and silks and the porcelains. So in their heads, anyone who could have produced this must be like us. The fact we can't do it, let's just put a pin in that for a second. But they're worthy of us. And that certainly seems reflected in Western Europe at the time.

[William Durrymple]

And just to complete that, Voltaire thought and echo exactly what you're saying, quite contrary to the idea of an Oriental despot, all the kind of choice epithets they call the Moguls and the Ottomans. Voltaire says, I have found in the Chinese nothing but the purest morality without the slightest tinge of charlatanism. There is no house in Europe, he observed, the integrity of which is so well proved as that of the Empire of China. Now, in actual fact, that's of course wrong, that like In Europe and like in India, there are successive dynasties who are all quite different from each other.

[Anita Anand]

There are crap people everywhere. As Voltaire might have written today.

[William Durrymple]

Very much. I think I'm very much channeling. Yes.

[Anita Anand]

For my inner Voltaire.

[William Durrymple]

Yes, inner Voltaire.

[Anita Anand]

There you go. Good. You got bad. I mean, you know, that's what happens.

[William Durrymple]

This is the background. So not only are they dealing with a world that they have imagined as a sort of ancient version of the philosophers of 18th century Europe, they're now finding themselves heavily in debt to this place and that they are buying a product which is, you know, the ancient drink of China. Tea is a deeply embedded part of Chinese literary culture. And there's a whole, as we discussed in the last episode, there's a whole Buddhist and literary and Mandarin world built around tea ceremonies and so on. So the British decide that they really need to open up an embassy in Beijing. They need to have good relations with the Emperor. And perhaps remembering, because I was thinking exactly the same thing, we haven't discussed this affair, that the failure of the initial East India Company embassies to Jahangir because they didn't have enough bling and didn't have enough.

[Anita Anand]

They pour rubbish, they brought rubbish.

[William Durrymple]

And an organ that got Poundland.

[Anita Anand]

I mean, honestly, that stuff wasn't. They thought it would be very impressive.

[William Durrymple]

Exactly. So in this case, they go to quite incredible lengths to kit the embassy out. And should I go into the presence? Would you like to know?

[Anita Anand]

Absolutely. Because that shopping list is gorgeous. I mean, I'd not be disappointed if this arrived.

[William Durrymple]

So there's a huge research sort of effort put into this embassy to make sure they don't mess it up. And the first problem is there's virtually no one in Europe that speaks Chinese or has ever been to China, so that they've got a problem. But they then discover from somewhere that in actual fact the Jesuits opened up relations with the Chinese court and that even at this moment don't know whether the British are aware of this. But there are Jesuits at the court.

[Anita Anand]

In China, in Beijing, which is a place where foreigners are not allowed to go. So the Jesuits have this extraordinary past. Get into a place, you know, Forbidden City, which it does what it says on the tin. You really can't go there at all. But the Jesuits are allowed in and.

[William Durrymple]

The Jesuits are informing the Chinese, although the British don't know this about Western discoveries in astronomy, they're having philosophical discussions with Chinese astronomers and all this sort of stuff. But the British realized that there must be people in Italy at least who speak some Chinese. And they send off an expedition there and they find not only are there people, they're out to some Chinese people in Italy who were brought back. And so they bring them over to England. And the ambassador, Lord McCartney, who we're gonna hear about in a second, plus several in his entourage, start trying to learn a bit of basic Chinese. And they plan, having talked to these people, the sort of things that they think that the Chinese will like. And they create this gigantic planetarium which has taken nearly 30 years to build and was deemed the most wonderful piece of mechanism ever emanating from human hands by the. I think certainly by the salesman who sold it to the embassy.

[Anita Anand]

Well, I mean, but the thing is, they're not wrong. I mean, it is an impressive bit of kit. I mean, to people who viewed, you know, the protein planetariums in Europe at the time, this was nothing short of magic. It suddenly opened up a world that had only belonged to science. And actually, when it comes to innovation and science, Britain has a reason to puff out its chest. It is very, very good at lenses, lens grinding, all of these things. You know, they have good stuff to give here. What else? What else apart from the planetarium?

