The Devil Soldier (33 page)

Perhaps the easiest aspect of the affair to understand is Yang Fang’s desire to have Ward enter his family. On a purely practical level, it was unlikely that Yang would ever have found a native Chinese husband for Chang-mei: Though the child of a wealthy father, as well as a healthy and attractive woman, Chang-mei was tarred as a woman of “bad luck” because of the demise of her first fiancé. Such superstitions outweighed Yang’s position and fortune in the minds of most Chinese,
and Chang-mei had little to look forward to but a life of maiden servitude in her father’s household. By 1862 this fate seemed confirmed, for Chang-mei was twenty-one: already old for a Chinese bride. The fact that during the beginning of that year a suitor did appear could only have been a relief to Yang Fang, and the additional fact that that someone was Frederick Townsend Ward transformed the merchant banker’s relief into genuine joy. For by March 1862 the celebrated “Hua” had risen to a position in the Chinese hierarchy that rivaled Yang’s own.

Victory at Kao-ch’iao had secured for Ward a fourth-rank mandarinate with peacock feather and enrollment as a Chinese subject. Similar honors had been awarded to Burgevine. Following the battle at Hsiao-t’ang, Governor Hsüeh Huan had again memorialized to the throne, asking that both Ward and Burgevine be raised to the third rank. The request had been granted, and the spherical buttons that adorned the mandarin’s caps of the two Westerners were changed from dark to light blue. Yet Peking was uneasy about granting such high honors to men of foreign origin, and an imperial edict expressed concern over the fact that Ward and Burgevine had been supported in their operations by Admirals Hope and Protet: “China’s use of foreign troops is only an expedient measure. We should bestir ourselves, so that the foreigners will only enhance our power and prestige. It is not right to rely on foreign aid while our own armies flinch and hesitate.”

Hsüeh Huan used the flinching and hesitation of imperial forces in Kiangsu to press for further honors for Ward, who commanded the only effective government troops in the province. Following the battle at Ssu-ching—during which, very significantly, Ward was not aided by the British or the French—Hsüeh sent another memorial to Peking. He pointed out that Hope and Protet appreciated not only Ward’s courage and skill but his status as a Chinese subject as well: “Several times they [Hope and Protet] have asked us to treat [Ward] well. American Minister Burlingame also knows that Ward has subordinated to China and that Ward has been fighting bravely; he praised Ward. So these foreign emissaries all know the matter well and they will not make objections [to our giving Ward Chinese titles].” In addition, Hsüeh believed that further honors would tie Ward more closely to the imperial cause:
“When Ward was informed of the fourth rank button that had been granted to him, he was extremely pleased and inspired. On the fourteenth day of the second month [Chinese calendar], he fought at Ssu-ching and raised the siege of the base. Truly and unusually capable, this Westerner enjoys merits and is fond of winning. He has always longed for the Chinese red button [the highest mandarin rank] and would deem it a great honor to wear it.”

Finally, Hsüeh made the unusual request that Ward be granted a commission in the imperial Army of the Green Standard. It was an unprecedented honor for a Westerner and one that heightened the general air of uncertainty that surrounded the subject of the Ward Corps in Peking. Specifically, Hsüeh asked that Ward be made a regimental colonel of provincial troops; if this were allowed, said the governor, Ward “would be pleased and would exert himself even more in attempting to repay the kindness.” Despite Peking’s nervousness, Hsüeh’s point was well taken and his latest request granted. In recognition of his valor on the battlefield, Ward was even permitted to wear a prestigious embroidered tiger on his official robes. But Peking’s worries never disappeared. “It is heard,” read an imperial edict issued just after Ward was made a Green Standard colonel, “that Ward does not wear the rank button that has been granted to him, nor has he cut his hair [to the Manchu style]. Is Hsüeh Huan’s former report that Ward wished to be a Chinese subject and change his clothes true? Hsüeh Huan should report honestly whether this foreigner will genuinely appreciate the colonelcy that has just been granted to him.”

Prince Kung and the Empress Dowager Tz’u-hsi were consistently alive to the fact that, while Ward’s services to China were considerable and admirable, his new position as a Chinese officer in command of the empire’s most effective military unit might make him a most dangerous man should his loyalty to the Manchus ever waver or turn. As a freelance outsider whose services could easily have been dispensed with, Ward had ironically been less of a threat than as a legitimate Chinese subject and officer. For this reason, the need to tie his fate to that of the dynasty through a complex system of controls and rewards became all the more urgent.

