The Mercenary Mandarin by David Leffman

Author:David Leffman [Leffman, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-04-22T12:38:23+00:00

And so on 4 August 1879, after an absence of two years, Mesny returned to his home near Guiyang’s courthouse to find that his wife Nien Suey Tsen “was the only one who manifested any joy at my arrival”. Cen Yuying, the man he was known to despise as being bloodthirsty and anti-foreign, had just been appointed as Guizhou’s new governor, and now former friends cold-shouldered Mesny in case they risked Cen’s displeasure: “even my wife and her relations trembled with fear, lest they should suffer on account of their relationship with me”.

But Cen didn’t seem to share Mesny’s antipathy and in fact offered him employment at 100 taels a month – presumably handing him back his former position as head of Guiyang’s armoury – though he wasn’t interested in pursuing Mesny’s schemes for modernising the province, such as building a railway between Guiyang and Rongshui. Shortly after the Chinese New Year in February 1880, Mesny wrote that business at Guiyang had slumped and the city’s only foreign trading house, “Sheng Hou” (in fact, his own company, whose name translated as “Abounding Generosity”) had been forced to close indefinitely through want of customers. He presented his grievances to Cen, who retorted that there was not even enough money in the treasury to pay the government troops, let alone sponsor development. Mesny suggested raising revenue by investing in Guizhou’s mining potential but Cen dismissed the idea as being too long-winded and unreliable.

The Shanghai Courier shortly afterwards translated an anonymous article which had appeared in the Chinese press – almost certainly written by a frustrated Mesny, keen to champion his hobby-horse in the face of official indifference – in which the author “strenuously advocates the opening up of the mineral resources of Kwei-chow, which are, it says, thought to be of a very valuable description... Of course to achieve any great success in that direction, the mines in Kwei-chow would have to be worked scientifically with modern machinery, and foreign experts would have to be employed... But if the development of the mines of Kwei-chow is to be left to the officials, there will be little done.” Sure enough, a memorial from Cen soon appeared in the Peking Gazette, outlining a scheme to replenish the provincial treasury by working Guizhou’s reserves of lead ore, so perhaps he did eventually listen to Mesny’s advice.

In Cen’s defence it must be said that he had far more important issues to deal with besides involving himself in Mesny’s schemes. Firstly, there had been a revolutionary scare at Guiyang itself that November, in which a military official named Yang Haitai had attempted a coup, planning to assassinate Cen and his colleagues during a banquet. But the authorities were forewarned: Yang and his accomplices were captured and executed and their families sold into slavery. Cen was now busy reorganising the provincial army. He was about to be promoted to Viceroy of Yungui – the combined territories of Yunnan and Guizhou provinces – which meant that he would have

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