First Opium War

First Opium War
Part of the Opium Wars
The East India Company steamship Nemesis (right background) destroying war junks during the Second Battle of Chuenpi, 7 January 1841
Date 4 September 1839 – 29 August 1842 (2 years, 11 months, 3 weeks and 4 days) Location China and South China Sea Result British victory Territorial changes Hong Kong Island ceded to Britain
Belligerents
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland  East India Company	China
Commanders and leaders
Queen Victoria William Lamb Robert Peel Henry Temple Charles Elliot George Elliot James Bremer Hugh Gough Henry Pottinger William Parker Humphrey Senhouse	Daoguang Emperor Lin Zexu Qishan Yishan Yijing Yilibu Guan Tianpei † Chen Huacheng † Ge Yunfei † Yang Fang Keying
Strength
19,000+ troops:[1] British Army: 5,000 Indian Army: 5,000 Ceylon Light Infantry: 2,000 Royal Marines: 7,069 37 ships:[1] 14 sloops-of-war 8 frigates 3 ships of the line 12 other ships[a]	222,212 total troops[b] Eight Banners: 16,708 Green Standard Army: 205,504
Casualties and losses
69 killed in battle[1] 451 wounded[1] 284 executed or died in captivity in Formosa[3][4]	est. 3,100 killed[c]

The First Opium War (Chinese: 第一次鴉片戰爭; pinyin: Dìyīcì yāpiàn zhànzhēng), also known as the Anglo-Chinese War, was a series of military engagements fought between the British Empire and the Qing dynasty of China between 1839 and 1842. The immediate issue was the Chinese enforcement of their ban on the opium trade by seizing private opium stocks from merchants at Guangzhou^[d] 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 demand for Chinese luxury goods (particularly silk, porcelain, and tea) created a trade imbalance between China and Britain. 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, drained the economy of silver, and increased the numbers of opium addicts inside the country, outcomes that seriously worried Chinese officials.

In 1839, the Daoguang Emperor, rejecting proposals to legalise and tax opium, appointed Viceroy of Huguang Lin Zexu to go to Canton to halt the opium trade completely.^[7] Lin wrote an open letter to Queen Victoria appealing to her moral responsibility to stop the opium trade, although she never read it.^[8][9][10] Lin then resorted to using force in the western merchants enclave. He arrived in Guangzhou at the end of January and organized a coastal defense. In March, British opium dealers were forced to hand over 2.37 million pounds of opium. On 3 June, Lin ordered the opium to be destroyed in public on Humen Beach to show the Government's determination to ban smoking.^[11] All other supplies were confiscated and a blockade of foreign ships on the Pearl River was ordered.^{[12][page needed]}

Tensions escalated in July after British sailors killed a Chinese villager and the British government refused to hand the accused men over to Chinese authorities. Fighting later broke out, with the British navy destroying the Chinese naval blockade, and launching an offensive.^[11] 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.^[13] 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 (1856–60). The resulting social unrest was the background for the Taiping Rebellion, which further weakened the Qing regime.^{[14][full citation needed][15]}

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