General Tso and His Muskteers(iii): Opium Wars

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, trade between China and Britain was essentially in China’s favor and to Britain’s loss. Chinese exports—particularly tea, silk, and porcelain—were immensely popular in Britain. Tea, especially, had become a daily necessity in British life. On the other hand, Britain had almost no competitive goods to offer China. Moreover, the Qing government only accepted silver as payment. As a result, large amounts of British silver flowed into China, creating a severe trade imbalance that harmed British economic interests—especially the profits of the East India Company.

To reverse this deficit, the East India Company began cultivating opium on a large scale in its colony of India, manufacturing it and then smuggling it into the Chinese market through private traders and illegal channels. The British grew the opium in India and shipped it to China’s coastal regions, especially Guangdong, where it was exchanged for Chinese tea, silk, and porcelain. Chinese merchants then resold the opium inland, acquired silver, and used it to purchase British or imported goods—completing a capital cycle that was essentially a form of money laundering.

This directly led to the outflow of over 4.5 million taels of silver from China annually, starting in the 1820s. The resulting silver shortage destabilized the Qing Empire’s tax system, increased the financial burden on peasants, and caused price fluctuations. Meanwhile, opium addiction spread like wildfire: from officials and aristocrats to soldiers, merchants, and farmers. Labor productivity declined, military effectiveness collapsed, and social morale deteriorated. This gave rise to heated internal debates within the Qing court. Officials like Lin Zexu advocated for strict prohibition, while others proposed “legalization and taxation”—that is, regulating the opium trade in exchange for much-needed revenue.

In 1839, Lin Zexu was sent to Canton (Guangzhou) to carry out a crackdown. He destroyed over twenty thousand chests of opium—an event known as the Destruction of Opium at Humen. Britain regarded this as an affront to national dignity and commercial rights, using it as a pretext for war. The situation echoed the Boston Tea Party in many ways. Opium, after all, was not simply a matter of drug addiction—it was the product of an unequal trade structure, imperialist exploitation, and the forces of globalized colonial capitalism converging upon China.

In June 1840, Britain dispatched an expeditionary fleet from India to blockade the Pearl River estuary. The Qing court, showing little consistency, first sent Lin Zexu to burn the opium, then quickly dismissed him in panic, replacing him with the appeasement-minded Qishan to negotiate with the British in Guangzhou. When talks broke down, the fleet sailed north, attacking Xiamen, Ningbo, and the Zhoushan Islands, and then entered the Bohai Gulf, approaching the port of Tianjin and threatening Beijing itself.

In January 1841, British forces assaulted the Humen fortresses guarding Canton. The Qing troops were decisively defeated. Qishan signed the Convention of Chuanbi with the British—but because it lacked imperial approval, he was dismissed. The British forces continued their advance both north and south, capturing Xiamen, Ningbo, Dinghai, and other key cities. The imperial court repeatedly changed commanders—Qi Ying, Yishan, and others—oscillating between hawkish and conciliatory strategies. The war steadily turned against the Qing. By the summer of 1842, British forces had sailed up the Yangtze River, seized Wusong near Shanghai, and captured Zhenjiang in Jiangsu province—effectively severing the Grand Canal, China’s vital north-south artery, and placing the Qing dynasty under immense strategic pressure.

In August 1842, the Qing government sent representatives Qiying and Yilibu to negotiate. Onboard the British warship HMS Cornwallis, anchored off the coast of Nanjing, they signed the Treaty of Nanking. Under its terms, China was to pay an indemnity of 21 million silver dollars, cede Hong Kong Island to Britain, and open five ports—Canton, Xiamen, Fuzhou, Ningbo, and Shanghai—to British trade. Britain was also granted Most-Favored-Nation status.

Thus ended the First Opium War. For the Chinese people, the Qing government’s defeat marked the collapse of its perceived “Mandate of Heaven.” The terms of the Treaty of Nanking—indemnities, forced trade, territorial concessions—shattered the long-standing myth of China as a superior “Celestial Empire.” For many, it was the first time they truly lost faith in the Qing court.

The Second Opium War, also known as the Anglo-French Expedition to China, had causes far more complex than the first. It was no longer merely about the opium trade, but also entangled with issues such as diplomatic privilege, commercial rights, missionary activity, and imperial expansion.

