Name: Mercenary Mandarin
Brand: Blacksmith Books (HK)
SKU: 9789881376541
Price: 13.99 GBP
Availability: InStock

Mercenary Mandarin

How a British Adventurer Became a General in Qing-Dynasty China

By (author): David Leffman

Published by Blacksmith Books (HK)

In Stock

£13.99

Format: Paperback
Pages: 372
ISBN: 9789881376541
Publication Date: 14-Mar-2016

Subjects:
Biography: historical
political & military
Asian history
Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900
Warfare & defence
Media
information & communication industries
Geographical discovery & exploration
China
c 1800 to c 1900

Quantity

Jersey-born William Mesny ran off to sea as a boy and jumped ship at Shanghai in 1860 when he was just 18. Amid the chaos of foreign intrigue and civil war in 19th-century China, he became a smuggler, a prisoner of the Taiping rebels, a gun-runner and finally enlisted in the Chinese military. After five years of fierce campaigning against the Miao in remote Guizhou province, Mesny rose to the rank of general and used this privileged position to travel around China to the borders with Burma, Tibet and Vietnam writing opinionated newspaper articles, collecting plants and advising government officials on the development of railways, telegraphs and other modern reforms. Mesny eventually settled in Shanghai with a 16-year-old concubine and published Mesnys Chinese Miscellany, a weekly magazine about his experiences. But his story was not to end well. After his implication in an illicit arms deal, his fortunes never recovered, and when he died in 1919 he was working as a desk clerk. David Leffman has spent over 15 years footstepping Mesnys travels across China, interviewing locals and piecing together his life story from contemporary journals, private letters and newspaper articles.

David Leffman was born and raised in the UK, took a degree in photography, spent 20 years in Australia and then relocated back to Britain in 2009. He first visited China in 1985 and has since authored travel guidebooks to China, Hong Kong, Australia, Indonesia and Iceland for publishers such as DK and Rough Guides; helped compile a Chinese cookbook; and written articles on subjects ranging from crime to horse racing. The Mercenary Mandarin is the result of 15 years spent in archives and on the road, following Mesny's trail around China's backblocks. For hundreds of photographs, research notes and extracts from early versions of the book, like The Mercenary Mandarin on Facebook or visit the author's website at www.davidleffman.com.

Seasoned travel writer David Leffman has guided us through the Middle Kingdom for decades, and in Mesny he has found his spiritual ancestor. Written with great care and attention to detail, The Mercenary Mandarin documents the life and exploits of one of the great overlooked adventurers of colonial-era China. A tale of war and discovery set in one of Chinas most tumultuous periods, it is a valuable contribution to any travelers bookshelf. Derek Sandhaus, editor of Decadence Mandchoue; author of Baijiu: the Essential Guide to Chinese Spirits