[William Durrymple]

Chemical and philosophical apparatus. I love that. Several brass field guns, a sampling of muskets and swords, howitzer mortars, two magnificent lustres which seem to be elaborate chandeliers, vases which you think slightly cull to Newcastle to China.

[Anita Anand]

Well, I mean, they do good vases.

[William Durrymple]

In China, but you know, clocks, an air pump, Wedgwood china and artworks depicting everyday life in England. Just what they want.

[Anita Anand]

But you missed my favourite thing. My favourite thing was a hot air balloon.

[William Durrymple]

The hot air balloon.

[Anita Anand]

The hot air. I mean, again, these things which not, you know, in Europe, again, this stuff of magic, you know, Montgolfier and you know, sort of taking off into the heavens, defying the gods suddenly, you know, making the sky a highway that you can travel. This stuff in Europe was seriously impressive. And what this British Embassy thought is that if we show them this stuff, we could be friends. We should be friends. We like them, we think they're brilliant. Now, you just mentioned Lord McCartney.

[William Durrymple]

Before we go to Lord McCartney, we've got to tell you about this wonderful Scotsman, another of my co nationals.

[Anita Anand]

Okay, Scotsman. First Scotsman. First surprise shocker. Yes, go on.

[William Durrymple]

And his name is James Dinwiddie and he's an astronomer and a natural philosopher. And he's responsible for the planetarium and the hot air balloon. But that's not all. He's also responsible for bringing a diving bell.

[Anita Anand]

Yes, I forgot about that. It was sea and air. That's right. Sort of, you know, that we've got command over both of those realms. Is Dinwiddie perhaps a distant uncle or something? I mean, do we need to cover that off very quickly before we move in?

[William Durrymple]

There are other relations, Teddy up later in the series, but thank God, says.

[Anita Anand]

The entire listenership of Empire. Now can we talk about McCartney? And I'm surprised you didn't want to talk about. There is a bit of a Scots thing here, because although born in Ireland, George Lord Macartney was of Scots Irish heritage. Was he a posho?

[William Durrymple]

He was a posho. And he's also been the ambassador to Russia. But he realizes the importance of this. Not only will it be the first ever time that Brits have gone to Beijing, gone to the Chinese court, no one has ever done that before. But on top of that, this is now the country which is the most important economic partner of Britain. It's like Peter Mandelson trying to go and sort out Trump in Washington, although.

[Anita Anand]

Madison knows it's a tricky job. McCartney doesn't know this yet, but you said something to me before when you were talking about this is that it was tantamount to a mission to Mars, because it was the undiscovered planet and it was the one that, you know, sort of inhabits a huge part of the romantic brain of Europe. But to be there, to be the first person to set foot on Chinese soil, is deeply intoxicating for McCartney.

[William Durrymple]

Now, what he does is he wants to look good for the Martians.

[Anita Anand]

Oh, I love this.

[William Durrymple]

So he tries to imagine himself, what will really impress the Chinese. And so he designs himself a sort of peacock outfit which he thinks is, you know, what ambassadors to China could wear. There's a lovely quote. It's a suit of spotted mulberry velvet.

[Anita Anand]

Oh, dreamy, dreamy, dreamy. Anna Wintour tearing her hair out from the root. Spotted mulberry, you say?

[William Durrymple]

Yes, with a diamond star and a ribbon over which he won the full habit of the Order of the Bath, which was like the kind of OB or the CBE or something much grander, the KCB of its day, with the hat and the plume of feathers which form part of it, dressed up like a peacock. He felt certain to be able to make a grand impression in the country that he and most of his entourage, to say nothing of his countrymen, had only ever encountered in his imaginations. Now, that is a lovely quote from. I should quickly Say, the wonderful Imperial Twilight by Stephen Platt.

