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CHINESE HISTORY Opium Wars
CHINESE HISTORY Opium Wars
WRITTEN BY:
Kenneth Pletcher
See Article History
The Opium Wars arose from China’s attempts to suppress the opium
trade. Foreign traders (primarily British) had been illegally
exporting opium mainly from India to China since the 18th century,
but that trade grew dramatically from about 1820. The resulting
widespread addiction in China was causing serious social and
economic disruption there. In spring 1839 the Chinese government
confiscated and destroyed more than 20,000 chests of opium—some
1,400 tons of the drug—that were warehoused at Canton (Guangzhou)
by British merchants. The antagonism between the two sides
increased in July when some drunken British sailors killed a Chinese
villager. The British government, which did not wish its subjects to be
tried in the Chinese legal system, refused to turn the accused men over
to the Chinese courts.
Hostilities broke out later that year when British warships destroyed a
Chinese blockade of the Pearl River (Zhu Jiang) estuary at Hong Kong.
The British government decided in early 1840 to send an
expeditionary force to China, which arrived at Hong Kong in June. The
British fleet proceeded up the Pearl River estuary to Canton, and, after
months of negotiations there, attacked and occupied the city in May
1841. Subsequent British campaigns over the next year were likewise
successful against the inferior Qing forces, despite a determined
counterattack by Chinese troops in the spring of 1842. The British held
against that offensive, however, and captured Nanjing (Nanking) in
late August, which put an end to the fighting.
first Opium WarBritish ships attacking a Chinese battery on the Pearl River
during the first Opium War, 1841.From Narrative of a Voyage Round the World:
Performed in Her Majesty's ship Sulphur, During the Years 1836-1842, Including Details
of the Naval Operations in China, from Dec. 1840, to Nov. 1841, by Captain Sir Edward
Belcher, R.N.
The British withdrew from Tianjin in the summer of 1858, but they
returned to the area in June 1859 en route to Beijing with French and
British diplomats to ratify the treaties. The Chinese refused to let them
pass by the Dagu forts at the mouth of the Hai River and proposed an
alternate route to Beijing. The British-led forces decided against taking
the other route and instead tried to push forward past Dagu. They
were driven back with heavy casualties. The Chinese subsequently
refused to ratify the treaties, and the allies resumed hostilities. In
August 1860 a considerably larger force of warships and British and
French troops destroyed the Dagu batteries, proceeded upriver to
Tianjin, and, in October, captured Beijing and plundered and then
burned the Yuanming Garden, the emperor’s summer palace. Later
that month the Chinese signed the Beijing Convention, in which they
agreed to observe the treaties of Tianjin and also ceded to the British
the southern portion of the Kowloon Peninsula adjacent to Hong
Kong.
China: The first Opium War and its aftermath
In February 1840 the British government decided to launch a military expedition, and Elliot
and his cousin, George (later Sir George) Elliot, were appointed joint plenipotentiaries to
China (though the latter, in poor health, resigned in November). In June, 16…
The first phase of the forceful penetration of China by western Europe came in the
two Opium Wars. Great Britain had been buying increasing quantities of tea from China, but
it had few products that China was interested in buying by way of…
Following the traditional period of mourning and retirement at the death of his father, a time
that also served for reflection and literary activity, Lin returned to official life in the upper
reaches of the government. When, in the middle of the 1830s,…
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Opium Wars
QUICK FACTS
DATE
1839 - 1842
1856 - 1860
TIMELINE
Timeline of the First Opium War
Timeline of the Second Opium War (Arrow War)
LOCATION
Guangzhou
China
Jiangsu
Guangdong
Beijing
PARTICIPANTS
China
Qing dynasty
France
United Kingdom
KEY PEOPLE
Charles-Guillaume-Marie-Apollinaire-Antoine Cousin-Montauban, count de
Palikao
Charles George Gordon
Sir Hugh Gough
Lin Zexu
Robert Napier, 1st Baron Napier
Daoguang
MAJOR EVENTS
Treaty of Nanjing
First Opium War
Arrow War
RELATED TOPICS
British Supplementary Treaty of the Bogue
Canton system
Opium trade
Treaty port
Unequal treaty
DID YOU KNOW?
China was not only a major power in the East under the Qing but also a wealthy
country and a major exporter of luxury goods prior to the Opium Wars.
Under the Canton Trade System, which regulated foreign access to China before
the Opium Wars, foreign merchants were restricted to one port of access and were
subjected to Chinese regulations while in the country.
The Opium Wars were actually quite small; the British side of the First Opium
War fought with only twenty naval vessels and fewer than five thousand troops.
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HOMEWORLD HISTORYMILITARY LEADERS
Sir Hugh Gough
BRITISH MILITARY OFFICER
WRITTEN BY:
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
See Article History
Alternative Titles: 1st Viscount Gough, Baron Gough
Gough suffered unexpectedly heavy losses against the Sikhs; his tactics
were criticized, and he was replaced by Sir Charles Napier. Gough was
made a baron after the First Sikh War (1846) and raised to a
viscountcy after the second (1849); he returned home to the thanks of
both houses of Parliament. In 1855 he was appointed colonel of the
Royal Horse Guards and in 1862 was made field marshal.
00:00
…of about 18,000 men under Sir Hugh Gough attacked a Sikh army of 35,000 under Lal
Singh in late afternoon. After a near repulse and a night of peril, the British achieved victory
in the morning at a cost of about 2,400 casualties compared with about 8,000 Sikh casualties.
Gough…
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