The Qing government did make a very early—albeit futile—effort to combat British opium smuggling. However, supported by their own governments, the opium traders from Britain and the United States continued to smuggle opium into China regardless of the Qing government’s ban. Some Chinese officials in charge of the anti-smuggling effort took bribes from the smugglers and turned a blind eye to their wrongdoings. Even some officials in the imperial court were involved. Consequently, the foreign opium traders felt confident in carrying out their activities. Karl Marx commented on this:
The next effect of the moral resistance of the Chinaman was the demoralization, by the Englishman, of the Imperial authorities, custom-house officers and mandarins generally. The corruption that ate into the heart of the Celestial bureaucracy, and destroyed the bulwark of the patriarchal constitution, was, together with the opium chests, smuggled into the Empire from the English storeships anchored at Whampoa [Huangpu].8
British opium smuggling had a serious impact on China. Apart from the ever-increasing outflow of silver, some serious social problems emerged as a consequence. One was the growing number of Chinese who began to smoke opium. In 1835, for example, it was estimated there were 2,000,000 opium smokers in China. Many of these were bureaucrats, landlords and even soldiers. The flood of opium led to a serious threat to the existing order and was of grave concern to Qing’s ruling elites.
There were conflicting ideas regarding the best way to combat the opium trade in China. Some deregulationists suggested the Qing government lift its ban on the trade and cultivation of opium whereas the regulationists demanded that the opium trade be forbidden. Take the example of Lu Kun and Xu Naiji, two leading deregulationists. As early as 1834, Lu, then the Governor General of Guangdong and Guangxi, submitted a memorandum to Emperor Daoguang (r. 1820–1850), advising that it would be impossible to expel all British smugglers from Guangdong. He suggested that Qing should retract the prohibition on the opium trade and cultivation and tax it instead.9 Emperor Daoguang did not comment on Lu’s proposal; however, in the following year the Emperor abolished the annual report discussing the ban on opium. Deregulationists saw this move as an encouragement of their proposal. Thus, Xu, a senior imperial official and the principal exponent of deregulation, rearticulated the deregulationist handling of opium trade in an 1836 memorandum to the throne.10
There were three key points in Xu’s program. First, foreign traders were allowed to trade opium for Chinese goods after paying the medicine tax. Second, imperial officials, candidates for the imperial examination and soldiers who were found to have smoked opium should be dismissed but not subject to criminal punishment. Commoners who smoked opium were also to be exempt from investigation. Third, growing poppies would not be banned in China. The Canton Register, a Guangzhou-based English newspaper managed by opium traffickers, printed the full text of Xu’s memorandum. William Jardine, a notorious opium trafficker, even believed that the publication heralded the legalization of the opium trade in China. Emperor Daoguang asked his ministers to discuss Xu’s memorandum and while some agreed with Xu,11 others harshly rejected Xu’s program.12 Some ministers advocated for a strong anti-smuggling approach and persuaded the Emperor to impose a strict ban on the opium trade. However, no conclusion was reached on the opium trade.
Among the regulationists, Huang Juezi was the most vocal. In 1838, he proposed that the central government take harsh measures to combat opium, including executing dependent users of opium who were unable to give up smoking in one year.13 Huang’s proposal won the support of many local governors and some agreed that opium smokers should be more severely punished while others focused on more effective anti-smuggling measures in coastal areas.14
Lin Zexu’s memorandum is particularly worthy of mention. Not only did Lin analyze how the flood of opium into Chinese society would destroy the social economy but would also how it would make the country economically and militarily incompetent.15 Then, in the summer of 1839, the Qing government promulgated The Anti-Opium Ordinance, resolving to eradicate opium smoking and the opium trade. According to this law, those who traded or smoked opium would be subject to severe punishments including the death penalty. It is generally believed that the Ordinance was based on the ideas proposed by Huang and Xu.
Then Lin Zexu, the Governor General of Hunan and Hubei, was summoned to the Forbidden City, where he was appointed Inspector General leading the fight against opium smoking and the opium trade in Guangdong. As soon as he arrived in Guangzhou, Lin, in collaboration with Deng Tingzhen, the General Governor of Guangdong and Guangxi and Guan Tianpei, the provincial Commander-in-Chief of the Navy in Guangdong, immediately consolidated coastal defenses and began arresting opium traffickers and punishing naval officers who had taken bribes. Lin sternly ordered the smugglers to turn over all their opium in three days and formally guarantee that they would not continue to smuggle anymore. Lin also made a public statement at this time, firmly stating that he would only leave Guangdong when the opium trade was completely eliminated.16 He carried out his work to eliminate opium with vigor. By the early summer of 1839, more than 19,000 chests of opium—that is, approximately 1,180,000 kilograms of opium—were confiscated from the Anglo-American traders. The confiscated opium was destroyed publicly in Hu’men, a beach town not far from Guangzhou, a process which took place over twenty days. The Hu’men Act expressed the Chinese people’s strong will to resist foreign aggression. The towering monument of People’s Heroes in Tiananmen Square is a memorial of this heroic act.
The Treaty of Nanjing and Its Aftermath
Once the British discovered that Qing was going to confiscate the British smugglers’ opium, the Anglo-American capitalists and groups with an interest in opium began to rise up against China. On October 1, 1839, Queen Victoria in Britain decided to send troops to China. Five months later, George Elliot, a naval officer, was appointed to lead the invading British forces. More than forty British warships and four thousand British men-at-arms entered Chinese waters south of Macao. The British war of aggression against China had begun. After failing to capture Guangzhou due to strong resistance from Qing’s army, the British headed north. In July, British troops attacked Dinghai in Zhejiang and, in August, arrived at Dagukou, Tianjin, the gateway to Beijing, continuing their attempt to force Qing into submission. At this time, Emperor Daoguang’s resolution to combat opium began to falter. He sent Qishan, a leading imperial official and the Governor of Zhili, to negotiate with the British. Qishan made a promise that the imperial court would punish the hardline anti-opium officials such as Lin Zexu. Convinced by Qishan, the British withdrew to Guangdong. The Qing government then immediately removed Lin and Deng Tingzhen from office and appointed Qishan as the Imperial Envoy to further negotiate with the British. Despite Qishan almost submitting to the British demands, British troops unexpectedly occupied Qing’s two strategic garrisons at the estuary of the Pearl River. Without the imperial court’s consent, the frightened Qishan agreed to cede Hong Kong to Britain, paying six million silver dollars for the losses suffered by opium traders, and to open Guangzhou to foreigners. The first phase of the Opium War ended with Britain’s capture of Hong Kong.
Qing declared war against Britain. Yishan, a high general in the royal family, was sent to Guangzhou. However, before he arrived, British troops seized garrisons in Hu’men and southern Guangzhou. After trying to fight against the British in May, 1841, Yishan and his army withdrew to the inner city of Guangzhou. Yishan then signed an agreement with the British and a ransom of six million silver
