View source for First Opium War

{{Short description|1839–1842 war between Britain and China}}
{{redirect|Opium War}}
{{for-multi|the First and the Second Opium Wars in China in the 19th century considered as a collective|Opium Wars|the film|The Opium War (film)}}
{{EngvarB|date=April 2020}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2022}}
{{Infobox military conflict
| conflict          = First Opium War
| partof            = the [[Opium Wars]]
| image             = Destroying Chinese war junks, by E. Duncan (1843).jpg
| image_size        = 300px
| caption           = The [[East India Company]] steamship ''[[Nemesis (1839)|Nemesis]]'' (right background) destroying war [[Junk (ship)|junks]] during the [[Second Battle of Chuenpi]], 7 January 1841
| date              = 4 September 1839 – 29 August 1842 {{nowrap|({{Age in years, months, weeks and days |month1=9 |day1=4 |year1=1839 |month2=8 |day2=29 |year2=1842}})}}
| place             = China
| territory         = [[Hong Kong Island]] ceded to Britain
| result            = British victory
| combatant1        = {{plainlist|
{{flagcountry|UKGBI}}
}}
* {{flag|East India Company}}
| combatant2        = {{flagicon image|Flag of China (1862–1889).svg|border=no}} [[Qing dynasty|Qing China]]
| commander1        = {{plainlist}}
* [[Queen Victoria]]
* [[William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne|William Lamb]]
* [[Robert Peel]]
* [[Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston|Henry Temple]]
* [[Charles Elliot]]
* [[George Elliot (Royal Navy officer, born 1784)|George Elliot]]
* [[Gordon Bremer]]
* [[Hugh Gough, 1st Viscount Gough|Hugh Gough]]
* [[Henry Pottinger]]
* [[Sir William Parker, 1st Baronet, of Shenstone|William Parker]]
* [[Humphrey Fleming Senhouse|Humphrey Senhouse]]
{{endplainlist}}
| commander2        = {{plainlist|
* [[Daoguang Emperor]]
* [[Lin Zexu]]
* [[Qishan (official)|Qishan]]
* [[Yishan (official)|Yishan]]
* [[Yijing (prince)|Yijing]]
* [[Yilibu]]
* [[Guan Tianpei]]{{KIA}}
* [[Chen Huacheng]]{{KIA}}
* [[Ge Yunfei]]{{KIA}}
* [[Yang Fang (general)|Yang Fang]]
* [[Keying (official)|Keying]]
}}
| strength1         = 19,000+ troops:<ref name="martin">[[Martin, Robert Montgomery]] (1847). ''[https://archive.org/details/chinapoliticalc00martgoog China: Political, Commercial, and Social; In an Official Report to Her Majesty's Government]''. Volume 2. London: James Madden. pp.&nbsp;80–82.</ref>
* [[British Army]]: 5,000
* [[Presidency armies|Indian Army]]: 5,000
* [[Royal Navy]] & [[Royal Marines]]: 6,700
37 ships:<ref name="martin" />
* 14 [[sloops-of-war]]
* 8 [[frigates]]
* 3 [[ships of the line]]
* 12 other ships{{efn|Comprising 5 [[troopship]]s, 3 [[brig]]s, 2 [[Steamship|steamers]], 1 [[survey vessel]], and 1 [[hospital ship]].}}
| strength2         = 222,212 total troops{{efn|Refers to total troops in the provinces that were in the theatre of war, but only about 100,000 troops were actually mobilised for the war itself.<ref>{{harvp|Mao|2016|pp=50–53}}</ref>}}
* [[Eight Banners]]: 16,708
* [[Green Standard Army]]: 205,504
| casualties1       = {{plainlist|
* 69 killed in battle<ref name="martin" />
* 451 wounded<ref name="martin" />
* 284 [[Nerbudda incident|executed or died in captivity in Formosa]]<ref name="p. 248">''The Chinese Repository'', vol. 12, p.&nbsp;248.</ref><ref>Bate 1952, p.&nbsp;174.</ref>}}
| casualties2       = {{est.}} 3,100 killed{{efn|Casualties include Manchu bannermen and their families who committed mass suicide at the [[Battle of Chapu]] and [[Battle of Chinkiang]].<ref name="Ref-1">Rait, Robert S. (1903). ''[https://archive.org/stream/cu31924088002120#page/n307/mode/2up The Life and Campaigns of Hugh, First Viscount Gough, Field-Marshal]''. Volume 1. p.&nbsp;265.</ref><ref name="John 2008">{{Cite book |last=Makeham |first=John |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TQ4NAQAAMAAJ&q=Bannermen+desperately |title=China: The World's Oldest Living Civilization Revealed |publisher=Thames & Hudson |year=2008 |isbn=978-0-500-25142-3 |page=331}}</ref>}}|4,000 wounded<ref>{{Cite web |last=张莉 |title=第一次鸦片战争中、英军队的伤亡及其影响 |url=http://cdmd.cnki.com.cn/Article/CDMD-10200-2008108293.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141219155528/http://cdmd.cnki.com.cn/Article/CDMD-10200-2008108293.htm |archive-date=19 December 2014 |access-date=19 December 2014 |website=2008年}}</ref>
| campaignbox       = {{Campaignbox First Opium War|}}
}}
{{Infobox Chinese
| t = 第一次鴉片戰爭
| s = 第一次鸦片战争
| p = Dìyīcì yāpiàn zhànzhēng
| tp = Dì-yi-cìh ya-piàn jhàn-jheng
| w = {{tonesup|Ti4-i1-tzʻu4 ya1-pʻien4 chan4-cheng1}}
| mi = {{IPAc-cmn|d|i|4|.|yi|1|.|ci|4|-|ya|1|.|p|ian|4|-|zh|an|4|.|zh|eng|1}}
| bpmf = {{bpmfsp|ㄉㄧˋ|ㄧ|ㄘˋ|ㄧㄚ|ㄅㄧㄢˋ|ㄓㄢˋ|ㄓㄥ}}
| y = Daihyātchi Āpin Jinjāng
| j = Dai6 jat1 ci3 aa1 pin3 zin3 zang1
| ci = {{IPAc-yue|d|ai|6|-|j|at|1|-|c|i|3|-|aa|1|-|p|in|3|-|z|in|3|-|z|ang|1}}
}}

The '''First Opium War''' ({{lang-zh|t=第一次鴉片戰爭|p=Dìyīcì yāpiàn zhànzhēng}}), also known as the '''Anglo-Chinese War''', was a series of military engagements fought between the [[British Empire]] and the Chinese [[Qing dynasty]] between 1839 and 1842. The immediate issue was the Chinese enforcement of their ban on the [[History of opium in China|opium trade]] by seizing private opium stocks from mainly British merchants at [[Guangzhou]] (then named ''Canton'') and threatening to impose the death penalty for future offenders. Despite the opium ban, the British government supported the merchants' demand for compensation for seized goods, and insisted on the principles of [[free trade]] and equal diplomatic recognition with China. Opium was Britain's single most profitable commodity trade of the 19th century. After months of tensions between the two states, the [[Royal Navy]] launched an expedition in June 1840, which ultimately defeated the Chinese using technologically superior ships and weapons by August 1842. The British then imposed the [[Treaty of Nanking]], which forced China to increase foreign trade, give compensation, and cede [[Hong Kong Island]] to the British. Consequently, the opium trade continued in China. Twentieth-century nationalists considered 1839 the start of a [[century of humiliation]], and many historians consider it the beginning of modern [[Chinese history]].

In the 18th century, the European demand for Chinese luxury goods (particularly silk, porcelain, and tea) created a trade imbalance between China and Britain. [[Global silver trade from the 16th to 18th centuries|European silver flowed into China]] through the [[Canton System]], which confined incoming foreign trade to the southern port city of Guangzhou. To counter this imbalance, the British [[East India Company]] began to grow [[opium]] in [[Bengal]] and allowed private British merchants to sell opium to Chinese smugglers for illegal sale in China. The influx of narcotics reversed the Chinese [[trade surplus]] and increased the numbers of opium addicts inside the country, outcomes that seriously worried Chinese officials.

Senior government officials within the country had been shown to be colluding against the imperial ban due to stocks of opium in European warehouses in clear view being ignored. 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.<ref name="Fay-2000l">Fay (2000) p.&nbsp;73.</ref> Lin wrote an open letter to [[Queen Victoria]] appealing to her moral responsibility to stop the opium trade, although she never received it.<ref name="Fay p143">Fay (2000) p.&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=EgSs61pjvS8C&q=letter%20queen%20victoria 143.]</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=digital china/harvard: Letter of Advice to Queen Victoria |url=https://cyber.harvard.edu/ChinaDragon/lin_xexu.html |access-date=2022-11-23 |website=cyber.harvard.edu}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Longman World History |url=https://wps.pearsoncustom.com/wps/media/objects/2427/2486120/chap_assets/documents/doc24_1.html |access-date=2022-11-23 |website=wps.pearsoncustom.com}}</ref> Lin then resorted to using force in the western merchants' enclave. He arrived in Guangzhou at the end of January 1839 and organized a coastal defence. In March 1839, British opium dealers were forced to hand over {{convert|1420|tonnes|E6lb}} of opium. On 3 June 1839, Lin ordered the opium to be destroyed in public on [[Humen|Humen Beach]] to show the Government's determination to ban smoking.<ref name="Britannica">{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Opium Wars |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Opium-Wars |access-date=28 November 2021}}</ref> All other supplies were confiscated and a blockade of foreign ships on the Pearl River was ordered.<ref name="Farooqui-2005">{{Cite book |last=Farooqui |first=Amar |title=Smuggling as Subversion: Colonialism, Indian Merchants, and the Politics of Opium, 1790–1843 |date=March 2005 |publisher=Lexington |isbn=0-7391-0886-7}}</ref>{{page needed|date=September 2021}}

Tensions escalated in July 1839 after drunk British sailors killed a Chinese villager named Lin Weixi; the British official in charge, Admiral [[Charles Elliot]], refused to hand over those accused to Chinese authorities in an attempt to avoid their being killed on the spot, as had happened with British citizens in the [[Lady Hughes Affair|''Lady Hughes'' Affair]] of 1784. Later, fighting broke out, with the British Navy destroying the Chinese naval blockade, and launching an offensive.<ref name=Britannica/> In the ensuing conflict, the Royal Navy used its superior naval and gunnery power to inflict a series of decisive defeats on the Chinese Empire.<ref>Steve Tsang, ''A modern history of Hong Kong'' (2007) pp. 3–13.</ref> In 1842, the Qing dynasty was forced to sign the [[Treaty of Nanking]]—the first of what the Chinese later called the [[unequal treaties]]—which granted an [[indemnity]] and [[extraterritoriality]] to British subjects in China, opened five [[treaty ports]] to British merchants, and ceded [[Hong Kong Island]] to the British Empire. The failure of the treaty to satisfy British goals of improved trade and diplomatic relations led to the [[Second Opium War]] (1856–1860). The resulting social unrest was the background for the [[Taiping Rebellion]], which further weakened the Qing regime.<ref>Tsang, ''A modern history of Hong Kong'' p.&nbsp;29.</ref>{{full citation needed|date=November 2022}}<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Mechanics of Opium Wars |url=https://australian.museum/learn/cultures/international-collection/chinese/the-mechanics-of-opium-wars/ |access-date=2022-06-28 |website=The Australian Museum |language=en}}</ref>

== Background ==

=== Establishment of trade relations ===
[[File: AMH-6145-NA View of Canton.jpg|left|thumb|View of Guangzhou with merchant ship of the [[Dutch East India Company]], c. 1665]]

Direct maritime trade between Europe and China began in 1557 when the [[Portuguese Empire]] leased an outpost from the Ming dynasty in [[Macau]]. Other European nations soon followed the Portuguese lead, inserting themselves into the existing Asian maritime trade network to compete with Arab, Chinese, Indian, and Japanese merchants in intraregional commerce.{{sfn|Gray|2002|pp=22–23}} After the [[Spanish conquest of the Philippines]], the exchange of goods between China and Europe accelerated dramatically. From 1565, the [[Manila Galleon]]s brought silver into the Asian trade network from mines in [[Viceroyalty of Peru|South America]].<ref>Carrera Stampa, Manuel. "La Nao de la China." ''Historia Mexicana'' 9 no. 33 (1959) 97–118.</ref>{{page range too broad|date=September 2021}} China was a primary destination for the precious metal, as the imperial government mandated that Chinese goods could only be exported in exchange for silver [[bullion]].<ref name="Goldstone-2016">{{Cite book |last=Goldstone |first=Jack A. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mOu_DQAAQBAJ&q=chinese+european+bullion&pg=PT365 |title=Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World: Population Change and State Breakdown in England, France, Turkey, and China, 1600–1850 |publisher=Routledge |year=2016 |isbn=978-1-315-40860-6 |edition=25th Anniversary}}</ref>{{page needed|date=September 2021}}<ref name="Mann-2011">[[Charles C. Mann]] (2011) pp. 123–163.</ref>{{page range too broad|date=September 2021}}

British ships began to appear sporadically around the coasts of China from 1635 on.<ref>Spence (1999) p. 120.</ref> Without establishing formal relations through the Chinese [[Tributary system of China|tributary system]], by which most Asian nations were able to negotiate with China, British merchants were only allowed to trade at the ports of [[Zhoushan]], [[Xiamen]] (or Amoy), and Guangzhou.{{sfn|Spence|1999|p=120}} Official British trade was conducted through the auspices of the [[British East India Company]], which held a [[royal charter]] for trade with the Far East. The East India Company gradually came to dominate Sino-European trade from its position in India and due to the strength of the [[Royal Navy]].<ref name="Bernstein 286">{{Cite book |last=Bernstein |first=William J. |author-link=William J. Bernstein |title=A splendid exchange: how trade shaped the world |publisher=Atlantic Monthly Press |year=2008 |isbn=978-0-87113-979-5 |location=New York |page=286}}</ref>

[[File:View of Canton factories 2.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|View of the [[Thirteen Factories|European factories]] in Guangzhou]]
Trade benefited after the newly risen [[Qing dynasty]] relaxed maritime trade restrictions in the 1680s. [[Formosa]] ([[Taiwan]]) came under Qing control in 1683 and rhetoric regarding the tributary status of Europeans was muted.{{sfn|Spence|1999|p=120}} Guangzhou became the port of preference for incoming foreign trade. Ships did try to call at other ports, but these locations could not match the benefits of Guangzhou's geographic position at the mouth of the Pearl River, nor did they have the city's long experience in balancing the demands of [[Beijing]] with those of Chinese and foreign merchants.<ref name="Van Dyke 6">{{Cite book |last=Van Dyke |first=Paul A. |title=The Canton trade: life and enterprise on the China coast, 1700–1845 |publisher=Hong Kong University Press |year=2005 |isbn=962-209-749-9 |location=Hong Kong |pages=6–9}}</ref> From 1700 onward Guangzhou was the centre of maritime trade with China, and this market process was gradually formulated by Qing authorities into the "[[Canton System]]".<ref name=" Van Dyke 6" /> From the system's inception in 1757, trading in China was extremely lucrative for European and Chinese merchants alike as goods such as tea, porcelain, and silk were valued highly enough in Europe to justify the expenses of travelling to Asia. The system was highly regulated by the Qing government. Foreign traders were only permitted to do business through a body of Chinese merchants known as the [[Cohong]] and were forbidden to learn Chinese. Foreigners could only live in one of the [[Thirteen Factories]] and were not allowed to enter or trade in any other part of China. Only low-level government officials could be dealt with, and the imperial court could not be lobbied for any reason excepting official diplomatic missions.<ref>Hucker, Charles O. (1958). "Governmental Organization of the Ming Dynasty". ''Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies''. Harvard-Yenching Institute: 38.</ref> The Imperial laws that upheld the system were collectively known as the Prevention Barbarian Ordinances ({{lang|zh|防範外夷規條}}).<ref name="Peyrefitte-1792">Alain Peyrefitte, ''The Immobile Empire – The first great collision of East and West – the astonishing history of Britain's grand, an ill-fated expedition to open China to Western Trade, 1792–94'' (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992), pp. 520–545</ref>{{page range too broad|date=September 2021}} The Cohong were particularly powerful in the [[Old China Trade]], as they were tasked with appraising the value of foreign products, purchasing or rebuffing said imports and charged with selling Chinese exports at an appropriate price.<ref name="Fay-2000d">Fay (2000) pp. 38–45, 55–54, 60–68.</ref>{{page range too broad|date=September 2021}} The Cohong was made up of between (depending on the politics of Guangzhou) 6 to 20 merchant families. Most of the merchant houses these families ruled had been established by low-ranking [[Mandarin (bureaucrat)|mandarins]], but several were Cantonese or Han in origin.<ref>Fay (2000) pp. 62–64.</ref> Another key function of the Cohong was the traditional bond signed between a Cohong member and a foreign merchant. This bond stated that the receiving Cohong member was responsible for the foreign merchant's behavior and cargo while in China.<ref name="Fay-2000h">Fay (2000) p. 65.</ref> In addition to dealing with the Cohong, European merchants were required to pay customs fees, measurement duties, provide gifts, and hire navigators.<ref name="Fay-2000h" />

Despite restrictions, silk and porcelain continued to drive trade through their popularity in Europe, and an insatiable demand for Chinese tea existed in Britain. From the mid-17th century onward around 28 million kilograms/61.6 million pounds of silver were received by China, principally from European powers, in exchange for Chinese products.<ref>[https://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A21388322 Early American Trade], BBC</ref>

=== European trade deficits ===
A brisk trade between China and European powers continued for over a century. While this trading heavily favoured the Chinese and resulted in European nations sustaining large [[trade deficit]]s, the demand for Chinese goods continued to drive commerce. In addition, the colonisation and conquest of the Americas resulted in European nations (namely Spain, Great Britain, and France) gaining access to a cheap supply of silver, resulting in European economies remaining relatively stable despite the trade deficit with China. This silver was also shipped across the Pacific Ocean to China directly, notably through the Spanish-controlled Philippines. In stark contrast to the European situation, Qing China sustained a trade surplus. Foreign silver flooded into China in exchange for Chinese goods, expanding the Chinese economy but also causing inflation and forming a Chinese reliance on European silver.<ref name="Fay-2000e" /><ref name="Fay-2000h" />

The continued economic expansion of European economies in 17th and 18th centuries gradually increased the European demand for precious metals, which were used to mint new coins; this increasing need for hard currency to remain in circulation in Europe reduced the supply of bullion available for trade in China, driving up costs and leading to competition between merchants in Europe and European merchants who traded with the Chinese.<ref name="Fay-2000e" /> This market force resulted in a chronic trade deficit for European governments, who were forced to risk silver shortages in their domestic economies to supply the needs of their merchants in Asia (who as private enterprises still turned a profit by selling valuable Chinese goods to consumers in Europe).<ref name="Peyrefitte-1792" />{{page range too broad|date=September 2021}}<ref name="Peyrefitte 1993, p487-503">Peyrefitte 1993, pp. 487–503.</ref>{{page range too broad|date=September 2021}} This gradual effect was greatly exacerbated by a series of large-scale colonial wars between Great Britain and Spain in the mid 18th century; these conflicts disrupted the international silver market and eventually resulted in the independence of powerful new nations, namely the United States and Mexico.<ref name="China: The First Opium War" /><ref name="Fay-2000d" />{{page range too broad|date=September 2021}} Without cheap silver from the colonies to sustain their trade, European merchants who traded with China began to take silver directly out of circulation in the already-weakened economies of Europe to pay for goods in China.<ref name="Fay-2000e" /> This angered governments, who saw their economies shrink as a result, and fostered a great deal of animosity towards the Chinese for their restriction of European trade.<ref name="Peyrefitte 1993, p487-503" />{{page range too broad|date=September 2021}}<ref name="Hanes 2002">{{Cite book |last=Hanes III |first=W. Travis |url=https://archive.org/details/opiumwarsaddicti00hane |title=The Opium Wars |last2=Sanello |first2=Frank |author-link2=Frank Sanello |publisher=Sourcebooks |year=2002 |location=Naperville, IL |page=[https://archive.org/details/opiumwarsaddicti00hane/page/20 20] |url-access=registration}}</ref> The Chinese economy was unaffected by fluctuations in silver prices, as China was able to [[Iwami Ginzan Silver Mine|import Japanese silver]] to stabilise its money supply.<ref name="Goldstone-2016" />{{page needed|date=September 2021}} European goods remained in low demand in China, ensuring the longstanding trade surplus with the European nations continued.<ref name="China: The First Opium War">{{Cite web |title=China: The First Opium War |url=http://web.jjay.cuny.edu/~jobrien/reference/ob36.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101201214224/http://web.jjay.cuny.edu/~jobrien/reference/ob36.html |archive-date=1 December 2010 |access-date=2 December 2010 |publisher=John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York}} Quoting ''British Parliamentary Papers'', 1840, XXXVI (223), p. 374.</ref> Despite these tensions, trade between China and Europe grew by an estimated 4% annually in the years leading up to the start of the opium trade.<ref name="Fay-2000e" /><ref>Meyers, Wang (2003) p. 587.</ref>{{failed verification|date=September 2021}}

