Victoria 2 stockpile destroys goods6/23/2023 ![]() īritish ships began to appear sporadically around the coasts of China from 1635 on. 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. From 1565, the Manila Galleons brought silver into the Asian trade network from mines in South America. After the Spanish conquest of the Philippines the exchange of goods between China and Europe accelerated dramatically. 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 intra-regional commerce. 1665ĭirect maritime trade between Europe and China began in 1557 when the Portuguese leased an outpost from the Ming dynasty in Macau. View of Canton with merchant ship of the Dutch East India Company, c. Background Establishment of trade relations The resulting social unrest was the background for the Taiping Rebellion, which further weakened the Qing regime. The failure of the treaty to satisfy British goals of improved trade and diplomatic relations led to the Second Opium War (1856–60). 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. 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. Fighting later broke out, with the British navy destroying the Chinese naval blockade, and launching an offensive. 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. All other supplies were confiscated and a blockade of foreign ships on the Pearl River was ordered. On 3 June, Lin ordered the opium to be destroyed in public on Humen Beach to show the Government's determination to ban smoking. In March, British opium dealers were forced to hand over 2.37 million pounds of opium. He arrived in Guangzhou at the end of January and organized a coastal defense. Lin then resorted to using force in the western merchants enclave. Lin wrote an open letter to Queen Victoria, which she never saw, appealing to her moral responsibility to stop the opium trade. In 1839, the Daoguang Emperor, rejecting proposals to legalise and tax opium, appointed Viceroy Lin Zexu to go to Canton to halt the opium trade completely. 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. 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. ![]() European silver flowed into China through the Canton System, which confined incoming foreign trade to the southern port city of Canton. In the 18th century, the demand for Chinese luxury goods (particularly silk, porcelain, and tea) created a trade imbalance between China and Britain. Twentieth century nationalists consider 1839 the start of a century of humiliation, and many historians consider it the beginning of modern Chinese history. Consequently the opium trade continued in China. The British then imposed the Treaty of Nanking, which forced China to increase foreign trade, give compensation, and cede Hong Kong to the British. After months of tensions between the two nations, the British navy launched an expedition in June 1840, which ultimately defeated the Chinese using technologically superior ships and weapons by August 1842. Opium was Britain's single most profitable commodity trade of the 19th century. 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. The immediate issue was the Chinese enforcement of their ban on the opium trade by seizing private opium stocks from merchants at Canton and threatening to impose the death penalty for future offenders. The First Opium War ( Chinese: 第一次鴉片戰爭 pinyin: Dìyīcì Yāpiàn Zhànzhēng), also known as the Opium War or the Anglo-Sino War was a series of military engagements fought between Britain and the Qing dynasty of China between 18.
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