Ye Mingchen Ye Mingchen ( ) was a high - ranking Chinese official during the Qing Dynasty , known for his resistance to British influence in Guangzhou in the aftermath of the First Opium War and his role in the beginning of the Second Opium War . Early career . Ye came from a scholarly family in Hubei province and was awarded the highest degree in the imperial exams in 1835 , after which he briefly held the position as a compiler in the imperial elite school , the Hanlin Academy . In 1838 , Ye received his first official appointment as prefect of Xing ' an in Shaanxi province and he subsequently rose rapidly through the ranks in the Qing civil service . In the following years he served as circuit intendant of Yanping in Shanxi provinces , salt inspector in Jiangxi , surveillance commissioner in Yunnan and financial commissioner first in Hunan , later in Gansu and finally Guangdong province . Conflicts with Britain . In 1848 , Ye was appointed governor of Guangdong province , which brought him into open conflict with Britain because of his refusal to allow British traders to reside in the city of Guangzhou proper , which the British claimed they had a right to according to the Treaty of Nanking . As a matter of fact , the treaty read differently in its English and Chinese versions , the latter only permitting foreigners to reside temporarily in the harbors of the newly opened treaty ports . As a reward for his ostensible success in keeping the British out of Guangzhou , he was promoted to Viceroy of Liangguang as well as imperial commissioner in 1852 , which made him the chief official in charge of relations with the West . Ye Mingchen remained steadfastly opposed to yielding to British demands , but he was not able to resist the British with military force . The conflict with the British Empire came to a head in 1856 , when Ye seized the Chinese - owned lorcha " Arrow " , which was illegally flying the British flag at the time . This provided the British and French with an excuse to start the Second Opium War . During the hostilities , British forces captured Ye and brought him as a prisoner of war to Calcutta in British India where he died over fasting . Legacy . The Cantonese community is said to have respected Ye Mingchen for his intransigence against the British , but also ridiculed his inability to resist them on the battlefield . In Guangzhou he was known as the " six nots " : " he would not fight , not make peace and not defend ; he would not die , not capitulate and not run away . " Ye briefly won the favor of the Xianfeng Emperor , but his policy fell out of favor when hostilities broke out . Contemporary British public opinion regarded " Commissioner Yeh " as the embodiment of Chinese xenophobia and he was frequently caricatured in British media . But his image in the West was not unanimously negative . For instance , the German writer Theodor Fontane , who learned about Ye while working in London in the late 1850s , was touched by Ye ' s fate and later published an essay on the official . In official Chinese historiography , Ye was long given the blame for precipitating the Second Opium War , but now he is frequently hailed as an early Chinese patriot and a monument have been erected in his memory in Guangzhou . Iconography . A sketch of Ye captured and kept on board of HMS " Inflexible " was made to depict him as a hideous monster . It got broad circulation as British propaganda justifying the " Arrow " ( second Opium ) War .