A suspicious ship of dubious registry is boarded by Qing marines off Canton, 12 of her crew are taken captive for piracy, and the British allege their flag was hauled down in the process. That last part, at least, was almost certainly untrue... not that that stops it all from spinning entirely out of control.

Within the month, the Royal Navy will be shelling the office of the viceroy who won't meet with them, Parliament's own better angels will be promptly overturned by the public itself at the polls, and the kickoff of a 4-year war… that no one could ever quite name an actual cause for: The Arrow War, AKA The 2nd Opium War.
Time Period Covered:
Oct. 1856 – 1860 CE

Major Historical Figures:
The Qing:
The Xianfeng Emperor [1831–1861]
Ye Mingchen, Governor-General of Liangguang [1807–1859]
Senggelinqin, Mongol prince; commander at Taku [1811–1865]
The British:
James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin, High Commissioner & Plenipotentiary [1811–1863]
Frederick Bruce, first British Minister to China [1814–1867]
Harry Parkes, acting British Consul at Canton [1828–1885]
Sir John Bowring, Governor of Hong Kong [1792–1872]
In Parliament:
Lord Palmerston, Prime Minister [1784–1865]
William Gladstone [1809–1898]
Benjamin Disraeli [1804–1881]
The French & Americans:
Baron Gros, French Plenipotentiary
Father Auguste Chapdelaine, missionary [d. 1856]
Josiah Tattnall, U.S. Navy commodore [1795–1871]
John E. Ward, U.S. Minister to China [1814–1902]
The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom:
Hong Xiuquan, the Heavenly King [1814–1864]

Major Works Cited:
Platt, Stephen R. Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War.
Twitchett, Denis, and John K. Fairbank, eds. The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 10: Late Ch'ing, 1800–1911, Part 1.
Wong, J. Y. Deadly Dreams: Opium, Imperialism, and the Arrow War (1856–1860) in China.

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