<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > as early as the Jiaqing period, there were many anti-smoking bans, strictly prohibiting the sale and consumption of opium. However, some officials, for their own selfish interests, even ignored the imperial court's ban and secretly smuggled opium, resulting in the rapid spread of opium throughout the country and the flow of silver to foreign countries! </h1>
Daoguang Emperor reading portrait
The Qing government's treasury was rapidly depleted, and the price of silver rose rapidly, which caused great vibrations in the government and the public, and the Daoguang Emperor, as the head of a country, was even more worried and had been struggling to find a good strategy for smoking bans.
Emperor Daoguang's imperial dress
In the spring of 1838, Huang Zishang shu Daoguang Emperor put forward the theory of smoking and death. The Daoguang Emperor thought about it for half a day after reading the recital, and he couldn't make up his mind to ban smoking. The reason is that civilians who smoke are severely punished, which is better to say, officials and even relatives of the emperor and the state, and the nobles of the clan will be difficult to deal with. However, the Daoguang Emperor knew that protecting the country and the people and protecting the seat was the top priority, and if opium smoke and poison continued to flood, sooner or later it would destroy the Qing Dynasty. Therefore, he ordered a ban on smoking, and vigorously punished a number of smoking officials who had confirmed the evidence, among them Prince Zhuang and Fuguo Duke were dismissed from the prince and duke respectively because they often went to the temple to eat opium; at the same time, Xu Naiji, who had asked for a relaxation of the smoking ban two years ago, was demoted to six pins, and ordered him to retire to his hometown, and ordered Lin Zexu, who had been effective in smoking in the Two Lakes area, to enter Beijing to discuss the plan of smoking ban!
National hero Lin Zexu
After Lin Zexu entered Beijing, the Daoguang Emperor rewarded him with the honor of riding a horse in the Forbidden City for 8 consecutive times to discuss the matter of smoking ban. After some deliberations, the Daoguang Emperor decided to take matters into both hands, sending Lin Zexu to Guangdong to be responsible for cutting off opium imports, and on the other hand, ordering his courtiers to strictly enforce a ban on smoking in order to eradicate smoking. After being reviewed and approved by the Daoguang Emperor, the newly determined charter was named the "Iron Regulations on strictly prohibiting opium smoke", which was promulgated and implemented nationwide.
The First Opium War
Since Huang Zi's smoking theory of death reached the imperial court, under the personal presidency of the Daoguang Emperor, after about half a year of discussion and preparation by all parties concerned, the land of Shenzhou, except for Tibet, has set off a vigorous upsurge of comprehensively banning opium and tobacco poisons. All localities have seized opium dealers, paid for tobacco soil, collected smoking utensils, sealed tobacco shops, punished officials of all sizes, and ordered opium smokers to quit smoking within a certain period of time.
Humen sells cigarettes
In 1839, after Lin Zexu arrived in Guangzhou, he and Deng Tingzhen, the governor of Liangguang, The Inspector of Guangdong, Qia Liang, and the Admiral Guan Tianpei, jointly launched a vigorous campaign to ban opium. In June of the same year, Lin Zexu destroyed the seized opium in Humen, which shook China and foreign countries. In order to prevent it, Lin Zexu, while banning opium, on the one hand, let people collect and translate foreign books and newspapers, understand the western national conditions and the movements of merchants coming to Guangdong, and strive to know the other; On the one hand, it recruited water braves, straightened out the water divisions, strengthened and repaired forts, purchased Western cannons and warships, and actively reorganized armaments.
Opium addicts
After Humen sold cigarettes, Lin Zexu forced countries to pledge not to import opium into China and wrote a letter of guarantee, but this move was resisted by the British. They deliberately provoked incidents, gathered warships to intercept their own merchant ships, were not allowed to import and assemble, and repeatedly attacked Chinese sailors. On the one hand, Lin Zexu ordered severe punishment of the British warships that came to offend, and on the other hand, he sent a message to the imperial court, proposing that all foreign merchant ships, including Britain, be implemented the strategic policy of "those who come to the law and those who resist the law" in order to concentrate their efforts on cracking down on enemies who do not abide by Chinese laws or come to commit crimes.
Qing spears against British muskets
The Daoguang Emperor agreed to Lin Zexu's suggestion and severed Sino-British trade. In 1840, in order to protect the opium trade, Britain had decided to launch a war of aggression against China. In May, more than 40 British warships arrived in the Chinese sea and blockaded the pearl river estuary first, and the first Opium War began. The British army first launched an attack in Guangdong, but the resolute resistance of the defenders and stayed for more than a month without any progress, so the British army bypassed Guangdong and Fujian, captured Dinghai in Zhejiang, and then went north to the mouth of the Baihe River in Tianjin, where the British Foreign Secretary Palmerson wrote in a note to the Qing government that it was unreasonable to demand that the Chinese emperor compensate the price of opium for the "li" suffered by the British Zhaoxue, and cut off the land for trade.
