Most of the reasons for the Opium War are known, such as China's dream of closing the country to heaven and the kingdom, Britain taking the lead in completing the industrial revolution, capitalism vigorously developing the need for the market, etc., but these reasons are carefully looked at as the deep causes of the events, but all the events must always have some lead, so what is the direct cause for the outbreak of the Opium War?
In fact, the contradiction between China and Britain has already begun in the 18th century. By the end of the 18th century, Britain had completed a series of reforms such as domestic political economy, and the most important change was the industrial revolution carried out domestically, which prompted the replacement of human power by machine power, and the commodity economy was vigorously developed.
Of course, the domestic productivity has increased, the need for the market has become larger, for britain there are so many products domestic demand is not digestible, naturally need foreign markets to digest, and the world's most populous country at that time is China, but China was still a myth for Westerners at that time.
Westerners who have never been to the East usually have fantasies about China from merchants who travel to and from the East and the West, or from some books that introduce China, of course, other people's observations and news will inevitably cause some exaggerated imagination due to subjective reasons, and Westerners have always thought that China may still stay in the period of the strong Han dynasty and the Tang Dynasty, or marco polo's Yuan Dynasty.
However, the changes in history have caused the decline of China's feudal society, and China, which was the world's first, has long been quietly sleeping and no longer progressing, but Westerners still do not know, they think that China at that time was still the magic country of prosperity and gold, and they all wanted to go over and see it.
Long before the official exchanges, China and the West also had some people-to-people exchanges, some British missionaries and even diplomats stayed in the Qing Dynasty of China for more than ten or twenty years, as a China general can also be regarded as promoting exchanges between the two countries, but these are far from enough.
The official British desire to visit China since the Industrial Revolution was fulfilled at the end of the 18th century, and in August 1793, after several months of voyages and gifts laden with several large ships, a team of more than 80 British envoys arrived in Beijing under the leadership of Macartney.
However, the British mission, which had traveled thousands of miles and crossed the ocean to China to celebrate Qianlong's birthday, encountered unprecedented resistance in Beijing, and before they could see Qianlong, the mission and the Chinese ministers quarreled with each other, and the reason for the dispute was whether to kneel on both knees and bow three times and nine times.
Britain's first mission to China was not smooth, although it was hastily seen Qianlong, but it was rushed out to sea by the arrogant Qianlong Emperor, which made the British quite disappointed, not only disappointed by the failure to negotiate the opening of ports to allow the British to do business in China and duty-free issues, but also disappointed the British delegation with the poverty of the Chinese people and the pedantic nature of the imperial court.
But the British did not give up hope, and although even Napoleon ridiculed the British for their tangled questions of dignity and spoke on the side of China, the British felt that the first mission failed only because the two Manchu interpreters used by the mission were very problematic. So the British prepared a second mission to China.
The second time to visit China, the British in order to solve the problem of translation and use two Chinese passes, one is Xiao Staundong, one is the sinologist Morrison, both of them have lived in China for more than 20 years, Chinese is definitely not a problem, at that time the Qing Dynasty was already Jiaqing in power, but Jiaqing and his father are also similar, just as they do not want to see the British envoys to the Dynasty, of course, because of the bad impression of the previous reception.
Jiaqing still clearly informed na Yancheng, the foreign minister who was negotiating with the envoy, that there must be no compromise on the issue of etiquette, and that if he refused to exercise China's great gift of facing the saint, he would not be seen and rushed back to England. However, Na Yancheng, who wanted the British to obey his good friends, muttered after seeing the British envoy.
The British still refused to give a big gift, but the leader of the mission, Amistad, was ambiguous about this question, but many in the mission firmly disagreed.
For this reason, Na Yancheng even came up with the idea of driving ducks to the shelves, but was strictly guarded by the British envoys, and in the end, there was a dispute near the gap of the face saint, and Jiaqing was very unhappy with the pigeons, and immediately drove the British out of China, and also punished Na Yancheng, who was not doing a good job.
The British, who had been driven out forever on the same issue twice, were no longer entangled, and in order to open the door to China, they did not hesitate to open the parliament to decide whether to go to war with China or not, but history was always a coincidence, and the main war faction in Britain slightly suppressed the anti-war faction with a difference of 9 votes, and the Opium War began.
Of course, history cannot be assumed, and we cannot say that without the Opium War, Modern China would have been a different story, so perhaps some things are still historical necessities, just another form. Nowadays, the etiquette of the whole world has tended to be the same, and while not forgetting the tradition, some bad customs should be slowly eliminated.
[References: Macartney's Visit to China, The Opium War]