Description
Intermission (‘Twas On The China Station Book 2)
The mid-1850s and China was holding its breath.
The Taipings have made massive advances through southern China, reaching the Yangtse and Nanking, and now are taking stock, trying to create a policy. Unrest had broken out in the Muslim west and was being fomented in the north, possibly by Russia. The Qing was broken, the Emperor dying, his only son no more than a baby, and the potential regency a matter for bitter political dispute.
Shanghai was expanding still – the Bund almost completed and the New town growing frantically, Chinese and gwailo alike flocking to the apparent stability of the Treaty Port.
George Mayhew is working more hours than exist in every day to build the city, grow the hong, and make his fortune, whilst reconciling the pressures upon him from the expanding British Empire and the fearful existing powers in China. The temporary stalemate allows him to look to his own interests and gives him a few months to return to England – steam allowing a far faster journey – to take stock of the new family estate and to seek a memsahib to provide a legitimate further generation of owners for the Mayhew hong.
In the background there is the knowledge that the wars will break out again, assuredly more fearsome than ever.
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