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The First Opium War broke out in 1839 between China and Britain and was fought over trading rights (including the right of free trade) and Britain's diplomatic status among Chinese officials. In the eighteenth century, China enjoyed a trade surplus with Europe, trading porcelain , silk , and tea in exchange for silver .
In 1839, the Daoguang Emperor, rejecting proposals to legalise and tax opium, appointed Viceroy of Huguang Lin Zexu to go to Guangzhou to halt the opium trade completely. [7] Lin wrote an open letter to Queen Victoria appealing to her moral responsibility to stop the opium trade, although she never received it.
The skirmish was the first armed conflict of the First Opium War and occurred when British boats opened fire on Chinese war junks enforcing a food sales embargo on the British community. The ban was ordered after a Chinese man died in a brawl with drunk British sailors at Tsim Sha Tsui .
Lin supervising the destruction of opium. In March 1839, Lin started to take measures that would eliminate the opium trade. [11] He was a formidable bureaucrat known for his competence and high moral standards, with an imperial commission from the Daoguang Emperor to halt the illegal importation of opium by the British.
A model of the destruction of opium at Humen. Displayed at the Hong Kong Museum of History. Commissioner Lin and the destruction of opium at Humen, June 1839. The destruction of opium at Humen began on 3 June 1839, lasted for 23 days, and involved the destruction of 1,000 long tons (1,016 t) of illegal opium seized from British traders under the aegis of Lin Zexu, an Imperial Commissioner of ...
Daoguang Emperor appointed scholar-official Lin Zexu to the post of Special Imperial Commissioner with the task of eradicating the opium trade. He bans the trade of opium and writes a letter to Queen Victoria asking her to stop the illegal importation of opium; early July 1839 - a group of British merchant sailors in Kowloon became intoxicated ...
The Treaty of Nanking was the peace treaty which ended the First Opium War (1839–1842) between Great Britain and the Qing dynasty of China on 29 August 1842. It was the first of what the Chinese later termed the "unequal treaties".
The number of people using the drug in China grew rapidly, to the point that the trade imbalance shifted in the foreign countries' favor. In 1839 matters came to a head when Chinese official Lin Zexu tried to end the opium trade altogether by destroying a large amount of opium in Canton, thereby triggering the First Opium War.