[[File:Two poor Chinese opium smokers. Gouache painting on rice-pap Wellcome V0019165.jpg|thumb|Chinese opium smokers]]

=== Opium trade ===
{{see also|History of opium in China}}
[[Opium]] as a medicinal ingredient was documented in Chinese texts as early as the [[Tang dynasty]] (617–907), but the recreational usage of the drug was limited. As with India, opium (then limited by distance to a dried powder, often drunk with tea or water) was introduced to China and Southeast Asia by Arab merchants.<ref name="Fay-2000g">Fay (2000) p. 38.</ref> The [[Ming dynasty]] banned tobacco as a decadent good in 1640, and opium was seen as a similarly minor issue. The first restrictions on opium were passed by the Qing in 1729 when [[Madak]] (a substance made from powdered opium blended with tobacco) was banned.<ref name="Fay-2000l" /> At the time, Madak production used up most of the opium being imported into China, as pure opium was difficult to preserve. Consumption of Javanese opium rose in the 18th century, and after the [[Napoleonic Wars]] resulted in the British occupying [[Java]], British merchants became the primary traders in opium.<ref>Fay (2000) pp. 74–75.</ref> The British realised they could reduce their trade deficit with Chinese manufactories by counter-trading in narcotic opium, and therefore efforts were made to produce more opium in [[Company rule in India|Company-controlled India]]. Limited British sales of Indian opium began in 1781, with exports to China increasing as the East India Company solidified its control over India.<ref name="Mann-2011" />{{page range too broad|date=September 2021}}<ref name="Hanes 2002" />

The British opium was produced in [[Bengal]] and the [[Ganges]] river plain, where the British inherited an existing opium industry from the declining [[Mughal Empire]] and saw the product as a potentially valuable export.<ref name="Fay-2000m">Fay (2000) pp. 13–14, 42.</ref> The East India Company commissioned and managed hundreds of thousands of poppy plantations. It took care of the painstaking lancing of individual pods to obtain the raw gum, drying and forming it into cakes, before coating and packaging them for auction in Calcutta.<ref>Lovell, p. 3.</ref> The company tightly controlled the opium industry, and all opium was considered company property until it was sold.<ref name="Fay-2000e">Fay (2000) pp. 75–81.</ref> From [[Kolkata]], the company's Board of Customs, Salt, and Opium concerned itself with quality control by managing the way opium was packaged and shipped. No poppies could be cultivated without the company's permission, and the company banned private businesses from refining opium. All opium in India was sold to the company at a fixed rate, and the company hosted a series of public opium auctions every year. The difference of the company-set price of raw opium and the sale price of refined opium at auction (minus expenses) was profit made by the East India Company.<ref name="Fay-2000m" /><ref name="Fay-2000d" />{{page range too broad|date=September 2021}} In addition to securing poppies cultivated on lands under its direct control, the company's board issued licences to the independent [[princely states]] of [[Malwa]], where significant quantities of poppies were grown.<ref name="Fay-2000m" /><ref name="Fay-2000e" />
[[File:William John Huggins - The opium ships at Lintin, China, 1824.jpg|thumb|A depiction of opium ships at [[Nei Lingding Island|Lintin]], China by the British artist [[William John Huggins]] in 1824]]

By the late 18th century, company and Malwan farmlands (which were traditionally dependent on cotton growing) had been hard hit by the introduction of factory-produced cotton cloth, which used cotton grown in Egypt or the American South. Opium was considered a lucrative replacement, and was soon being auctioned in ever larger amounts in Calcutta.<ref name="Fay-2000d" /> Private merchants who possessed a company charter (to comply with the British royal charter for Asiatic trade) bid on and acquired goods at the Calcutta auction before sailing to Southern China. British ships brought their cargoes to islands off the coast, especially [[Lintin Island]], where Chinese traders with fast and well-armed small boats took the goods inland for distribution, paying for the opium with silver.<ref name="Fay-2000d" /> The Qing administration initially tolerated opium importation because it created an indirect tax on Chinese subjects, as increasing the silver supply available to foreign merchants through the sale of opium encouraged Europeans to spend more money on Chinese goods. This policy provided the funds British merchants needed to then greatly increase tea exports from China to England, delivering further profits to the Qing monopoly on tea exports held by the imperial treasury and its agents in Guangzhou.<ref>Peyrefitte, 1993 p. 520.</ref><ref name="Fay-2000e" />
[[File:A busy stacking room in the opium factory at Patna, India. L Wellcome V0019154.jpg|thumb|A British [[lithograph]] depicting a storehouse filled with opium at the factory of the British East India Company in [[Patna]], India {{circa|1850}}]]

However, opium usage continued to grow in China, adversely affecting social stability. From Guangzhou, the habit spread outwards to the North and West, affecting members from every class of Chinese society.<ref name="Fay-2000f" /> By the early 19th century, more and more Chinese were smoking British opium as a recreational drug. For many, what started as recreation soon became a punishing addiction: many people who stopped ingesting opium suffered chills, nausea, and cramps, and sometimes died from withdrawal. Once addicted, people would often do almost anything to continue to get access to the drug.<ref>{{Cite web |publisher=Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada|title=The Opium Wars in China |url=https://asiapacificcurriculum.ca/learning-module/opium-wars-china |website=Asia Pacific Curriculum}}</ref> These serious social issues eventually led to the Qing government issuing an edict against the drug in 1780, followed by an outright ban in 1796, and an order from the governor of Guangzhou to stop the trade in 1799.<ref name="Fay-2000f">Fay (2000) pp. 73–74.</ref> To circumvent the increasingly stringent regulations in Guangzhou, foreign merchants bought older ships and converted them into floating warehouses. These ships were anchored off of the Chinese coast at the mouth of the Pearl River in case the Chinese authorities moved against the opium trade, as the ships of the Chinese navy had difficulty operating in open water.<ref name="Fay-2000j">Fay (2000) pp. 41–62.</ref>{{page range too broad|date=September 2021}} Inbound opium ships would unload a portion of their cargo onto these floating warehouses, where the narcotic was eventually purchased by Chinese opium dealers. By implementing this system of smuggling, foreign merchants could avoid inspection by Chinese officials and prevent retaliation against the trade in legal goods, in which many smugglers also participated.<ref name="Fay-2000f" /><ref name="Fay-2000e" />{{page range too broad|date=September 2021}}

In the early 19th century, [[Old China Trade|American merchants joined the trade]] and began to introduce [[Turkey merchant|opium from Turkey]] into the Chinese market—this supply was of lesser quality but cheaper, and the resulting competition among British and American merchants drove down the price of opium, leading to an increase in the availability of the drug for Chinese consumers.<ref name="China: The First Opium War" /> The demand for opium rose rapidly and was so profitable in China that Chinese opium dealers (who, unlike European merchants, could legally travel to and sell goods in the Chinese interior) began to seek out more suppliers of the drug. The resulting shortage in supply drew more European merchants into the increasingly lucrative opium trade to meet the Chinese demand. In the words of one trading house agent, "[Opium] it is like gold. I can sell it anytime."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Peyrefitte |first=Alain |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iELwe9Klc2sC&q=Opium+is+like+gold%2C+sell+it+at+anytime&pg=PA520 |title=The Immobile Empire |year=2013 |publisher=Vintage |isbn=978-0345803955}}</ref> From 1804 to 1820, a period when the Qing treasury needed to finance the suppression of the [[White Lotus Rebellion]] and other conflicts, the flow of money gradually reversed, and Chinese merchants were soon exporting silver to pay for opium rather than Europeans paying for Chinese goods with the precious metal.<ref>[[History of opium in China#CITEREFLayton1997|Layton 1997]], p. 28.</ref> European and American ships were able to arrive in Guangzhou with their holds filled with opium, sell their cargo, use the proceeds to buy Chinese goods, and turn a profit in the form of silver bullion.<ref name="Goldstone-2016" />{{page needed|date=September 2021}} This silver would then be used to acquire more Chinese goods.<ref name="Peyrefitte-1792" />{{page range too broad|date=September 2021}} While opium remained the most profitable good to trade with China, foreign merchants began to export other cargoes, such as machine-spun cotton cloth, [[rattan]], [[ginseng]], fur, clocks, and steel tools. However, these goods never reached the same level of importance as narcotics, nor were they as lucrative.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Early American Trade with China |url=http://teachingresources.atlas.illinois.edu/chinatrade/introduction04.html |access-date=8 August 2017 |website=teachingresources.atlas.illinois.edu}}</ref><ref name="JEAL">{{Cite journal |last=Davis |first=Nancy |date=February 1989 |title=Cargo Manifests and Custom Records from American China Trade Vessels Bound for the Port of Philadelphia 1790–1840 |url=https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/jeal/vol1989/iss86/5 |journal=Journal of East Asian Libraries |volume=1989 |issue=86 |pages=17–20 |access-date=23 September 2018}}</ref>
[[File:Opium imports into China 1650-1880 EN.svg|thumb|upright=1.6|Graph showing the increase in Chinese opium imports by year]]

The Qing imperial court debated whether or how to end the opium trade, but their efforts to curtail opium abuse were complicated by local officials and the Cohong, who profited greatly from the bribes and taxes involved in the narcotics trade.<ref name="Fay-2000j" />{{page range too broad|date=September 2021}} Efforts by Qing officials to curb opium imports through regulations on consumption resulted in an increase in drug smuggling by European and Chinese traders, and corruption was rampant.<ref>Fay (2000) pp. 76–80.</ref><ref name="Janin-1999" /> In 1810, the Daoguang Emperor issued an edict concerning the opium crisis, declaring,

{{blockquote|Opium has a harm. Opium is a poison, undermining our good customs and morality. Its use is prohibited by law. Now the commoner, Yang, dares to bring it into the [[Forbidden City]]. Indeed, he flouts the law!

However, recently the purchasers, eaters, and consumers of opium have become numerous. Deceitful merchants buy and sell it to gain profit. The customs house at the [[Ch'ung-wen Gate]] was originally set up to supervise the collection of imports (it had no responsibility with regard to opium smuggling). If we confine our search for opium to the seaports, we fear the search will not be sufficiently thorough. We should also order the general commandant of the police and police—censors at the five gates to prohibit opium and to search for it at all gates. If they capture any violators, they should immediately punish them and should destroy the opium at once. As to Kwangtung [Guangdong] and Fukien [Fujian], the provinces from which opium comes, we order their viceroys, governors, and superintendents of the maritime customs to conduct a thorough search for opium, and cut off its supply. They should in no ways consider this order a dead letter and allow opium to be smuggled out!<ref name="fu">{{Cite book |last=Fu |first=Lo-shu |title=A Documentary Chronicle of Sino-Western relations, Volume 1 |year=1966 |page=380}}</ref>}}

Nonetheless, by 1831, the annual opium traffic neared 20,000 chests, each with a net weight of around 140 pounds, compared with just about 4,000 chests per year between 1800 and 1818. After the East India Company's monopoly on tea ended in 1833 and private merchants began to join in, this quantity would go on to double before the close of the decade.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lovell |first=Julia |title=The Opium War: drugs, dreams and the making of China |year=2014 |isbn=978-1468308952 |location=New York |pages=2–3 |publisher=Harry N. Abrams}}</ref>

Bengal and India, under the [[British Raj]], experienced mixed effects from the Britain-China opium trade. On one hand, millions died in Bengal during the famine of 1770 after agricultural land was forcibly converted to poppy cultivation. Small farmers in India's [[Bihar Province]] were compelled to grow poppies without profit. On the other hand, opium became the main driver of capital accumulation for merchants and bankers in western India.<ref name="Conversation">{{cite web |last1=Foster |first1=Kevin |title=Exploitation, brutality and misery: how the opium trade shaped the modern world |url=https://theconversation.com/exploitation-brutality-and-misery-how-the-opium-trade-shaped-the-modern-world-227356 |website=The Conversation |date=6 May 2024}}</ref> The Indian government's revenue from opium trade rose from less than five percent of its total in the early 1800s to nearly 17 percent in 1890.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Opium Trade—Observations |url=https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/1880-06-04/debates/b53a59e8-4235-47f9-beec-31da92fdfbf4/TheOpiumTrade%E2%80%94Observations |website=Hansard |date=4 June 1880}}</ref> The income helped British rule and the East India Company expand further in the region.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bhattacharya |first1=Prabir |title=India in the Rise of Britain and Europe: A Contribution to the Convergence and Great Divergence Debates |journal=Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics |date=January 2021 |volume=33 |issue=1 |pages=24–53 |doi=10.1177/0260107920907196 |url=https://doi.org/10.1177/0260107920907196 |issn=0260-1079|doi-access=free }}</ref>

The opium profits of the Royal Dutch Trading Company in the [[Dutch East Indies]] financed several enterprises, such as [[Shell plc|Royal Dutch Shell]]. A few American merchants also made a fortune from the opium trade and invested their proceeds in railroads, hotel chains, and manufacturing in the United States.<ref name="Conversation" />

=== Changing trade policy ===
In addition to the start of the opium trade, economic and social innovations led to a change in the parameters of the wider Sino-European trade.<ref name="Wood-1849">''[https://books.google.com/books?id=tqVLAAAAYAAJ&q=great+recoinage+1816+shillings&pg=PA172 Report from the Select Committee on the Royal Mint: together with the minutes of evidence, appendix and index, Volume 2]'' (Great Britain. Committee on Royal Mint, 1849), p. 172.</ref> The formulation of [[classical economics]] by [[Adam Smith]] and other economic theorists caused academic belief in [[mercantilism]] to decline in Britain.<ref name="Seabrooke-2006">L.Seabrooke (2006). "Global Standards of Market Civilization". p. 192. Taylor & Francis 2006</ref> Under the prior system, the Qianlong Emperor restricted trade with foreigners on Chinese soil only for licensed Chinese merchants, while the British government on their part issued a monopoly charter for trade only to the [[British East India Company]]. This arrangement was not challenged until the 19th century when the idea of free trade was popularised in the West.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Schirokauer |first=Conrad |title=A Brief History of Chinese Civilization |last2=Brown |first2=Miranda |publisher=Cengage |year=2012 |isbn=978-0495913238 |edition=4th |page=221}}</ref> Fueled by the [[Industrial Revolution]], Britain began to use its growing naval power to spread a broadly liberal economic model, encompassing open markets and relatively barrier free international trade, a policy in line with the credo of [[Smithian economics]].<ref name="Seabrooke-2006" /> This stance on trade was intended to open foreign markets to the resources of Britain's colonies, as well as provide the British public with greater access to consumer goods such as tea.<ref name="Seabrooke-2006" /> In Great Britain, the adoption of the [[gold standard]] in 1821 resulted in the empire [[Great Recoinage of 1816|minting]] standardised silver shillings, further reducing the availability of silver for trade in Asia and spurring the British government to press for more trading rights in China.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Xu |first=Zhongyou |publisher=World Book Publishing Company |year=2008 |isbn=978-7506287128 |language=zh |script-title=zh:中國近代史：1600–2000中国的奋斗 |trans-title=The rise of modern China}}</ref>{{page needed|date=September 2021}}<ref name="Wood-1849" />

In contrast to this new economic model, the Qing dynasty continued to employ a [[Confucian]]-Modernist, highly organised economic philosophy that called for strict government intervention in industry for the sake of preserving societal stability.<ref name="Fay-2000d" /> While the Qing government was not explicitly anti-trade, a lack of need for imports and increasingly heavy taxes on luxury goods limited pressure on the government to open further ports to international trade.<ref name="Columbia-2017">{{Cite web |title=Grandeur of the Qing Economy |url=http://www.learn.columbia.edu/nanxuntu/html/economy/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170512035204/http://www.learn.columbia.edu/nanxuntu/html/economy/ |archive-date=12 May 2017 |access-date=24 May 2017 |website=www.learn.columbia.edu}}</ref> China's rigid merchant hierarchy also blocked efforts to open ports to foreign ships and businesses.<ref name="Gao-2003">Gao, Feng (2003) p. 141.</ref> Chinese merchants operating in inland China wanted to avoid market fluctuations caused by importing foreign goods that would compete with domestic production, while the Cohong families of Guangzhou profited greatly by keeping their city the only entry point for foreign products.<ref name="Columbia-2017" /><ref>''Compilation Group'' for the "History of Modern China" Series. (2000). p. 17.</ref><ref name="Gao-2003" /><ref name="Rowe-2009">T., Rowe, William (2009). ''China's last empire : the great Qing''. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. {{ISBN|978-0674036123}}. {{OCLC|648759723}}.</ref>{{page needed|date=September 2021}}

At the turn of the 19th century, countries such as Great Britain, the Netherlands, Denmark, Russia, and the United States began to seek additional trading rights in China.<ref>Downs. pp. 22–24.</ref> Foremost among the concerns of the western nations was the end of the Canton System and the opening of China's vast consumer markets to trade. Britain in particular was keenly increasing its exports to China, as the empire's implementation of the gold standard forced it to purchase silver and gold from continental Europe and Mexico to further fuel its rapidly industrialising economy.<ref>Liu, Henry C. K. (4 September 2008). [https://web.archive.org/web/20081202024102/http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/JI04Cb03.html Developing China with sovereign credit]. ''[[Asia Times Online]]''.</ref> Attempts by a British embassy (led by [[Macartney Embassy|Macartney]] in 1793), a Dutch mission (under [[Jacob Pieter van Braam]] in 1794), Russia (headed by [[Yury Golovkin]] in 1805), and the British again ([[William Amherst, 1st Earl Amherst|Earl William Amherst]] in 1816) to negotiate increased access to the Chinese market were all vetoed by successive Qing emperors.<ref name="Peyrefitte 1993, p487-503" />{{page range too broad|date=September 2021}} Upon his meeting the [[Jiaqing Emperor]] in 1816, Amherst refused to perform the traditional [[kowtow]], an act that the Qing saw as a severe breach of etiquette. Amherst and his party were expelled from China, a diplomatic rebuke that angered the British government.<ref>Guo Ting: ''History of Modern China'', Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1979 p. 39.</ref>

One major reason was that British consumers had developed a strong liking for Chinese tea, as well as other goods like porcelain and silk. But Chinese consumers had no similar preference for any goods produced in Britain. Because of this trade imbalance, Britain increasingly had to use silver to pay for its expanding purchases of Chinese goods. Britain suffered from a huge trade deficit during the Sino-British trade. Meanwhile, the high tariff made the British government very dissatisfied with the Qing government. The Chinese only allowed silver in exchange for the products they were offering so a significant amount of this commodity was leaving the British Empire.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Opium Wars in China |url=https://asiapacificcurriculum.ca/learning-module/opium-wars-china |access-date=28 November 2021 |website=Asia Pacific Curriculum |language=en}}</ref>

As its merchants gained increasing influence in China, Great Britain bolstered its military strength in Southern China. Britain began sending warships to combat piracy on the Pearl River, and in 1808 established a permanent garrison of British troops in Macau to defend against French attacks.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hariharan |first=Shantha |last2=Hariharan |first2=P. S. |date=1 December 2013 |title=The Expedition to Garrison Portuguese Macao with British Troops: Temporary Occupation and Re-embarkation, 1808 |journal=International Journal of Maritime History |language=en |volume=25 |issue=2 |pages=85–116 |doi=10.1177/084387141302500209 |issn=0843-8714 |s2cid=161472099}}</ref>{{page range too broad|date=September 2021}}

=== Foreign merchants in Guangzhou ===
As the opium-fuelled China Trade increased in scope and value, the foreign presence in Guangzhou and Macau grew in size and influence. The Thirteen Factories district of Guangzhou continued to expand, and was labelled the "foreign quarter".<ref name="Fay-2000d" />{{page range too broad|date=September 2021}} A small population of merchants began to stay in Guangzhou year round (most merchants lived in Macau for the summer months, then moved to Guangzhou in the winter),<ref>Fay (2000) pp. 72–75.</ref> and a local chamber of commerce was formed. In the first two decades of the 19th century, the increasingly sophisticated (and profitable) trade between Europe and China allowed for a clique of European merchants to rise to positions of great importance in China.<ref>Fay (2000) pp. 72–81.</ref>{{page range too broad|date=September 2021}} The most notable of these figures were [[William Jardine (merchant)|William Jardine]] and [[James Matheson]] (who went on to found [[Jardine Matheson]]), British merchants who operated a consignment and shipping business in Guangzhou and Macau, with associates such as [[Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy]], who became their principal supplier in India.<ref name="Pichon2006">{{Cite book |last=Pichon | first=Alain Le |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0ql7CqEV6d4C&q=Jejeebhoy |title=China Trade and Empire: Jardine, Matheson & Co. and the Origins of British Rule in Hong Kong, 1827–1843 |publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2006 |isbn=978-0-19-726337-2 |page=28}}</ref><ref name="Derks2012">{{Cite book |last=Hans Derks |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tlqD5SqS8dwC&q=Jejeebhoy |title=History of the Opium Problem: The Assault on the East, ca. 1600–1950 |publisher=Brill |year=2012 |isbn=978-90-04-22158-1 |page=94}}</ref> While all three dealt in legal goods, they also profited greatly from selling opium. Jardine in particular was effective in navigating the political environment of Guangzhou to allow for more narcotics to be smuggled into China.<ref name="Fay-2000e" /> He was also contemptuous of the Chinese legal system, and often used his economic influence to subvert Chinese authorities.<ref name="Fay-2000e" /> This included his (with Matheson's support) petitioning for the British government to attempt to gain trading rights and political recognition from Imperial China, by force if necessary. In addition to trade, some western missionaries arrived and began to proselytise Christianity to the Chinese. While some officials tolerated this (Macau-based Jesuits had been active in China since the early 17th century), some officials clashed with Chinese Christians, raising tensions between western merchants and Qing officials.<ref name="Rowe-2009" />{{page needed|date=September 2021}}<ref name="Fay-2000i">Fay (2000) pp. 110–113.</ref>

