On the eve of the Opium War, a crisis lurked in Chinese society

From the middle and late Qianlong period onwards, various social problems such as the corruption of Qing court officials, the sharp decline in the combat effectiveness of the army, and the increasingly serious land annexation gradually became apparent.

When the supreme ruler was still indulging in the dream of Kangqian's prosperity, a social crisis quietly arrived...

In 1796, the White Lotus Rebellion broke out. The uprising lasted nine years and affected more than 200 states and counties, and the Qing court used the strength of the whole country to suppress the uprising, but it was seriously injured.

At the same time, the major countries of the West have transitioned from the era of commercial capitalism through the first industrial revolution to the era of industrial capitalism. The leap-forward development of the productive forces and the revolutionary changes in the relations of production have enabled the West to begin to grasp its strategic superiority around the world.

In the 19th century, the Qing court continued to implement the policy of "closing the country to the outside world" by virtue of its self-sufficient natural economy, and only opened Guangzhou as a port for Sino-foreign trade. Under this model, China has long been in a position of superiority (wealth inflows).

Britain, which completed the industrial revolution, urgently needed a market for product sales and raw materials, and China's huge potential market became a key target for British businessmen.

Britain, which could not gain an advantage through normal trade, found that opium smuggling was a convenient means to reverse the trade deficit with China, so the scale of opium smuggling to China became larger and larger.

The harm of opium is mainly manifested in the following aspects:

First, a large amount of silver has flowed out, resulting in financial exhaustion, expensive money, and increasing the burden on the people.

Second, the corruption of officials and the further decline in the combat effectiveness of the army have shaken the ruling order.

Third, a series of social problems have arisen in the form of corrupting the social atmosphere and destroying the physical and mental health of the Chinese people.

These hazards seriously affected the rule of the Qing court and aroused the vigilance of the people of insight in the Qing court, represented by Huang Juezi and Lin Zexu, who wrote to the Guangdi Emperor and described the various harms caused by opium smuggling. At the end of 1838, the Daoguang Emperor sent Lin Zexu, who advocated the prohibition of smoking, as the minister of Chincha, to Guangdong to ban opium, which led to the sale of cigarettes in Humen in 1839. The Opium War was on the verge of breaking out...