The Opium Wars
2 min readThe Opium Wars or Sino-British Opium War, lasting from 1840 to 1842 and 1856 to1860 respectively, was a turning point for China to be reduced into a semi-colonial and semi-feudalist country.
The First Opium War started in 1840 when British smuggled opium from British India into China and the Qing government exerted its efforts to enforce the drug laws. In March1839, the Emperor appointed Lin Zexu as the governor of Canton with the goal of reducing and eliminating the Opium trade. He enforced the imperial demand that there be a permanent halt to drug shipments into China, and then imposed a trade embargo on the British. He arrested about 1,700 opium dealers, and destroyed about 2.6 million pounds of opium by dissolving it with water, salt and lime and dumping it into the ocean, burning it in public. British government started war of invasion by first seizing Hong Kong and then sent a large British Indian army to take Canton, occupied Dinghai, Zhenghai, Ningbo and Shanghai, and sailed up the Yangtze River and reached Jiangning(Nanjing) on August 5,1842. The Qing authorities sued for peace, which concluded with the Treaty of Nanjing. In the treaty, China was forced to pay an indemnity to Britain, and agreed to open five ports, Guangzhou, Fuzhou, Xiamen, Ningbo and Shanghai, for trade, and ceded Hong Kong to Queen Victoria.
The Second Opium War broke out in 1856 when the Qing court rejected the unreasonable demands from Britain, France, Russia and the USA, who formed an alliance and conspired the invasion.Taking the advantage of Arrow Incident，the British attacked Guangzhou.Thealliance cruised north to capture the Taku Forts and soon reached Tianjin.The Qing government succumbed again with humiliating Treaty of Tianjin，which opened more ports toWestern trade.In Feburary 1860，a larger Anglo-French force（11，000 British，6，700 French）with 173 ships sailed from Hong Kong，and soon captured the port cities of Yantai and Dalian.After taking Tianjin，the Anglo-French forces entered Beijing on October 13 and began looting and burning the Old Summer Palace（Yuanmingyuan）.On October 24 and 25，the Qing Court surrendered to the alliance，and the Treaty of Tianjin was finally ratified and the Treaty of Peking was signed，bringing the Second Opium Warto an end.The Chinese had to pay 8 million taels to Britain and France.Britain acquired Kowloon，and Tianjin was opened as a trade port.
The opium trade was legalized and Christians were granted full civil rights.
The Qing Dynasty succumbed to the west invaders in both wars，and humiliatingly signed the unequal treaties，which brought about tragic consequences for the development of China.
Many Chinese were infuriated and fought bravely in various forms resulting in the Taiping Uprising（1850-1864），the Boxer Movement（1899-1901），and finally the downfall of the Qing Dynasty in 1911.