[Anita Anand]

Can I just say, it isn't a deeply scholarly book, but Stephen is also a deeply funny man. So he has a very sort of straight delivery and then he'll sort of say something like, you know, McCartney turned up and you'll ask a question like, wasn't he a bit hot? Going to like a. Let's go to Asia in a mulberry suit. And he goes, yes, bloody hot, sweating like a pig.

[William Durrymple]

You know, mulberry velvet.

[Anita Anand]

I love it. Okay, so he's got his bags packed, he's got his suit ready, he's got his presents, his diving bell, his hot air balloon. Who are the personnel that he's taking with him? And you mentioned Dinwoody, but that's only one person. It's a father and son combo I'm quite obsessed with.

[William Durrymple]

There's a father and son combo. They're very good. This is Sir George Staunton and his son, also helpfully called George. So George Senior, George Junior, but George.

[Anita Anand]

Junior is very junior. He's only 11. Isn't he just a kid? He's just a baby, isn't he?

[William Durrymple]

But he's a kind of wunderkind. And George Senior clearly thinks he's even more of a genius than he actually is. And so I think he starts his Chinese lessons.

[Anita Anand]

Sounds like an Indian dad. My son is a genius.

[William Durrymple]

It's exactly that says Sir George Staunton is actually only McCartney's secretary. That's his official job. But he assumes a larger than life part in this because his son George will go on to become. And we will meet him in subsequent episodes, the or certainly he will appoint himself as the great British expert on China because he's one of the very few people in Britain that speaks Chinese and even fewer that have been to China after this expedition.

[Anita Anand]

Just very briefly, because, you know, being the mother of boys in that postcode, George Very Jr. Has the distinction of. He's been trained by the Jesuits. So that's where he gets his knowledge of China. Age 11. He can't be very fluent, surely? Not at all.

[William Durrymple]

That's one of the great things. Dan clearly thinks that he's completely fluent in Chinese. And as we will see, that turns out not to be the case.

[Anita Anand]

Can I just tell you, every parent who has a child doing GCSE French, as I do, will know this. No, Mum, I'm on top of it. I'm completely fluent. I can converse.

[William Durrymple]

You just come back for holiday.

[Anita Anand]

I have. And we tested that theory out. And let me tell you it doesn't stand up to great scrutiny. Send the boy in for a baguette, comes back with a beanstalk. Anyway, on you go.

[William Durrymple]

So the thing that they're most proud of in this expedition is, of course, the letter from King George iii, who is the king at this time? King George, for those who are not British and haven't sat watching the wonderful Alan Bennett play or movie of the madness. King George was the famous king who both went mad and lost America, which are two unfortunate.

[Anita Anand]

You'll be back.

[William Durrymple]

Yes.

[Anita Anand]

And indeed in Hamilton, that's it.

[William Durrymple]

But he has recently been resuscitated by Andrew Roberts, my contemporary at Cambridge, of slightly different political persuasion to me.

[Anita Anand]

Slightly.

[William Durrymple]

And Andrew actually, I thought, made a very good case. I enjoyed his book on George III for all the political differences. And he makes a very good case that George is an underrated king.

[Anita Anand]

Anyway, that's another time. Yes, another time for that. I mean, he is just, for those who don't know, he is in Britain always written off because of the madness of King George as somebody who just completely do lally. But actually he was, in brief, marshalling a very difficult situation with an impossible son who really was the bonkers member of the family. So this King George, who, you know, has been much maligned for mental health issues, does understand better than most people how to smother somebody in diplomatic love, love bomb them diplomatically. So he writes a letter where he refers to the Chinese emperor. Can I read a bit of it? Because it's just so good, I won't do it justice if I see it. It's addressed to the supreme emperor of China, worthy to live tens of thousands and tens of thousands of years.

[William Durrymple]

Not just one tens of thousands, but tens and tens.

[Anita Anand]

It's not enough. 1. And he says why the English are coming over and why the mission was for the sake of discovery, to better their own civilization and our own, you know, it's all such a good thing. And he. He talks about China in the most glowing terms, which we've already sort of discussed is pretty sincere. And above all, King George insists our ardent wish has been to become acquainted with those celebrated institutions of your majesty's populace, an extensive empire which have carried its prosperity to such a height as to be the admiration of all surrounding nations. So again, you know, a tone taken with China that is pretty unique. We're going to take a break. Join us after the break where we find out who the letter, who McCartney and who the diving bell and balloon are going to be visiting.