While the foreign community in Guangzhou grew in influence, the local government began to suffer from civil discord inside China. The White Lotus Rebellion (1796–1804) drained the Qing dynasty's treasury of silver, forcing the government to levy increasingly heavy taxes on merchants. These taxes did not abate after the rebellion was crushed, as the Chinese government began a massive project to repair state-owned properties on the [[Yellow River]], referred to as the "Yellow River Conservancy".<ref>Fay (2000) pp. 57–58, 60.</ref> The merchants of Guangzhou were further expected to make contributions to fight banditry. These taxes weighed heavily on the profits made by the Cohong merchants; by the 1830s, the once-prosperous Cohong had seen their wealth greatly reduced. In addition, the declining value of China's domestic currency resulted in many people in Guangzhou using foreign silver coins (Spanish coins were the most valued, followed by American coins)<ref>Fay (2000) p. 68.</ref> as they contained higher amounts of silver. Using western coins allowed Cantonese coiners to make many Chinese coins from melted-down western coins, greatly increasing the city's wealth, and tax revenue while tying much of the economy of the city to the foreign merchants.<ref name="Rowe-2009" />{{page needed|date=September 2021}}<ref>Fay (2000) pp. 62–71.</ref>

A significant development came in 1834 when reformers (some of whom were financially backed by Jardine)<ref name="Fay-2000i" /> in Britain, advocating for free trade, succeeded in ending the monopoly of the British East India Company under the [[Saint Helena Act 1833|Charter Act]] of the previous year. This shift in trade policy ended the need for merchants to comply with the royal charter for trade in the far east; with this centuries-old restriction lifted, the British China trade was opened to private entrepreneurs, many of whom joined the highly profitable opium trade.<ref name="China: The First Opium War" /><ref>Fay (2000) pp. 84–95.</ref>{{page range too broad|date=September 2021}}

On the eve of the Qing government's crackdown on opium, a Chinese official described the changes in society caused by the drug;

<blockquote> At the beginning, opium smoking was confined to the fops of wealthy families who took up the habit as a form of conspicuous consumption, even they knew that they should not indulge in it to the greatest extreme. Later, people of all social strata—from government officials and members of the gentry to craftsmen, merchants, entertainers, and servants, and even women, Buddhist monks and nuns, and Taoist priests—took up the habit and openly bought and equipped themselves with smoking instruments. Even in the center of our dynasty—the nation's capital and its surrounding areas—some of the inhabitants have also been contaminated by this dreadful poison.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Cleary |first=Vern |title=The First Opium War (1838–1842) |url=http://webs.bcp.org/sites/vcleary/modernworldhistorytextbook/imperialism/section_5/firstopiumwar.html# |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190624223400/http://webs.bcp.org/sites/vcleary/modernworldhistorytextbook/imperialism/section_5/firstopiumwar.html |archive-date=24 June 2019 |access-date=2017-08-10 |website=webs.bcp.org |language=en}}</ref></blockquote>

==== Napier Affair ====
In late 1834, to accommodate the revocation of the East India Company's monopoly, the British sent [[William John Napier]] to Macau along with [[John Francis Davis]] and [[Sir George Robinson, 2nd Baronet]], as British superintendents of trade in China. Napier was instructed to obey Chinese regulations, communicate directly with Chinese authorities, superintend trade pertaining to the contraband trade of opium, and to survey China's coastline. Upon his arrival in China, Napier tried to circumvent the restrictive system that forbade direct contact with Chinese officials by sending a letter directly to the [[Viceroy of Liangguang]], [[Lu Kun]], requesting a meeting. The Viceroy refused to accept it, and on 2 September of that year an edict was issued that temporarily closed British trade. In response, Napier ordered two Royal Navy vessels to bombard Chinese forts on the Pearl River straight, the ''[[Humen|Bocca Tigris]]'', in a show of force. This command was followed through, but war was avoided due to Napier falling ill with typhus and ordering a retreat. The brief gunnery duel drew condemnation by the Chinese government, as well as criticism from the British government and foreign merchants.<ref>Lydia He. LIU; Lydia He Liu (2009). [https://books.google.com/books?id=LkTO2_-XDa8C&pg=PA47 ''The Clash of Empires: the invention of China in modern world making'']. Harvard University Press. pp. 47–. {{ISBN|978-0-674-04029-8}}.</ref> Other nationalities, such as the Americans, prospered through their continued peaceful trade with China, but the British were told to leave Guangzhou for either [[Whampoa anchorage|Whampoa]] or Macau.<ref name="Michie-2012">{{Cite book |last=Michie |first=Alexander |title=The Englishman in China During the Victorian Era: As Illustrated in the Career of Sir Rutherford Alcock, Volume 1 |date=2012 |publisher=HardPress  |isbn=978-1-290-63687-2}}</ref>{{page needed|date=September 2021}} Lord Napier was forced to return to Macau in September, where he died of [[typhus]] a month later, on 11 October.<ref name="MCR-1834">{{Cite web |title=The Napier Affair (1834) |url=http://jds.cass.cn/Item/5699.aspx |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141204215424/http://jds.cass.cn/Item/5699.aspx |archive-date=4 December 2014 |access-date=10 December 2014 |website=Modern China Research |publisher=Institute of Modern History, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences |df=dmy-all}}</ref>

After Lord Napier's death, Captain Charles Elliot received the King's Commission as Superintendent of Trade in 1836 to continue Napier's work of conciliating the Chinese.<ref name="MCR-1834" />

== Escalation of tensions ==

=== Crackdown on opium ===
{{Main|Destruction of opium at Humen}}
[[File:Commissioner Lin Zexu.jpg|thumb|upright|Commissioner Lin Zexu, dubbed "Lin of Clear Skies" for his moral integrity.]]
[[File:Letter by Lin Zexu to Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom.jpg|thumb|right|upright|[[Lin Zexu]]'s [[Official Communications of the Chinese Empire#Memorials|"memorial"]] ({{lang-zh|c=摺奏|labels=no}}) written directly to [[Victoria of the United Kingdom|Queen Victoria]]]]

By 1838, the British were selling roughly {{cvt|1400|long ton|kg}} of opium per year to China. Legalization of the opium trade was the subject of ongoing debate within the Chinese administration, but a proposal to legalise the narcotic was repeatedly rejected, and in 1838 the government began to actively sentence Chinese drug traffickers to death.<ref>Hanes p. 44.</ref>{{Clarify|date=September 2021|reason=There are more than one Hanes in sources}}

There were also long-term factors that pushed the Chinese government into action. Historian [[Jonathan D. Spence]] lists these factors that led to war:
:the social dislocations that began to appear in the Qing world, the spread of addiction, the growth of a hard-line mentality toward foreigners, foreign refusal to accept Chinese legal norms, changes in international trade structures, and the ending of Western intellectuals' admiration for China.... When the tough prohibitions of 1838 began to take effect, the market diminished and dealers found themselves dangerously oversupplied. A second contributing factor was that the new British post of superintendent of foreign trade in China was held by a deputy of the British crown....If the Chinese crossed the superintendent, they would be insulting the British nation rather than the business corporation....[The superintendent could] call directly on the aid of British armed Forces and the Royal Navy in times of serious trouble.<ref>[[Jonathan D. Spence]], ''[[The Search for Modern China]]'' (1990), p. 153.</ref>

In 1839, the Daoguang Emperor appointed scholar-official [[Lin Zexu]] to the post of Special [[Imperial Commissioner (China)|Imperial Commissioner]] with the task of eradicating the opium trade.<ref>{{Cite web |title=England and China: The Opium Wars, 1839–60 |url=http://www.victorianweb.org/history/empire/opiumwars/opiumwars1.html |access-date=3 June 2016 |website=victorianweb.org}}</ref> Lin's famous open "[[Lin Zexu#Campaign to suppress opium|Letter To Queen Victoria]]" appealed to [[Victoria of the United Kingdom|Queen Victoria]]'s moral reasoning. Citing what he mistakenly understood to be a strict prohibition on opium within Great Britain, Lin questioned how Britain could declare itself moral while its merchants profited from the legal sale in China of a drug that was banned in Britain.<ref name="Fay p143"/> He wrote: "Your Majesty has not before been thus officially notified, and you may plead ignorance of the severity of our laws, but I now give my assurance that we mean to cut this harmful drug forever."<ref>[http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1839lin2.html Commissioner Lin: Letter to Queen Victoria, 1839]. Modern History Sourcebook.</ref> The letter never reached the Queen, with one source suggesting that it was lost in transit.{{sfn|Hanes|Sanello|2004|p=41}} Lin pledged that nothing would divert him from his mission, "If the traffic in opium were not stopped a few decades from now we shall not only be without soldiers to resist the enemy, but also in want of silver to provide an army."<ref name="Sharpe">{{Cite book |last=Kort |first=Michael |first2=June M. |last2=Grasso |first3=Jay |last3=Corrin |title=Modernization and revolution in China: from the opium wars to the Olympics |year=2009 |publisher=Sharpe |isbn=978-0-7656-2391-1 |edition=4th |location=Armonk, NY}}</ref>{{page needed|date=September 2021}} Lin banned the sale of opium and demanded that all supplies of the drug be surrendered to the Chinese authorities. He also closed the [[Pearl River (China)|Pearl River Channel]], trapping British traders in Guangzhou.<ref name="China: The First Opium War" /> As well as seizing opium stockpiles in warehouses and the thirteen factories, Chinese troops boarded British ships in the Pearl River and [[South China Sea]] before destroying the opium on board.<ref>{{Cite news |date=6 August 2016 |title=Why the Chinese military is still haunted by this 19th-century 'humiliation' |url=https://theweek.com/articles/640709/why-chinese-military-still-haunted-by-19thcentury-humiliation |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200423172227/https://theweek.com/articles/640709/why-chinese-military-still-haunted-by-19thcentury-humiliation |archive-date=23 April 2020 |access-date=7 July 2017}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jjdDAAAAcAAJ&q=chinese+seize+opium&pg=PA72 |title=Report from the select committee on the trade with China: together with the minutes of evidence ... Ordered ... to be printed 5 June 1840 |date=1840}}</ref>{{better source needed|date=September 2021}}

The British Superintendent of Trade in China, [[Charles Elliot]], protested the decision to forcibly seize the opium stockpiles. He ordered all ships carrying opium to flee and prepare for battle. Lin responded by besieging the foreign dealers in the foreign quarter of Guangzhou, and kept them from communicating with their ships in port.<ref name="Sharpe" />{{page needed|date=September 2021}} To defuse the situation, Elliot convinced the British traders to cooperate with Chinese authorities and hand over their opium stockpiles with the promise of eventual compensation for their losses by the British government.<ref name="China: The First Opium War" /> While this amounted to a tacit acknowledgment that the British government did not disapprove of the trade, it also placed a huge liability on the exchequer. This promise, and the inability of the British government to pay it without causing a political storm, was used as an important ''[[casus belli]]'' for the subsequent British attack.<ref>"Foreign Mud: The opium imbroglio at Canton in the 1830s and the Anglo-Chinese War," by Maurice Collis, W.W. Norton, New York, 1946</ref>{{page needed|date=September 2021}} During April and May 1839, British and American dealers surrendered 20,283 chests and 200 sacks of opium. The stockpile was publicly destroyed on the beach outside Guangzhou.<ref name="Sharpe" />{{page needed|date=September 2021}}

[[File:Destruction of opium in 1839.jpg|left|thumb|Contemporary Chinese depiction of the destruction of opium under Commissioner Lin.]]
After the opium was surrendered, trade was restarted on the strict condition that no more opium be shipped into China. Looking for a way to effectively police foreign trade and purge corruption, Lin and his advisers decided to reform the existing bond system. Under this system, a foreign captain and the ''Cohong'' merchant who had purchased the goods off of his ship swore that the vessel carried no illegal goods. Upon examining the records of the port, Lin was infuriated to find that in the 20 years since opium had been declared illegal, not a single infraction had been reported.<ref>Fay (2000) pp. 192–193.</ref> As a consequence, Lin demanded that all foreign merchants and Qing officials sign a new bond promising not to deal in opium under penalty of death.<ref name="coleman">{{Cite book |last=Coleman |first=Anthony |url=https://archive.org/details/millenniumthousa00cole/page/243 |title=Millennium |publisher=Transworld |year=1999 |isbn=0-593-04478-9 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/millenniumthousa00cole/page/243 243–244]}}</ref> The British government opposed their signing of the bond, feeling that it violated the principle of free trade, but some merchants who did not trade in opium (such as [[Olyphant & Co.]]) were willing to sign against Elliot's orders. Trade in regular goods continued unabated, and the scarcity of opium caused by the seizure of the foreign warehouses caused the [[black market]] to flourish.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Doing Business with China: Early American Trading Houses |url=https://www.library.hbs.edu/hc/heard/doing-business-with-china.html |access-date=24 May 2017 |website=www.library.hbs.edu}}</ref> Some newly arrived merchant ships were able to learn of the ban on opium before they entered the Pearl River estuary, and so they unloaded their cargoes at Lintin Island. The opportunity caused by the sharp rise in the price of opium was seized upon by some of the ''Cohong'' trading houses and smugglers, who were able to evade commissioner Lin's efforts and smuggled more opium into China. Superintendent Elliot was aware of the smugglers' activities on Lintin and was under orders to stop them, but feared that any action by the Royal Navy could spark a war and withheld his ships.<ref name="China: The First Opium War" />

=== Skirmish at Kowloon ===
{{see also|Battle of Kowloon}}
In early July 1839 a group of British merchant sailors in [[Kowloon]] became intoxicated after consuming rice liqueur. Two of the sailors became agitated with and beat to death Lin Weixi, a villager from nearby [[Tsim Sha Tsui]].<ref>Hanes & Sanello 2002, p. 61.</ref><ref>Hoe & Roebuck 1999, p. 91.</ref> Superintendent Elliot ordered the arrest of the two men, and paid compensation to Lin's family and village. However, he refused a request to turn the sailors over to Chinese authorities, fearing they would be killed in accordance with the Chinese legal code.<ref>''Correspondence Relating to China'' 1840, p. 432.</ref> Commissioner Lin saw this as an obstruction of justice and Chinese sovereignty, therefore he ordered the sailors to be handed over.<ref>Hanes & Sanello 2002, p. 62.</ref> Elliot instead held a trial for the accused men aboard a warship at sea, with himself serving as the judge and merchant captains serving as jurors. He invited the Qing authorities to observe and comment on the proceedings, but the offer was declined.<ref name="Hoe-1999">Hoe & Roebuck 1999, p. 92.</ref> The naval court convicted 5 sailors of assault and rioting, and sentenced them to fines along with hard labour in Britain (a verdict later overturned in British courts).<ref>''Correspondence Relating to China'' 1840, p. 433.</ref><ref name="Hoe-1999" />

[[File:Barren Kowloon.jpg|left|thumb|1841 painting of the Chinese fort at Kowloon.]]
Angered by the violation of China's sovereignty, Lin recalled Chinese labourers from Macau and issued an edict preventing the sale of food to the British.<ref name="Hoe-1999" /> War Junks were deployed to the mouth of the Pearl River, while signs were placed and rumours spread by the Qing that they had poisoned the freshwater springs traditionally used to restock foreign merchant ships.<ref name="Fay 2000 pp. 203">Fay (2000) p. 203.</ref> On 23 August a ship belonging to a prominent opium merchant was attacked by [[lascar]] pirates while travelling downriver from Guangzhou to Macau. Rumors spread among the British that it had been Chinese soldiers who had attacked the ship, and Elliot ordered all British ships to leave the coast of China by 24 August.<ref name="Fay 2000 pp. 203" /> That same day Macau barred British ships from its harbour at the request of Lin. The commissioner travelled in person to the city, where he was welcomed by some of the inhabitants as a hero who had restored law and order.<ref name="Fay-2000a">Fay (2000) p. 205.</ref> The flight from Macau ensured that by the end of August over 60 British ships and over 2000 people were idling off of the Chinese coast, fast running out of provisions. On 30 August [[HMS Volage (1825)|HMS ''Volage'']] arrived to defend the fleet from a potential Chinese attack, and Elliot warned Qing authorities in Kowloon that the embargo on food and water must be ended soon.<ref>Hoe & Roebuck 1999, p. 93.</ref><ref name="Lovell-2015" />{{page needed|date=November 2021}}

Early on 4 September Elliot dispatched an armed [[schooner]] and a [[Cutter (boat)|cutter]] to Kowloon to buy provisions from Chinese peasants. The two ships approached three Chinese war junks in the harbour and requested permission to land men in order to procure supplies. The British were allowed through and basic necessities were provided to the British by Chinese sailors, but the Chinese commander inside Kowloon fort refused to allow the locals to trade with the British and confined the townspeople inside the settlement. The situation grew more intense as the day went on, and in the afternoon Elliot issued an ultimatum that, if the Chinese refused to allow the British to purchase supplies, they would be fired upon. A 3:00 pm deadline set by Elliot passed and the British ships opened fire on the Chinese vessels. The junks returned fire, and Chinese gunners on land began to fire at the British ships. Nightfall ended the battle, and the Chinese junks withdrew, ending what would be known as the [[Battle of Kowloon]]. Many British officers wanted to launch a land attack on Kowloon fort the next day, but Elliot decided against it, stating that such an action would cause "great injury and irritation" to the town's inhabitants.<ref>''Correspondence Relating to China'' 1840, p. 447.</ref> After the skirmish, Elliot circulated a paper in Kowloon, reading;

{{blockquote|The men of the English nation desire nothing but peace; but they cannot submit to be poisoned and starved. The Imperial cruisers they have no wish to molest or impede; but they must not prevent the people from selling. To deprive men of food is the act only of the unfriendly and hostile.<ref name="p. 449">''Correspondence Relating to China'' 1840, p. 449.</ref>}}

Having driven off the Chinese ships, the British fleet began to purchase provisions from the local villagers, often with the aid of bribed Chinese officials in Kowloon.<ref name="Waley-1958">Waley 1958, p. 70.</ref> [[Lai Enjue]], the local commander at Kowloon, declared that a victory had been won against the British.<ref name="Waley-1958" /> He claimed that a two masted British warship had been sunk, and that 40–50 British had been killed.<ref name="Fay-2000a" /> He also reported that the British had been unable to acquire supplies, and his reports severely understated the strength of the Royal Navy.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Battle of Kowloon – Fighting – Gallery {{!}} Empires |url=http://empires-tv-series.net/gallery/fighting/the_battle_of_kowloon.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170901063029/http://empires-tv-series.net/gallery/fighting/the_battle_of_kowloon.html |archive-date=1 September 2017 |access-date=5 July 2017 |website=empires-tv-series.net}}</ref><ref>Elleman 2001, p. 15.</ref>{{failed verification|date=September 2021}}

=== Battle of Chuenpi ===

In late October 1839, the merchant ship ''Thomas Coutts'' arrived in China and sailed to Guangzhou. ''Thomas Coutts''{{'}}s [[Quakers|Quaker]] owners refused on religious grounds to deal in opium, a fact that the Chinese authorities were aware of. The ship's captain, Warner, believed Elliot had exceeded his legal authority by banning the signing of the "no opium trade" bond,{{sfn|Hanes|Sanello|2004|p=68}} and negotiated with the governor of Guangzhou. Warner hoped that all British ships not carrying opium could negotiate to legally unload their goods at Chuenpi, an island near [[Humen Town|Humen]].<ref>Hans, Sellano (2004) p. 68.</ref>{{failed verification|date=September 2021}}

