Margary Affair is the name of a crisis in Sino-British relations, which followed the murder of British official Augustus Raymond Margary

Augustus Raymond Margary

Augustus Raymond Margary was a British diplomat and explorer. The murder of Margary and his entire staff, while surveying overland Asian trade routes, sparked the Margary Affair which led to the Chefoo Convention....

 in 1875.

As part of efforts to explore overland trade routes between British India and China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

 province, junior British diplomat Augustus Raymond Margary

Augustus Raymond Margary

Augustus Raymond Margary was a British diplomat and explorer. The murder of Margary and his entire staff, while surveying overland Asian trade routes, sparked the Margary Affair which led to the Chefoo Convention....

 was sent from Shanghai

Shanghai

Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...

 through southwest China to Bhamo

Bhamo

Bhamo is a city of Kachin State in northernmost part of Myanmar, located 186 km south from the capital city of Myitkyina. It is on the Ayeyarwady River. It lies within 65 km of the border with Yunnan Province, China. The population consists of Chinese and Shan, with Kachin peoples in...

 in Upper Burma

Upper Burma

Upper Burma refers to a geographic region of Burma , traditionally encompassing Mandalay and its periphery , or more broadly speaking, Kachin and Shan States....

, where he was supposed to met Colonel Horace Browne. It took Margary six months to make the 1800 miles long journey through the provinces of Sichuan

Sichuan

' , known formerly in the West by its postal map spellings of Szechwan or Szechuan is a province in Southwest China with its capital in Chengdu...

, Guizhou

Guizhou

' is a province of the People's Republic of China located in the southwestern part of the country. Its provincial capital city is Guiyang.- History :...

 and Yunnan

Yunnan

Yunnan is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the far southwest of the country spanning approximately and with a population of 45.7 million . The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders Burma, Laos, and Vietnam.Yunnan is situated in a mountainous area, with...

 and he met Brown in Bhamo in late 1874. On the journey back to Shanghai, Margary heard rumors that the return route was not safe and changed the route to Tengyue

Tengyue

Tengyue is a town in Tengchong County, Baoshan Prefecture, Yunnan province, China. It lies close to the border of Myanmar, where it traditionally goes by the name of Momein....

, where he and his personal staff were murdered on February 21, 1875.

The incident created a diplomatic crisis and gave British authorities an excuse to put pressure on the Qing government. The crisis was only resolved in 1876 when Thomas Wade

Thomas Francis Wade

Sir Thomas Francis Wade, GCMG, KCB , was a British diplomat and Sinologist who produced a syllabary in 1859 that was later amended, extended and converted into the Wade-Giles romanization for Mandarin Chinese by Herbert Giles in 1892...

 and Li Hongzhang

Li Hongzhang

Li Hongzhang or Li Hung-chang , Marquis Suyi of the First Class , GCVO, was a leading statesman of the late Qing Empire...

 signed the Chefoo Convention

Chefoo Convention

The Chefoo Convention was an "unequal treaty" between the Qing and British Empires, which was signed by Sir Thomas Wade and Li Hongzhang in Chefoo on 21 August 1876...

, which covered a number of items unrelated to the incident.