Table of Contents
Acknowledgments xiii
A Note on Spelling xv
Introduction xvii
Prologue: The Witness to Three Stages xxix
I The Journey to China
1 Departure 3
2 "The Lords of Human Kind" 12
3 When China Was the Rage in Europe 20
4 Protected by the British Fleet 29
5 A Whiff of China 34
II Another Planet
6 Macao 43
7 Skirting Canton 50
8 Strange Beings 55
9 Rounding Up Pilots 61
10 "The Renown of the English Name" 67
11 Delivery of the Tribute 71
12 " 'Tis New to Thee" 79
13 Gifts or Tribute? 87
14 The Journey Upriver 93
15 A Lesson in the Kowtow 102
16 Residing in a Temple 107
17 A City of Wood 113
18 Gathering Clouds 118
19 Passing Through Peking 123
20 The Garden of Perfect Brightness 128
21 Meeting the Missionaries 132
22 The Palace of Discovery 138
23 A Distraught Scholar 142
24 The Science of Government 147
25 A Gilded Prison 151
26 Europeans Turned Chinese 157
27 A Sovereign Under the Influence 162
28 The Emperor's Vermilion Brush 166
29 Jehol Is Not the Place to Do Business 171
III In The Shadow of the Emperor
30 Toward the Great Wall 179
31 In the Tartar Lands 187
32 The Crisis of Ritual 192
33 Victory 200
34 To Each His Own Truth 205
35 The Aftershock 210
36 The Morning of the Big Day 216
37 At the Emperor's Feet 223
38 The Paradise of Ten Thousand Trees 232
39 The Emperor of the Tartars 241
40 The Party Continues 249
41 Court Secrets 256
42 The Atmosphere Darkens 262
43 Back in Peking 269
44 Shipwreck 275
45 A Scroll of Paper Enthroned 283
46 A Suzerain's Letter to His Vassal 288
47 A Message in a Bottle 293
48 "We Quitted … Like Vagrants" 297
IV The Real Mission Begins
49 Responding to a Delay 303
50 A Learned Grand Councillor 307
51 Celestial Correspondence 313
52 Works and Days 316
53 Sabotage the Barbarian Vessels 323
54 An Emperor "Upon His Guard Against the Slightest Appearance of Innovation" 330
55 An Unrivaled Postal System 337
56 "A Couple of English Frigates Could Reduce Their Coasts to Famine" 340
57 Qianlong's Wrath 346
58 A Rooster Sacrificed 352
59 China's Paradise: Suzhou 358
60 Brides for Sale 362
61 Glimmers in the Gloom 367
62 "Mollifying Them While Conceding Them Nothing" 374
V New Developments, Fresh Hopes
63 The Patriarch's Testament 383
64 On to the Deep South 387
65 Keeping Hope Alive 393
66 A Passage over Land 400
67 "A Stroke of Luck for Our Country" 406
68 Corporal Punishment 410
69 Pleasures and Frustrations of Tourism 414
70 The Match of Progress 419
71 Descent Toward Canton 427
72 Where the Barbarian Devils Were Hated 432
73 Canton 439
74 Encounters 446
75 Extern Brothers and Felonious Merchants 450
76 Rearguard Actions 455
77 Tomorrow, China 463
78 More Prosperous Chinese 468
79 A Surprising Request for a Military Alliance 474
80 Oceans at War 478
VI After Macartney or a Spiral of Misfortune
81 The End of Europe's China Fad 487
82 A Dutch Embassy Humiliated 494
83 Golovkin: An Embassy Aborted 500
84 Amherst's Embassy Rejected 504
85 Amherst at Saint Helena 512
86 In Exchange for Tea: Opium 519
87 Military Action 526
88 Implosion 532
Conclusion: The Planetarium and the Cloisonné 537
Biographical Notes on Major Personalities 555
Money and Currency 563
Notes and References 565
Bibliography 597
Index 611
