Yuqian

Yuqian (* 1793 ; † 1841 ) was a Mongolian nobleman and high official at the time of the Qing Dynasty in the Chinese Empire . Through his background and training, he quickly rose to the rank of provincial governor. During the First Opium War he was temporarily responsible for the defense of the east China coast. After his defeat in the Battle of Zhenhai , Yuqian died after a failed suicide attempt .

Origin and career

Yuqian was a descendant of the Mongolian Borjigin clan and belonged to the elite of the Qing state. His great-grandfather and grandfather had earned military fame by conquering Xinjiang . Both his grandfather and father also held civil offices within the imperial bureaucracy.

In 1817 he began working at the prestigious Hanlin Academy . From 1823 he was employed at the Ministry of Rites . From 1827 he took over offices in the province. He served as prefect of Jingzhou and later Wuchang in Hunan Province . In 1834 he became a Daotai and a judge in Jiangsu Province . In 1839 he was appointed deputy governor of the same province. He took over the governorship of Jiangsu in 1840 after the death of his predecessor.

First opium war

After a series of defeats, the emperor sought to positively favor the course of the war by changing the top personnel involved in the war. A critic of the governor of Zhili Qishan , Yuqian was appointed Imperial Commissioner for the Defense of the East China Coast in 1840. He saw the previous defeats based on the personal mistakes of his predecessors and tried to increase the soldiers' morale through uncompromising and certainty of victory. However, even in untruthful dispatches to the emperor, he portrayed his own military achievements as greater than they were.

In October 1841, his troops suffered a heavy defeat at the Battle of Zhenhai . Yuqian fled the battlefield and tried to commit suicide. However, he was prevented from doing so by his followers. However, he died after they had brought him to safety. After the war in China, Yuqian, like Lin Zexu, was built into a patriotic hero. The Emperor Daoguang himself expressed benevolence in the face of his attempted suicide and promised Yuqian to build a temple after the war.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Julia Lovell: The Opium War. London, 2011, pp. 184f
2. ↑ Mao Haijian: The Qing Empire and the Opium War. Cambridge 2016, p. 291
3. ↑ Julia Lovell: The Opium War. London, 2011, pp. 187, 193
4. ↑ Mao Haijian: The Qing Empire and the Opium War. Cambridge 2016, p. 312