The Sun.
London, England, 1857-12-15 00:00:00

INTERESTING LETTER FROM CHINA.

(From tke Correspondent of the 2inieB.) .
SHANGHAI, OCT. 23.

A change has come over the policy of the autho-
rities in the south. The French Ambassador has
arrived in the mouth of the Canton river. The pro-
jected northern voyage is definitively abandoned.
It is reported that the order has gone forth that
Canton shall be taken, and I must return to my
post of observation. I hope to add a postscript to
this letter with a Hong Kong date.
When we have settled our differences with the
Cantonese, the scene of action will be removed to
these northern ports.
The Chinese officials, or " the Mandarins," as it
is the custom to call them, are of opinion that our
decisive move, in order to coerce the Court of
Pekin, will be to cut off the supply of food to the
capital. They reason, according to Chinese logic,
from the precedent of the last war ; and, for once,
I am inclined to adopt the same conclusion, and
from the same premises. In our previous experi-
ones the Court was immovable so long as we only
killed, burnt, and destroyed in the provinces. Di-
re3tly we put a muzzle upon the mouths of the
populace of Pekin the Court was at our feet ; so it
will be again.

I have-been investigatiug how Pekin is fed. I
cannot quote my authorities without certain less of
the heath of my informants, but the following may
be implicitly relied upon as in the main correct.
There are nine of the eighteen provinces of China
which produce rice, and have, or rather had, means
of water communication with Pekin. These pro-
vinces are—Fuhkien, Chekiang, Kiangsi, Shantung,
Hupeh, Hunan, Kiangsu, Nganhwui, and Szchuen.
These provinces, according to ancient precedent,
pay their tribute to the capital in rice. They are
bound to contribute in the aggregate 10,000 junks,
e. el containing 1,000 piculs of 1331 b. English ; but
in the arrangement of the proportion Stinutang and
Hunan, on account of their poverty or their small
extent, only pay as half a province each.
This arrangement gave an annual supply of
10,000,000 piculs to the Imperial city, which, at
the regular allowance of about 111 h. per day per
month—such is the capaci!y of the measure meted
out to the soldiery—would feed a population of
3,000,000. The calculation, therefore, as is neces-
sary in all large calculations, allowed largely for a
difference between figures and facts.
The rebellion, however, and especially the occu-
pation of Chekiang, upon the Yang tse, has de-
ranged this comfortable state of things. The pro-
vinces south of the Yang-tse can no longer coinrnu
nicate, with the capital by the inner.waters; Szchuen
is obliged to send silver to Kiangsi; and there pur-
chase the rice which could not be sent from the
province itself.
In recent years the 10,000,000 piculs have been
enormously diminished ; and the Pekin Gazette has
contained many lamentations on this score. So
laic as the 26th of September there is a memorial
on this subject. The Number of the 20th of Sep-
tember contains the a• weer of officers to the urgent
orders already given t r collect rice and send it
round by Tiensiu. There is uo trade at Pekin, and
the supply is necessarily a very critical affair.
Nankin formerly sent three millions, and Nankin
has now other mouths to feed. The China mer-
chants who bought the Szchueu rice were never
pail, for the f,eir lacs of dollars sent them from that
province to pay for it were embezzled by the Man-
darins—an irregularity which hes not tended to
facilitate matters. The other provinces had expe-
rienced inundations and locusts, and had Imperial
or rebel armies in their ne;ghbourhood, and they
paid their quotas with difficulty. But still, Cant
liiem quo vial, Pekin has be: n fed. The supply,
however, no long. .r reaches the city as formerly by
the Imperial Canal and the other inner waters, but
the junks Aart from the coast, and by seahoatd
they voyage to the Gulf of Pecheli and the mouth
of the Peiho.

The cnitorn is to gather the lice together upon
the coast as soon as the harvest is got in. About
the Ist of January of our year the Custom-houses
isy embargo upon the junks, and retain them for
the aunual voyage to liensin. Immediately after
the commencement of the new year, which occurs
early in February, 'the junks start, and, struggling
against the adverse momsoon, make their way in
perhaps five or six weeks to the mouth of the
Peiho. About the tenth day of the second mouth
is the day calculated for their arrival, for by this
time the ice has disappeared from the river.
If this freight should arrive safe in Pekin our
war with China will last for 12 montivi longer.
The Chinese are quite alive to this their vital
difficulty. They are talking of assembling this
year s fleet at Lehoo, a place not market in our
in,ps, about fifty miles to the north of Woosung,
which was used for the same purpose when Shang,ai
was in the hands of the rebels four years since.
The Government has lately also been buying some
steamers. They now have three in their service,
and although chasing pirates and quelling rebels is
the ostensible object, I fancy that towing rice
junks at a critical moment is their real destination.
That rice is being collected with extraordinary
activity in Kiangsu, and that the mandarins are
under strong pressure, are evident. The Chinese
say there is generally a stand of wind on the 10th
moon (January) under favour of which the junks
• can work up north.

