The Opium Wars
Two wars fought by Britain — joined by France in the second — against Qing China, arising from the British insistence on trading opium into China against Chinese law and on terms of its own choosing. The First War (1839–1842) followed Lin Zexu's destruction of confiscated opium and ended in Qing defeat and the Treaty of Nanking; the Second (1856–1860) ended with the sacking of the Yuanmingyuan and treaties that legalised the opium trade and opened further ports. The wars were fought so that Britain could keep paying for tea with a narcotic, and they inaugurated what Chinese historiography calls the century of humiliation.
Historical — it happened, and the record is settled.
Subjects
- Opium · trade good · not located
- Tea · trade good · not located
- Silver · trade good · not located
- Canton (historical) — modern Guangzhou · city · China
- English (later British) East India Company · chartered company · not located
Evidence
Partly verified — Core facts are sourced; some optional detail is deliberately absent. This is the standing of the weakest source, not an average.
Opium Trade
The Anglo-Indian opium trade, organised as a Bengal monopoly and sold on to private smugglers, rose from a few thousand chests annually in the 1820s to roughly forty thousand by 1839 and reversed the silver flow that had funded tea purchases.
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History, Oxford University Press · 2019 · Partly verified
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History, DOI 10.1093/acrefore/9780190277727.013.608, article 'Opium Trade'
Treaty of Peace, Friendship, and Commerce between Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Emperor of China (Treaty of Nanking)
The treaty opened five ports, ceded Hong Kong, abolished the Cohong monopoly, fixed tariffs and imposed a silver indemnity — and made no mention of opium.
Signed at Nanking, 29 August 1842; printed in British and Foreign State Papers, vol. 30 · 1842-08-29 · Verified
Treaty of Nanking, 29 August 1842, British and Foreign State Papers vol. 30 (London: HMSO); UK Treaty Series text, articles II (five ports), III (Hong Kong), IV–VI (indemnity), V (abolition of the Cohong monopoly)
Recorded on Opium
- Tea buried in the Han Yangling mausoleum
- Tea-for-horse exchange between China and Tibet
- Silver ore is registered at the Cerro Rico of Potosí
- Manila is founded as the eastern terminus
- Tea first shipped to Europe by sea
- Parliament bans the use of printed calicoes
- Qing trade confined to Canton
- Boston Tea Party
- Commutation Act cuts British tea duty
- Robert Bruce shown tea growing in Assam
- East India Company's China monopoly ends; Tea Committee founded
- The Opium Wars
- First Assam tea auctioned in London
- Lin Zexu destroys confiscated opium at Humen
- Treaty of Nanking
- Robert Fortune removes tea plants and tea makers from China
Related
Related because they share a subject in the Atlas — never because the text looks similar.
- Robert Fortune removes tea plants and tea makers from China · 1848–1851
- Treaty of Nanking · 1842-08-29
- Lin Zexu destroys confiscated opium at Humen · 1839-06-03/1839-06-25
- First Assam tea auctioned in London · 1839-01-10
- East India Company's China monopoly ends; Tea Committee founded · 1834
- Robert Bruce shown tea growing in Assam · 1823
- Commutation Act cuts British tea duty · 1784
- Boston Tea Party · 1773-12-16