生平

叶名琛父叶志诜笃信道教、爱好扶乩；叶名琛特建「长春仙馆」（今应元路广州市第二中学附近），供奉吕洞宾、李太白二仙；又辟「长春药圃」，种植草药。

于道光五年（1825年）中副贡生，道光十五年（1835年）考取进士，选庶吉士，散馆授编修。道光十八年（1838年）任陕西兴安府知府，其后平步青云，历任山西雁平道、云南按察使、湖南布政使、江宁布政使、广东布政使等官，道光廿七年（1847年）升任广东巡抚。道光二十九年（1849年），与两广总督徐广缙一同支持在鸦片战争后阻止英国人入广州城运动，因此功封男爵；其后又因在广东征讨盗贼反乱，亲自处决犯人，诛杀数万叛贼，成功消灭拜上帝会在两广剩馀势力。当时因清朝上下排外气氛高涨，属于强硬派的叶名琛受到重用。咸丰元年（1851年），赏加太子少保衔；咸丰二年（1852年），升任两广总督；咸丰五年（1855年），加封为两广总督协办大学士、体仁阁大学士。咸丰帝要求其在广「驭夷」，而叶名琛也在刚割让的香港布满眼线，但传回消息通通报喜不报忧，与事实相差甚远，得到的报纸登载的也是诸如「英军在克里米亚战争中败于俄国」「英军镇压印度兵乱不利」「法国在中英冲突中中立」等与事实完全相反的消息。

叶名琛性格木强，勤于吏事，属下忌惮其威重。当时天地会的山堂任取山名，这些山名不一定和山堂所在地吻合甚至不一定真实存在，叶名琛不知，得知有山堂自称「老万山」就令手下前去真正的老万山查看，结果一无所获；1854年天地会攻打广州时，叶名琛登五层楼令标兵出战，标兵骂道「每月得饷九钱，叫我送死吗？」顾自散去，叶名琛令闭关向敌军发炮才守住，后因英美法三国接到外交照会提供大炮、火药、粮米协助守卫广州、英美甚至出动舰队才平定事态；叶名琛又有杀良冒功之举，日杀数百人，一日杀三四百人就被认为少，1855年六至八三个月就杀七万五千人，被称为「刽子手」。叶名琛对待外国使者时傲慢，对照会仅以数语回复甚至不回复，为了彰显大国威仪，甚至不在总督衙门而在河边仓库接待英国公使包令。

咸丰六年（1856年）9月10日，亚罗号事件爆发，英国领事巴夏礼（Harry Smith Parkes）启书责难；叶名琛释放被捕的十三名水手，但坚持无歉可道，引发第二次鸦片战争。10月23日，英军开始行动。英国海军上将迈可尔·西摩尔率领3艘英舰穿越虎门，叶名琛不顾战事，连续两天亲自去校场看乡试马箭，下令广东水师后撤，亦不准开炮还击。24日英国军舰轰击广东南郊凤凰岗炮台，炮台守兵奉令走避，炮旋即被毁。25日英军连连攻陷海珠炮台以及商馆一带，并占据城外全部的防御工事，直逼广州城。26日叶名琛关闭粤海关中断贸易，调集乡勇团练制造声势。27日，英舰炮击督署，叶名琛「危坐二堂，绝无惧色」。29日，英军攻入城内，因人少，抢掠督署后退出，叶名琛正在上香，免于被俘，向朝廷奏称「大捷」，又纵粤民火焚城外各国商馆及洋行，一艘自广州开往香港的英国邮船亦遭劫。

咸丰七年（1857年），巴夏礼请遣大军。当年9月，英法联军抵达广东，叶名琛因被错误新闻误导，以为英军只是虚张声势，打算拖延到英军自己走，且迷信称「过了十五日必无事」；十一月，英法联军攻陷广州，据守河南地区各炮台，要求叶名琛十天内出面谈判。十二日，联军发出最后通牒。十四日，联军占领广州，叶名琛逃到广州副都统双禧的衙署内，被擒获，解往停泊在香港的军舰「无畏号」，薛福成讥他「六不总督」：「不战、不和、不守、不死、不降、不走。相臣度量，疆臣抱负，古之所无，今亦罕有。」他曾声言「欲面见其王以理论」，并且自备粮食，耻食敌粟。《香港纪事报》载：「偶然有人上舰，都向叶脱帽致意，他也欠身脱帽还礼。」

