The building of modern warships and the training of naval personnel to operate these vessels were the main objectives of the Navy Yard. The ‘General Contract of Execution’ thus provided for the construction of a modern dockyard, equipped with the best facilities, to build a specific number of steamships and to train Chinese to build and operate them, all within a five-year term. In the thinking of Tso Tsung-t'ang and Shen Pao-chen, these time-specific goals were but a means to a higher end – a modern defence facility based on technological independence. Anything less, Shen insisted, would be inconsistent with the goals of self-strengthening. This chapter focuses on the construction of the dockyard facilities, shipbuilding, and naval training.

In the overall scheme of things, ‘the direction of the works and of the instruction belongs to the Europeans’. Having been promised generous rewards on completion of the contract, the Europeans had strong incentives to succeed, regardless of Chinese input. Yet an active role by Shen and his staff could prove valuable in a project that developed with time and changing needs. Their contribution, which could well be a first step towards technological independence, would depend on their growing understanding of the works.

On his first day in office, Shen stressed the superiority of Western technology. The foreigners were indefatigable in seeking improvement, he said; hence, their technology never stood still.

The city of Foochow, the capital of Fukien, was divided into two adminstrative halves by a major thoroughfare, with the Min district in the east and Hou-kuan in the west. But if the city were divided according to the character of its sectors, a northern quarter of government and religious buildings, straddling the two administrative districts, could be easily distinguished. In many ways, Foochow was just another southern Chinese city with its eleven-kilometre wall enclosing the various wards, each with its narrow and dirty streets, badly paved with blocks of granite. In size, it was a little bigger than Canton, but the affluence and lustre of the latter were lacking. The city wall, in fact, enclosed a considerable amount of wasteland. Foochow, however, was not without its charms. Its Curiosity Street displayed merchandise ranging from antiques and fine lacquer-wares to exquisitely executed rice-paper flowers. Three wooded hills rose above the horizon of the city, which also boasted many banyan trees in its public areas. The Chinese called it the Banyan City. But one inescapable feature of this provincial capital was the large number of officials among its six hundred thousand inhabitants and the space dedicated to government offices. Learning, and its close tie with office, was given expression by the academies and the examination halls, one with ten thousand cells. Foochow had traditionally produced more than its fair share of scholars and officials, both in the province and in the empire.

In the management of foreign affairs, Shen's education and experience could provide little guidance. Nor was he aided by a bureaucracy familiar with these matters. As yet undeveloped was an administrative apparatus that could deal with issues arising from the opening of the province to foreign trade, travel, and evangelization. And while the freshly signed Treaty of Tientsin (1858) and Convention of Peking (1860) helped define the overall nature of China's foreign relations, their provisions were extremely unfavourable to the Chinese. Thus, as the foreigners attempted to maximize their privileges by interpreting the treaties liberally, the Chinese tried to curb foreign encroachments and influence by a more literal reading of the treaties. Nonetheless, because the central government often failed to provide a detailed interpretation of the treaties as they might be applied in concrete situations, much was left to the devices of individual local officials.

Influenced by his teacher, his father-in-law, and ching-shih scholars such as Wei Yüan, Shen was troubled by China's deteriorating international position, especially since its defeat in 1860. But up to 1862 he had had no contact with foreigners or foreign affairs. Since he later emerged as a leading manager and promoter of modernizing (yang-wu) enterprises, and many features typical of his later career can be traced back to ideas formulated in the early 1860s, his conduct of foreign relations deserves analysis.

In the Introduction we identified four stages in the history of reform in the last hundred years or so of the Ch'ing. These stages often overlapped, and a reformer could easily graduate from one to the next, thus highlighting the continuity of that reform tradition. The first stage was ushered in by members of the School of Practical Statecraft, who diagnosed the dynastic decline. They expressed their concern by diligently attending to administrative details and public works and were not afraid to tamper with time-honoured but ineffective institutions. Theirs was a response to an internal crisis.

By the 1830s and 1840s, some of these scholar-officials, now joined by others, began to react to the new threat from the West. Patriotic sentiments emerged, as did the idea of adopting Western military technology to curb foreign encroachments. But it is often overlooked that they also advocated a selective renovation of inherited institutions in order to accommodate and maximize the benefits of the new technology. The civil service examination system, one of the most sacrosanct institutions of the state, was a main target of reform. This willingness to modify traditional institutions and practices greatly adds to the significance of this second phase of reform.

