William Mesny jumped ship at Shanghai in 1860 when he was just 18. Amid the chaos of foreign intrigue and civil war in 19th-century China, he became a smuggler, a prisoner of the Taiping rebels, a gun-runner and an instructor in the Chinese military. After five years of fierce fighting in remote Guizhou, Mesny rose to the rank of general and used this privileged position to travel around China, writing articles, collecting plants and advising officials.