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[Anita Anand]

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[Anita Anand]

Welcome back. So before the break, we were talking about the prep the Mulberry spotted suit. They're good to go. They are good to go. Tell us about who they're going to visit, because I don't feel we've really done justice to the man who is going to live for tens of thousands and tens of tens of thousands of years. The Qing Emperor. Name him and describe him for us.

[William Durrymple]

So the Qianlong Emperor is one of the longest ruling figures in Chinese history, in fact, and rules from 1735 to 1796, which is almost a record. Now, he's a Manchu, which is important. He is not ethnic Chinese. There are various points in Chinese history when the Chinese get conquered first by, for example, the Mongols, the Yuan, and you have the Yuan Dynasty, and this is the Manchu Dynasty. And the Manchus are from, of course, Manchuria over the Great Wall. They are a military elite. They don't share the top ranks of their kingdom with the ethnic Chinese who are kept under, but they're very successful. And it's important to recognize this in the story of the Opium wars, which we're going to be looking at for the next few episodes. And you can't understand, in a sense, why the Chinese court behaves the way it does unless you realize that this is also an empire at the peak of its power. And they've conquered great chunks of the area around China. So they've conquered Xin Zhang, which hasn't been in Chinese hands since the Tang period, and they conquered Tibet, which, within not living memory, but. But several centuries earlier, had been raiding into the heart of China. So they've done very well militarily, and they are a military elite who. Who are very proud of their military traditions. The Qedong Emperor himself is a remarkable man. He's a calligrapher, a man of parts. And so it's the meeting, and this is what we have to keep in mind, because we know that the Opium War is coming, and this is going to be the century of humiliation. But this is actually when this interaction begins, the meeting of the two greatest empires in the world.

[Anita Anand]

And also very. I'm really glad you mentioned the foreshadowing. Normally, I get cross with you when.

[William Durrymple]

You say you get cross with me, even when I don't spoil the plot.

[Anita Anand]

I mean, about. About everything but the century of humiliation. It really is important to know the height from which the Chinese fell, because they feel it, they know it, and they talk about it, even today. And, you know, on Empire, what we try and do is we try and explain what's going on in the world today through the lens of history. Like, look at what happened before and might this be why people feel the way they do today? And that certainly is the case here. Before we get to the actual meeting, we haven't really done the voyage because it's not a hop, skip and a jump to China is. It takes a long, long time and it takes big, big ships, especially if you're taking the kind of kit they're taking. So, I mean, tell us about their months and months at sea trying to get to China.

[William Durrymple]

It's quite important to take in that this is not just a British voyage to China and a British Embassy, it's a joint British Crown embassy with the East India Company. And people get very muddled by this. At this point in history, in the 1780s, everything, all British interests east of the Cape of Good Hope are controlled by a London company, the East India Company, which has an office in Leadenhall Street. It has a share price on the London Stock Exchange and you can buy shares in it. And it has, at this point, a larger army than the British army actually got an army twice the size of the British Army. The British Army's about 100,000 men. Men. The East India Company army is 200,000 men. So there are two ships which set off. One is HMS lion, which is a government ship from the Royal Navy, and the other is the East India Company merchant ship Hindustan. So perhaps Hindustan is the one that's got all the diving bells and so on it. But this is a big Embassy. There are 400 passengers on HMS land before you include the crew. And Hindustan carries 66 East India Company officials.

[Anita Anand]

This is huge. It's a really big. I mean. And this should be something again, I mean, I don't think that's why they do it, because, I mean, the East India Company have the best knowledge of merchant seaways and, you know, they're very good at navigating this kind of water. But it is also, I wonder, a sort of a way of actually being incredibly impressive that, you know, you sort of turn up with these two extraordinary ships because, you know, Britain's very proud, quite rightly, of its ships. We're talking 1792, big fluttering pennants coming towards, you know, China, the harbour on the horizon. This is. This should be a really impressive entry to great fanfare with these two ships. They think because we talked about this before, the Chinese have never really bothered themselves with sea. You know, they haven't.