When Shen began his education, he was exposed only to the practical statecraft ideas of the first stage. When he came of age, the reform ideas of the first two stages had already merged into a single tradition.

This study of Shen Pao-chen has reached a point where we can meaningfully examine his grand scheme for building a stronger China. It has often been said that the Ch'ing Restoration failed because the reformers adopted aspects of Western technology and diplomatic methods (yangwu) only to preserve the traditional order. Therefore, to the extent that modernizers and their enterprises changed the world around them, they did so not so much by design, or even necessity, as by the inexorable seminal nature of the enterprises themselves. The issue is seldom seen from the perspective of those in charge of these undertakings, whose main concern may well have been to modify the outside world in order to make it more supportive of their labours. This chapter shows that Shen's plan for change was driven by this concern.

Shen was not given to discourses on comprehensive plans for change. Not that he was afraid of consequences. As a censor, he had been fearless in his criticism of the government. As the head of the Foochow Navy Yard, he had made numerous proposals for change. His proposals, however, were usually piecemeal, dealing with specific problems or needs as they arose. Indeed, he was known to his colleagues as a ‘doer’ rather than a ‘theorist’. When comparing him with other reformers, Kuo Sungtao spoke of him as the one who ‘can put proposals into operation’.

The successful search for a director-general was a matter for self-congratulation. Shen was highly esteemed in Peking and at Foochow. As an imperial appointee bearing the title ch'in-ming tsung-li ch'uan-cheng tach'en (lit., by imperial command the high minister for the general direction of the shipping administration), he reported directly to the throne, though certain restrictions applied. Initially, he was empowered to memorialize independently, without having to secure the imprimatur of the high provincial officials. Problems that could not be solved locally were therefore guaranteed a hearing at Peking. However, the privilege was withdrawn two weeks later; Shen would now have to memorialize jointly with the governor-general and the governor at Foochow. Then, realizing that Giquel and d'Aiguebelle's confidence in the Navy Yard had been undermined by this arrangement, Tso Tsung-t'ang had his name added to the list of joint memorialists as a constant reminder to potential critics and opponents that the Navy Yard was Tso's creation and Shen his chosen director-general. But the arrangement did not restore Shen's independence.

Although Shen was often referred to as an imperial commissioner in Western sources, he was in fact a director-general by imperial appointment (ch'in-ming), not an imperial commissioner (ch'in-ch'ai). In official documents, he was simply addressed as the director-general of the shipping administration.

Financing a modern defence undertaking, and the most expensive one at that, required much greater governmental intervention than did traditional enterprises. It called priorities into question – political, ideological, and financial. Whether a Western-style military or naval establishment was necessary or desirable had been debated since the time of the Opium War. A hostile political climate had once prevented Shen's father-in-law from openly promoting defence modernization. By the early 1860s, however, the situation had improved immeasurably. The Foochow Navy Yard experienced virtually no opposition from the gentry or the general population. On the contrary, it was Shen who led his fellow gentrymen in support of its creation. Then, in 1867, the first major political and ideological challenge (led by Wu T'ang and Wo-jen) had also been successfully overcome. And the qualified success portrayed in the preceding two chapters seems to suggest that not only had the political and ideological problems been resolved but the Navy Yard had also enjoyed adequate funding.

In a late-developing country, Dwight Perkins points out, the government must play an active part in promoting technological, industrial, and economic growth. But the Ch'ing government, whose revenue represented no more than 3 per cent of the country's gross national product, was an ‘unbelievably weak instrument’ for playing this role.

When Tso Tsung-t'ang founded the Navy Yard, his plan seemed grandiose, perhaps even impossible to achieve. In time, however, perceptions changed. Even as the Navy Yard came under heavy criticism in 1872, Shen Pao-chen felt positive about what had already been accomplished and argued that more, rather than less, should be done to modernize the country's defence. He then proposed the institution of a new civil service examination on mathematics, advanced studies in Europe for the students, and a programme for interprovincial naval training. Later, plans for building more advanced vessels were made. In his mind, Tso's original plan now represented the foundation, not the limits, of China's defence modernization.