叶名琛屡次奏捷甚至自称击毙了东印度及中国舰队司令西马糜各厘（即迈可尔·西摩尔），当广州失守的消息传到京城，咸丰帝大惊。

48天后，「无畏号」驶离香港。英国人将其送往印度加尔各答，暂被囚禁在威廉炮台，后迁往托里贡的住宅，日诵《吕祖经》不辍，因在作书画时被劝不要书写真名落人话柄而落款「海上苏武」。他继续关注时事新闻，按时作息，清早即要人给他读报听。1859年二月二十九日，他得知晋见英国女王维多利亚女王无望后，决定绝食，至三月初七戌时（4月9日），死于囚所，终年52岁，据悉是自备粮食尽空后绝食而死。英国人将他的遗体运回中国。他的一些文件今封藏于英国国家档案馆（The National Archives）。当时薛福成在日记沉痛表示：「英人初志在得入城见大吏，藉以通隔阂、驭商民；乃粤民一激再激，叶相复一误再误，使拱手而有粤城。……益知中国易与，遂纠法、俄、美三国兵船北上，驶入大沽，阻我海运，立约而还。……粤民激于前此大府议和之愤，万众一辞，牢不可破，必阻其入城一事以为快，屡请屡拒，纷纭者二十年；而大沽之失，天津之约，皆成于此；由今观之，甚无谓也。」

诗作

:镇海楼头月色寒，将星翻作客星单。

:纵云一范军中有，怎奈诸君壁上看。

:向戎何必求免死，苏卿无恙劝加餐。

:任他日把丹青绘，恨态愁容下笔难。

注释

Early career

Ye came from a scholarly family in Hubei province, son of Ye Zhishen 叶志诜 and a connoisseur of antiquities. He was awarded the juren 举人 degree in 1835, the jinshi 进士, or highest degree, in 1837, after which he briefly held the position of compiler in the imperial elite school, the Hanlin Academy 翰林院. In 1838, Ye received his first official appointment as prefect of Xing'an in Shaanxi province and he subsequently rose rapidly through the ranks in the Qing civil service. In the following years he served as circuit intendant of Yanping in Shanxi province, salt inspector in Jiangxi, surveillance commissioner in Yunnan and financial commissioner first in Hunan, later in Gansu and finally Guangdong province, of which he became governor in 1848, just as the Taiping Rebellion was breaking out.

Around 1850, Ye Mingchen and his father established an association in the western suburbs of Guangzhou to worship Lü Dongbin, one of the Daoist Eight Immortals known for helping the common people, and to provide medical prescriptions. Ye is said to have commanded troops in battle on the basis of communications with Lü. Some unsympathetic observers account for his inadequate preparations, misplaced confidence, and the ease with which the British captured him by pointing to his belief in occult Daoism and oracular divination.

Internal and external conflicts

As governor of Guangdong, Ye was faced with both internal and external crises. British traders claimed that the right to reside in the city of Guangzhou proper had been guaranteed by the Treaty of Nanking. In fact, the treaty read differently in its English and Chinese versions, the latter only permitting foreigners to reside temporarily in the harbors of the newly opened treaty ports. Ye stood strong and refused the British demands.

As a reward for his ostensible success in keeping the British out of Guangzhou, he was promoted to Viceroy of Liangguang as well as imperial commissioner in 1852, which made him the highest-ranking official in relations with the West. Ye Mingchen remained steadfastly opposed to yielding to British demands, but he was not able to resist the British with military force. The conflict with the British Empire came to a head in 1856, when Ye seized a Chinese-owned and Chinese-crewed pirate ship, the lorcha Arrow, which was claimed to be registered in Hong Kong and also claimed, notwithstanding witnesses to the contrary, to be flying a British flag at the time the vessel was stopped. Ye was in the midst of putting down the Red Turban Rebellion, and had executed tens of thousands of rebels, with some estimates reaching 1 million, and his concern with renegade shipping was understandable. Yet British Consul Harry Parkes rushed to rescue the crew and sent a note to Ye demanding compensation for the seizure (it later emerged that Parkes was perfectly aware that the ship's registration had expired). Parkes and Sir John Bowring were determined that this incident should provide the British and French with an excuse to summon their fleets, starting the Second Opium War.

In October, British warships opened fire on Guangzhou, taking aim at Ye's residence, but in December Ye still refused to give in to British and French demands for direct negotiations and compensation for foreign property which had been burned by mobs. In the meantime, Prime Minister Palmerston denounced Ye on the floor of Parliament as an "inhuman monster," and held him responsible for executing 70,000 Chinese. Richard Cobden, however, defended Ye, commending his "mild and conciliatory tone" even after the British attacks on his home. The government was defeated.

Events in Hong Kong proceeded quickly. In late December, Allied bombardments set Guangzhou aflame. Ye was in the midst of suppressing rebellion in Guangxi, did not dare to bring troops, and the city quickly fell. Harry Parkes hunted Ye through the streets of Guangzhou, and a British colleague reported that Parkes took special pleasure in humiliating Ye. "Ye was my game," said Parkes, and finally found what a report called "a very fat man contemplating the achievement of getting over the wall at the extreme rear of the yamun." In violation of diplomatic procedure, the British brought him as a prisoner of war to Fort William, Calcutta, in British India where he died a year later of sickness at Tolly Gunge just outside Calcutta. Ye's remains were later returned (13 May 1859) for interment in Guangzhou (Canton) towed by a ship chartered by the American government, the Hong Kong.

Legacy

The Cantonese community is said to have respected 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." (不战、不和、不守、不死、不降、不走 buzhan, buhe, bushou, busi, buxiang, buzou)

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.