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come so far; and in the spring of 1860 it allowed them to see clearly that the defense of the Shanghai region and of their extensive financial and commercial empires—not to mention the recapture of Kiangsu province and the trade routes with the interior—was not an undertaking in which they could expect any help from the beleagueredcentral government in Peking. Attempts to reorganize the few local imperial troops that had not already deserted, moreover, held little promise of success. If a disaster greater than those that had befallen Soochow and Hangchow was to be avoided at Shanghai, a wholly new instrument of defense would have to be created.
    It was natural, given their backgrounds, that Hsüeh, Wu, and Yang looked to the foreign settlements to supply such an instrument. All three knew the Westerners well: They had seen, over the years, the power of Western weapons and the efficiency of Western troops, and they were anxious to bring that power and efficiency to bear on the rebels. This meant both the defense of Shanghai proper and offensive actions against those towns in the surrounding countryside considered vital to the maintenance of trade. The three men hoped to induce the foreigners to undertake these tasks by exploiting their concern for their property and safety.
    But Wu Hsü’s repeated personal appeals for Allied military assistance produced no greater result than a proclamation issued by the British minister to China on May 26. Declaring that “Shanghai is a port open to foreign trade, and the native dealers residing therein have large transactions with the foreigners,”the proclamation went on to promise that British troops would “take proper measures to prevent the inhabitants of Shanghai from being exposed to massacre and pillage.” And, to be sure, the foreign settlements did start to make military provisions—but almost entirely for the defense of their land and interests as separate from those of the Chinese. Such measures only aggravated the fears of Hsüeh, Wu, and Yang for the safety of their own property and people. When the North China Herald announced that it would be “humiliating” for the British to abandonthe “grand national principle of nonintervention to protect some half dozen native merchants inordinately rich and covetous,… a couple of third-rate mandarins, and a beggarly indifferent hostile population,” Hsüeh, Wu, and Yang’s course became clear. They were determined to have a defensive military unit that would offer them the considerable security of Western technology. If the regular Allied armed forces would not offer it, they would seek it elsewhere.
    Or, as it happened, be sought by it. For in May an intrepid youngman walked into Wu Hsü’s yamen and put forward a proposal that, even by Shanghai standards, was unusual.
    Known as“the Cinderella among the settlements,” the American section of Shanghai was a haven for adventurers of every conceivable stripe, from outright criminals to men who craftily hid their questionable activities under the veil of commerce. In addition, the settlement was a sanctuary for many Chinese: Imperial tax laws did not apply in the foreign settlements, and the Americans were not so stern as the British and the French about ejecting natives. Separated from the French and British quarters as much by social customs and values as by the waters of Soochow Creek, the American settlement grew to have a fluid character all its own, in which foreigners and Chinese engaged in joint business ventures that covered the spectrum from marginally legal to blatantly unlawful by either Western or Chinese standards.
    There was little that either the American consul in Shanghai or the American minister to China (who lived in the port, as he was not yet permitted by the emperor to reside in Peking) could do about any of this: Law in the American settlement in 1860 was confined to one marshal with no jail. Such a predicament made the American consul