To prevent other British ships from following ''Thomas Coutts''{{'}}s precedent, Elliot ordered a blockade of British shipping in the [[Pearl River]]. Fighting began on 3 November 1839, when a second British ship, {{ship||Royal Saxon|1829 ship|2}}, attempted to sail to Guangzhou. The Royal Navy ships [[HMS Volage (1825)|HMS ''Volage'']] and [[HMS Hyacinth (1829)|HMS ''Hyacinth'']] fired warning shots at ''Royal Saxon''. In response to this commotion, a fleet of Chinese [[Junks|war junks]] under the command of [[Guan Tianpei]] sailed out to protect ''Royal Saxon''.<ref>Parker (1888) pp. 10–11.</ref> The ensuing [[Battle of Chuenpi]] resulted in the destruction of 4 Chinese war junks and the withdrawal of both fleets.<ref name="Elleman-2001">{{Cite book |last=Elleman |first=Bruce A. |title=Modern Chinese warfare, 1795–1989 |year=2001 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=0-415-21474-2}}</ref>{{page needed|date=December 2021}} The Qing navy's official report on the Battle of Chuenpi claimed that the navy had protected the British merchant vessel and reported a great victory for the day. In reality, the Chinese had been out-classed by the British vessels and several Chinese ships were disabled.<ref name="Elleman-2001" />{{page needed|date=December 2021}} Elliot reported that his squadron was protecting the 29 British ships in Chuenpi, and began to prepare for the Qing reprisal. Fearing that the Chinese would reject any contacts with the British and eventually attack with fire rafts, he ordered all ships to leave Chuenpi and head for [[Causeway Bay]], {{convert|20|mi|km|-1}} from Macau, hoping that offshore anchorages would be out of range of Lin. Elliot asked [[Adrião Acácio da Silveira Pinto]], the Portuguese governor of Macau, to let British ships load and unload their goods there in exchange for paying rents and any duties. The governor refused for fear that the Chinese would discontinue supplying food and other necessities to Macau, and on 14 January 1840 the Daoguang Emperor asked all foreign merchants in China to halt material assistance to the British.<ref name="Elleman-2001" />{{page needed|date=December 2021}}

=== Reaction in Britain ===

==== Parliamentary debates ====
Following the Chinese crackdown on the opium trade, discussion arose as to how Britain would respond, as the public in the United States and Britain had previously expressed outrage that Britain was supporting the opium trade.<ref name="Melancon-2003b">Glenn Melancon (2003). [https://books.google.com/books?id=V527VTyT29gC&pg=PA126 ''Britain's China Policy and the Opium Crisis: Balancing Drugs, Violence and National Honour, 1833–1840'']. Ashgate. p. 126.</ref> The East India and China Association of London argued that the opium trade was directly or indirectly sanctioned by the government, and as such they should compensate them for their losses. Elliot signed certificates guaranteeing payment for the surrendered opium with the assumption that China would pay for it. This provided legal basis for the merchants to demand an indemnity from the British government, which they could either force China to pay or pay for it from the British treasury. As the government had no funds to pay such indemnities, they favoured forcing China to pay since Elliot had provided them with plausible justification for a China Expedition. Many British citizens sympathised with the Chinese and wanted to halt the sale of opium, while others wanted to contain or regulate the international narcotics trade. However, a great deal of anger was expressed over the treatment of British diplomats and towards the protectionist trading policies of Qing China. The [[Whigs (British political party)|Whig]] controlled government in particular advocated war with China, and the pro-Whig press printed stories about Chinese "despotism and cruelty". This line of reasoning was primary defence for war with China.<ref name="Chen-2016">{{Cite book |last=Chen |first=Li |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mvHlCgAAQBAJ&q=First+opium+war&pg=PA212 |title=Chinese Law in Imperial Eyes: Sovereignty, Justice, and Transcultural Politics |publisher=Columbia University Press |year=2016 |isbn=978-0231540216}} pp. 221–228</ref>
Since August 1839, reports had been published in London newspapers about troubles at Guangzhou and the impending war with China. The Queen's Annual Address to the House of Lords on 16 January 1840 expressed the concern that "Events have happened in China which have occasioned an interruption of the commercial intercourse of my subjects with that country. I have given, and shall continue to give, the most serious attention to a matter so deeply affecting the interests of my subjects and the dignity of my Crown."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Jon Bursey |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gcOIDwAAQBAJ&pg=PP192 |title=Captain Elliot and the Founding of Hong Kong: Pearl of the Orient |publisher=Grub Street|year=2018 |isbn=978-1526722577 |page=192}}</ref>

The Whig Melbourne Government was then in a weak political situation. It barely survived a motion of non-confidence on 31 January 1840 by a majority of 21. The Tories saw the China Question as an opportunity to beat the Government, and James Graham moved a motion on 7 April 1840 in the House of Commons, censuring the Government's "want of foresight and precaution" and "their neglect to furnish the superintendent at Guangzhou with powers and instructions" to deal with the opium trade.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bursey |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gcOIDwAAQBAJ&pg=PP192 |title=Captain Elliot |publisher=Grub Street |year=2018 |isbn=978-1526722577 |pages=192–194}}</ref> This was a deliberate move of the Tories to avoid the sensitive issues of war and opium trade and to obtain maximum support for the motion within the party.<ref>Fay (2000) p. 202.</ref> Calls for military action were met with mixed responses when the matter went before Parliament. Foreign Secretary [[Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston|Palmerston]], a politician known for his aggressive foreign policy and advocacy for free trade, led the pro war camp. Palmerston strongly believed that the destroyed opium should be considered property, not contraband, and as such reparations had to be made for its destruction. He justified military action by saying that no one could "say that he honestly believed the motive of the Chinese Government to have been the promotion of moral habits" and that the war was being fought to stem China's balance of payments deficit.<ref name="Melancon-2003b" />{{failed verification|date=November 2022}} After consulting with William Jardine, the foreign secretary drafted a letter to Prime Minister [[William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne|William Melbourne]] calling for a military response. Other merchants called for an opening of free trade with China, and it was commonly cited that the Chinese consumers were the driving factor of the opium trade. The periodic expulsion of British merchants from Guangzhou and the refusal of the Qing government to treat Britain as a diplomatic equal were seen as a slight to national pride.<ref name="Su-2020">{{Cite web |title=Justifiers of the British Opium Trade: Arguments by Parliament, Traders, and the Times Leading Up to the Opium War |url=https://web.stanford.edu/group/journal/cgi-bin/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Su_SocSci_2008.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201111230633/https://web.stanford.edu/group/journal/cgi-bin/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Su_SocSci_2008.pdf |archive-date=11 November 2020 |access-date=23 September 2018}}</ref>{{page needed|date=September 2021}}

Few Tory or liberal politicians supported the war. [[Sir James Graham, 2nd Baronet|Sir James Graham]], [[Philip Stanhope, 5th Earl Stanhope|Lord Phillip Stanhope]], and [[William Ewart Gladstone]] headed the anti-war faction in Britain, and denounced the ethics of the opium trade.<ref name="Su-2020" /><ref name="Chen-2016" /> After three days of debate, the vote was taken on Graham's motion on 9 April 1840, which was defeated by a majority of only 9 votes (262 votes for vs 271 votes against ). The Tories in the House of Commons thus failed to deter the Government from proceeding with the war and stop the British warships already on their way to China. The House of Commons agreed on 27 July 1840 to a resolution of granting £173,442 for the expenses of the expedition to China, long after the war with China had broken out.<ref name="Su-2020" />{{failed verification|date=November 2022}}<ref name="Chen-2016" />{{failed verification|date=November 2022}}

==== Cabinet Decision and Palmerston letters ====
Under strong pressure and lobbying from various trade and manufacturer associations, the [[Whigs (British political party)|Whig]] cabinet under Prime Minister [[William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne|Melbourne]] decided on 1 October 1839 to send an expedition to China.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rebecca Berens Matzke |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xkZeKCdl0f0C&pg=PA112 |title=Deterrence Through Strength: British Naval Power and Foreign Policy Under Pax Britannica |publisher=U of Nebraska Press |year=2011 |isbn=978-0803235144 |pages=108–112}}</ref> War preparations then began.

In early November 1839, Palmerston instructed Auckland, Governor General of India, to prepare military forces for deployment in China. On 20 February 1840 Palmerston (who remained unaware of the First Battle of Chuenpi in November 1839) drafted two letters detailing the British response to the situation in China. One letter was addressed to the Elliots, the other to the Daoguang Emperor and the Qing government. The letter to the emperor informed China that Great Britain had sent a military expeditionary force to the Chinese coast.<ref name="PalmerstonA">{{Cite web |title=Palmerston to Emperor – Feb, 1840 {{!}} China's external relations – a history |url=http://www.chinaforeignrelations.net/node/247 |url-status=usurped |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170801031638/http://www.chinaforeignrelations.net/node/247 |archive-date=1 August 2017 |access-date=20 July 2017 |website=www.chinaforeignrelations.net |language=en}}</ref> In the letter, Palmerston stated that,

<blockquote>These measures of hostility on the part of Great Britain against China are not only justified, but even rendered absolutely necessary, by the outrages which have been committed by the Chinese Authorities against British officers and Subjects, and these hostilities will not cease, until a satisfactory arrangement shall have been made by the Chinese Government.<ref name="PalmerstonA" />{{dead link|date=September 2021}}</blockquote>

In his letter to the Elliots, Palmerston instructed the commanders to set up a blockade of the Pearl River and forward to a Chinese official the letter from Palmerston addressing the Chinese emperor. They were to then capture the Zhoushan Islands, blockade the mouth of the Yangtze River, start negotiations with Qing officials, and finally sail the fleet into the [[Bohai Sea]], where they would send another copy of the aforementioned letter to Beijing.<ref name="PalmerstonB">{{Cite web |title=Palmerston to Elliots – Feb, 1840 {{!}} China's external relations – a history |url=http://www.chinaforeignrelations.net/node/248 |url-status=usurped |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170809035901/http://www.chinaforeignrelations.net/node/248 |archive-date=9 August 2017 |access-date=20 July 2017 |website=www.chinaforeignrelations.net |language=en}}</ref>  Palmerston also issued a list of objectives that the British government wanted accomplished, with said objectives being:{{citation needed|date=January 2022}}
* Demand to be treated with the respect due to a royal envoy by the Qing authorities.
* Secure the right of the British superintendent to administer justice to British subjects in China.
* Seek recompense for destroyed British property.
* Gain most favoured trading status with the Chinese government.
* Request the right for foreigners to safely inhabit and own private property in China.
* Ensure that, if contraband is seized in accordance with Chinese law, no harm comes to the person(s) of British subjects carrying illicit goods in China.
* End the system by which British merchants are restricted to trading solely in Guangzhou.
* Ask that the cities of Guangzhou, Amoy, Shanghai, Ningbo, and the province of northern Formosa be freely opened to trade from all foreign powers.
* Secure islands along the Chinese coast that can be easily defended and provisioned, or exchange captured islands for favourable trading terms.
Lord Palmerston left it to Superintendent Elliot's discretion as to how these objectives would be fulfilled, but noted that while negotiation would be a preferable outcome, he did not trust that diplomacy would succeed, writing;

<blockquote>To sum up in a few words the result of this Instruction, you will see, from what I have stated, that the British Government demands from that of China satisfaction for the past and security for the future; and does not choose to trust to negotiation for obtaining either of these things; but has sent out a Naval and Military Force with orders to begin at once to take the Measures necessary for attaining the object in view.<ref name="PalmerstonB" />{{Dead link|date=September 2021}}</blockquote>

== War ==

=== Opening moves ===
[[File:Volage & Hyacinth in Chuenpee.jpg|thumb|Engagement between British and Chinese ships in the First Battle of Chuenpi, 1839.]]The Chinese naval forces in Guangzhou were under the command of Admiral [[Guan Tianpei]], who had fought the British at Chuenpi. The Qing southern army and garrisons were under the command of [[Yang Fang (general)|General Yang Fang]]. Overall command was invested in the [[Daoguang Emperor]] and his court.<ref name="Janin-1999" /> The Chinese government initially believed that, as in the 1834 Napier Affair, the British had been successfully expelled.<ref name="Melancon-2003">{{Cite book |last=Glenn Melancon |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=V527VTyT29gC&pg=PA126 |title=Britain's China Policy and the Opium Crisis: Balancing Drugs, Violence and National Honour, 1833–1840 |publisher=Ashgate |year=2003 |isbn=978-0754607045 |page=126}}</ref> Few preparations were made for a British reprisal, and the events leading to the eventual outbreak of the [[Sino-Sikh War]] in 1841 were seen as a greater cause for concern.<ref name="Elliott-1990">Elliott, Mark (June 1990). "[http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/elliott/files/elliott_bannerman_and_townsman.pdf Bannerman and Townsman: Ethnic Tension in Nineteenth-Century Jiangnan]". ''Late Imperial China'' '''11''' (1): 51.</ref><ref name="Rubin-1960">The Sino-Indian Border Disputes, by Alfred P. Rubin, The International and Comparative Law Quarterly, Vol. 9, No. 1. (Jan. 1960), pp. 96–125.</ref>{{page range too broad|date=September 2021}}

Left without a major base of operations in China, the British withdrew their merchant shipping from the region while maintaining the Royal Navy's China squadron in the islands around the mouth of the Pearl River. From London, Palmerston continued to dictate operations in China, ordering the East India Company to divert troops from India in preparation for a limited war against the Chinese. It was decided that the war would not be fought as a full-scale conflict, but rather as a [[punitive expedition]].<ref name="Westminster-1903" /><ref name="Glenn Melancon 1840, pp 854-874" />{{page range too broad|date=September 2021}} Superintendent Elliot remained in charge of Britain's interests in China, while [[Gordon Bremer|Commodore Gordon Bremer]] led the [[Royal Marines]] and the China Squadron. [[Hugh Gough, 1st Viscount Gough|Major General Hugh Gough]] was selected to command the British land forces, and was promoted to overall commander of British forces in China.<ref>[https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/19989/page/1583 "No. 19989"]. ''[[The London Gazette]]''. 18 June 1841. p. 1583.</ref> The cost of the war would be paid by the British Government.<ref name="Elleman-2001" />{{page needed|date=November 2021}}<ref name="Melancon-2003" /><ref>John K. Derden, "The British Foreign Office and Policy Formation: The 1840s," ''Proceedings & Papers of the Georgia Association of Historians'' (1981) pp. 64–79.</ref>{{page range too broad|date=September 2021}}<ref>{{Cite web |last=Luscombe |first=Stephen |title=The British Empire, Imperialism, Colonialism, Colonies |url=http://www.britishempire.co.uk/forces/armycampaigns/asia/china/opiumwar.htm |access-date=26 May 2017 |website=www.britishempire.co.uk}}</ref> Per Lord Palmerston's letter, plans were drawn up by the British to launch a series of attacks on Chinese ports and rivers.<ref>Rait (1903) p. 161</ref>

British plans to form an expeditionary force were started immediately after the January 1840 vote. Several infantry regiments were raised in the British isles, and the completion of ships already under construction was expedited. To conduct the upcoming war, Britain also began to draw on forces from its overseas empire.<ref name="Fay-2000k">Fay (2000) pp. 210–223</ref>{{page range too broad|date=September 2021}} British India had been preparing for a war since word had arrived that the opium had been destroyed, and several regiments of Bengali volunteers had been recruited to supplement the regular British Indian Army and East India Company forces. In terms of naval forces, the ships earmarked for the expedition were either posted in remote colonies or under repair, and [[Oriental Crisis of 1840]] (and the resulting risk of war between Britain, France, and the [[Ottoman Empire]] over Syria) drew the attention of the Royal Navy's European fleets away from China.<ref name="Fay-2000c" /> Orders were dispatched to British South Africa and Australia to send ships to Singapore, the assigned rendezvous point for the expedition. A number of steamers were purchased by the Royal Navy and attached to the expedition as transports. The unseasonable summer weather of India and the [[Strait of Malacca]] slowed the British deployment, and a number of accidents decreased the combat readiness of the expedition. Most notably, both of the 74-gun ships of the line that the Royal Navy intended to use against Chinese fortifications were temporarily put out of action by hull damage.<ref name="Fay-2000c" /> Despite these delays, by mid-June 1840 British forces had begun to assemble in Singapore. While they waited for more ships to arrive, the Royal Marines practised amphibious invasions on the beach, first by landing ashore in boats, then forming lines and advancing on mock fortifications.<ref name="Fay-2000c">Fay (2000) pp. 240–243</ref><ref name="Fay-2000k" />{{page range too broad|date=September 2021}}

=== British offensive begins ===
[[File:Capture of Ting-hai.jpg|thumb|left|[[Capture of Chusan]], July 1840]]

In late June 1840 the first part of the expeditionary force arrived in China aboard 15 barracks ships, four steam-powered gunboats and 25 smaller boats.{{sfn|Spence|1999|pp=153–155}} The flotilla was under the command of Commodore Bremer. The British issued an ultimatum demanding the Qing Government pay compensation for losses suffered from interrupted trade and the destruction of opium, but were rebuffed by the Qing authorities in Guangzhou.<ref name="ReferenceA">{{London Gazette|pages=2990–2991|issue=19930|date=15 December 1840}}</ref>

In his letters, Palmerston&nbsp;had instructed the joint plenipotentiaries Elliot&nbsp;and his cousin Admiral&nbsp;[[George Elliot (Royal Navy officer, born 1784)|George Elliot]]&nbsp;to acquire the cession of at least one island for trade on the Chinese coast.<ref>Morse. p. 628</ref> With the British expeditionary force now in place, a combined naval and ground assault was launched on the Zhoushan (Chusan) Archipelago. [[Zhoushan Island]], the largest and best defended of the islands was the primary target for the attack, as was its vital port of [[Dinghai District|Dinghai]]. When the British fleet arrived off Zhoushan, Elliot demanded the city surrender. The commander of the Chinese garrison refused the command, stating that he could not surrender and questioning what reason the British had for harassing Dinghai, as they had been driven out of Guangzhou. Fighting began, a fleet of 12 small junks was destroyed by the Royal Navy, and British marines captured the hills to the south of Dinghai.<ref>Fay (2000) p. 252</ref>

[[File:First taking of Chusan.jpg|thumb|The Battle of Chusan]]

The British [[Capture of Chusan|captured the city]] itself after an intense naval bombardment on 5 July forced the surviving Chinese defenders to withdraw.<ref name="ReferenceA" /> The British occupied Dinghai harbour and prepared to use it as a staging point for operations in China. In the fall of 1840 disease broke out in the Dinghai garrison, forcing the British to evacuate soldiers to Manila and Kolkata. By the beginning of 1841 only 1900 of the 3300 men who had originally occupied Dinghai were left, with many of those remaining incapable of fighting. An estimated 500 British soldiers died from disease, with the Cameron and Bengali volunteers suffering the most deaths, while the Royal Marines were relatively unscathed.<ref name="Fay-2000b">Fay (2000) pp. 288, 289</ref>

Having captured Dinghai, the British expedition divided its forces, sending one fleet south to the Pearl River while sending a second fleet north to the [[Yellow Sea]]. The northern fleet sailed to the [[Hai River]], where Elliot personally presented Palmerston's letter to the emperor to Qing authorities from the capital. [[Qishan (official)|Qishan]], a high-ranking Manchu official, was selected by the Imperial Court to replace Lin as the [[Viceroy of Liangguang]] after the latter was discharged for his failure to resolve the opium situation.<ref name="Hummel-1943">{{cite ECCP}}</ref>{{page needed|date=September 2021}} Negotiations began between the two sides, with Qishan serving as the primary negotiator for the Qing and Elliot serving as the representative for the British Crown. After a week of negotiations, Qishan and Elliot agreed to relocate to the Pearl River for further negotiations. In return for the courtesy of the British to withdraw from the Yellow Sea, Qishan promised to requisition imperial funds as restitution for British merchants who had suffered damages. The war, however, was not concluded and both sides continued to engage each other. In the late spring of 1841 reinforcements arrived from India in preparation for an offensive against Guangzhou. A flotilla of transports brought 600 men of the professionally trained 37th Madras Native Infantry to Dinghai, where their arrival boosted British morale.<ref name="Fay-2000b" /> Accompanying the fleet as far as Macau was the newly constructed iron steamer [[HMS Nemesis (1839)|HMS ''Nemesis'']], a weapon to which the Chinese navy had no effective counter.<ref name="victorianweb-1839" /> On 19 August three British warships and 380 marines [[Battle of the Barrier|drove the Chinese]] from the land bridge (known as "The Barrier") separating Macau from the Chinese mainland.<ref>Bingham 1843, pp. 400–401</ref>{{Primary source inline|date=March 2022}} The defeat of the Qing soldiers coupled with the arrival of the ''Nemesis'' in Macau's harbour resulted in a wave of pro-British support in the city, and several Qing officials were driven out or killed. Portugal remained neutral in the conflict, but after the battle was willing to allow British ships to dock in Macau, a decision that granted the British a functioning port in Southern China.<ref>Fay (2000) pp. 276, 277</ref> With the strategic harbours of Dinghai and Macau secured, the British began to focus on the war on the Pearl River. Five months after the British victory at Chusan, the northern elements of the expedition sailed south to [[Humen]], known to the British as The Bogue. Bremer judged that gaining control of the Pearl River and Guangzhou would put the British in a strong negotiating position with the Qing authorities, as well as allow for the renewal of trade when the war ended.<ref name="Westminster-1903" />