It is hard to say when Shen began to see the Navy Yard as a germinal modernizing enterprise. It is clear to us that the Navy Yard, as a foreign implant, could not be efficiently run by traditional means, and as it expanded, it would demand changes in the milieu in which it operated. But it cannot be assumed that the nature of yang-wu enterprises would itself bring about a new understanding of their seminal role in China's modernization. Managers of some modern arsenals appeared not to have acquired such an understanding. Shen, however, demonstrated a degree of awareness the day he took office as he accepted the inevitability of the Navy Yard's future expansion and the need to catch up with an everchanging technology.

The news of Shen's mother's death reached Peking in April 1865. The throne immediately realized that Shen, ‘being by nature pure and sincere’, was likely to request a full three-year mourning. The throne, however, was reluctant to grant such a leave; an effective and popular governor should not be allowed so long an absence in an era of postrebellion reconstruction. So it instructed him ‘to turn his filial piety into an expression of loyalty’, observe an abbreviated mourning of a hundred days, and then return to Kiangsi as an acting governor. This last injunction was in fact a hint that a higher or more prestigious post was in the offing, inserted perhaps as an incentive for Shen to follow orders.

Shen, however, was persistent. Despite a decree summoning him back to Kiangsi to deal with a mutiny of demobilized troops in May, he insisted on a full mourning. The throne finally acceded to his pleas.

Thus, at age forty-five Shen was prepared to settle down to a period of quiet life, tending his ailing, seventy-seven-year-old father. Further, after a hectic tour of office in Kiangsi, he was more than happy to spend time with his family, now comprising a wife, a concubine, six sons, perhaps an equal number of daughters, and some grandchildren. It was at this time that he established the Chih-yüan t'ang (Hall for the Realization of Lofty Aspirations) for educating his children and young relatives.

In the closing months of 1867, work at Ma-wei began to see substantial progress. The senior staff was now able to attend to the business at hand. The European engineers and mechanics also began to trickle in from October on. The tasks ahead were to assume far greater complexity than the realms of provincial politics, although relations with Fukien continued to be a major factor. This chapter focuses on Shen's organization and management of the Chinese administrative staff and the European engineers, mechanics, and instructors. Other developments will be dealt with later.

The administrative staff was drawn mainly from the local scholar-gentry class. As a leading gentryman, Shen was keenly aware that a staff composed of such men would be open to nepotism and corruption. But the gentry-scholars posed problems that were far more intricate and subtle. First, given their social and intellectual upbringing, they might prove wanting as managers of a modern enterprise. Second, there was the allure of better jobs elsewhere. It is true that the Navy Yard, headed by an imperial director-general, offered attractive new jobs for the growing number of unemployed or underemployed gentry in the post-Taiping era. But capable men who had acquired some expertise in a modernizing enterprise – the so-called yang-wu experts – were as much in demand elsewhere as at Ma-wei. Moving to another enterprise under a different patron might appeal to some of them. But the modern enterprises, not being organized under a single superstructure, offered little opportunity for upward mobility.

In the middle decades of the nineteenth century, the viability of the Ch'ing dynasty was severely tested. Massive internal uprisings, defeat in two foreign wars, and continued external threats could have toppled the two-century-old Manchu ruling house. Only the timely emergence of ‘a galaxy of extraordinarily able officials’ saved it from extinction. They put down the rebellions, worked hard at reconstruction, attempted to upgrade the bureaucracy, and tried to restore the old order. To block further imperialist inroads, they adopted aspects of Western diplomatic practices and military technology. By dint of dedication and effort, these men tried to bring about a dynastic revival – the Ch'ing Restoration – and prolonged the life of the dynasty by half a century.

This book is about one of those ‘extraordinary able officials’ whose life and career were an integral part of the late Ch'ing experience. This man was Shen Pao-chen (1820–79), who began his journey to the top of Ch'ing officialdom after passing the civil service examinations. At the relatively young age of forty-one (1862), he was already the governor of an important province in the rich Yangtze valley. Then, in 1867, abandoning the security of high office and the chance for an early promotion to the rank of governor-general, he accepted the leadership of China's first fully fledged modern naval dockyard and held that position for more than eight years. His career closed with a four-year term as governor-general of Liang Kiang, which comprised the key provinces of Kiangsu, Anhwei, and Kiangsi.