It is quite possible, even probable, that this was another reason why Yang Fang favored his daughter’s marriage to Ward: The more varied and personal Ward’s entanglements with the imperial establishment, the less likely his abandonment of the cause. The central paradox in this situation—one that Yang as well as his superiors in Peking either could not see or were powerless to counteract—was that in attempting to control Ward by granting him rank and favors, they all became steadily more dependent on him. This was especially true at the provincial level, where the bureaucratic fates of men such as Hsüeh Huan and Wu Hsü became directly tied to the continued success of the Ward Corps. Having started down a path in which their own success depended on Ward’s victories—victories that, in turn, depended on continued elevation and reward—Hsüeh, Wu, and their superiors had no choice but to keep the rewards and elevations coming.

All of this made Ward a most eligible match for the daughter of a successful businessman and aspiring provincial official such as Yang Fang. And there is no evidence that the proposed union—which may actually have originated with Yang rather than Ward—inspired any negative feeling in Chang-mei herself. The fact that Ward was a foreigner and a soldier might have prompted condescension among the Manchus in Peking, who viewed the profession of arms with little of the romance that it enjoyed in the West. But the Kiangsu and Chekiang native elites, who daily faced the direct threat of a Taiping attack, generally saw the Ward Corps as an important, or at the very least necessary, organization. Indeed, at the same time that Hsüeh Huan requested unprecedented honors for the unit’s commander, he asked (apparently at Wu Hsü’s urging) for official recognition of the corps itself: “Because of the extreme effectiveness of the ‘Foreign Arms Corps,’ ” he memorialized, “I have selected [for them] the name of the ‘Ever Victorious Army’ [
Chang-sheng-chün
].” In granting this title China’s rulers further demonstrated their desire to integrate the corps into the traditional Chinese military hierarchy. As Richard J.
Smith has pointed out:

Perhaps Hsüeh chose the appellation simply because it sounded auspicious and appropriate, but the possibility also exists that the Kiangsu governor may have had in mind the precedent of Kuo Yao-shih, a barbarian
(Ch’i-tan)
commander who submitted to the Sung [dynasty] and who later led a military force with an identical designation. The parallel is particularly striking because Ward’s contingent, like its Sung namesake, at times received criticism for having become proud and unmanageable.

While undoubtedly pleased that his corps should receive such recognition from Peking, Ward continued to refer to the unit in private as “my people”:
Chang-sheng-chün
apparently meant as little to him personally as did his mandarin dress, his fiancée’s status as a woman of “bad luck,” and the repeated desire of Chinese officials that he shave his forehead. Although Ward was solidly loyal to the empire, his interest in China’s more antiquated social customs and folk wisdom went only as far as their usefulness in impressing, manipulating, and controlling the local populace. In this connection he did find the “Ever Victorious Army” title of immense use, and for that reason the name stuck. Andrew Wilson, who witnessed the evolution of the Ward Corps, offered a singularly clear explanation of the importance of the force’s new name, which, he said

must not be taken in a literal but in a transcendental and celestial sense. The Chinese have a fine faculty for inventing happy names.… Nor are such titles merely hollow sounds.… [T]o the Chinaman these titles have a vital significance, and the turn of a phrase will often influence his whole conduct towards the subject designated. No principle is more constantly enforced in the Chinese Classics.… When inquiry was made of Confucius as to what was the first thing necessary to improve the government, he answered, “What is necessary is to rectify names”; and very expressively he said, that “to have a bad name is to dwell in a low-lying situation, where all the evil of the world flows in upon one.”

