The first relief of the Monument to the People's Heroes in Beijing's Tiananmen Square is a battle scene in which Humen sells cigarettes.
At the end of December 1838, Lin Zexu was appointed minister of Chincha, making Guangdong non-smoking. Arriving in Guangzhou in March of the following year, the anti-smoking campaign began rapidly and received active support from the masses. Together with Deng Tingzhen, the governor of Liangguang, and Guan Tianpei, the admiral of Guangdong, Lin Zexu planned a plan to rectify coastal defense, strictly punish tobacco dealers, punish illegal officials, and ordered foreign opium dealers to list all opium tools on board and wait for confiscation. He also declared that "ships will never dare to carry opium with them, and if they do, once they are found, the goods will be exhausted and the officials will be confiscated, and the people will be righteous."
Lin Zexu resolutely said: "If the opium does not end for a day, the minister will not return for a day, and there will be no reason to stop it for the time being." In the letter to his family, he also said: "Cover the country with his body, but seek to bless the country and benefit the people and the people to eliminate harm, and his own life and death are still paid, and the reputation is not taken into account." Lin Zexu was upright. Say it, do it. After the struggle, the British commercial supervisors in China and the tobacco dealers had to pay all the opium. At that time, Humen was designated as the place for opium collection.
Humen, located in the southeast of Guangzhou, is the mouth of the Pearl River, not far from the sea, the river surface is gradually widening, and there are two islands, one large and one small, standing in the middle of the river, shaped like a fuhu, the big one is called the big tiger mountain, and the small one is called the small tiger mountain. The confrontation between the two mountains is shaped like a gate, and the name of the Tiger Gate is derived from this.
On April 11, Lin Zexu went to Humen to personally preside over the tobacco payment work. Smoking starts the next day and ends on May 18. According to Lin Zexu's note to the Qing government, "As of the sixth day of the first month of April (May 18), a total of 19,187 boxes of opium had been collected, and 2,119 bags were collected," of which, except for 1,500 boxes of American drug dealers, the rest were all opium from British drug dealers. When the opium was confiscated, Lin Zexu began to think about how to properly dispose of such a large number of drugs. If the original box is transferred to Beijing, it will not only be difficult to transfer long distances, but also inevitably have problems such as leakage and exchange. Therefore, while asking the Qing Government for instructions on how to deal with it, Lin Zexu also made active preparations for destruction on the spot.
In the past, opium was destroyed by mixing with tung oil and burning by fire. However, after burning in this way, some opium seeps into the ground, and if the soil is dug up and then tormented, a considerable amount of smoke paste can be obtained, so that the poison is still difficult to extinguish. Lin Zexu believes that this old method is not thorough enough. After many investigations and studies, he learned that opium is most taboo against salt and lime. When boiling opium, if these two things are invested, the opium will all become scum and can no longer be collected into smoke paste. Therefore, it was decided to use the method of salt brine and lime leaching and destruction.
After this method of completely selling cigarettes was determined, they chose to build a tobacco sales pond at the height of Humen Beach and destroy it on the spot. This is explained in great detail and clarity in Lin Zexu's "The Smoke and Soil Will Be Folded and Half Folded" to the Qing court. He said: "To the point of selling cigarettes ... After much deliberation, Mo Ruo dug two ponds at the top of the beach and took turns soaking them. Its pool is tiled with stone bottoms, more than fifteen feet in length and width, and the pile nail plates on the four sides do not allow for rare leakage, and there is a culvert in front and a ditch in the back, around the pool bank, and a wide tree fence. There are several shed factories in the middle, which are the places for civilian and military officials to inspect. The method of its immersion is first sprinkled with salt into a brine by the pool of water in the ditch. All the smoke in the box, cut into four petals one by one, and put into the brine. Soak for half a day, then burn the whole piece through the lime. Thrown away one after another, it is like boiling soup in an instant, and it does not spontaneously combust. There are many reinstatement men, each holding an iron hoe and a wooden rake, standing on a springboard. Turn back and forth to ensure that the particles are slated. When the tide is low, open the culvert, send the ocean with the waves, and brush the bottom of the pool with clean water, leaving no trickle left. If the first pool of Day A has not been cleared, day B will use the second pool, which is fully soaked and cut off, as in the previous method, and so on. Every pool will be cleared at the bottom of a pool. The beginning of the set of unmistakable mixing, breeding drawbacks."
At the end of May, Daoguang ordered Lin Zexu to supervise the destruction of opium on the spot. Lin Zexu immediately announced that from June 3, opium would be destroyed at Humen Beach, and people from near and far and foreign merchants would be allowed to watch it.
