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empire, while the chaos in the south increased by the day. In 1842 the emperor sued for peace, mostly out of dread for the domestic consequences of further war, including his dynasty’s own survival.
    The Qing empire lost a war for the first time because of its opponent’s superior naval firepower, maneuverability, and organization. Chinese troops could hold their own in some engagements on land, in part because of their numerical superiority. But shallow-draught British iron steamers like the Nemesis , with accurate artillery, crushed all resistance on sea and on shore. The main Qing troops fought bravely and, mostly, with great discipline. Local forces, however, were less inclined to fight for a regime they felt was in trouble. 10 The technological superiority of the British fleet was obvious. And it was a form of warfare the Chinese had never seen before. But in spite of their obvious fighting abilities, most Qing observers thought of the British ships more as pirate vessels or, as we might say today, terrorists, than as an alternative to imperial rule. They were powerful, the Court believed, but unlikely to stay for long.
    At least in the short run, Daoguang’s Court was right about the future of the British fleet in Chinese waters. Britain had never intended to conquer large parts of China, and the Whig government in London was happy to accept peace as soon as Beijing had backed down on the principles that had precipitated the war in the first place. Britain and China signed the Treaty of Nanjing in August 1842. According to itsterms, the Qing accepted opening Guangzhou and four other ports north to Shanghai for direct trade between foreigners and Chinese. The island of Hong Kong was ceded to Britain in perpetuity, and China agreed to pay 21 million silver dollars in reparations to the British merchants who had been driven out of Guangzhou. A treaty signed the following year gave Britain full extraterritoriality—that is, full exemption from local laws—for all its subjects in China.
    These treaties with Britain presented the Qing with a chance to regroup and rethink its approach both to imperial defense and to its own population. Many officials in the north and in the capital, who had not yet witnessed British warfare, preferred to close their eyes to the implications of what had happened. That was a luxury unavailable to people in the south, whether they supported the Qing or its increasing number of enemies.
    E IGHTEEN FORTY-TWO WAS NOT ONLY THE FIRST TIME in 200 years that a Chinese regime had lost a war, it was also the first time for more than 150 years that south China had seen major warfare. Among a population that was socially and ethnically mixed, and where a residue of resistance to Qing legitimacy remained, trouble soon broke out. Parts of south China, particularly the edges of Guangdong province and Guangxi, had something of a frontier feel to them—a rough-and-tumble society with many groups and lots of conflict, rivalries, and resentments. The emperor had always been far away. Now, in the wake of the Opium War, he was not only distant but defeated. And stories, images, and rumors about the overwhelming might of the foreigners and the flaws of the empire abounded.
    The changing attitudes among people in south China were to have a particular impact on the fate of the empire. But the first Qing defeat had consequences all over the country. Officials and intellectuals began questioning their belief in the Qing as authoritative and awe-inspiring. From the very first moment when it became clear to those in the knowthat the empire was losing the war against the foreigners—in spite of Beijing’s very sophisticated and continuous public relations campaign to deny any losses at all—many Chinese took a step away from the Qing project. When losing, the Manchus were suddenly remembered to be a people apart who had usurped the Chinese throne. In many parts of the country, stories spread about how ordinary