some Western assistance. The Taiping rebellion was finally crushed
in 1864, but the devastation led thousands to seek new opportuni-
ties abroad. Suppression of a Muslim rebellion in Yunnan, and the
last great Miao (Hmong) uprising sent rebels fleeing south to pillage
the northern border regions of Vietnam, Laos and Burma. In the
1880s, Siam sent several military expeditions into northern Laos to
clear the area of marauding Chinese, who penetrated as far south as
Viang Chan. Hmong refugees, meanwhile, settled quietly in the
secluded mountains and began to grow the only cash crop they
could—opium.
Peasant rebellion shook Qing complacency much more deeply
than had Western pressure and incursions, because it threw into ques-
tion the dynasty’s right to the mandate of Heaven. In the middle of it
all, Britain and France contrived a Second Opium War (1856–58) to
obtain further trade concessions. China promptly agreed to open ten
more treaty ports, four on the Yangze River upstream to Wuhan; but
not until an Anglo–French force had marched on Beijing and sacked
and burned the summer palace did the court at last agree to accept per-
manent Western embassies in Beijing.
A significant outcome of the Second Opium War for Southeast
Asia was that the Qing court rescinded its ban on the movement of
Chinese overseas. The first shipment of Chinese contract labourers
had departed Xiamen (Amoy) on a French vessel as early as 1845.
Thereafter, this ‘coolie trade’ developed rapidly. Large numbers of
Chinese were transported as far afield as Cuba and Chile, but most
went to Southeast Asia to work the mines and plantations, or to take
up commercial farming of crops such as pepper, gambier and sugar. In
Siam, they built canals to drain new rice land in the Chao Phraya
delta. Many fled the aftermath of rebellion; others were lured by hopes
for a better life. Most were transported in European ships, though
Chinese junks were also engaged in the trade.
In Southeast Asia the wars and rebellions that shook the Qing
dynasty were followed closely by political elites. Vietnam (so-called
A Short History of China and Southeast Asia