Three Prosperities Company, in the person of Du Yuesheng
.27These negotiations were held over a three-month period, April-June 1925, and involved senior members of the municipal
administration and leading French businessmen. These
included the Chief of Police, Captain E. Fiori; the chief administrative officer of the Concession, M. Verdier; M. Speelman (a local Dutch banker and member of the French
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Municipal Council); M. Blum (the managing director of Ullmann et C i e and member of the French Municipal Council); M. Galvin
(a local pharmacist); and Doctor Hibert (a medical
p r a c t i t i o n e r ) . The sources suggest that the then acting Consul-General, Jacques Meyrier, was represented in the negotiations by Galvin and Blum, and that he used the services of Li Yingsheng, the m a n a g e r of the jewellery store, the Meizhenhua Ji, on the Rue du Consulat owned by Du Yuesheng, as an intermediary between himself and the Three Prosperities Company.28
On 28 April 1925 a meeting look place at No. 40 Route Vallon w h i c h was attended by Du Y u e sheng and Wang Jiafa (described as an 'opium importer') representing the Three Prosperities Company, and Captain Fiori, M. Galvin and Doctor Hibert
representing the local French authorities, at which an
agreement was reached on the conditions governing the opium traffic in the French C o n c e s s i o n . 29 By the terms of this agreement, five opium retail shops and an opium warehouse wer e to be opened on a trial basis for one month, after which p e r i o d the number of opium shops would be increased to twenty. Before operations commenced the Green Gang leaders w o u l d pay $70,000 to M. Galvin, w h o acted on behalf of the Poli c e and the Consulate, in or d e r that they would 'turn a bli n d eye' ('pour fermer les yeux) to the proceedings. This p a y m e n t would be made in two instalments of $35,000, and the Three Prosperities Company agreed to pay a monthly fee in adv a n c e to the French police. Finally the gangsters
undertook responsibility for all the Chinese personnel involved together with 'the people who are in the habit of handling money in this sort of business'.30
During this meeting the gangsters expressed their doubts as to whether or not the French parties to the negotiations could deliver on their promises of protection. Both Du and W a n g bluntly stated that they had limited confidence in the police's ability to ensure adequate protection, and therefore demanded a ten-day trial period before they handed any money
over to the French authorities. In response Galvin
threatened the Green Gang leaders with the possibility that if they did not make the payments they would never obtain a mo n o p o l y of the opium traffic in the Concession. At this point Fiori ostentatiously left the meeting delegating full negotiating powers to Galvin, and this action convinced Du and Wang to reach an agreement and make the payments.31 Shortly afterwards the substance of these negotiations was leaked to the press, which led to their suspension for most of M a y . 32
In late May the final contract was signed and it came into effect on 1 June 1925, although only after M. Blum had reimbursed the $35,000 to the Green Gang leaders on behalf of the French authorities. The contract, which was signed by Du Yuesheng on behalf of the Three Prosperities Company, m e r e l y elaborated the points agreed to at the meeting of 28 April. Among other things, it provided that the French
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police would arrest and prosecute those opium traffickers who were not members of the Company; that the Company would give the police advance notice of its shipments, and that it would
liaise closely with the Police representative, that is
Captain Fiori, and 'keep him informed of everything that h a p p e n s '; that the Company would provide its guards wit h uniforms and register them with the French police; and, most important, that the Company w o u l d ensure that the opium
traffic was conducted 'discreetly' and that nobody was
'compromised' by its activities. The French authorities
ensured their control of this arrangement through the
stipulation that the contract was renewable on a three- m onthly basis.34 The arrangements, therefore, were tightly controlled by the French police: all arrangements were to be made w i t h Captain Fiori with w h o m the Three Prosperities Company was to maintain a close and regular liaison, and its personnel were to be registered w i t h the French police.