=== Pearl River campaign ===
While the British campaigned in the north, Qing Admiral Guan Tianpei greatly reinforced the Qing positions in Humen (Bocca Tigris), suspecting that the British would attempt to force their way up the Pearl River to Guangzhou; sources state that Guan had been preparing for an eventual attack on the position since Napier's attack in 1835. The Humen forts blocked transit of the river, and were garrisoned with 3000 men and 306 cannons. By the time the British fleet was ready for action, 10,000 Qing soldiers were in position to defend Guangzhou and the surrounding area.<ref>{{harvp|Mao|2016|pp=200–204}}</ref> The British fleet arrived in early January, and began to bombard the Qing defences at Chuenpi after a group of Chinese fire-rafts were sent drifting towards the Royal navy ships.{{citation needed|date=September 2021}}

[[File:Attack and capture of Chuenpee 2.jpg|thumb|The [[Second Battle of Chuenpi]]]]

On 7 January 1841, the British won a decisive victory in the [[Second Battle of Chuenpi]], destroying 11 Junks of the Chinese southern fleet and capturing the Humen forts. The victory allowed the British to set up a blockade of The Bogue, a blow that forced the Qing navy to retreat upriver.<ref name="MacPherson-1843">MacPherson 1843, pp. 312, 315–316.</ref>{{better source needed|reason=only primary source provided from one side|date=February 2022}}

Knowing the strategic value of [[Pearl River Delta]] to China and aware that British naval superiority made a reconquest of the region unlikely, Qishan attempted to prevent the war from widening further by negotiating a peace treaty with Britain.<ref name="Dillon-2010">Dillon (2010) p. 55</ref> On 21 January Qishan and Elliot drafted the [[Convention of Chuenpi]], a document which both parties hoped would end the war.<ref name="Dillon-2010" /><ref name="BSI-1841">''Bulletins of State Intelligence''&nbsp;1841, p. 32</ref> The convention would establish equal diplomatic rights between Britain and China, exchange [[Hong Kong Island]] for [[Zhoushan]], facilitate the release of shipwrecked and kidnapped British citizens held by the Chinese, and reopen trade in Guangzhou by 1 February 1841.<ref name="BSI-1841" /> China would also pay six million silver dollars as recompense for the opium destroyed at Humen in 1838. However, the legal status of the opium trade was not resolved and instead left open to be discussed at a future date. Despite the success of the negotiations between Qishan and Elliot, both of their respective governments refused to sign the convention. The Daoguang Emperor was infuriated that Qing territory would be given up in a treaty that had been signed without his permission, and ordered Qishan arrested (he was later sentenced to death; the sentence was then commuted to military service.) Lord Palmerston recalled Elliot from his post and refused to sign the convention, wanting more concessions to be forced from the Chinese per his original instructions.<ref name="Glenn Melancon 1840, pp 854-874" />{{page range too broad|date=September 2021}}<ref name="Hummel-1943" />{{page needed|date=September 2021}}

[[File:British ships in Canton.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|British ships approaching Guangzhou in May 1841]]The brief interlude in the fighting ended in the beginning of February after the Chinese refused to reopen Guangzhou to British trade. On 19 February a longboat from HMS ''Nemesis'' came under fire from a fort on [[North Wangtong Island]], prompting a British response.<ref>''Bulletins of State Intelligence''&nbsp;1841, pp. 329–330</ref> The British commanders ordered another blockade of the Pearl River and resumed combat operations against the Chinese. The British captured the remaining Bogue forts on 26 February during the [[Battle of the Bogue]] and the [[Battle of First Bar]] on the following day, allowing the fleet to move further upriver towards Guangzhou.<ref>Bingham. pp. 69–70</ref>{{Primary source inline|date=March 2022}}<ref name="Dillon-2010" /> Admiral Tianpei was killed in action during the fighting on 26 February. On 2 March the British destroyed a Qing fort near [[Pazhou]] and [[Battle of Whampoa|captured Whampoa]], an action that directly threatened Guangzhou's east flank.<ref>Perdue, Peter C. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2011. MIT Visualizing Cultures). p. 15.</ref><ref name="Bingham 1842 73 74">Bingham 1842, pp. 73–74</ref>{{Primary source inline|date=March 2022}} Major General Gough, who had recently arrived from [[Madras]] aboard {{HMS|Cruizer|1828|6}}, personally directed the attack on Whampoa. Superintendent Elliot (who was unaware that he had been dismissed), and the Governor-General of Guangzhou declared a 3-day truce on 3 March. Between the 3rd and the 6th the British forces that had evacuated Zhoushan per the Convention of Chuenpi arrived in the Pearl River. The Chinese military was likewise reinforced, and by 16 March General Yang Fang commanded 30,000 men in the area surrounding Guangzhou.<ref name="McPherson-2013">McPherson, Carruthers (2013) pp. 54–55, 60</ref>

While the main British fleet prepared to sail up the Pearl River to Guangzhou, a group of three warships departed for the [[Xi River]] estuary, intending to navigate the waterway between Macau and Guangzhou. The fleet, led by [[James Scott (Royal Navy officer)|Captain James Scott]] and Superintendent Elliot, was composed of the frigate {{HMS|Samarang|1822|6}} and the steamships ''HMS Nemesis'' and {{HMS|Atalanta| 1836|6}}.<ref>Bernard, Hall (1847) p. 138</ref> Although the waterway was in places only 6 feet deep, the shallow [[Draft (hull)|draft]]s of the steamships allowed the British to approach Guangzhou from a direction the Qing believed to be impossible.<ref>Bernard, Hall (1844) pp. 378</ref> In a series of engagements along the river from 13 to 15 March, the British captured or destroyed Chinese ships, guns, and military equipment. 9 junks, 6 fortresses, and 105 guns were destroyed or captured in what was known as the [[Broadway expedition]].<ref name="Bernard-1847">Bernard, Hall (1847) pp. 138–148</ref>{{page range too broad|date=September 2021}}

[[File:Canton River and adjacent islands.jpg|thumb|left|British map of the Pearl River]]
With the Pearl River cleared of Chinese defences, the British debated advancing on Guangzhou. Although the truce had ended on 6 March, Superintendent Elliot believed that the British should negotiate with the Qing authorities from their current position of strength rather than risk a battle in Guangzhou. The Qing army made no aggressive moves against the British and instead began to fortify the city. Chinese military engineers began to establish a number of mud earthworks on the riverbank, sank junks to create [[blockship]]s on the river, and started constructing [[Fire ship|fire rafts]] and gunboats. Chinese merchants were ordered to remove all of the silk and tea from Guangzhou to impede trade, and the local populace was barred from selling food to the British ships on the river.<ref>Bernard, Hall (1844) p. 369</ref> On 16 March a British ship approaching a Chinese fort under a flag of truce was fired upon, leading to the British setting the fort on fire with rockets. These actions convinced Elliot that the Chinese were preparing to fight, and following the return of the ships of the Broadway expedition to the fleet, the British [[Battle of Canton (March 1841)|attacked Guangzhou]] on 18 March, taking the Thirteen Factories with very few casualties and raising the [[Union Jack]] above the British factory.<ref name="Dillon-2010" /> The city was partially occupied by the British and trade was reopened after negotiation with the ''Cohong'' merchants. After several days of further military successes, British forces commanded the high ground around Guangzhou. Another truce was declared on 20 March. Against the advice of some of his captains, Elliot withdrew most of the Royal Navy warships downriver to the Bocca Tigris.<ref name="McPherson-2013" /><ref name="Fay-2000i" />

[[File:Canton from the Heights.jpg|thumb|Sketch of British soldiers occupying the high ground above Guangzhou in 1841]]
In mid-April, [[Yishan (official)|Yishan]] (Qishan's replacement as [[Viceroy of Liangguang]] and the Daoguang Emperor's cousin) arrived in Guangzhou. He declared that trade should continue to remain open, sent emissaries to Elliot, and began to gather military assets outside Guangzhou. The Qing army camped outside of the city soon numbered 50,000, and the money earned from the reopened trade was spent repairing and expanding Guangzhou's defences. Concealed artillery batteries were built along the Pearl River, Chinese soldiers were deployed in Whampoa and the Bocca Tigris, and hundreds of small river craft were armed for war. A bulletin sent from the Daoguang Emperor commanded the Qing forces to "Exterminate the rebels at all points", and orders were given to drive the British from the Pearl River before reclaiming Hong Kong and driving the invaders out of China altogether.<ref>McPherson, Carruthers (2013) p. 59</ref> This order was leaked and became widely circulated in Guangzhou among foreign merchants, who were already suspicious of Chinese intentions after learning of the Qing military build-up. In May many ''Cohong'' merchants and their families left the city, raising further concerns about a renewal of hostilities. Rumours spread that Chinese divers were being trained to drill holes in the hulls of British ships, and that fleets of fire rafts were being prepared for deployment against the Royal Navy.<ref>Bernard, Hall (1844) p. 435</ref> During the build-up, the Qing army was weakened by infighting between units and lack of confidence in Yishan, who openly distrusted Cantonese civilians and soldiers, instead choosing to rely on forces drawn from other Chinese provinces.<ref name="Lovell-2015">Lovell, Julia (2015).&nbsp;''The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams, and the Making of Modern China''. The Overlook Press.&nbsp;{{ISBN|1468311735}}.</ref>{{page needed|date=November 2021}} On 20 May, Yishan issued a statement, asking the "people of Canton, and all foreign merchants who are respectfully obedient, not to tremble with alarm and be frightened out of their wits at the military hosts that are gathering around, there being no probability of hostilities." The next day Elliot requested that all British merchants evacuate the city by sundown, and several warships were recalled to their positions in front of Guangzhou.<ref>McPherson, Carruthers (2013) p. 60</ref>

On the night of 21 May the Qing launched a coordinated night attack on the British army and navy.<ref name="MacPherson-1843" />{{better source needed|reason=only primary source provided from one side|date=February 2022}} Artillery batteries hidden in Guangzhou and on the Pearl River (many of which the British believed they had disabled earlier) opened fire, and Qing soldiers retook the British Factory. A large formation of 200 fire rafts connected by a chain was sent drifting towards the British ships at Guangzhou, and fishing boats armed with [[matchlock]]s began to engage the Royal Navy. The British warships were able to evade the attack, and stray rafts set Guangzhou's waterfront on fire, illuminating the river and foiling the night attack. Downriver at Whampoa the Chinese attacked the British vessels at anchor there and attempted to prevent ships from reaching Guangzhou. Having suspected an attack, and as a consequence delaying his own offensive, Major General Gough consolidated the British forces at Hong Kong and ordered a rapid advance upriver to Guangzhou. These reinforcements arrived on 25 May, and the British counter-attacked, taking the last four Qing forts above Guangzhou and bombarding the city.<ref name="MacPherson-1843" />

The Qing army fled in panic when the city heights were taken, and the British pursued them into the countryside. On 29 May a crowd of around 20,000 villagers and townspeople attacked and defeated a foraging company of 60 Indian [[sepoy]]s in what became known as the [[Sanyuanli Incident]], and Gough ordered a retreat back to the river. The fighting subsided on 30 May 1841, and Guangzhou came fully under British occupation.{{sfnb|Wakeman|1966|pp=11–14}}<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=J9Q1AAAAMAAJ ''Bulletins and Other State Intelligence'']. 1841 p. 686</ref><ref name="Dillon-2010" /> Following the capture of Guangzhou, the British command and the governor-general of Guangzhou agreed to a cease-fire in the region. Under the terms of the limited peace (later widely referred to as "The Ransom of Canton"), the British were paid to withdraw beyond the Bogue forts, an action they completed by 31 May.{{sfnb|Wakeman|1966|pp=11–14}} Elliott signed the peace treaty without consulting the British army or Navy, an act which displeased General Gough.<ref>Rait (1903) p. 193</ref>

The defence of Guangzhou was declared a diplomatic success by Yishan. In a letter to the emperor, he wrote that the barbarians had begged "the chief general that he would implore the great emperor in their behalf, that he would have mercy upon them, and cause their debts to be repaid them, and graciously permit them to carry on their commerce, when they would immediately withdraw their ships from the Bocca Tigris, and never dare again to raise any disturbance."<ref>Rait (1903) p. 203</ref> However, General Yang Fang was reprimanded by the emperor for his agreeing to a truce rather than forcefully resisting the British.<ref>Dillion (2010) p. 156</ref> The emperor was not informed the British expedition had not been defeated and was very much intact. The imperial court continued to debate China's next course of action for the war, as the Daoguang Emperor wanted Hong Kong retaken.<ref>Rait (1903) pp. 204, 205</ref>

=== Central China ===
[[File:HMS Wellesley and Squadron in Hong Kong.jpg|thumb|HMS ''Wellesley'' and the British squadron sailing from Hong Kong for the attack on Xiamen in 1841]]Following their withdrawal from Guangzhou, the British relocated the expeditionary force to Hong Kong. Just as with the Chinese commanders, the British leaders debated how the war should be continued. Elliot wanted to cease military operations and reopen trade, while Major General Gough wanted to capture the city of Amoy and blockade the Yangtze River.<ref>Rait (1903) p. 204</ref> In July, a typhoon struck Hong Kong, damaging British ships in the harbour and destroying some of the facilities the expedition was building on the island.<ref>Rait (1903) p. 202</ref> The situation changed when, on 29 July, Elliot was informed that he had been replaced as Superintendent by [[Henry Pottinger]], who arrived in Hong Kong on 10 August to begin his administration. Pottinger wanted to negotiate terms with the Qing for the entire country of China, rather than just the Pearl River, and so he turned away Chinese envoys from Guangzhou and gave permission for the expeditionary force to proceed with its war plans. Admiral [[Sir William Parker, 1st Baronet, of Shenstone|William Parker, 1st Baronet of Shenstone]] also arrived in Hong Kong to replace [[Humphrey Fleming Senhouse]] (who had died of a fever on 29 June) as the commander of the British naval forces in China. It was agreed by the British commanders that combat operations should be moved north to put pressure on Peking, and on 21 August the fleet sailed for Amoy.<ref>Rait (1903) 203–208</ref> [[File:18th Royal Irish at Amoy.jpg|thumb|left|British troops at the [[Battle of Amoy]], 1841]] On 25 August, the British fleet entered the [[Jiulong River]] estuary and arrived at Amoy. The city was prepared for a naval assault, as Qing military engineers had built several artillery batteries into the granite cliffs overlooking the river. A purely naval assault was considered too risky by Parker, prompting Gough to order a combined naval and ground attack on the defences. On 26 August British marines and regular infantry under the covering fire of the Royal Navy flanked and destroyed the Chinese defences guarding the river. Several large British ships failed to destroy the largest of the Chinese batteries, which withstood over 12,000 cannonballs being fired at it,<ref>Rait (1903) p. 212</ref> so the position was scaled and [[Battle of Amoy|captured by the British infantry]]. The city of Amoy was abandoned on 27 August, and British soldiers entered the inner town where they blew up the [[citadel]]'s powder magazine. 26 Chinese junks and 128 cannons were captured, with the captured guns being thrown into the river by the British. As Lord Palmerston wanted Amoy to become an international trade port at the end of the war, Gough ordered that no looting be tolerated and had officers enforce the death penalty for anyone found to be plundering. However, many Chinese merchants refused to ask for British protection out of fear of being branded as traitors to the Qing dynasty. The British withdrew to an island on the river, where they established a small garrison and blockaded the Jiulong River. With the city empty of any army, peasants, criminals, and deserters looted the town. The Qing army retook the city and restored order several days later, after which the city governor declared that a victory had been won and 5 British ships sunk.<ref>''Frontier and Overseas Expeditions From India'', vol. 6, p. 382</ref><ref name="Bernard-1847" />{{page range too broad|date=September 2021}}<ref>Rait (1903) pp. 208–218</ref>{{page range too broad|date=September 2021}}

In Britain, changes in Parliament resulted in Lord Palmerston being removed from his post as Foreign Minister on 30 August. [[William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne]] replaced him, and sought a more measured approach to the situation in China. Lamb remained a supporter of the war.<ref>Hoiberg. pp. 27–28</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Tsang |first=Steve Yui-Sang |title=A modern history of Hong Kong |publisher=I. B. Tauris |year=2011 |isbn=978-1-84511-419-0}}</ref>{{page needed|date=September 2021}}

In September 1841, the British transport ship ''[[Nerbudda (ship)|Nerbudda]]'' was shipwrecked on a reef off the northern coast of Formosa after a brief gunnery duel with a Chinese fort. This sinking was followed by the loss of the brig ''Ann'' on another reef in March 1842. The survivors of both ships were captured and marched to southern Taiwan, where they were imprisoned. 197 were executed by Qing authorities on 10 August 1842, while an additional 87 died from ill-treatment in captivity. This became known as the [[Nerbudda incident]].<ref>Bate, H. Maclear (1952). ''Reports from Formosa'' New York: E. P. Dutton. p. 174.</ref>

[[File:Second taking of Chusan.jpg|thumb|500px|The British forces invasion and [[Capture of Chusan (1841)|Second Capture of Chusan]]]]
October saw the British solidify their control over the central Chinese coast. Zhoushan had been exchanged for Hong Kong on the authority of Qishan in January 1841, after which the island had been re-garrisoned by the Qing. Fearing that the Chinese would improve the island's defences, the British began a military invasion. The British attacked the Qing on 1 October. The battle of the [[Capture of Chusan (1841)|Second Capture of Chusan]] ensued. The British forces killed 1500 Qing soldiers and captured Zhoushan. The victory reestablished British control over Dinghai's important harbour.<ref>MacPherson 1843, pp. 216, 359.</ref>{{better source needed|reason=only primary source provided from one side|date=February 2022}}

On 10 October, a British naval force [[Battle of Chinhai|bombarded and captured]] a fort on the outskirts of [[Ningbo]] in central China. A battle broke out between the British army and a Chinese force of 1500 men on the road between the town of Chinhai and Ningbo, during which the Chinese were routed. Following the defeat, Chinese authorities evacuated Ningbo and the empty city was taken by the British on 13 October. An imperial cannon manufactory in the city was captured by the British, reducing the ability of the Qing to replace their lost equipment, and the fall of the city threatened the nearby [[Qiantang River]].<ref>MacPherson 1843, pp. 381–385</ref><ref>Hall & Bernard 1846, p. 260</ref> The capture of Ningbo forced the British command to examine their policy towards occupied Chinese territory and prizes of war. Admiral Parker and Superintendent Pottinger wanted a percentage of all captured Chinese property to be turned over to the British as legal prizes of war, while General Gough argued that this would only turn the Chinese population against the British, and that if property had to be seized, it should be public property rather than private. British policy eventually settled that 10% of all property captured by the British expeditionary forces would be seized as war loot in retaliation for injustices done to British merchants. Gough later stated that this edict would compel his men to "punish one set of robbers for the benefit of another."<ref>Rait (1903) pp. 236–240</ref>

Fighting ceased for the winter of 1841 while the British resupplied.<ref name="Luscombe">{{Cite web |last=Luscombe |first=Stephen |title=The British Empire, Imperialism, Colonialism, Colonies |url=http://www.britishempire.co.uk/forces/armycampaigns/asia/china/opiumwar.htm |access-date=30 May 2017 |website=www.britishempire.co.uk}}</ref> False reports sent by Yishan to the emperor in Beijing resulted in the continued British threat being downplayed. In late 1841 the Daoguang Emperor discovered that his officials in Guangzhou and Amoy had been sending him embellished reports. He ordered the governor of [[Guangxi]], [[Liang Chang-chü]], to send him clear accounts of the events in Guangzhou, noting that since Guangxi was a neighbouring province, Liang must be receiving independent accounts. He warned Liang that he would be able to verify his information by obtaining secret inquiries from other places.<ref>Waley 1958, p. 73</ref> Yishan was recalled to the capital and faced trial by the imperial court, which removed him from command. Now aware of the severity of the British threat, Chinese towns and cities began to fortify against naval incursions.<ref name="Lovell-2015" />{{page needed|date=November 2021}}<ref name="Peyrefitte-1792" />{{page range too broad|date=September 2021}}

In the spring of 1842 the Daoguang Emperor ordered his cousin [[Yijing (prince)|Yijing]] to retake the city of Ningbo. In the ensuing [[Battle of Ningpo]] on 10 March, the British garrison repelled the assault with rifle fire and naval artillery. At Ningbo the British lured the Qing army into the city streets before opening fire, resulting in heavy Chinese casualties.<ref name="BSI-1842b">''Bulletins of State Intelligence''&nbsp;1842, pp. 578, 594</ref><ref name="Waley 2013 p. 171">[[Arthur Waley|Waley, Arthur]]&nbsp;(2013) p. 171</ref><ref>Lenton Robbren. [http://www.tibet.cn/info/history/t20050316_18450_1.htm "Tibetan Expeditionary Force participating in the Opium War"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140714142143/http://www.tibet.cn/info/history/t20050316_18450_1.htm |date=14 July 2014 }}.   China Tibet Information Center.</ref> The British pursued the retreating Chinese army, [[Battle of Tzeki|capturing]] the nearby city of [[Cixi City|Cixi]] on 15 March.<ref>''Bulletins''&nbsp;1842, p. 601</ref>

