China Edward Rutherfurd (essential reading .txt) 📖

any more than Cecil did. On the other hand, since most of the small British community on Hong Kong were connected with the opium trade in one way or another, he supposed she’d decided it wiser to keep her thoughts to herself. As for his past love life, it was long ago and hardly scandalous, he thought, even to a puritan.

She asked him about his children.

“We have four, Miss Ross. James is the eldest. He’s at boarding school with his brother, Murdo; he’ll go to Eton in a couple of years. My daughters, Emily and Constance, are at home with a governess.” He noticed Whiteparish give his fiancée a glance suggesting that even if he disapproved of the source of the Trader family wealth, his missionary cousin was still just a little bit pleased to have such aristocratic-seeming connections. “So like my own wife, Miss Ross, you are Scots, but from the east coast rather than the west, I think?”

“Indeed, sir, my father is a minister in Montrose.”

“And what brought you to Hong Kong?”

“The family by whom I was employed in Edinburgh asked me to accompany them here. When I consulted my father, he told me that I should go and see the world, if I wished.”

“What an adventurous soul you have, Miss Ross, and what a wise father.” Trader smiled.

This seemed to please her. But she wanted to draw something else to his attention. “Has your cousin told you about his own recent adventure on the mainland?” she asked. And when Trader looked uncertain, she turned to her fiancé.

“Ah,” said Cecil. “Indeed. This might be of interest to you. I have been to Nanjing, to see the Taiping.”

“That’s a dangerous undertaking.” Trader looked at Whiteparish with a new respect. Then he glanced at Minnie Ross. “Weren’t you worried?”

“No,” she replied simply. “Whatever happened to him, it would be God’s will.”

“Oh,” said Trader.

“I’ll tell you about it over dinner,” said Cecil with a smile.

—

They had completed the main course by the time he’d finished. Trader was fascinated and thanked him warmly.

“Would you say they were Christian?” he asked his missionary cousin.

“I’d hoped, of course. Perhaps they can be made into Christians. But many things concern me. Their leader, by claiming to be the brother of Jesus, is trying to make a cult of himself. That is never good.”

“You don’t think he could mean it in a general sense, as we might speak of ‘brothers and sisters in Christ’?”

“I think he means it literally. As for having seventeen wives…”

Trader glanced at Minnie Ross.

“These Taiping speak of their Heavenly Kingdom,” Minnie said, “yet they killed every Manchu in Nanjing—women and children, too.”

“It’s true,” said Cecil. “I asked.”

“I don’t much care for their idea that all private property should be abolished, either,” Trader remarked. “There is, however, another consideration. Namely, that whether these people are genuine or not, it may not really matter. At least to the British government.”

Minnie Ross looked puzzled, but Whiteparish nodded. “I was afraid you’d say that,” he murmured sadly.

“The British government is unhappy, Miss Ross,” Trader explained. “The treaty of 1842 promised our merchants access to five ports, consuls in those ports as well—all the usual things that we, and other nations, expect in other countries. Apart from Canton and Shanghai, it hasn’t happened, and even in those places there have been difficulties.”

“The Chinese feel those concessions were made under duress,” Cecil added. “And the reparations we demanded were crushing.”

“All treaties following a defeat are made under duress. History’s full of them,” Trader countered. “Though I agree about the reparations. But the fact remains that we, the French, even the Americans, are growing impatient with a regime we see as corrupt and obstructive.”

“And the Taiping are seen as a possible alternative?”

“Back in London, a Christian government in China looks an attractive proposition.”

“You remember, Cousin John,” the missionary said, “how we all learned in school the ancient doctrine that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. For centuries, Britain preserved itself by pitting the great continental powers of Europe against each other, and it worked pretty well. But I believe there are two potential fallacies in the doctrine.”

“Expound.”

“The first fallacy is simple. Your enemy’s enemy may seem to be your friend today, but not tomorrow. Say you help him to victory, and then, being more powerful, he may turn on you. We may help the Taiping gain power, but as soon as they’ve got it, they may treat us worse than the Manchu did.”

“The idea was to keep rebalancing the powers. But I agree, there’s a danger in changing any regime. Better the devil you know. What’s the other fallacy?”

“It is more insidious, I think,” said Whiteparish. “It is the moral fallacy. Consider: Your enemy is a bad man. You know without a doubt that he is evil. The man who opposes him, therefore, the man who can strike him down, must be good. But it’s not so. There is no reason at all to suppose he is good. Very likely, he is just another bad man.” He paused. “So you try to find out if your enemy’s enemy is good or bad, and he tells you that he is good. For this will bring you and others to his cause. And this pleases you.” He paused again, then shook his head. “But he is lying. He is just another bad man, perhaps worse than the first.”

“And the Taiping?”

“They say they are Christian. So we think they must be good. We want to think them good. We may even close our eyes to their evil, because we do not wish to see it. A man puts on a coat like mine, so I think he must be like me. But he is not.”

“A wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

“Exactly so. As my dear Minnie has just pointed out, the Taiping say they are Christian and that they mean to build a kindly Heavenly Kingdom; yet their first act has been to slaughter an entire population of innocent women and