Opium+War+History

A History of the First Opium War By Vikram Mahadevan

China was known for being one of the great trading civilizations. Everyone knows that in the 1200s Marco Polo traveled along the famed Silk Road, which was the path that Europeans used to trade with the Chinese. Except during the Ming dynasty China shut itself off from the rest of the world. The government discouraged contact with foreigners. The opium war was a result of another collapse of the Chinese trading economy.

In the 1800’s lots of British and Chinese traders relished at the thought of trading goods from china. But, the Qing dynasty restricted foreign trade to one port, in Guangzhou whish was controlled by imperial officials. Chinese imports from China became only luxury goods, such as silver. Britain had been using gold as currency so it needed to purchase silver from the rest of the European countries to feed The Chinese appetite for silver. This cost a lot for the British to do until Germany stopped using silver as their currency.

The British started the first opium war in an effort to force China to import opium from Britain. When Britain discovered opium, they realized that it would be a very valuable commodity. From 1821 to 1837, Chinese imports of opium increased by 5 times! Britain produced opium in India at a time where they controlled the Indian government. They sold it to China as long as China bought the opium from the English. Eventually, in an attempt to ban opium trade, China wrote a letter to the Queen of England, which didn’t work. In 1839, Lin Zexu, an official in charge of trade, forced the British Superintendent of trade to hand over all of the remaining cases of opium, which contained more than 1200 tons of opium.

When war the war started in 1839, England was quick off the line to grab Hong Kong as a base. Charles Elliot (Superintendent of trade in China) blocked off the Pearl River when trying to stop the Quakers from trading with the Chinese (he had made it illegal to trade with the Chinese). At one point, the Qing emperor made all British traders sign a bond that under penalty of death, they would agree not to smuggle opium. In June of 1840, England made another move when it decided to attack Canton with the help of the East India Company. In 1841, England captured forts at the delta of the Pearl River. Later, England controlled the city of Guangzhou.

By 1842, England had defeated China at the Delta of their other “trade river”, the Yangtze River. The British were now occupying Shanghai, China’s greatest port city, and also China’s most populated city. After the first opium war, the beginning of the Manchu control on human workers came around. The End of the First Opium War also marked the beginning of China’s modern history. The war officially ended when China signed the Treaty of Nanjing. This gave Hong Kong to the British and opened the ports of Guangzhou, Xiamen, Fuzhou, Shanghai, and Ningbo to all traders. Chinese Historians say that Britain started the Opium war to gain a good profit out of selling opium.

http://opiods.com/images/opiumwar.jpg

Quick Trivia!!! 1) What port was trade first restricted to???

2) By how much did China’s opium imports increase from 1821-1837???

3) What year did the war officially end???