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The Opium Wars (simplified Chinese: 鸦片战争; traditional Chinese: 鴉片戰爭; pinyin: Yāpiàn zhànzhēng) were two conflicts waged between China and Western powers during the mid-19th century. The First Opium War was fought from 1839 to 1842 between China and Britain.
Opium was the most profitable single commodity trade of the 19th century. As Timothy Brook and Bob Wakabayashi write of opium, "The British Empire could not survive were it deprived of its most important source of capital, the substance that could turn any other commodity into silver."
In 1797 the EIC further tightened its grip on the opium trade by enforcing direct trade between opium farmers and the British, and ending the role of Bengali purchasing agents. British exports of opium to China grew from an estimated 15 long tons (15,000 kg) in 1730 to 75 long tons (76,000 kg) in 1773 shipped in over two thousand chests. [18]
In the late 18th century, British merchants from the East India Company began to introduce Indian opium to Chinese markets. The demand for opium rose rapidly and was so profitable that Chinese opium dealers began to seek out more suppliers of the drug, thus inaugurating the opium trade; one merchant declared that Opium "is like gold.
Trade with China, especially in the illegal opium, grew, and so did the firm of Jardine, Matheson & Co., which was already known as the Princely Hong for being the largest British trading firm in East Asia. By 1841, Jardine had 19 intercontinental clipper ships, compared to close rival Dent and Company with 13.
[9] [10] Opium, a highly addictive narcotic related to heroin, was illegal in China. By the 1800s, there was an immense European demand for Chinese luxury products such as silk, tea, porcelain ("china"), and furniture, but Chinese demand for European products was much less. As a result, many European nations ran large trade deficits with China.
The viceroy Lin Zexu's vigorous suppression of the British opium trade precipitated the First Opium War (1839–1842), during which the factories were burnt to the ground. The 1842 Treaty of Nanking ending that war forced the ceding of Hong Kong Island to the British and opened the treaty ports of Shanghai , Ningbo ("Ningpo"), Xiamen ("Amoy ...
Gladstone was fiercely against both of the Opium Wars, was ardently opposed to the British trade in opium to China, and denounced British violence against Chinese. [49] Gladstone lambasted it as "Palmerston's Opium War" and said that he felt "in dread of the judgments of God upon England for our national iniquity towards China" in May 1840. [50]