The important harbour of [[Zhapu]] was captured on 18 May in the [[Battle of Chapu]].<ref name="Ref-1" /> A British fleet bombarded the town, forcing its surrender. A holdout of 300 soldiers of the [[Eight Banners]] stalled the advance of British army for several hours, an act of heroism that was commended by Gough.<ref>Rait 1903, p. 264</ref><ref name="BSI-1842">''Bulletins of State Intelligence''&nbsp;1842, p. 918</ref>

=== Yangtze campaign ===
With many Chinese ports now blockaded or under British occupation, Major General Gough sought to cripple the finances of the Qing Empire by striking up the Yangtze River. 25 warships and 10,000 men were assembled at Ningbo and Zhapu in May for a planned advance into the Chinese interior.<ref name="Hall-1846">Hall & Bernard 1846, p. 330</ref> The expedition's advance ships sailed up the [[Yangtze]], and captured the emperor's tax barges, a devastating blow that slashed the revenue of the imperial court in Beijing to a fraction of what it had been.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fKG5VcYPtp0C&q=british+capture+emperor+tax+barges&pg=PA240 |title=War: The Definitive Visual History |publisher=Penguin |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-7566-6817-4}}</ref>

[[file:British troops capture Chin-Keang-Foo.jpg|thumb|British troops [[Battle of Chinkiang|capture Zhenjiang]] in the last major battle of the war, 21 July 1842]]
On 14 June, the mouth of the [[Huangpu River]] was captured by the British fleet. On 16 June, the [[Battle of Woosung]] occurred, after which the British captured the towns of [[Wusong District|Wusong]] and [[Baoshan District, Shanghai|Baoshan]]. The undefended outskirts of [[Shanghai]] were occupied by the British on 19 June. Following the battle, Shanghai was looted by retreating Qing bannermen, British soldiers, and local civilians. Qing admiral [[Chen Huacheng]] was killed while defending a fort in Woosong.<ref>''Bulletins of State Intelligence'' 1842, pp. 759, 816</ref><ref name="Rait-1903a">Rait 1903, pp. 267–268</ref><ref name="Hall-1846" />

The fall of Shanghai left the vital city of [[Nanjing]] vulnerable. The Qing amassed an army of 56,000 Manchu bannermen and Han Green Standards to defend Liangjiang Province, and strengthened their river defences on the Yangtze. However, British naval activity in Northern China led to resources and manpower being withdrawn to defend against a feared attack on Beijing.<ref>Granville G. Loch. [https://archive.org/details/closingeventsca01lochgoog The Closing Events of the Campaign in China: The Operations in the Yang-tze-kiang and] treaty [https://archive.org/details/closingeventsca01lochgoog of Nanking]. London. 1843 [2014]</ref> The Qing commander in Liangjiang Province released 16 British prisoners with the hope that a ceasefire could be reached, but poor communications led both the Qing and the British to reject any overtures at peace.<ref>Rait 1903. p. 266.</ref> In secret, the Daoguang Emperor considered signing a peace treaty with the British, but only in regards to the Yangtze River and not the war as a whole. Had it been signed, the British forces would have been paid to not enter the Yangtze River.<ref>Academy of Military Sciences, "History of Modern Chinese War" Section VII of the British invasion of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Military Science Press.</ref>

On 14 July, the British fleet on the Yangtze began to sail up the river. Reconnaissance alerted Gough to the logistical importance of the city of [[Zhenjiang]], and plans were made to capture it.<ref>"The Count of Aberdeen to Sir Henry Pudding" The Jazz "History of the Chinese Empire" (Chinese translation) vol. 1, pp. 755–756.</ref> Most of the city's guns had been relocated to Wusong and had been captured by the British when said city had been taken. The Qing commanders inside the city were disorganised, with Chinese sources stating that over 100 traitors were executed in Zhenjiang prior to the battle.<ref>(3) Part 5 "Diary of the Grass". Shanghai Bookstore. 2000. {{ISBN|7-80622-800-4}}.</ref>{{page needed|date=September 2021}} The British fleet arrived off of the city on the morning of 21 July, and the Chinese forts defending the city were blasted apart. The Chinese defenders initially retreated into the surrounding hills, causing a premature British landing. Fighting erupted when thousands of Chinese soldiers emerged from the city, beginning the [[Battle of Chinkiang]].{{citation needed|date=November 2022}}
[[File:98th Foot at Chinkiang.jpg|thumb|Fighting at Zhenjiang]]
British engineers blew open the western gate and stormed into the city, where fierce street to street fighting ensued. Zhenjiang was devastated by the battle, with many Chinese soldiers and their families committing suicide rather than be taken prisoner.<ref name="Ref-1" /><ref name="Elliott-1990" /> The British suffered their highest combat losses of the war (36 killed) taking the city.<ref name="Rait-1903a" /><ref name="Michie-2012" />{{page needed|date=September 2021}}<ref name="BSI-1842" />

After capturing Zhenjiang, the British fleet cut the vital [[Grand Canal (China)|Grand Canal]], paralysing the [[Caoyun system]] and severely disrupting the Chinese ability to distribute grain throughout the Empire.<ref>John Makeham (2008). p. 331</ref><ref name="Rait-1903a" /> The British departed Zhenjiang on 3 August, intending to sail to Nanking. They arrived outside the [[Jiangning, Nanjing|Jiangning District]] on 9 August, and were in position to assault the city by 11 August. Although explicit permission to negotiate had not yet been granted by the emperor, Qing officials inside the city agreed to a British request to negotiate.<ref>Waley (1959) p. 197.</ref>

=== Treaty of Nanking ===
{{Main|Treaty of Nanking}}

On 14 August a Chinese delegation led by the Manchu high court official [[Keying (official)|Keying]] and Llipu departed Nanking for the British fleet. Negotiations lasted for several weeks as the British delegation insisted the treaty be accepted by the Daoguang Emperor. The court advised the emperor to accept the treaty, and on 21 August the Daoguang Emperor authorised his diplomats to sign the peace treaty with the British.<ref>[http://www.tqxz.com/lssj_readme.asp?id=177 Treaty Chinese humiliating first – the signing of the "Nanjing Treaty"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080424122428/http://www.tqxz.com/lssj_readme.asp?id=177 |date=24 April 2008 }}. Chinese history theyatic networks. [2008-08-31]. Chinese source, used for dates only.</ref><ref>"Opium War" Volume 5. Shanghai People's Publishing House. 2000: 305 pages.</ref>{{page needed|date=December 2021}} The First Opium war officially ended on 29 August 1842 with the signing of the [[Treaty of Nanking]].<ref name="Greenwood">Greenwood ch.4</ref>{{page needed|date=September 2021}} The document was signed by officials of the British and Qing empires aboard {{HMS|Cornwallis|1813|6}}.<ref name="Hbs-2017">{{Cite web |title=After the Opium War: Treaty Ports and Compradors |url=https://www.library.hbs.edu/hc/heard/treaty-ports-compradors.html |access-date=26 May 2017 |website=www.library.hbs.edu}}</ref>
[[File:The Signing of the Treaty of Nanking.jpg|thumb|700px|center|{{center|Oil painting depicting the signing of the Treaty of Nanking.}}]]

=== Technology and tactics ===

==== British ====
The British military superiority during the conflict drew heavily on the strength of the Royal Navy.<ref name="victorianweb-1839" />

British warships carried more guns than their Chinese opponents and were manoeuvrable enough to evade Chinese boarding actions. Steam ships such as the ''[[Nemesis (1839)|Nemesis]]'' were able to move against winds and tides in Chinese rivers, and were armed with heavy guns and [[Congreve rocket]]s.<ref name="victorianweb-1839">{{Cite web |title=The Nemesis – Great Britain's Secret Weapon in the Opium Wars, 1839–60 |url=http://www.victorianweb.org/history/empire/opiumwars/nemesis.html |access-date=30 May 2017 |website=www.victorianweb.org}}</ref> Several of the larger British warships in China (notably the third-rates HMS ''Cornwallis'', [[HMS Wellesley (1815)|HMS ''Wellesley'']], and [[HMS Melville (1817)|HMS ''Melville'']]) carried more guns than entire fleets of Chinese junks.<ref name="Hall-1846" />{{Primary source inline|date=November 2022}} British naval superiority allowed the Royal Navy to attack Chinese forts with very little risk to themselves, as British naval cannons out-ranged the vast majority of the Qing artillery.<ref name="Hall-1846" />{{Primary source inline|date=November 2022}}

British soldiers in China were equipped with [[Brunswick rifle]]s and [[Brown Bess musket|rifle-modified Brown Bess muskets]], both of which possessed an effective firing range of 200–300&nbsp;metres.<ref name="Opiumwar blog-2014">{{Cite web |date=22 November 2014 |title=Warfare technology in the Opium War |url=https://opiumwarexhibition.wordpress.com/2014/11/22/warfare-technology-in-the-opium-war/ |access-date=30 May 2017 |website=The Opium War, 1839–1842}}</ref>{{better source needed|reason=this is a wordpress blog that uses total war center, a forum dedicated to a strategy video game, as a source|date=November 2021}} British marines were equipped with [[percussion cap]]s that greatly reduced weapon misfires and allowed firearms to be used in damp environments. In terms of gunpowder, the British formula was better manufactured and contained more sulphur than the Chinese mixture.<ref name="Opiumwar blog-2014" />{{better source needed|reason=this is a wordpress blog that uses total war center, a forum dedicated to a strategy video game, as a source|date=November 2021}} This granted British weapons an advantage in terms of range, accuracy and projectile velocity. British artillery was lighter (owing to improved [[forging]] methods) and more manoeuvrable than the cannons used by the Chinese. As with the naval artillery, British guns out-ranged the Chinese cannon.{{citation needed|date=March 2020}}

In terms of tactics, the British forces in China followed doctrines established during the [[Napoleonic Wars]] that had been adapted during the various colonial wars of the 1820s and 1830s. Many of the British soldiers deployed to China were veterans of [[British conquest of India|colonial wars in India]] and had experience fighting larger but technologically inferior armies.<ref>Jackson, Major Donovan (1940). ''India's Army''. London: Low, Marston. pp. 1–8. {{ISBN|8187226374}}</ref> In battle, the British [[line infantry]] would advance towards the enemy in columns, forming ranks once they had closed to firing range. Companies would commence firing volleys into the enemy ranks until they retreated. If a position needed to be taken, an advance or charge with [[bayonet]]s would be ordered. [[Light infantry]] companies screened the line infantry formations, protecting their flanks and utilising skirmishing tactics to disrupt the enemy.<ref name="Luscombe" /> British artillery was used to destroy the Qing artillery and break up enemy formations. During the conflict, the British superiority in range, rate of fire, and accuracy allowed the infantry to deal significant damage to their enemy before the Chinese could return fire.<ref>Kim Joosam "An Analysis of the Process of Modernization in East Asia and the Corresponding changes in China and Japan after the Opium Wars", ''Asian Study'' 11.3 (2009). ''The Korean Association of Philippine Studies''. Web.</ref>{{full citation needed|reason=cites web without url|date=November 2022}} The use of naval artillery to support infantry operations allowed the British to take cities and forts with minimal casualties.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Welcome to Zhenhai coast defence history museum |url=http://www.zhkhfsg.com/en/about.asp |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304054623/http://www.zhkhfsg.com/en/about.asp |archive-date=4 March 2016 |access-date=30 May 2017 |website=www.zhkhfsg.com}}</ref>{{failed verification|date=September 2021}}<ref name="Hederic">Hederic, p. 234</ref>{{Failed verification|date=September 2021}}

The overall strategy of the British during the war was to inhibit the finances of the Qing Empire, with the ultimate goal of acquiring a colonial possession on the Chinese coast. This was accomplished through the capture of Chinese cities and by blockading major river systems.<ref name="Cone">Cone, Daniel. [http://history.emory.edu/home/documents/endeavors/volume4/Cone.pdf An Indefensible Defense:The Incompetence of Qing Dynasty Officials in the Opium Wars, and the Consequences of Defeat] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170828210706/http://history.emory.edu/home/documents/endeavors/volume4/Cone.pdf |date=28 August 2017 }}.</ref> Once a fort or city had been captured, the British would destroy the local arsenal and disable all of the captured guns.<ref name="Hederic" />{{Failed verification|date=September 2021}} They would then move on to the next target, leaving a small garrison behind. This strategy was planned and implemented by Major General Gough, who was able to operate with minimal input from the British government after Superintendent Elliot was recalled in 1841.<ref>Hoiberg. pp. 28–30</ref> The large number of private British merchants and East India Company ships deployed in [[Singapore]] and the India colonies ensured that the British forces in China were adequately supplied.<ref>''Bulletins of State Intelligence'' 1841, p. 348</ref><ref name="Farooqui-2005" />{{page needed|date=September 2021}}
<gallery class="center" widths="355px" heights="355px">
File:Attack on war junks.jpg|A Royal Navy steamship destroying a Chinese junk with a Congreve rocket. Lightly armoured Chinese warships were decimated by heavy guns and explosive weaponry.
File:Joss House, Chapoo 1842.jpg|British line infantry advancing on a Chinese position.
</gallery>

==== Qing dynasty ====
China did not have a unified navy, instead allowing individual provinces to manage naval defenses.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Dreyer |first=Edward L. |title=Zheng He: China and the Ocean in the Early Ming Dynasty, 1405–1433 |year=2007 |publisher=Pearson |location=New York |page=180}}</ref> Although the Qing had invested in naval defences for their adjacent seas in earlier periods, after the death of the [[Qianlong Emperor]] in 1799, the navy decayed as more attention was directed to suppressing the [[Miao Rebellion]] and White Lotus Rebellion. These conflicts left the Qing treasury bankrupt. The remaining naval forces were badly overstretched, undermanned, underfunded and uncoordinated.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Po |first=Ronald C. |title=The Blue Frontier: Maritime Vision and Power in the Qing Empire Cambridge Oceanic Histories |year=2018 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1108424615 |page=80}}</ref>

From the onset of the war, the Chinese navy was severely disadvantaged. Chinese war junks were intended for use against pirates or equivalent types of vessels, and were more effective in close range river engagements. Due to their ships' slow speeds, Qing captains consistently found themselves sailing towards much more manoeuvrable British ships, and as a consequence the Chinese could only use their bow guns.<ref>Bingham 1843, p. 399</ref>{{Primary source inline|date=March 2022}} The size of the British ships made traditional boarding tactics useless, and the junks carried smaller numbers of inferior weaponry.<ref name="BSI-1842b" />{{Primary source inline|date=November 2022}} In addition, the Chinese ships were poorly armoured; in several battles, British shells and rockets penetrated Chinese magazines and detonated gunpowder stores. Highly manoeuvrable steamships such as HMS ''Nemesis'' could decimate small fleets of junks, as the junks had little chance of catching up to and engaging the faster British steamers.<ref name="Hall-1846" />{{Primary source inline|date=November 2022}} The only western-style warship in the Qing Navy, the converted [[East Indiaman]] [[Porcher (1799 ship)|''Cambridge'']], was destroyed in the Battle of First Bar.<ref>Bingham (1843), p. 72.</ref>{{Primary source inline|date=March 2022}}

Apparently, the Chinese emperor was aware of this. In an 1842 edict he said:
<blockquote>... the invasion by the rebellious barbarians, they depended upon their strong ships and effective guns to commit outrageous acts on the seas and harm our people, largely because the native war junks are too small to match them. For this reason I, the emperor, repeatedly ordered our generals to resist on land and not to fight on seas ... When the enemy ships come, no resistance can be offered; when they go away no means of pursuit are available ... In my opinion what the rebellious barbarians rely upon is the fact that Chinese war junks are incapable of going out to sea to fight them.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Chang |first=T. T. |title=Sino Portuguese Trade from 1514 to 1644 |year=1934 |location=Leyden |page=120}}</ref></blockquote>
The defensive nature of the conflict resulted in the Chinese relying heavily on an extensive network of fortifications. The [[Kangxi Emperor]] (1654–1722) began the construction of river defences to combat pirates, and encouraged the use of western style cannons. By the time of the First Opium War, multiple forts defended most major Chinese cities and waterways. Although the forts were well armed and strategically positioned, the Qing defeat exposed major flaws in their design. The cannons used in the Qing defensive fortifications were a collection of Chinese, Portuguese, Spanish, and British pieces.<ref>McPherson, Carruthers (2013) pp. 53</ref> The domestically produced Chinese cannon were crafted using sub-par forging methods, limiting their effectiveness in combat and causing excessive gun barrel wear. The Chinese blend of gunpowder also contained more charcoal than the British mixture did;{{citation needed|date=August 2024}} while this made it more stable and thus easier to store, it also limited its potential as a propellant, decreasing projectile range and accuracy.<ref>{{harvp|Mao|2016|p=32}}</ref><ref name="Opiumwar blog-2014" />{{better source needed|reason=this is a wordpress blog that uses total war center, a forum dedicated to a strategy video game, as a source|date=November 2021}} Overall, Chinese cannon technology was considered to be 200 years behind that of the British.<ref>{{harvp|Mao|2016|p=27}}</ref>

Chinese forts were unable to withstand attacks by European weaponry, as they were designed without angled [[glacis]] and many did not have protected magazines.<ref name="Cone" /><ref name="Rait-1903b">Rait (1903) pp. 189, 231</ref> The limited range of the Qing cannon allowed the British to bombard the Qing defences from a safe distance, then land soldiers to storm them with minimal risk. Many of the larger Chinese guns were built as fixed emplacements and were unable to be maneuvered to fire at British ships.<ref name="PBS-2017">PBS.org, "''The Story of China; Age of Revolution''". Aired 7 November 2017. https://www.pbs.org/video/opium-trade-china-bcwi05/</ref> The failure of the Qing fortifications coupled with the Chinese underestimation of the Royal Navy allowed the British to force their way up major rivers and impede Qing logistics.<ref name="Cone" /> Most notably, the powerful series of forts at Humen were well positioned to stop an invader from proceeding upriver to Guangzhou, but it had not been considered that an enemy would attack and destroy the forts themselves, as the British did during the war.<ref>Haijian, Mao (2016). ''The Qing Empire and the Opium War''. Cambridge University Press. {{ISBN|978-1107069879}}. p. 201</ref>

At the start of the war the Qing army consisted of over 200,000 soldiers, with around 800,000 men being able to be called for war. These forces consisted of Manchu [[Bannermen (ethnic group)|bannermen]], the [[Green Standard Army]], provincial militias, and imperial garrisons. The Qing armies were armed with matchlocks and shotguns, which had an effective range of 100&nbsp;metres.<ref name="Opiumwar blog-2014" />{{better source needed|reason=this is a wordpress blog that uses total war center, a forum dedicated to a strategy video game, as a source|date=November 2021}} Chinese historians Liu and Zhang note that the Chinese soldiers "were equipped with sixty or seventy percent traditional weapons, of which the most important were the long lance, the side sword, the bow and arrow, and the rattan shield, and only thirty or forty percent [of their armament consisted of] gunpowder weapons, of which the most important were the matchlock musket, the heavy musket, the cannon, the fire arrow, and the earthshaking bomb and such things."<ref name="Andrade-2016">{{Cite book |last=Andrade |first=Tonio |author-link=Tonio Andrade |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1jRJCgAAQBAJ&q=liu+and+zhang+qing+military&pg=PA241 |title=The Gunpowder Age: China, Military Innovation, and the Rise of the West in World History |year=2016 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-1-4008-7444-6}}</ref>{{page needed|date=September 2021}} Chinese soldiers were also equipped with halberds, spears, swords, and crossbows. The Qing dynasty also employed large batteries of artillery in battle.<ref name="Westminster-1903">{{Cite web |year=1903 |title=The life and campaigns of Hugh, first Viscount Gough, Field-Marshal |url=https://archive.org/stream/cu31924088002120#page/n269/mode/2up |access-date=3 June 2016 |website=archive.org |publisher=Westminster, A. Constable & Co.}}</ref>

