<P> Politically, Nanjing was the capital of China several times, although most of the time its territory only covered the southeastern part of China, such as the Wu kingdom in the Three Kingdoms period, the Eastern Jin Dynasty, and during the Southern and Northern Dynasties and Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms periods . Only the Ming occupied most parts of China from their capital at Nanjing, though it later moved the capital to Beijing . The ROC capital was located in Nanjing in the periods 1911--12, 1927--37, and 1945--49 . </P> <P> The first merchant steamer in China, the Jardine, was built to order for the firm of Jardine Matheson in 1835 . She was a small vessel intended for use as a mail and passenger carrier between Lintin Island, Macao and Whampoa . However, after several trips, the Chinese authorities, for reasons best known to themselves, prohibited her entrance into the river . Lord Palmerston, the British Foreign Secretary who personified gunboat diplomacy, decided to wage war on China mainly on the "suggestions" of Jardine Matheson . In mid-1840, a large fleet of warships appeared on the China coast, and with the first cannon fire aimed at a British ship, the Royal Saxon, the British started the First Opium War . The Imperial Government, forced to surrender, gave in to the demands of the British . British military was vastly superior during the conflict . British warships, constructed using such innovations as steam power combined with sail and the use of iron in shipbuilding, wreaked havoc on coastal towns; such ships (like the Nemesis) were not only virtually indestructible using contemporary available weapons, but also highly mobile and able to support a gun platform with very heavy guns . In addition, the British troops were armed with modern rifled muskets and cannons, unlike the Qing forces . After the British took Canton, they sailed up the Yangtze and took the tax barges, a devastating blow to the Empire as it slashed the revenue of the imperial court in Beijing to just a small fraction of what it had been . </P> <P> In 1842, the Qing authorities sued for peace, which concluded with the Treaty of Nanjing signed on a gunboat in the river, negotiated in August of that year and ratified in 1843 . In the treaty, China was forced to pay an indemnity to Britain, open five ports to Britain, and cede Hong Kong to Queen Victoria . In the supplementary Treaty of the Bogue, the Qing empire also recognized Britain as an equal to China and gave British subjects extraterritorial privileges in treaty ports . </P> <P> The US, at the same time, wanting to protect its interests and expand trade, ventured the USS Wachusett six - hundred miles up the river to Hankow sometime in the 1860s, while the USS Ashuelot, a sidewheeler, made her way up the river to Yichang in 1874 . The first USS Monocacy, a sidewheel gunboat, began charting the Yangtze River in 1871 . The first USS Palos, an armed tug, was on Asiatic Station into 1891, cruising the Chinese and Japanese coasts, visiting the open treaty ports and making occasional voyages up the Yangtze River . From June to September 1891, anti-foreign riots up the Yangtze forced the warship to make an extended voyage as far as Hankow, 600 miles upriver . Stopping at each open treaty port, the gunboat cooperated with naval vessels of other nations and repairing damage . She then operated along the north and central China coast and on the lower Yangtze until June 1892 . The cessation of bloodshed with the Taiping Rebellion, Europeans put more steamers on the river . The French engaged the Chinese in war over the rule of Vietnam . The Sino - French Wars of the 1880s emerged with the Battle of Shipu having French cruisers in the lower Yangtze . </P>

How did the location of bodies of water affect settlement in china