[William Durrymple]

That one moment. We did that. Nice episode. Yes. Last Christmas. Not this Christmas, but. But one Christmas ago by the Great Admiral.

[Anita Anand]

Yes, but one Admiral William I mean but ships and sort of seas and because they are a very self contained empire and they sort of have everything that they want. So notionally the Brits are right, you know, you send these two great galleons over, it should be impressive. We have mastery of the seas and under the seas and in the sky. Love us. That is the message even before you arrive or set foot on the soil.

[William Durrymple]

Yes. So they go kind of a slightly odd route. They go via Madeira, Tenerife, Rio, the Cape of Good Hope, Java and Sumatra.

[Anita Anand]

Or the party capitals. Yes.

[William Durrymple]

I don't think George Staunton is out at nightclubbing. He's still busy trying to get his Chinese grammar sorted out. And then they reach the Portuguese territory of Macau. It's worth remembering that the Portuguese have a little inlet of their own on the coast of China which has been there since the 17th century. They go up the coast and in the summer of 1793 they sail up the Yellow Sea towards Tianjin and they're met by Chinese official who again showed a particular enthusiasm to receive this embassy. But go through the ancient diplomatic maneuvers that are written down in the Chinese textbooks for 2000 years of how you receive as they see it, barbarians, envoys bringing tribute. And the first thing is that they haven't kind of realized quite how far Beijing is from the sea because no Brit has ever been there. And then they discover that the Emperor isn't even in Beijing. He's. Because he's a Manchu, he is, has gone up to the hills to Manchuria for the summer or halfway to Manchuria to Joel.

[Anita Anand]

Johor's an interesting place, sort of surrounded by mountains. It's very picturesque, it's very, you know. Have you been there? Because I've only seen it on the Google. What's it like?

[William Durrymple]

I went on this trip, the first big trip I ever did was following.

[Anita Anand]

Marco Polo for insanity.

[William Durrymple]

Well, and Xanadu is very, not very close but fairly close to Johol and I took the same route that these guys are about to take. So you start at Beijing and then you head northwards through the Great Wall through these incredible mountains with the, with the wall running over it. Yeah and Johal is a wonderful, much nicer in my taste, I have to say. I'm normally one that prefers everything Indian to things Chinese but in terms of hill stations, I'd take chal over any Indian hill station ever. It's on lakes surrounded by wooded mountains. Yeah, they have wonderful Mongol hot pots is the kind of standard foods and first of all I never come across one they have those sort of funneled bubbly things and you drip bits of very, very thin beef or vegetables into the hot pot with your chopsticks. And so I thought it was an utterly delightful place. I'm very excited.

[Anita Anand]

It's the on trend way of eating, by the way, in London at the moment. Sort of, you know, dip your meat in the hot broth.

[William Durrymple]

So this would have been no surprise to the Qianlong Emperor, who would have regarded it as natural that the Brits would want to eat like him in this manner.

[Anita Anand]

Well, they are now. It's taken a while, but they are.

[William Durrymple]

Definitely doing now anyway, so poor old Dinwiddie and his, his telescopes and things are left behind in Beijing and they decide they might get damaged by the journey into the mountains. So they, they take a call and they think the Emperor must come back to Beijing. And they imagine that they're going to be in China for, you know, maybe a year and a half or something. They envisage this as something like some Napoleon arriving in Egypt. They've got them, they've got their scholars, they've got their scientists. This, and this is a major opportunity for the British to study this new country, as you say, arriving on Mars. So they're in no hurry to kind of impress the Emperor. They're so confident the Chinese are going to be thrilled to open diplomatic relations with Britain, cancel all tariffs, welcome them into every port of the empire. That Dinwiddie is left behind to reassemble his planetarium of 20,000 moving parts. And Staunton senior and junior George and George plus McCartney head on through the Great Wall. And they are as impressed as I was by the Great Wall as they come to it. Little George Staunton helps himself to some stones which he puts into his.

