Ye Mingchen for his intransigence against the British, but also ridiculed his inability to resist them on the battlefield. In Guangzhou he was known as the "six nots": "he would not fight; he would not make peace; he would not take steps for defense; he would not die; he would not surrender; and he would not flee." (不戰、不和、不守、不死、不降、不走 , , , , , ) Ye briefly won the favor of the Xianfeng Emperor, but his policy fell out of favor when hostilities broke out. Contemporary British public opinion regarded "Commissioner Yeh" as the embodiment of Chinese xenophobia and he was frequently caricatured in British media. But his image in the West was not unanimously negative. For instance, the German writer Theodor Fontane, who learned about Ye while working in London in the late 1850s, was touched by Ye's fate and later published an essay on the official. Official Chinese historiography long blamed Ye for precipitating the Second Opium War, but now he is frequently hailed as an early Chinese patriot and a monument has been erected in his memory in Guangzhou. Iconography A sketch of Ye captured and kept on board of HMS Inflexible was made to depict him as a hideous monster. It got broad circulation as British propaganda justifying the Arrow (second Opium) War. Notes References and further reading Cobden, Richard, China and the Attack on Canton (Given to the House of Commons, 26 February 1857). (Hathi Trust) External links 1807 births 1859 deaths Chinese prisoners of war Politicians from Wuhan Political office-holders in Guangdong Qing dynasty politicians from Hubei Grand Secretaries of the Qing dynasty Assistant Grand Secretaries Viceroys of Liangguang People of the Second Opium War