The sebe,meseieseeri,osttubi.
on badly conceived, and it may
possbly be
northward till the
calculate that ;
m all The mandarins shrewdly
c hpatrh bg
ea boifl ittlyl
e tmheo
nbsaorobna, r iaannds willh
take it for ;ranted
that
at thejunks will not sail
they will not care to keep the sea and blc ckade the
coast in January, and if the flat-bottomed rice boats
can only escape up into the gulf of Pecheli, that
gulf will be so shallow at that •
period of the year
that the steamers
If they can run cannotint follow them.
the Yellow River they will
also be safe, for thenceo northwards. the inner waters
to Pekin are open. It is impossible to guess what
insuperable impediments the courtesy of the French
Emperor towards his long-tailed Imperial brother,
or the "mother wit" of Mr. Commi • ' esioner Reed,
or the instructions from Downing-street may inter-
pose to a blockade
Shanghai, but I of
the waole coast north of
take
it that if left to their own
Lord
devices neither Elgin nor Admiral. Seymour
is a man to allow such Withe a march. as this to b 3 stolen
upon them. AAL in hand, and with this
fleet of. rice-junks
bkept outside,. Lord Elgin's road
to Pekin would
strewn with flowers, and his
negotiations at theec lit would be of a vary curt
and satisfactory character.o I
It is an uncomfortable
thing to have to state
any fact upon Chinese authority, for you know
that if a falsehood
will serve the turn they never
have recourse toThe Chinese, however,
all tell me that the truth.
m Russians. have been to Tieesin,
and they give
ande circumstantial details of the
transactions there,name even. the officers com-
missioned to meet" them.ah According to these ac-
counts the two
The Governments are upon the most
friendly terms. Chinese affirm that the object
of the visits of the
tßussian admiral to the port of
Shanghai has been keep the Court. of Pekin in-
formed of the °
preparations. and intentions of the
English, and they hint that the Russians have led
them to believe that at the proper moment Russia
will interpose her mediation to settle the
differences.
If these statements are not true they are well
invented. The two courts are undoubtedly aux
petits soins just now. The Pekin Gazette of the
26th of September reports the return of E-ke-le, a
had
Chinese officer who been sent to the Court of
condolences
Russia to present on the death of
Nicholas. Tire simply Gazettestates that the
Envoy, having had an
audience with the present
'Emperor, had retained.
Perhaps lam ischned to believe more of this
information because I get it from peculiar and ex-
clusive sources ; but, at any
that the Chinese are quite
it is safe to con-
cludere quite alive to every
point of the game they are now playing, and that
they are disposed to avail themselves of Russia.
Before we leave Shanghai I must ask
walk uon
the British
public to accompany me in a
the Bund. It will be hard Morning
do not find
some we
some few scenes there illust •
ati
and manners. We will start from
of Chinese life
rom the hotel, which
notifies its Whereabouts in the
rear of the settlement
by a high flagstaff and a most demonstrative banner.
The street we follow is bounded by the gird en walls
and entrances of several. ~
hongs "—ornamented
detached residences resembl' in—
e a little the villas
in the Reg nit's-park. our path •
is through a crowd
of jostling Coolies. They are carrying, balanced
on their bamboo poles, ebest3
of
tea, bales of silk,
bricks of Sycee silver, and burdens more multifari-
ous. It is bard work. Theyi earn by continuous
labour nearly Bs. a day. a man is worn out in
about seven years, and he then
retires on his econo-
mies, and enjoys his heed!Y-
earne
small plot of ground in the interior.
leisure upon a
We now see
them at full work loading
and discharging cargo.
a found
Each as he goes emits
ho." From
the moan of a
man in pain, " Ali ho ;ah From early morn-
ing till eventide this chorus 10.,,
o.f. sorrowful sound fills
the air. It is more multitudinous
iu and monotonous
frogs
than the croak of thethe swamps, than the
harsh grating cry of the ei
upon the boughs.
.I
The habit, so far as can C(:teiCe
discover, is confined to
his port ; but a Shanghai
porte,r can no more do
his work without his „ Ah ho I'
than a London
paviour can get on without his "Rough." When
the English first came here
the house servants
brought imp the
soups and the legs of mutton sing-
ing their ' Ali bo" m procession through the
din:ng-rootr. This was
promptly put down ; but
the out-ot-door chorus stil
proceeds. Every moment
from 800 chests comes this
sad monotonous cry,
depre,sing to the spirits of new new comers.
We make our way through One creaking crowd,