[Anita Anand]

That is such a Little George thing to do, any little child thing to do. Isn't that lovely?

[William Durrymple]

Well, McCartney who's writing a very full journal because he realizes that this is going to be this, as he imagines hugely successful embassy, is going to be a major part of British history and that he must have a full book to record everything that happens. So he writes this entry saying that the Great Wall is the most stupendous work of human hands. It was a sign not only of a very powerful empire, but a very wise and virtuous nation. Difficult to tell why he's particularly assumed this from the Wall. The Wall, of course, is now out of use because the wall was built to keep the Manchus out of China.

[Anita Anand]

But the Manchus are now ruling China.

[William Durrymple]

Job done, job not done. Yeah. So they head north from the Wall into Manchuria. But what they call in 18th century British geography, Tartary, which is a lovely word, there's that Peter Fleming book news from Tartary. And they find themselves, as I did in 1986 when I was going to Xanadu, in something that looks a bit like the Swiss Alps. I mean, wonderful mountains with snow tops, lots of woods on the lower, crystal.

[Anita Anand]

Blue lakes, crystal blue lakes, clear air.

[William Durrymple]

All that sort of thing. Crisp mornings. So they're all in very high spirits and they think it's all going terribly well and they're very, very pleased.

[Anita Anand]

But you know what? It's not. It's really not going well at all. Can I just say one other thing, just before we get to the actual meeting where they're still blissfully unaware that it's going very wrong or it's about to go very wrong, but the other thing, I mean, we talked a bit about the Qing Empire at the height of its power. Did we mention that this is an empire? Four and a half million square miles, which makes it larger than all of Europe put together. So no wonder they're impressed as they're making their way through the Wall. It's bigger than all of Europe, so the scale of it, you know, just forget about the clear air and the lakes for a moment, which are also very beautiful and lovely. It's huge and they know it. So they're almost right from the get go, dwarfed by the scale of this meeting. Everything is riding on this meeting that is, first of all taking place in a city they didn't want it to take place in because their diving bell and their balloon and their planetarium are back in Beijing. Ships are on the coast. This is miles away from the coast. They haven't even seen the ships, you know, just going. They've seen nothing.

[William Durrymple]

They had to leave all the kind of weaponry they brought to the. They can't haul cannon onto this and it's not diplomatic.

[Anita Anand]

What are they going to do? So they're just plodding along, you know, and. But what I love, William, is that they think they're going to turn up and just buy a force of mulberry suit. We're here, they've got none of their stuff. We've come anyway. Do go on, because I'm coming to the end of this. Go on.

[William Durrymple]

And they've been on the road exactly a year now is one of the extraordinary things. It's taken so long to leave London and travel via Rio and all the party places that they were going to, that they realized that as they approach Johol, it's exactly a year since they set off from the Thames.

[Anita Anand]

And is it true to say that they don't even know they're going to get an audience until they get there?

[William Durrymple]

I think they assume with their characteristic optimism that they're going to be received and that the Emperor's gonna embrace them in a. In a sort of enthusiastic manner.

[Anita Anand]

But from what I understand, and again, Stephen Platt is very good on this, is that they. They don't have that cast iron guarantee. They're making this journey without any of their presence in a mulberry suit. Spotted mulberry suit. But they don't know. But luckily when they arrive, I suppose, to be polite, the Emperor does grant them.

[William Durrymple]

But there is a big but. And we will find what that but is in the next episode.

[Anita Anand]

Oh, it's such a big but. Join us for the next episode of Empire, where we talk one of the.

[William Durrymple]

Biggest buts of diplomatic history, in the.

[Anita Anand]

History of diplomatic buts, until the next time we meet is goodbye from me, Anita Anand.

[William Durrymple]

Goodbye from me, William Durrymple.