Scene of the signing of the Treaty of Nanking
For a time, the imperial court was in chaos. When the Daoguang Emperor learned of the defeat at the front, he also listened to the remarks of qi shan, the governor of Zhili, that the matter was entirely caused by Lin Zexu's renegade on the matter, and on the one hand he ordered Shan to negotiate with the British, to be vain and circumvent, and on the other hand, he sternly resigned Lin Zexu, hoping to order the British army to retreat first, and then consider the long term. When the weather was getting cooler in the late autumn, the British army was inconvenient to take large-scale operations in the north, so they led their troops south to find another opportunity, and after the Daoguang Emperor received the report, he felt that this Yingyi was not so invincible, and it must be that Lin Zexu did not handle it well and failed to live up to the good intentions of the Union. Therefore, he ordered Qi Shan to be the minister of the mission, and went to Guangdong to continue to handle Sino-British negotiations, and at the same time dismissed Lin Zexu, Deng Tingzhen, and others from their posts to investigate and investigate.
Qi Shan, who was ordered to go south to Guangdong, was bent on seeking peace in order to ask the British army to retreat. Did you know that the British army going south was originally a strategy to slow down the army? In his negotiations with Qi Shan, he made more demanding demands of aggression. Qi Shan was not prepared for battle, and retreated step by step, except for the cession of Hong Kong, he agreed to almost all requests and prepared to play the imperial court. The British army did not wait for Qi Shan's reply, that is, sent troops to capture the Dajiao and Shajiao forts, and then threatened Humen and forcibly occupied Hong Kong!
Photo of the Treaty of Nanking
Upon hearing the news, the Daoguang Emperor immediately ordered a war against the British, and ordered the former chancellor Zongmu Yishan to be the general of jing rebellion, leading more than 17,000 people to the front line in Guangdong, in order to wipe out the invading enemy in one fell swoop. Unexpectedly, Qi Shan had no intention of fighting and allowed Hong Kong to be granted privately.
After the British army heard the news of Qing Yan's reinforcements, they preemptively attacked and attacked Humen in early February of the twenty-first year of Daoguang (1841). Guan Tianpei, the admiral of the Guangdong Marine Division, and hundreds of defenders were defeated, martyred, Humen fell, and the gateway to Guangzhou was wide open.
Map of the situation in the First Opium War
In June of the 21st year of Daoguang, Pu Dingcha, the new British minister extraordinary and plenipotentiary, and Baga, commander-in-chief of the British army invading China, led an army to attack Xiamen in the north. General Jiang Jiyun and others died in battle, and Xiamen fell. The British army invaded Zhejiang in the north, and the three towns of Dinghai, Zhenhai and Ningbo fell one after another. The dinghai general Ge Yunfei, Zheng Guohong, and Wang Xipeng were all martyred, the governor of Liangjiang, Yu Qian, committed suicide, and The Governor of Zhejiang, Yu Buyun, fled before fighting. In March of the 22nd year of Daoguang (1842), in order to completely bring the Qing court to its knees, the British invaders decided to attack Zhenjiang first, control the throat of north-south communication, and then control the lower reaches of the Yangtze River to cut off grain transportation.
In more than two months, the British army successively captured Pujiang, Baoshan, Shanghai, Zhenjiang and other important towns. Jiangnan Viceroy Chen Huacheng sacrificed; The deputy capital of Zhenjiang, Hailing, stationed the flag soldiers desperately resisted, and all were martyred; Niu Jian, the governor of Liangjiang, fled at the sound of the wind, and the British invaders reached the city of Nanjing.
At this point, the Daoguang Emperor realized that he had no other good way to find, and hurriedly ordered Iribu to go to Nanjing to try to negotiate peace. On July 24, 1842, with the approval of the Daoguang Emperor, Iribu and others signed the first unequal treaty in modern Chinese history, namely the Treaty of Nanjing, on a British warship on the river below the city of Nanjing.
The main provisions of the treaty were : 1 ) the Qing government compensated the British for the cost of 6 million yuan for the destruction of opium cigarettes in Guangdong, and the commercial banks "accumulated 3 million yuan in arrears and 12 million yuan in military expenditure totaling 21 million yuan; (2) ceded Hong Kong to Britain; (3) opened five places such as Guangzhou, Fuzhou, Xiamen, Ningbo, and Shanghai as treaty ports: (4) the implementation of the agreed tariffs, and the tariffs payable for import and export goods after the contract should be "agreed upon impartially" and could not be decided by China itself; (5) the abolition of the public bank system, and all British businessmen who came to Trade in China should be abolished No matter who you trade with, you are at your own disposal.
Since then, the Qing Dynasty has been constantly worried about internal and external troubles. In the interior of the Qing Dynasty, anti-Qing uprisings continued continuously; externally, the United States, Britain, France and other countries sent ships to force the treaty. At this time, the Daoguang Emperor was exhausted and could no longer reverse the situation. On the fourteenth day of the first month of the 30th year of Daoguang (1850), the 69-year-old Daoguang Emperor finally completed his own life path. After his death, he was buried in Muling, Yi County, Hebei Province.