Page 447 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

433.

the past, advised him not to overreact. The missionary believed

the Chinese would eventually yield "when they see that your

course is a friendly, reasonable & straight-forward & dignified

one."

On April 12 Parker relayed the information that the

Emperor had reappointed Ch'i-ying as Imperial Commissioner to

treat with Cushing. No one could estimate his arrival at Can-
71
ton though. Even the news of Ch'i-ying's appointment was not

absolute, as local Chinese had not yet received an edict from

Peking. Actually, the Emperor had issued such an edict only

three days earlier, on April 9. Contrary to Cushing's belief

that the Chinese were vacillatory, the Emperor had acted within

days of receiving Ch'eng's report regarding Cushing's arrival.

Official communication between Canton and Peking, a distance of

72
over a thousand miles, required usually thirty-two days. The

Emperor ordered that his edicts of April 9, the first instructing
Ch'i-ying to proceed to Canton as Imperial Commissioner and

the second announcing the appointment to Ch'eng, travel at top
73
speed. Even so, Ch'eng would not receive his edict until the

71
Letters, P. Parker to C. Cushing, Apr. 11 and 12, 1844,
Caleb Cushing MSS.
72
The Imperial government had established an extremely
efficient courier system for the transmission of despatches, the
I-chan or I-ch' uan system. T11is system consisted of two networks,
the first for routine government communication via couriers on
foot and the second for urgent correspondence via mounted couriers.
Couriers on foot averaged 100 li (33 miles) per day, whereas horse­
riders traveled 300 li (100 miles) or more per day. Each network
had its own staff, stationed at post-stations (i-chan) through-
out the Empire. Correspondence concerning foreign affairs usually
went via the second network of horse-riders.
73
1-wu-shih-mo: Tao-kuang, LXXI, 3-14, and Swisher, Manage­
ment of American Barbarians, pp. 143-45.