The tactics of the Qing remained consistent with what they had been in previous centuries.<ref name="Andrade-2016" />{{page needed|date=November 2021}}<ref>[[Military of the Qing dynasty#CITEREFElliott2001|Elliott 2001]], pp. 283–284.</ref> Soldiers with firearms would form ranks and fire volleys into the enemy while men armed with spears and pikes would drive the enemy off of the battlefield.<ref>[[Military of the Qing dynasty#CITEREFElliott2001|Elliott 2001]], pp. 283–284, 300–303.</ref> Cavalry was used to break infantry formations and pursue routed enemies, while Qing artillery was used to scatter enemy formations and destroy fortifications.<ref>[[Qing dynasty#CITEREFCrossleySiuSutton2006|CrossleySiuSutton (2006)]], p. [https://books.google.com/books?id=EtNVMUx9qIIC&pg=PA50 50]</ref> During the First Opium War, these tactics were unable to successfully deal with British firepower. Chinese melee formations were decimated by artillery, and Chinese soldiery armed with matchlocks could not effectively exchange fire with British ranks, who greatly outranged them.<ref>Rait (1903) p. 228</ref><ref name="Luscombe" /> Most battles of the war were fought in cities or on cliffs and riverbanks, limiting the Qing usage of cavalry. Many Qing cannon were destroyed by British [[counter-battery fire]], and British light infantry companies were consistently able to outflank and capture Chinese artillery batteries.<ref name="Rait-1903b" />{{failed verification|date=November 2021}} A British officer said of the opposing Qing forces, "The Chinese are robust muscular fellows, and no cowards; the Tartars [i.e. Manchus] desperate; but neither are well commanded nor acquainted with European warfare. Having had, however, experience of three of them, I am inclined to suppose that a Tartar bullet is not a whit softer than a French one."<ref name="Westminster-1903" />

The strategy of the Qing dynasty during the war was to prevent the British from seizing Chinese territory.<ref name="Westminster-1903" /> This defensive strategy was hampered by the Qing severely underestimating the capacity of the British military. Qing defences on the Pearl and Yangtze rivers were ineffective in stopping the British push inland, and superior naval artillery prevented the Chinese from retaking cities.<ref name="Waley 2013 p. 171" /><ref name="China: The First Opium War" /> The Qing imperial bureaucracy was unable to react quickly to the prodding British attacks, while officials and commanders often reported false, faulty, or incomplete information to their superiors.<ref>Waley 1958, pp. 71–73</ref> The Qing military system made it difficult to deploy troops to counter the mobile British forces.<ref>{{harvp|Mao|2016|p=204}}</ref> In addition, the ongoing conflict with Sikhs on the Qing border with India drew away some of the most experienced Qing units from the war with Britain.<ref name="Rubin-1960" />{{page range too broad|date=September 2021}}

<gallery class="center" widths="355px" heights="355px">
File:Chinese soldiers with gingals.jpg|Chinese soldiers armed with a [[gingal]] during the First Opium War.
</gallery>

== Aftermath ==
The war ended in the signing of China's first [[unequal treaty]], the [[Treaty of Nanking]].<ref name="Greenwood" />{{page needed|date=September 2021}}<ref name="Hbs-2017" /> In the supplementary [[Treaty of the Bogue]], the Qing empire also recognised Britain as an equal to China and gave British subjects [[Extraterritoriality|extraterritorial]] privileges in treaty ports. In 1844, the United States and France concluded similar treaties with China, the [[Treaty of Wanghia]] and [[Treaty of Whampoa]], respectively.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/search?searchCode=LCCN&searchArg=12033773&searchType=1&permalink=y |title=Treaty of peace, amity, and commerce, between the United States of America and the Chinese Empire |date=21 July 1846 |publisher=s.n |via=catalog.loc.gov Library Catalog}}</ref>{{better source needed|reason=primary source and no page number|date=February 2022}}

In addition to opening China to European opium traders, the European trade in captive Chinese [[coolie]] labor boomed.<ref name=":6">{{Cite book |last=Driscoll |first=Mark W. |title=The Whites are Enemies of Heaven: Climate Caucasianism and Asian Ecological Protection |year=2020 |publisher=Duke University Press |isbn=978-1-4780-1121-7 |location=Durham, NC}}</ref>{{Rp|page=5}} Anglophone capitalists referred to this trade collectively as "poison and pigs."<ref name=":6" />{{Rp|page=5}}

China was required to permit foreign missionaries and the unequal treaties gave European powers jurisdiction over missions and some authority over Chinese Christians.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Moody |first=Peter |title=The Taiwan Question in Xi Jinping's Era: Beijing's Evolving Taiwan Policy and Taiwan's Internal and External Dynamics |publisher=[[Routledge]] |year=2024 |isbn=9781032861661 |editor-last=Zhao |editor-first=Suisheng |editor-link=Suisheng Zhao |location=London and New York |chapter=The Vatican and Taiwan: An Anomalous Diplomatic Relationship}}</ref>{{Rp|page=182}}

==Legacy==
[[File:Opium War Museum entrance.jpg|thumb|Entrance of the Opium War Museum in [[Humen Town]], Guangdong]]
[[File:British gold medal made out of Chinese silver (First Opium War).jpg|thumb|right|British gold medal, dually dated 1829 and March 1842, [[Royal Mint|London mint]]. Extracted out of the Chinese silver indemnity payments of the Treaty of Nanking]]

The opium trade faced intense enmity from later British Prime Minister [[William Ewart Gladstone]].<ref name="Lodwick2015">{{Cite book |last=Lodwick |first=Kathleen L. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DrAeBgAAQBAJ&q=William+Gladstone+opium&pg=PA86 |title=Crusaders Against Opium: Protestant Missionaries in China, 1874–1917 |year=2015 |publisher=University Press of Kentucky |isbn=978-0-8131-4968-4 |page=86}}</ref> As a member of Parliament, Gladstone called it "most infamous and atrocious" referring to the opium trade between China and British India in particular.<ref name="Chouvy2009">{{Cite book |last=Chouvy |first=Pierre-Arnaud |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qGl4TN_qIsgC&q=William+Gladstone+opium&pg=PA9 |title=Opium: Uncovering the Politics of the Poppy |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-674-05134-8 |page=9}}</ref> Gladstone was fiercely against both of the [[Opium Wars]] Britain waged in China: the First Opium War initiated in 1840 and the [[Second Opium War]] initiated in 1857. He denounced British violence against the Chinese and was ardently opposed to the British trade in opium to China.<ref name="QuinaultWindscheffel2013">{{Cite book |last=Quinault |first=Roland|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Hve4IOulDlwC&q=William+Gladstone+opium&pg=PT238 |title=William Gladstone: New Studies and Perspectives |last2=Clayton |first2=Ruth Windscheffel |last3=Swift |first3=Roger |year=2013 |publisher=Ashgate |isbn=978-1-4094-8327-4}}</ref> Gladstone lambasted it as "Palmerston's Opium War" and said in May 1840 that he felt "in dread of the judgments of God upon England for our national iniquity towards China".<ref name="Foxcroft2013">{{Cite book |last=Foxcroft |first=Louise |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VPosEno3uNYC&q=William+Gladstone+opium&pg=PA66 |title=The Making of Addiction: The 'Use and Abuse' of Opium in Nineteenth-Century Britain |publisher=Ashgate |year=2013 |isbn=978-1-4094-7984-0 |page=66}}</ref> Gladstone made a famous speech in Parliament against the First Opium War, stating, "A war more unjust in its origin, a war more calculated to cover this country with disgrace, I do not know, and I have not read of."<ref name="HanesSanello2004">{{Cite book |last=Hanes |first=William Travis |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jYmFAAAAQBAJ&q=William+Gladstone+opium&pg=PA78 |title=Opium Wars: The Addiction of One Empire and the Corruption of Another |last2=Sanello |first2=Frank |publisher=Sourcebooks |year=2004 |isbn=978-1-4022-0149-3 |pages=78, 88}}</ref><ref>Fay (2000) pp. 290</ref> His hostility to opium stemmed from the effects opium brought upon his sister Helen.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Isle of Wight Catholic History Society |url=https://iow-chs.org/island-people/helen-jane-gladstone-1814-80/ |website=iow-chs.org}}</ref><ref name="Isba2006">{{Cite book |last=Isba |first=Anne |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gaxDs8_oz_QC&q=William+Gladstone+opium&pg=PA224 |title=Gladstone and Women |year=2006 |publisher=A&C Black |isbn=978-1-85285-471-3 |page=224}}</ref> Due to the First Opium war brought on by Palmerston, there was initial reluctance to join the government of Peel on part of Gladstone before 1841.<ref name="Bebbington1993">{{Cite book |last=Bebbington |first=David William |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jEzV7PYYe5kC&q=William+Gladstone+opium&pg=PA108 |title=William Ewart Gladstone: Faith and Politics in Victorian Britain |publisher=William B. Eerdmans |year=1993 |isbn=978-0-8028-0152-4 |page=108}}</ref>

The war marked the start of what 20th century Chinese nationalists called the "[[century of humiliation]]". The ease with which the British forces defeated the numerically superior Chinese armies damaged the dynasty's prestige. The Treaty of Nanking was a step to opening the lucrative Chinese market to global commerce and the opium trade. The interpretation of the war, which was long the standard in the People's Republic of China, was summarised in 1976: The Opium War, "in which the Chinese people fought against British aggression, marked the beginning of modern Chinese history and the start of the Chinese people's bourgeois-democratic revolution against imperialism and feudalism."<ref name="Janin-1999">''The History of Modern China'' (Beijing, 1976) quoted in Janin, Hunt (1999). ''The India–China Opium Trade in the Nineteenth Century''. McFarland. p. 207. {{ISBN|0-7864-0715-8}}.</ref>

The Treaty of Nanking, the Supplementary Treaty of the Bogue, and two French and American agreements were all "unequal treaties" signed between 1842 and 1844. The terms of these treaties undermined China's traditional mechanisms of foreign relations and methods of controlled trade. Five ports were opened for trade, gunboats, and foreign residence: Guangzhou, Xiamen, Fuzhou, Ningbo, and Shanghai. Hong Kong was seized by the British to become a free and open port. Tariffs were abolished thus preventing the Chinese from raising future duties to protect domestic industries and extraterritorial practices exempted Westerners from Chinese law. This made them subject to their own civil and criminal laws of their home country. Most importantly, the opium problem was never addressed and after the treaty was signed opium addiction doubled. China was forced to pay 21 million silver [[tael]]s as an indemnity, which was used to pay compensation for the traders' opium destroyed by Commissioner Lin. A couple of years after the treaties were signed internal rebellion began to threaten foreign trade. Due to the Qing government's inability to control collection of taxes on imported goods, the British government convinced the Manchu court to allow Westerners to partake in government official affairs. By the 1850s the [[Chinese Maritime Customs Service]], one of the most important bureaucracies in the Manchu Government, was partially staffed and managed by Western Foreigners.<ref name="Sharpe" />{{page needed|date=September 2021}} In 1858, opium was legalised, and would remain a problem.<ref>Miron, Jeffrey A. and Feige, Chris. The Opium Wars: Opium Legalization and Opium Consumption in China. National Bureau of Economic Research, 2005.</ref>{{page needed|date=September 2021}}

Commissioner Lin, often referred to as "Lin the Clear Sky" for his moral probity,<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Lin Zexu |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/oscar/print?articleId=48330&fullArticle=true&tocId=4212 |access-date=3 June 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080701002326/https://www.britannica.com/oscar/print?articleId=48330&fullArticle=true&tocId=4212 |archive-date=1 July 2008 |url-status=dead}}</ref> was made a scapegoat. He was blamed for ultimately failing to stem the tide of opium imports and usage as well as for provoking an unwinnable war through his rigidity and lack of understanding of the changing world.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Lee |first=Khoon Choy |year=2007 |title=Pioneers of Modern China: Understanding the Inscrutable Chinese: Chapter 1: Fujian Rén & Lin Ze Xu: The Fuzhou Hero Who Destroyed Opium |url=http://www.eastasianstudies.com/eastasian/5921_01.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141006202706/http://www.eastasianstudies.com/eastasian/5921_01.htm |archive-date=6 October 2014 |access-date=3 June 2016 |website=East Asian Studies}}</ref> Nevertheless, as the Chinese nation formed in the 20th century, Lin became viewed as a hero, and has been immortalised at various locations around China.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Monument to the People's Heroes |url=http://www.lonelyplanet.com/worldguide/china/beijing/sights/1000228991 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080922072522/http://www.lonelyplanet.com/worldguide/china/beijing/sights/1000228991 |archive-date=22 September 2008 |access-date=3 June 2016 |website=Lonely Planet}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Lin Zexu Memorial |url=http://www.chinaculture.org/gb/en_museum/2003-09/24/content_30174.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160613173704/http://www.chinaculture.org/gb/en_museum/2003-09/24/content_30174.htm |archive-date=13 June 2016 |access-date=3 June 2016 |website=chinaculture.org}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Lin Zexu Memorial Museum Ola Macau Travel Guide |url=http://www.olamacauguide.com/lin-zexu-memorial-museum.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061022111918/http://www.olamacauguide.com/lin-zexu-memorial-museum.html |archive-date=22 October 2006 |access-date=3 June 2016 |website=olamacauguide.com}}</ref>

The First Opium War both reflected and contributed to a further weakening of the Chinese state's power and legitimacy.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Schell |first=Orville |last2=John Delury |date=12 July 2013 |title=A Rising China Needs a New National Story |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324425204578599633633456090 |access-date=14 July 2013 |work=Wall Street Journal}}</ref> Anti-Qing sentiment grew in the form of rebellions, such as the [[Taiping Rebellion]], a war lasting from 1850 to 1864 in which at least 20 million Chinese died. The decline of the Qing dynasty was beginning to be felt by much of the Chinese population.<ref name="Goldstone-2016" />{{page needed|date=September 2021}}

===Revisionist views===
The impact of the opium habit on the Chinese people, and the manner in which the British imposed their power to guarantee the profitable trade, have been staples of Chinese historiography ever since.<ref>Arthur Waley, ''The Opium War Through Chinese Eyes'' (London: Allen and Unwin, 1958)</ref>{{page needed|date=September 2021}}
The British historian [[Jasper Ridley (historian)|Jasper Ridley]] concluded:
{{blockquote|Conflict between China and Britain was inevitable. On the one side was a corrupt, decadent and caste-ridden despotism, with no desire or ability to wage war, which relied on custom much more than force for the enforcement of extreme privilege and discrimination, and which was blinded by a deep-rooted superiority complex into believing that they could assert their supremacy over Europeans without possessing military power. On the other side was the most economically advanced nation in the world, a nation of pushing, bustling traders, of self-help, free trade, and the pugnacious qualities of John Bull.<ref>Jasper Ridley, ''Lord Palmerston'' (1970) p. 249.</ref>}}
However, Ridley adds, opposition in Britain was intense:

{{blockquote|An entirely opposite British viewpoint was promoted by humanitarians and reformers such as the Chartists and religious nonconformists led by a young Gladstone. They argued that Palmerston (the foreign secretary) was only interested in the huge profits it would bring Britain, and was totally oblivious to the horrible moral evils of opium which the Chinese government was valiantly trying to stamp out.<ref>Ridley, 254–256.</ref><ref>May Caroline Chan, “Canton, 1857” ''Victorian Review'' (2010), 36#1 pp 31–35.</ref>}}

The American historian [[John K. Fairbank]] wrote:
{{blockquote|In demanding diplomatic equality and commercial opportunity, Britain represented all the Western states, which would sooner or later have demanded the same things if Britain had not. It was an accident of history that the dynamic British commercial interests in the China trade was centered not only on tea but also on opium. If the main Chinese demand had continued to be for Indian raw cotton, or at any rate if there had been no market for opium in late-Ch'ing China, as there had been none earlier, then there would have been no "opium war". Yet probably some kind of Sino-foreign war would have come, given the irresistible vigor of Western expansion and immovable inertia of Chinese institutions.<ref>John K. Fairbank, Edwin O. Reischauer and Albert M. Craig, ''A History of East Asian Civilization: Volume Two: East Asia the Modern transformation'' (1965) p. 136.</ref>}}

Some historians claim that Lord Palmerston, the British Foreign Secretary, initiated the Opium War to maintain the principle of free trade.<ref>Jasper Ridley, ''Lord Palmerston,'' (1970) p. 248</ref>
Professor Glenn Melancon, for example, argues that the issue in going to war was not opium but Britain's need to uphold its reputation, its honour and its commitment to global free trade. China was pressing Britain just when the British faced serious pressures in the Near East, on the Indian frontier and in Latin America. In the end, says Melancon, the government's need to maintain its honour in Britain and prestige abroad forced the decision to go to war.<ref name="Glenn Melancon 1840, pp 854-874">Glenn Melancon, "Honor in Opium? The British Declaration of War on China, 1839–1840," ''International History Review'' (1999) 21#4 pp. 854–874.</ref>{{page range too broad|date=September 2021}} Former American president [[John Quincy Adams]] commented that opium was "a mere incident to the dispute&nbsp;... the cause of the war is the [[kowtow]]—the arrogant and insupportable pretensions of China that she will hold commercial intercourse with the rest of mankind not upon terms of equal reciprocity, but upon the insulting and degrading forms of the relations between lord and vassal."<ref>{{Cite book |first=Julia |last=Lovell |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CxOEDwAAQBAJ&pg=PP67 |title=The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams, and the Making of Modern China |publisher=Abrams |year=2015 |isbn=978-1468313239 |page=67}}</ref>

Ray Huang, in ''China: A Macro History'', provides a broader context for understanding the Opium War. He argues that the causes of the conflict cannot be solely reduced to economic factors or immediate diplomatic tensions. Huang emphasizes the deep structural issues within the Qing dynasty, including economic strain, bureaucratic inefficiencies, and social unrest. These issues weakened the Qing state's ability to respond effectively to both internal and external pressures. The mounting frustrations of Chinese officials and the social dislocations they faced played a significant role in pushing the government towards harsher policies against the opium trade[4].

The Australian historian Harry G. Gelber argues that opium played a role similar to the tea dumped into the harbour in the [[Boston Tea Party]] of 1773 leading to the [[American Revolutionary War]]. Gelber argues instead:
{{blockquote|The British went to war because of Chinese military threats to defenceless British civilians, including women and children; because China refused to negotiate on terms of diplomatic equality and because China refused to open more ports than Guangzhou to trade, not just with Britain but with everybody. The belief about British "guilt" came later, as part of China's long catalogue of alleged Western "exploitation and aggression".<ref>Harry G. Gelber, "China as 'Victim'? The Opium War That Wasn't" in ''Harvard University Center for European Studies, Working Paper Series #136'' (2019)  [https://ces.fas.harvard.edu/uploads/files/Working-Papers-Archives/CES_WP136.pdf online]</ref>}}

Western women were actually not legally permitted to enter Guangzhou although they were permitted to live in Macau.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Waley-Cohen |first=Joanna |title=The Sextants of Beijing: Global Currents in Chinese History |publisher=W. W. Norton |year=2000 |isbn=039324251X |page=99}}</ref>

The Qing government hampered foreign trade and through the Canton System concentrated trade in Guangzhou. That being said, the policy of concentrating trade to a single port was also used in Western countries such as Spain and Portugal. Western merchants could also trade freely and legally with Chinese merchants in Xiamen and Macao or when the trade was conducted through ports outside China such as Manila and Batavia.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Vries |first=Peer |title=State, Economy and the Great Divergence: Great Britain and China, 1680s–1850s |year=2015 |publisher=Bloomsbury |isbn=978-1472526403 |pages=353–354}}</ref> Furthermore, Macao was restricted to Portuguese traders, and Xiamen the Spanish, who rarely made use of this privilege.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Greenberg |first=Michael |title=British Trade and the Opening of China 1800-1842 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1969 |page=47}}</ref>

The public in Western countries had earlier condemned the British government for supporting the opium trade.<ref name="Melancon-2003b" /> 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."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Brook |first=Timothy |title=Opium Regimes: China, Britain, and Japan, 1839–1952 |last2=Wakabayashi |first2=Bob Tadashi |year=2000 |publisher=University of California Press |location=Berkeley |isbn=9780520220096 |page=6 |doi=10.1525/california/9780520220096.001.0001}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Wakeman |first=Frederic Jr. |chapter=The Canton Trade in the Opium War |series=The Cambridge History of China |volume=10 |title=Late Ch'ing, 1800–1911 |last2=Fairbank |first2=John K. |year=1978 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=New York |page=172}}</ref> although this thesis is controversial<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Klimburg |first=Alexander |year=2001 |title=Some Research Notes on Carl A. Trocki's Publication "Opium, Empire and the Global Political Economy" |journal=Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies |volume=64 |issue=2 |pages=260–267 |doi=10.1017/S0041977X01000155 |jstor=3657672 |pmid=18546608 |s2cid=34708108}}</ref> Opium was the most common and the most profitable trade good and comprised 33–54% of all goods shipped from Bengal to the East between 1815 and 1818. Carl Trocki described "the British Empire east of Suez as of 1800 as essentially a drug cartel."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Trocki |first=Carl |title=Opium and Empire: Chinese Society in Colonial Singapore, 1800–1910 |year=2019 |publisher=Cornell University Press |isbn=978-1501746352 |pages=50–58}}</ref> James Bradley states that "between 1814 and 1850, the opium trade sucked out 11 percent of China's money supply".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bradley |first=James |title=The Imperial Cruise, a Secret History of Empire and War |year=2009 |publisher=Little & Brown |isbn=978-0316049665 |chapter=Chapter 10 |pages=274–275 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/imperialcruisese0000brad/page/274}}</ref>