Under the terms of the contract, the Big Company agreed to pay the police representative a lump sum of $140,000 together with $80,000 per month ($960,000 a year) 'during the entire duration of the traffic'. In addition it agreed to pay a body
described as 'the European committee', presumably those
members of the administration and the Municipal Council who were parties to the negotiations, $250 for each chest of opium which entered the warehouse, together with $500 per month ($6,000 per year) for each opium retail shop which
involve substantial sums. If, as some contemporary observers believed, the Company could on occasion traffic in opium to the amount of forty thousand chests in any one year, this w o u l d involve a payout to 'the European committee' of $10 million, a sum that more than met the administrative costs of the French Concession.36
In early August 1925 the French Concession police conducted a series of raids in what was described in the local press as 'a determined campaign against opium traffickers'.37 Six separate establishments were raided, including one on Wei X i a n g Lane which was where the headquarters of the Three
Prosperities Company was located.38 This action by the
F r e n c h police is susceptible to two separate explanations. It is possible that the raids were designed to put pressure on the Three Prosperities Company over some last minute hitch in the negotiations between itself and the French Concession authorities. On the other hand, it is possible that the raids were carried out against rival opium traffickers with the agreement of the Green Gang leadership, and that the raid on the premises in Wei Xiang Lane was merely a'blind' to distract public attention away from the true purposes of this activity. Given the terms of the agreement between the gangsters and the French authorities, the latter would appear to be the more likely explanation. Added weight is given to this conclusion by the fact that the major opium trafficking organisation hit by the raids was the Guobaofeng Company and
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explan a t i o n for these particular raids there were no further raids on such a scale in the French Concession throughout the latter part of 1925, and the arrangements between Du Yuesheng and C aptain Fiori appeared to be o p e r a t i n g smoothly in early 1926.40
As some informed observers later remarked, an opium tax farm had been established in effect, if not in name, in the French C o n c e s s i o n . 41 These semi-official arrangements created quite a different situation from the corruption of individual police and municipal officials that had obtained in an
earlier period. They put the relationship between the
gangsters and the French authorities on a new, more regular
and systematic basis, and in so doing created new
opportunities for the gangsters.
(4) The Continuing Power Of the Gentry-Councillor Clique in the French Concession, 1924-1927
These new opportunities, however, were not immediately
realised, mainly because of the emphasis which the French administration continued to place on its close relations with
the Gentry-Councillor Clique. In late 1924 the Consul-
General, Auguste Wilden, turned to this group for assistance in dealing with the security crisis facing the Concession as a result of the confused military and political situation in Shanghai in the wake of the Zhejiang-Jiangsu War. The fact that the French chose not to seek help from the gangsters
possibly reflected not only the limited role which the French still assigned Huang Jinrong's gangster organisation but also the fact that the French Concession gangsters themselves were deeply implicated in the military conspiracies of the defeated Anfu forces. All three Green Gang bosses were involved in the abortive scheme of Xu Shuzheng ("Little Xu"), Duan Qirui's right-hand man and strategist of the Anfu
Clique, in mid-October 1924 to reorganise the defeated
Zhejiang forces and continue the struggle along the borders of the foreign settlements, with the option of rushing the settlements in the event of their defeat.42
The Gentry-Councillor Clique responded to Wilden's request by organising a militia corps between November 1924 and April 1925 which was officially known as the French Concession Chinese Volunteers (Compagnie des Volontaires Chinois de la Concession F r a n ^aise).43 This corps consisted of between 150 and 200 men and was controlled by Zhu Zhiyao and Lu
Baihong, who were its president and vice-president
respectively. Its commander was Wei Tingrong. Although the Gentry-Councillor Clique met most of the company's costs out of a special fund, the French authorities supplied most of its armaments (200 rifles) together with a $5,000 grant for outfitting the volunteers. The volunteer corps also boasted six machine guns and an armoured car.
This Chinese Volunteers Corps was similar to the merchant militias organised in Chinese Shanghai, and it greatly