For the last hundred years or so, the story of China has been largely the story of her efforts to prevent the foreigner from coming into China and playing any part in her story. Nevertheless we find the white man pushing on, in his eternal quest for trade, not to be denied, founding trading stations at Chinese ports. Generally it is only in submission to a show of force, or to its active application, that these trading facilities, warehouses and so on, are permitted to him. He is obliged to fight to be allowed to establish them, and further, we find him fighting again to punish the native people who have disregarded the agreements they have made with him and who sometimes have killed the peaceful traders. Out of the troubles thus arising came war between Britain and China as early as 1840. The Chinese were quite incapable of seriously opposing the large British force which was sent out. The result was the conclusion of a commercial treaty which opened five principal ports of China to British trading vessels and gave Britain possession of the island of Hongkong. In 1854 Shanghai, one of the five ports above named, was opened to the trade of all nations. But still the attitude of the people and of the Government was hostile to the foreigner. At any moment an uprising and a general massacre might {229} happen. A few white missionaries, chiefly of British and American nationality, penetrated into the country, preaching Christianity at constant risk of their lives. The year 1860 saw a great change in the relations of the white men and the Chinese. Hitherto any fighting between them had been near the coast and the great ports. Now, as a protest against the ill-treatment of which the foreign traders were the victims and the bad faith with which the Chinese broke the treaties, and also to insist on the establishment of legations of the European Powers to protect the interests of their nations, a strong combined force of British and French marched on Pekin, the capital city, and looted and burnt the sacred Summer Palace from which the Emperor had fled. The really important result of the campaign was the shock which it gave the Chinese and the conviction which it brought home to them of the strength and determination of the white men. Thereafter they treated the foreign traders with a consideration never paid them before, and ministers representing foreign powers had their appointed residences in Pekin.