Although shipping was regulated, the Qianlong emperor's administration was diligent in accommodating the requisites of Western merchants. It hired a growing body of Western assistants for the Customs Office to help manage its fellow countrymen. The order to stay in Macao during the winter was lifted; tax was exempted on food, drink, and basic supplies for Western merchants; and protections were granted to Westerners and their property.<ref>{{Cite thesis |last=Po |first=Chung-yam |title=Conceptualizing the Blue Frontier: The Great Qing and the Maritime World in the Long Eighteenth Century |date=28 June 2013 |publisher=Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg |url=http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/18877/1/PhD_Dissertation_CyPO.pdf |pages=203–204}}</ref> Qing laws prevented Chinese from pursuing foreigners through the courts. The prohibition mainly dated from the Qianlong Emperor's strong conviction that mistreatment of foreigners had been a major cause of the overthrow of several earlier dynasties.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Waley-Cohen |first=Joanna |title=The Sextants of Beijing: Global Currents in Chinese History |year=2000 |publisher=W. W. Norton |isbn=039324251X |location=New York; London |chapter=Chapter 4}}</ref>{{page needed|date=September 2021}}

The Qianlong Emperor granted Lord Macartney a golden sceptre, an important symbol of peace and wealth, but that was dismissed by the British, who were unaware of its symbolism. The Qianlong Emperor also dismissed the "lavish" presents that the British gave to facilitate diplomatic relations and concluded that they were no better than other European products. In 1806, Chinese officials compromised with the British on the murder of a Chinese man by British seamen, as Westerners refused to be punished under Chinese law, and local citizens vigorously protested for xenophobic reasons and because of perceived injustice. In 1816, the Jiaqing Emperor dismissed a British embassy for its refusal to kowtow, but he sent them an apologetic letter with gifts, which were later found in the Foreign Office, unread. The British ignored Chinese laws and warnings not to deploy military forces in Chinese waters. The British landed troops in Macao despite a Chinese and Portuguese agreement to bar foreign forces from Macao and then in the [[War of 1812]] attacked American ships deep in the inner harbour of Guangzhou (the Americans had previously robbed British ships in Chinese waters as well). Those, in combination with the British support to Nepal during [[Sino-Nepalese War|their invasion of Tibet]] and later [[Anglo-Nepalese War|British invasion of Nepal]] after it became a Chinese tributary state, led the Chinese authorities to become highly suspicious of British intentions.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Waley-Cohen |first=Joanna |title=The Sextants of Beijing: Global Currents in Chinese History |year=2000 |publisher=W. W. Norton |isbn=039324251X |pages=104, 126, 129–131, 136–137}}</ref> In 1834, when British naval vessels intruded into Chinese waters again, the Daoguang Emperor commented: "How laughable and deplorable is it that we cannot even repel two barbarian ships. Our military had decayed so much. No wonder the barbarians are looking down on us."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sng |first=Tuan-Hwee |url=http://apebhconference.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/sng.pdf |title=Size and dynastic decline. The principal-agent problem in late imperial China, 1700–1850}}</ref>{{page needed|date=September 2021}}

===Question of inevitability===
Historians have often pondered whether the war could have been avoided.<ref>Glenn Paul Melancon, "Palmerston, Parliament and Peking: The Melbourne Ministry and the Opium Crisis, 1835–1840" (PhD LSU, 1994) pp. 222–239.</ref> One factor was that China rejected diplomatic relations with the British or anyone else, as seen in the rejection of the Macartney mission in 1793. As a result, diplomatic mechanisms for negotiation and resolution were missing.<ref>Spence, ''The Search for Modern China''  (1990) pp. 122–123.</ref> Michael Greenberg locates the inevitable cause in the momentum for more and more overseas trade in Britain's expanding modern economy.<ref>Michael Greenberg, ''British Trade and the Opening of China, 1800–1842'' (1951), p. 215.</ref> On the other hand, the economic forces inside Britain that were war hawks, Radicals in Parliament and northern merchants
and manufacturers, were a political minority and needed allies, especially Palmerston, before they could get their war.<ref>Peter J. Cain, and Anthony G. Hopkins. ''British Imperialism: Innovation and Expansion 1688–1914'' (1993) p. 40.</ref> In Parliament, the Melbourne government faced a host of complex international threats including the [[Chartism|Chartist]] riots at home, bothersome budget deficits, unrest in Ireland, rebellions in Canada and Jamaica, war in Afghanistan, and French threats to British business interests in Mexico and Argentina. The opposition demanded more aggressive answers, and it was Foreign Minister Palmerston who set up an easy war to solve the political crisis.<ref>Jasper Ridley, ''Lord Palmerston'' (1970) pp. 248–260.</ref> It was not economics, opium sales or expanding trade that caused the British to go to war, Melancon argues, but it was more a matter of upholding aristocratic standards of national honour sullied by Chinese insults.<ref>Glen Melancon,  "Honour in Opium? The British Declaration of War on China, 1839–1840." ''International History Review'' 21 (1999): 855–874 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/40109164 online].</ref>{{page range too broad|date=September 2021}}<ref>Glenn Melancon, ''Britain's China Policy and the Opium Crisis: Balancing Drugs, Violence and National Honour, 1833–1840'' (2003).</ref>{{page needed|date=September 2021}}

One historiographical problem is that the emphasis on the British causal factors tends to ignore the Chinese. The Manchu rulers were focused on internal unrest by Chinese elements and paid little attention to the minor issues happening in Guangzhou.<ref>Paul A. Cohen, ''Discovering History in China: American Writing on the Recent Chinese Past'' (1984), pp. 9–55, 97–147.</ref>{{page range too broad|date=September 2021}} The historian James
Polachek argues the reasons for trying to suppress the opium trade had to do with internal factionalism led by a purification-oriented group of literary scholars who paid no attention to the risk of international intervention by much more powerful military forces. Therefore, it was not a matter of inevitable conflict between contrasting worldviews.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Polachek |first=James M. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3-GILbpJUv0C&pg=PA74 |title=The Inner Opium War |publisher=Harvard University Asia Center |year=1992 |isbn=978-0674454460 |pages=73–76, 134–135}}</ref> Lin and the Daoguang Emperor, comments Spence, "seemed to have believed that the citizens of Guangzhou and the foreign traders there had simple, childlike natures that would respond to firm guidance and statements of moral principles set out in simple, clear terms." Neither considered the possibility that the British government would be committed to protecting the smugglers.{{sfn|Spence|1999|pp=152–158}} Polachek argues, based on records of court debate, that growing court awareness that opium addiction in the Guangdong military garrisons, caused by widespread collusion between British smugglers, Chinese smugglers and Chinese officials, had completely impaired their military effectiveness. That left the entire southern flank of the Qing exposed to military threats and was more important in generating opposition to the drug trade than economic reasons. Polachek shows that Lin Zexu and the hardliners (mistakenly) believed that by arresting drug abusers, confiscating the opium supplies and promising to allow the British to continue trading in other goods, they could persuade the British to give up the drug trade without a war.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Polachek |first=James M. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3-GILbpJUv0C&pg=PA74 |title=The Inner Opium War |publisher=Harvard University Asia Center |year=1992 |isbn=978-0674454460 |pages=109, 128–135}}</ref>

== Interactive map ==
{{First Opium War 1839-42 Conflict Overview}}

== See also ==
* [[Illustrated Treatise on the Maritime Kingdoms]]
* [[The Opium War (film)]]

===Individuals===
* [[William Jardine (merchant)]]
* [[William Napier, 9th Lord Napier]]
* [[David Sassoon (treasurer)|David Sassoon]]

== Notes ==
{{Notelist}}

== References ==

=== Citations ===
{{reflist|30em}}

=== Sources ===
{{refbegin|30em}}
* [[Jack Beeching|Beeching, Jack]], ''The Chinese Opium Wars'' (Hutchinson, 1975)
* Bingham, John Elliot (1843). ''[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.511770 Narrative of the Expedition to China from the Commencement of the War to Its Termination in 1842]'' (2nd ed.). Volume 2. London: Henry Colburn.
* Compilation Group for the "History of Modern China" Series. (2000). ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=2W1Jmh2QpukC The Opium War]''. Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific; reprint from 1976 edition. {{ISBN|0-89875-150-0}}.
* Crossley, Pamela Kyle; Siu, Helen F.; Sutton, Donald S. (2006), ''Empire at the Margins: Culture, Ethnicity, and Frontier in Early Modern China'', University of California Press, {{ISBN|0-520-23015-9}}.
*  Derden, John K. "The British Foreign Office and Policy Formation: The 1840s," ''Proceedings & Papers of the Georgia Association of Historians'' (1981) pp.&nbsp;64–79.
* Dillon, Michael (2010). [https://books.google.com/books?id=4wODajYOA-0C ''China: A Modern History'']. I. B. Tauris. {{ISBN|978-1-85043-582-2}}.
* Downs, Jacques M. (1997). [https://books.google.com/books?id=Tw4wBQAAQBAJ ''The Golden Ghetto: The American Commercial Community at Canton and the Shaping of American China Policy, 1784–1844'']. Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press; reprinted, Hong Kong University Press, 2014. {{ISBN|0-934223-35-1}}.
* Elliot, Mark C. (2001), The Manchu Way: The Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial China. Stanford University Press, {{ISBN|0-8047-4684-2}}.
* [[John King Fairbank|Fairbank, John King]], ''Trade and Diplomacy on the China Coast; the Opening of the Treaty Ports, 1842–1854'' (Harvard University Press, 1953).
* {{Cite book |last=Teng |first=Ssu-yu |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0maVJuCh78oC |title=China's Response to the West: A Documentary Survey, 1839–1923 |last2=Fairbank |first2=John King |author-link2=John K. Fairbank |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=1979 |isbn=9780674120259}}
* Fay, Peter Ward, ''The Opium War, 1840–1842: Barbarians in the Celestial Empire in the early part of the nineteenth century and the way by which they forced the gates ajar'' (Chapel Hill: [[University of North Carolina Press]], 2000).
* {{Cite book |last=Gray |first=Jack |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ApTwKwW5dDwC |title=Rebellions and Revolutions: China from the 1800s to 2000 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=2002 |isbn=978-0-19-870069-2 |location=New York}}
* Greenberg, Michael. ''British Trade and the Opening of China, 1800–42.'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Studies in Economic History, 1951). Various reprints. Uses Jardine Matheson papers to detail the British side of the trade.
* {{Cite book |last=Greenwood |first=Adrian |author-link=Adrian Greenwood |url=http://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/index.php/victoria-s-scottish-lion-26465.html |title=Victoria's Scottish Lion: The Life of Colin Campbell, Lord Clyde |publisher=History Press |year=2015 |isbn=978-0-7509-5685-7 |page=496 |access-date=26 November 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160221172547/http://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/index.php/victoria-s-scottish-lion-26465.html/ |archive-date=21 February 2016 |url-status=dead}}
* Hoe, Susanna; Roebuck, Derek (1999). ''The Taking of Hong Kong: Charles and Clara Elliot in China Waters''. Curzon Press. {{ISBN|0-7007-1145-7}}.
* Hsin-Pao Chang. ''Commissioner Lin and the Opium War.'' (Harvard University Press, Harvard East Asian Series, 1964).
* Hoiberg, Dale H., ed. (2010). "Aberdeen, George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl". ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' (15th ed.). p.&nbsp;28. {{ISBN|978-1-59339-837-8}}.
* {{cite ECCP}}
* [[Kendall Johnson|Johnson, Kendall]], ''The New Middle Kingdom: China and the Early American Romance of Free Trade'' (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017 {{ISBN|978-1-4214-2251-0}}).
* Klein, Thoralf. "Rethinking the Origins of ‘Western’ Imperialism in China: Global Constellations and Imperial Policies, 1790–1860." ''History Compass'' 10.11 (2012): 789–801. [http://www.academia.edu/download/40205850/Rethinking_the_Origins_of_Western_Imperialism_in_China_review2.doc online]{{dead link|date=January 2025|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}
* Manhong Lin. ''China Upside Down: Currency, Society, and Ideologies, 1808–1856.'' (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Asia Center, Harvard East Asian Monographs, 2006). {{ISBN|0-674-02268-8}}. Detailed study of the economics of the trade.
* {{cite book |last=Mao |first=Haijian |title=The Qing Empire and the Opium War |publisher=Cambridge University Press |date=2016 |isbn=978-1-107-06987-9}}
* [[Julia Lovell|Lovell, Julia]], ''The Opium War: Drug, Dreams and the Making of China'' (London, Picador, 2011 {{ISBN|0-330-45747-0}}). Well referenced narrative using both Chinese and western sources and scholarship.
* McPherson, Duncan, Carruthers, Bob. ''The First Opium War, The Chinese Expedition 1840–1842, the illustrated edition'' (Coda Books, 2013). {{ISBN|978-1781583609}}.
* McPherson, Duncan. (1842). [[iarchive:twoyearsinchina00macpgoog|''Two Years in China: Narrative of the Chinese Expedition, from Its Formation in April 1840, Till April 1842: with an Appendix, Containing the Most Important of the General Orders & Despatches Published During the Above Period'']]. London: Saunders and Otley.
* Madancy, Joyce. "Unearthing popular attitudes toward the opium trade and opium suppression in Late Qing and Early Republican Fujian." ''Modern China'' 27.4 (2001): 436–483. [https://www.corwin.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/2947_10mc01.pdf#page=33 online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191224152158/https://www.corwin.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/2947_10mc01.pdf#page=33 |date=24 December 2019 }}
* Makeham, John (2008). [https://books.google.com/books?id=TQ4NAQAAMAAJ ''China: The World's Oldest Living Civilization Revealed'']. Thames & Hudson. p.&nbsp;331. {{ISBN|978-0-500-25142-3}}.
* Melancon, Glenn. "Honour in Opium? The British Declaration of War on China, 1839–1840." ''International History Review'' 21.4 (1999): 855–874. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/40109164 online]
* Melancon, Glenn. ''Britain's China Policy and the Opium Crisis: Balancing Drugs, Violence and National Honour, 1833–1840'' (Routledge, 2017).
* Morse, Hosea Ballou. ''[[iarchive:internationalrel00mors|The International Relations of the Chinese Empire]]''. Volume 1. (1910)
* {{Cite journal |last=Miron |first=Jeffrey A. |last2=Feige |first2=Chris |name-list-style=amp |year=2008 |title=The Opium Wars: Opium Legalization and Opium Consumption in China |url=https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/11379703/miron-opium-wars.pdf?sequence=3 |journal=Applied Economics Letters |volume=15 |issue=12 |pages=911–913 |doi=10.1080/13504850600972295 |s2cid=218639653}}
* Newman, Richard K. "Opium smoking in late imperial China: a reconsideration." ''Modern Asian Studies'' 29.4 (1995): 765–794.
* Polachek, James M., ''The Inner Opium War'' (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1992.) Based on court records and diaries, presents the debates among Chinese officials whether to legalise or suppress the use and trade in opium.
* [https://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/21f/21f.027/opium_wars_01/ow1_essay_03.pdf Perdue, Peter C., "The First Opium War: The Anglo-Chinese War of 1839–1842: Hostilities"] (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2011. MIT Visualizing Cultures).
* Rait, Robert S. (1903). ''[[iarchive:cu31924088002120|The Life and Campaigns of Hugh, First Viscount Gough, Field-Marshal]]''. Volume 1. Westminster: Archibald Constable.
* ''Frontier and Overseas Expeditions From India'', vol. 6, p.&nbsp;382
* {{Cite book |last=Spence |first=Jonathan D. |author-link=Jonathan Spence |title=The Search for Modern China |publisher=W. W. Norton |year=1999 |isbn=978-0-393-97351-8 |edition=2nd |location=New York}}
* Spence, Jonathan D. "Opium Smoking in Ch’ing China." in ''Conflict and Control in Late Imperial China. '' Edited by Frederic Wakeman Jr. and Carolyn Grant. (University of California Press, 1975).
* {{Cite book |last=Wakeman |first=Frederic E. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NCgXTcXH-3MC |title=Strangers at the Gate; Social Disorder in South China, 1839–1861 |publisher=University of California Press |year=1966 |isbn=0520212398 |location=Berkeley}}
* [[Arthur Waley|Waley, Arthur]], ''The Opium War Through Chinese Eyes'' (London: Allen & Unwin, 1958; reprinted Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1968). Translations and narrative based on Lin's writings.
* ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=StpbAAAAQAAJ Correspondence Relating to China]'' (1840). London: Printed by T. R. Harrison.
* ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=0JZCAAAAYAAJ The Chinese Repository]'' (1840). Volume 8.
* [[Arthur Waley|Waley, Arthur]] (2013) [First published 1958]. [https://books.google.com/books?id=acH8AQAAQBAJ ''The Opium War Through Chinese Eyes'']. Taylor & Francis. {{ISBN|978-1-136-57665-2}}.
* Myers, H. Ramon; Wang, Yeh-Chien (2002), "Economic developments, 1644–1800", in Peterson Willard J. (ed.), ''Part One: The Ch'ing Empire to 1800'', The Cambridge History of China, '''9''', Cambridge University Press, pp.&nbsp;563–647, {{ISBN|978-0-521-24334-6}}.
* [[Charles C. Mann]] (2011), [https://archive.org/details/1493uncoveringne00mann ''1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created''], Random House Digital, pp.&nbsp;123–163, {{ISBN|9780307596727}}
* Bernard, William Dallas; Hall, William Hutcheon (1847). ''[https://archive.org/details/nemesisinchinac01hallgoog The Nemesis in China]'' (3rd ed.). London: Henry Colburn.
* Parker, Edward Harper (1888). ''Chinese Account of the Opium War''. Shanghai
* {{Cite journal |last=Headrick |first=Daniel R. |year=1979 |title=The Tools of Imperialism: Technology and the Expansion of European Colonial Empires in the Nineteenth Century |url=http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/imperialism/articles/headrick.pdf |journal=The Journal of Modern History |volume=51 |issue=2 |pages=231–263 |doi=10.1086/241899 |s2cid=144141748 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110629144158/http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/imperialism/articles/headrick.pdf |archive-date=29 June 2011}}
* [https://books.google.com/books?id=J9Q1AAAAMAAJ ''Bulletins and Other State Intelligence'']. Compiled and arranged from the official documents published in the London Gazette. London: F. Watts. 1841.
* Granville G. Loch. [https://archive.org/details/closingeventsca01lochgoog The Closing Events of the Campaign in China: The Operations in the Yang-tze-kiang and] treaty [https://archive.org/details/closingeventsca01lochgoog of Nanking]. London. 1843 [2014-07-13]
* "The Count of Aberdeen to Sir Henry Pudding" The "History of the Chinese Empire" (Chinese translation) vol. 1, pp.&nbsp;755–756.
* Gao, Shujuan (高淑娟); Feng, Bin (冯斌) (2003). [https://books.google.com/books?id=FR367iWJdb8C ''Comparative Outline of Chinese and Japanese Foreign Policy: Central Trade Policy in the Final Years of the Imperial Era (中日对外经济政策比较史纲: 以封建末期贸易政策为中心)'']. Qinghua University Chinese Economic Historiography Series (清华大学中国经济史学丛书) (in Chinese). [[Tsinghua University]] Publishing (清华大学出版社). {{ISBN|978-7302075172}}.
{{refend}}

==External links==
{{Commons category}}
* [https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/sittings/1840/index.html Hansard of the British Parliament 1840s]
* [http://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/21f/21f.027/opium_wars_01/ow1_essay01.html Perdue, Peter C., "The First Opium War: The Anglo-Chinese War of 1839–1842: Opium Trade"] (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2011. MIT Visualizing Cultures).
* [https://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/21f/21f.027/opium_wars_01/ow1_essay_03.pdf Perdue, Peter C., "The First Opium War: The Anglo-Chinese War of 1839–1842: Hostilities"] (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2011. MIT Visualizing Cultures).
* [http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/special/china_1750_opium.htm "The Opium War and Foreign Encroachment", Education for Educators (Columbia University)]. Resources for teaching.
* [https://artsandculture.google.com/partner/opium-war-museum Opium War Museum, Dongguan, Guangzhou; Google Arts & Culture]

{{British colonial campaigns}}

{{Qing dynasty topics}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Opium War, 1st}}
[[Category:First Opium War| ]]
[[Category:1839 in China]]
[[Category:1840 in China]]
[[Category:1841 in China]]
[[Category:1842 in China]]
[[Category:Wars involving the British East India Company]]
[[Category:History of the Royal Marines]]
[[Category:Punitive expeditions of the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:Eight Banners]]
[[Category:Military history of Taiwan]]
[[Category:Organized crime conflicts]]