On June 3, 1839, on the vast Humen Beach. From the morning, the staff was busy nervously. Around noon, the crowd of visitors came one after another, and outside the fence, it was crowded with countless men, women, and children. Soldiers with springboards on the pool and salt bags on their backs threw salt into the pool.
At more than two o'clock in the afternoon, after several consecutive cannons, the gongs and drums were noisy, and Lin Zexu, the minister of Chincha, led the civil and military officials to the scene. At this time, among the crowded masses, an earth-shaking cheer was set off. Lin Zexu smiled excitedly and ordered the opium to be destroyed. Lin Zexu walked to the pool, examined it carefully, and turned back to check the empty cigarette boxes. After a while, the opium in the pool was soaked, and the soldiers threw down the lime. And stir with an iron hoe and a wooden rake. Suddenly, the pool water tumbled, the smoke flew into the air, and the strange smell of opium, which had been corroded by the decomposition of salt and lime, quickly drifted away.
As a result, the crowd applauded thunderously and cheered, and the faces of the people were full of pleasant looks. Everyone looked up at the thick smoke in the sky and excitedly praised: "Burn well!" Burn well! ”
Since June 3, Lin Zexu has been present every day to supervise the destruction of opium. At first, only three or four hundred boxes were made per day, and later the techniques gradually became proficient, destroying thousands of boxes every day. By 25 June, it took twenty-three days to destroy all the seized opium in public.
When Lin Zexu announced the destruction of opium, some foreign invaders in Guangzhou (including some missionaries) slandered that "Chinese will not burn one or two opium, and even if they burn smoke, most of the opium will definitely be stolen." However, when they went to the scene to watch, in the face of the facts, they had to admit that the "carefulness and loyalty" of the opium destroyers was far from their "imagination".
The Yi people waited for Xian Zhi to nod. Take off the hat and hold your hands, as if to show the sincerity of his fear." They face evidence of their own guilt. Looking at the just disposition, it can be said that "we see and hear together, and we know what is shocking."
In Lin Zexu's "The Completion of the Completion of the Tobacco and Soil That Will Be Sold", it is written: "Ministers and other officials who will supervise the civil and military affairs will come to the scene every day to watch and inspect. During this period, not no one took the opportunity to steal, but many deacons and officials, paying attention to reconnaissance, were convicted on the spot, and there were more than ten people before and after, all of whom were immediately punished severely, and some thieves and bandits climbed the wall at night, chiseled boxes to steal soil, and also cracked the case after the internal and external guards abandoned the patrol. ”
In the above-mentioned recital, it is also introduced that "there are three kinds of smoke and earth, namely the common spot, the white earth, and the golden flower, and there is another kind of small male spot, which is the smoke that is now dissolved, and there are four kinds." I would like to leave two boxes of each of the four kinds of smoke soil. Use this eight boxes as samples. ...... A total of 19,179 boxes of 2,119 bags have been reduced to 19,179 bags, and the total of 2,376,254 catties has been sold out. Si Shi was defiled and flawed, and was spared from the poison flowing all over the world, and then he was treacherous and drowned. The special period is set up in three chapters".
Twice. The Daoguang Emperor gave praiseworthy instructions, one saying: "What has been done is commendable", and the other is : "It can be called a matter of great happiness and popularity".
"June 3rd" is a memorable day in history. The sale of cigarettes in Humen is a just action of the Chinese people in the struggle against aggression and an important victory for China's anti-smoking campaign. For the first time, it expressed to the world the pure moral heart of the Chinese people and the resoluteness of the anti-aggression.
The feat of national hero Lin Zexu in destroying opium, upholding justice, and greatly increasing the popular sentiment is a monument in history, which shows that opium has not hypnotized the Chinese minals". And the effect of vigilance has occurred." Take notes from history. Inspire our patriotic zeal.
On December 30, 1959, when Comrade Xie Jueya, a proletarian revolutionary of the older generation, visited Humen to see the victory, he was grateful for the anti-smoking merits of Lin Zexu and others, and enthusiastically wrote a poem praising:
Flat vegetables boundless green,
The pine trees in the middle of the road are in unison.
One will be the tiger that closes the door,
Wanfu danced night to smell the chickens.
The black mist of the world sinks into the sea,
The red light in the sky turned into a.
The Tao is Lin Gong's place of poison burning,
Monumental Iron Wall Guardian Spirit Habitat.