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

INTERESTING LZITER FROM CHINA.

--. .49.--

(Farm trke Correspt indent of the Timex) 0
SHANGHAI, OCT.
A change has come ova the policy of the autho-
rities in the south. The ..French Ambassador has
arrived in the mouth of tht) 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 mustg return to m3'post of observation. I hope to add a postscript to
this letter with a Hong Kong ate.
ffe en with e
When we have settld our
Cantonese, the scene of action wdlill rbeces removedt tho
these northern ports.
The: Chinese officials, or "a he Mandarins," as it
the Court of is the custom to call them,
f coerce l opinion that our
deciskete, move, in order to e o
the supply of food to the
Pekin, will be to cut off
capital. They reason, according to Chinese
from the' precedent of the last war ; and, for once,
to ado.pt the same conclusion, and
I am inc tined
premises. In our previous experi-
from the .lame
once the Co art was immovable so long as we only
billed, burnt,
.and destroyed in the provinces. Di-
rectly we put a muzzle upon the mouths of the
populace of Perdu the Court was at our feet ; so it
will be again.
I have been inytestigating how Pekin is fed. I
cannot quote my etzethorities without certain loss of
the heads of my in fc rmants, but the following may
be implicitly relied ell ion as in the main correct.
There are nine of Ow eighteen provinces of China
which produce rice, aval have, or rather had, means
of water communication with Pekin. These pro-
vincesare—Fuhkien, a:re/clang, Kiangsi, Shantung,
Hupeh, Hunan, Kiangsuf ,Nganhwui, and Szchuen.
These provinces, according' to ancient precedent,
pay their tribute to the capital in rice. They are
bound to contribute in the aVrege.te 10,000 junks,
e ii containing 1,000 piculs of 1331 b. English ; but
in the arrangement of the propoetion Shuntang 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, whicb, at
the regular allowance of about per day per
month—such is the capacity 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-tee, has de-
ranged this comfortable state of things. The pro-
vinces teuth of the Yang-tse can no longer commu
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
late as the 26th of September there is a memorial
on this subject. The Number of the 20th of Sep-
temberAontains the aAwer of officers to the urgent
orders already given t ) collect rico and send it
round by Tiensin. There is no 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 Szchuen rice were never
paid, for the four lacs of dollars sent them from that
province to pay for it were embezzled by the Man-
darins—an irregularity which has not tended to
facilitate matters. The other province's had expe-
rienced inundations and locusts, and had Imperial
or rebel armies in their neighbourhood, and they
paid their quotas with difficulty. But still, tant
bier& que mat, Pekin has been fed. The supply,
however, no longer reaches the city as formerly by
the Imperial Canal and the other inner waters, but
the junks start from the coast, and by seaboard
they voyage to the Gulf of Pecheli and the month
of the Peiho.
The custom is to gather the rice together upon
the coast as soon as the harvest is got in. About
the Ist of January of our year the Custom-houses
lay embargo upon the junks, and retain them for
the annual voyage to liensin. Immediately after
the commencement of the new year, which occurs
early in February, the junks start, and, struggling
against the adverse moonsoon, make their way in
perhaps five or six weeks to the mouth of the
Peiho. About the tenth day of the second month
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 montles longer.
The Chinese are quite alive to this thir vital
diflieulty. They are talking of assembling this
year s fleet at Lehoo, a place not marked in our
maps, about fifty miles to the north of Woosung,
which was used for the same purpose when Shangai
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.
Ttiat 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 scheme is not badly conceived, and it may
possibly be successful. The mandarins shrewdly
calculate that in all probability the barbarians will
take it for granted that the junks will not sail
northward till the change of the monsoon, and that
they will not care to keep the sea and blcckade the
coast iu 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 cannot follow them.
If they can run into the Yellow River they will
also be safe, for thence northwards the inner waters
to Pekin are open. It is impossible to guess what
insuperable impediments the courtesy of the French
Emperor towards his lone°-tailed Imperial brother,
or the "mother wit" of Mr. Commissioner Reed,
or the instructions from Downing-street may inter-
pose to a blockade of the whole coast north of
Shanghai, but I take it that if left to their own
devices neither Lord Elgin nor Admiral Saym-mr
is a man to allow such a march as this to be stolen
upon them. With Cantu in hand, and with this
fleet of rice-junks kept outside, Lord Elgin's road
to Pekin would b© strewn with flow,:rs, and his
negotiations at the. Court would be of a very curt
_l'4cl:satisfactory character.
It is an uncomfortable thing to have to stat.)
any fact upon Chinese authority, for you know
that if a falsehood will serve the turn they never
have recourse to truth. The Chinese, however,
all tell me that the Russians have been to Ti.
and they give me circumstantial details of the
transactions there, and name even the officers com-
missioned to meet them. According to these ac-
counts the two Governments are upon the most
friendly terms. The Chinese affirm that the object
of the visits of the Russian admiral to the port of
Shanghai has been to keep the Court of Pekin in-
formed of the preparations and intentions of the
Entisb, and they biut that the Russians have led
the at: ".to believe that at the proper moment Russia
will r interpose her mediation to settle the
differences.
If these statements are not true they are well
invented. The two courts aro undoubtedly au.e
petits scrim just now. The Pekin Gazette of the
26th of September reports the return of E ke-le, a
Chinese officer who had been sent to the Court of
Russia to present condolences on the death of
Nicholas. The Gazette simply states that the
Envoy, having had an audience with the present
Emperor, had retuined.
Perhaps lam reclined to believe more of this
information because I get it from peculiar and ex-
elusive sources ; but, at any ra`e, it is sde to con-
clude that the Chinese are 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 the British
public to accompany me in a morning walk upon
the Buud. It will be hard if we do not find
setae few scenes there illustrative of Chinese life
and manners. We will start from the hotel, which
notifies its whereabouts in the rear of the settlement
by a high flagstaff and a most demonstrative b inner.
The street we follow is bounded by the eirdea walls
and entrances of several " hongs "—ornamented
detached residences; resembling a little the villas
in the Regent's- oent 8-park. Our path is through a crowd
0011 itoehetlirilaraceb,olie?. They are carrying, ha'anced
bricks of ayea°° pobs, chests of tel, bales of silk,
sue. It is haertv"' and burdens more multifari-
labour nearly S. acidrak. They earn by continuous 1
auhe Butth a man is worn out in
about seven years
hardly
en retires on his scone-
miss, and enjoys his
theenaterured leisure upon a
small plot of ground in
them at full work loading and disre.li We
Row
see
From earl of
a I
Each as he goes emits a eouud nee the moan
cargo.
man in pain, " ho ; alt ho."
ing till eventide this chorus of sorrowful aoyvimciotirna-s
the air. It is more multitudinous and monetsnowa
than the croak of the frogs iu the swamps, than the
harsh grating cry of the ciashe upon the boughs.
The habit, so fsr as I can discover, is confined to
eeltis port ; but a Shanghai porter can no mom du ,
work without his " ho !" than a London
paviour can got on without his "Howie." When
the
English first, came hero the house servants
brought up the soups and the legs of mut'on sing-
ing their e Ah ho " i
cl in i in procession through the
This was promptly put down ; but
the out-of-door chorus still proceeds. Every moment
from 800 chests comes this sad monotonous cry,
depressing to,the spirits of new corners.
We make our way through this croaking crowd,