The tinderbox city: The industrialisation of fire disasters in Hankou, China, 1849–1944

One winter evening in 1849 the Yangzi River caught fire. The conflagration broke out on a sampan moored between Hankou, Wuchang and Hanyang, the three sister cities known today as Wuhan.3 Here, the harbours were so crowded that observers often described how a ‘forest of masts’ seemed to stretch out to the horizon.4 This forest was now ablaze. The poet Ye Diaoyuan immortalised the disastrous scenes, describing a cacophony of gongs beaten to warn of the oncoming inferno, ash floating into the air, and water turning red in the flickering light of the flames. The fire consumed all vessels in its path, from humble cargo sampans to ornate flower boats (huachuan)—a euphemism for floating brothels. Those aboard were trapped ‘like fish swimming in a cauldron’, yet if they jumped into the river they faced the very probable risk of drowning. So many chose this latter option that Ye remarked