Official recognition of the Ever Victorious Army only facilitated the development of Ward’s close personal ties to Wu Hsü and Yang Fang, and in these ties may lie the most logical explanation for Ward’s marriage
to Chang-mei. By early 1862
Wu Hsü—one of the most powerful figures in Chinese Shanghai, a man who could outwit experienced foreign officials as easily as he could juggle account books—was referring to himself in letters to Ward as “your younger brother” and even “your foolish younger brother”: both Chinese terms denoting genuine humility and close friendship. The continued importance of Ward’s relationship with Wu cannot be overstated, for in imperial China personal connections were the key to control and hence success. Ward’s ties to the Shanghai taotai, not to mention his complete civil as well as military control over Sung-chiang, demonstrated the extent to which he had successfully manipulated the Chinese system to his benefit. Ever a man of caution, Wu was consistently aware that in tying himself closely to Ward he gave his young protégé influence over his own position. Yet such was his real belief in Ward’s capabilities and in the military (and financial) potential of the Ever Victorious Army that he willingly took the risk.

The same was even more true of Yang Fang. Ward’s relationship with Wu Hsü existed largely off the books, but with Yang he became an actual business partner. Officially, Yang was made co-commander of the Ever Victorious Army when it was formally recognized by Peking, although his activities continued to be confined to raising money and arms in Shanghai. Soon Ward and Yang had expanded their joint dealings by entering the steamship business together, buying and chartering river vessels for service with the Ever Victorious Army as well as for extracurricular shipping activities. Sometimes Ward’s brother, Harry, was used as a front for such operations, the management of which was generally left in Yang’s hands. Again, Ward’s preoccupation with military matters and his inattentiveness to business details probably cost him, for a man such as Yang Fang would not have been above juggling his accounts of dealings with even his closest associates.

Indeed, Harry Ward claimed after his brother’s death that Fred had given Yang Fang 150,000 taels to invest in the government salt monopoly, one of the most profitable schemes going in imperial China. Yang consistently denied that any such transaction had ever taken place, and this as well as other claims made against Yang by the Ward estate
subsequently created much bitter feeling. But in truth, Yang’s denials of any debts to Ward or his heirs were less an indication that the friendship between the two men was false than a demonstration of the nature of friendship among Chinese merchants and officials. During Ward’s lifetime Yang was personally loyal to his young comrade and partner—loyal in friendship and, undoubtedly, duplicitous in his financial dealings. The only area in which Ward consistently called Yang to task was in paying the men of the Ever Victorious Army fully and promptly; to expect Yang to behave forthrightly in other areas without similarly stringent supervision would have been naive. Like so many Chinese of his caste, Yang cheated not out of malice but when and where he could; his personal attachment to Ward was nonetheless genuine.

For all of these reasons, Ward’s marriage to Chang-mei can be seen as a method not only of further tying the newly Chinese commander of the vital Ever Victorious Army to the imperial cause but of tightening the personal bonds between Ward and the Chekiang clique that Wu and Yang controlled in Shanghai. Emphasizing the importance of these interpretations, many analysts have ignored or downplayed any personal considerations that might have been involved in the marriage. After all, Chang-mei, living in a traditional Chinese household, would not have been permitted to see Ward very often during his visits; even if she had, her knowledge of English was almost certainly confined to some rudimentary pidgin, while Ward’s command of Chinese was never appreciable. Personal attachment between the two appears, on the surface, to have been unlikely.

But inconvenient details undermine any purely political or mercenary interpretation of Ward’s marriage. First, while union with a Chinese family might have been expected to heighten Peking’s trust in Ward, in fact it did not: The marriage was not a significant topic in memorials and imperial edicts written during Ward’s lifetime, probably because the specific Chinese woman he selected was the daughter of a non-Manchu known for his misuse of the imperial financial system. Ward’s elevation to a third-rank mandarinate and his original commission in the Army of the Green Standard occurred before Peking even knew of his marriage to Chang-mei, and his further promotion to brigadier general—made
later in the spring of 1862—was based, as his colonelcy had been, on battlefield achievements.

Then, too, Ward’s ties to Wu Hsü and Yang Fang were already considerable and in place when the engagement was announced; while it is reasonable to suppose that all parties concerned might have desired a strengthening of those bonds, the marriage actually accomplished less in this direction than did the purchase of steamships and the expansion of the Ever Victorious Army. In addition, if Ward took a wife solely for business reasons or for appearances’ sake, it is safe to assume that he would not have removed her from the security of her family’s home in Shanghai to share his dangerous and uncomfortable life in Sung-chiang. Yet more than
one Western witness claimed that Ward and Chang-mei spent the hot, perilous summer months of 1862 together at Ward’s headquarters.