Though the Treaty of Nanking had been signed after the First Opium War, many of the core problems remained unresolved. The opium trade was never truly banned—in fact, it only grew more rampant. Britain, though granted access to five treaty ports, was far from satisfied. The British demanded the right to station ambassadors in Beijing, expand trade into the Chinese interior, ensure freedom of missionary work, and above all, legitimize the opium trade. The Qing court was reluctant and passive in implementing the treaty, and Britain felt that its entitled interests were being denied at every turn.

In 1856, a small ship named Arrow, which had once flown the British flag but was actually Chinese-owned, was boarded by Qing naval forces in Guangzhou during an anti-smuggling operation. Twelve Chinese crew members were arrested, and the British flag was reportedly taken down. British Consul Harry Parkes accused the Qing of “insulting the British flag and illegally detaining British subjects,” and demanded an apology. When the Qing government failed to respond promptly, Britain bombarded Guangzhou, thus igniting the conflict. It was a deliberately manufactured crisis: Britain knew full well that Arrow no longer had the legal right to fly its flag, but chose to portray the incident as a diplomatic humiliation and used it as a pretext to resume hostilities.

France soon joined the conflict, citing its own excuse: the Father Maistre incident. In 1856, a French missionary, Father Maistre, was killed in Guangxi by local inhabitants. France invoked the murder of a clergyman as justification to join Britain, and the two formed the Anglo-French alliance.

In 1857, war officially broke out. The Anglo-French forces launched a joint attack on Guangzhou, capturing the Qing governor-general of the two provinces, Ye Mingchen. In 1858, they advanced northward, threatening Tianjin and forcing the Qing court to sign the Treaty of Tientsin, which: permitted foreign envoys to reside in Beijing, opened additional treaty ports, granted religious freedom, and imposed large indemnities.

Although the treaty did not explicitly legalize opium, it tacitly permitted the trade. However, after signing, the Qing court refused to ratify the treaty and denied foreign envoys access to the capital, triggering a second wave of conflict.

In 1860, Anglo-French forces marched north again, reaching Tongzhou on the outskirts of Beijing, where they engaged Qing troops in fierce battles. During the negotiation phase, Qing forces captured 39 members of the British and French delegations—including diplomats and their staff. British envoy Harry Parkes was imprisoned and narrowly survived, but more than twenty others—including soldiers, journalists, and support staff—were tortured to death.

In retaliation for what was deemed a barbaric act, British High Commissioner Lord Elgin decided not to assault the Forbidden City or harm the emperor, but instead to burn the Old Summer Palace (Yuanmingyuan) as a symbolic act of “civilized punishment.”

Yuanmingyuan was one of three imperial gardens of the Qing dynasty, along with Changchun Garden and Qichun Garden—together known as the “Three Gardens of Yuanmingyuan.” It was not just an imperial residence but a vast cultural and architectural masterpiece. Inside were countless treasures, books, paintings, and artifacts—earning it the name “the Garden of All Gardens.” The Allied forces first looted the complex, then set it ablaze. The fires raged for three days, destroying nearly all of its buildings. Its artworks and treasures were scattered across the globe. If you ever visit the British Museum, you can still see what they took.

Later that year, the Anglo-French forces pushed further into northern China. In the Battle of Baliqiao near Tongzhou, Qing troops suffered another crushing defeat. The Allied armies marched toward Beijing. The Old Summer Palace was burned as an act of retribution. The Xianfeng Emperor fled to Rehe (present-day Chengde) for refuge. The Qing government was forced to sign the Convention of Peking, which: ratified all terms of the Treaty of Tientsin, ceded part of the Kowloon Peninsula to Britain, formally recognized freedom of religion and missionary activity, tacitly accepted the legalization of opium, and opened more ports to foreign trade—including cities in the Chinese interior.

After the First Opium War, the Taiping Rebellion broke out—a massive civil war that lasted fourteen years. It was ultimately suppressed by Zuo Zongtang and his allies. To quell the rebellion, the Qing court sanctioned the formation of local armies such as the Xiang Army and later the Huai Army, which in turn led to the rise of the Beiyang Army. These regional armies, once loyal to the empire, would later evolve into semi-independent warlords, eventually challenging the Qing dynasty itself.

In a sense, the Xiang Army and the Beiyang Army were the precursors to the military forces that later fought in the civil wars between the Communist Party and the Nationalists. History, it seems, is always tangled in its own web—every thread leads to another. How fascinating it all is.