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First Opium War - II: The Righteous Minister - Extra History (Patreon)

Published:
2016-06-24 10:05:39
Edited:
2018-05-15 02:49:20
Imported:
2022-01

Content

China had banned opium, so the British created a market in India and let smugglers do the rest. This was not okay.

Files

First Opium War - II: The Righteous Minister - Extra History

Opium was illegal in China, but that didn't stop the East India Company from manufacturing it for the black market. The Chinese emperor appointed an official, Lin Zexu, to stop it. He seized and burned huge opium caches held by British merchants, and ultimately ordered the British out of China entirely. Instead, they set up base on a barren island that would become known as Hong Kong. Support us on Patreon! http://bit.ly/EHPatreon --- (Episode details below) Grab your Extra Credits gear at the store! http://bit.ly/ExtraStore Subscribe for new episodes every Saturday! http://bit.ly/SubToEC Learn about the disastrous Macartney Embassy that tried and failed to improve British trade relations with China: http://bit.ly/28Ro4B1 Play games with us on Extra Play! http://bit.ly/WatchEXP Talk to us on Twitter (@ExtraCreditz): http://bit.ly/ECTweet Follow us on Facebook: http://bit.ly/ECFBPage Get our list of recommended games on Steam: http://bit.ly/ECCurator ____________ The tea trade flowing from China had left the British government in staggering debt. They had loaned huge amounts to the Honourable East India Company (EIC) to conquer India, and to pay their debts, the EIC turned that land into poppy fields and manufactured opium in huge quantities. Since China had banned the opium trade, the EIC set up a market in Calcutta (part of their Indian territory) and turned a blind eye to the black market traders who smuggled it into China. By 1839, over 6.6 million pounds of opium were being smuggled into China every year. The Chinese DaoGuang Emperor appointed an upright official named Lin Zexu to halt this opium trade. Lin orchestrated a massive campaign to arrest opium traders, force addicts into rehab, and confiscate pipes. He even laid siege to British warehouses when the merchants refused to turn over their opium supply, instead taking it all by force and burning it. The outraged merchants sought redress from their government, but although the Chief Superintendant Charles Elliot promised them restitution, the government never had any intention of paying them back. Amid the unrest, two British sailors brutally murdered a Chinese man. Lin Zexu demanded their extradition, but Elliot insisted on trying them aboard his ship and sentencing them himself. Lin Zexu had enough. He halted the British food supply and ordered the Portuguese to eject them from Macau. They retreated to a barren island off the coast (now known as Hong Kong). Since the island could not support them, Elliot petitioned the Chinese to sell them food again. He received no response. Then he sent men to collect it directly, but on their way back they were halted by the Chinese navy, and the first engagement of the Opium Wars began. ____________ ♪ Get the intro music here! http://bit.ly/1EQA5N7 *Music by Demetori: http://bit.ly/1AaJG4H ♪ Get the outro music here! http://bit.ly/23isQfx *Music by Sean and Dean Kiner: http://bit.ly/1WdBhnm

Comments

Anonymous

I didn't choose the step 3 life. The step 3 life chose me.

Anonymous

There are a lot of wrinkles here. But first I'll point out one of the sillier things. Lin Zexu tried drawing his trump card before blockading the factories, meaning trading houses and not manufacturing facilities in this case, in Canton, or rather Guangzhou. Ending rhubarb exports. Nobody quite knows why, but he had concluded that Europeans needed rhubarb to live, so he tried holding the Europeans hostage by ending. More seriously, the biggest wrinkle is that most of the opium wasn't carried on British ships. Mostly the smugglers were flying American flags, however, there were no American diplomatic representation in Guangzhou. So there was nobody for Lin Zexu to actually talk to who had any authority to deal with the smugglers. Talking to Elliot just saw him point out that he would cause an international incident trying to control the smugglers in some fashion which was absolutely true. Elliot stepping in to try to deal with them would be a gross violation of sovereignty as it was understood in the west. However, the factories weren't under Chinese control either, nor did they have any local authorities. The only political leader with any power in the factories was Elliot, who only had it over the traders flying British flags. As such the only social control existing in the factories was the other traders moving to censure somebody who caused trouble for everyone, but since they were all reliant on the opium trade in some fashion they wouldn't. And that's ultimately why diplomacy couldn't get anywhere without the very slow process of getting the governments back in Europe and the US involved and with travel times back then, that would take years and Lin Zexu didn't have that kind of time. The other big wrinkle is that opium was not only legal for medical purposes in the UK, and indeed all western countries, it was massively popular. People would buy opium pills to sedate crying babies, drink laudanum to withstand the tedium of upper class parties, take opium as a sleeping aid or even smear it on their nipples while breastfeeding to make their child more eager to do so. Opium was endemic to British society, particularly elite bourgeois society, in a way no other drug, not even alcohol, is today. So to the traders, the Chinese ban on opium might just have looked like barbarians having weird and barbaric laws against something normal. However, Lin Zexu didn't know this and believed that opium was as illegal in Europe as it was in China, naturally being a lot more outraged at the hypocrisy of the opium traders than he might have been if he'd understood the nuances. Differences in Chinese and European legal practice were also at play. Traditional Chinese legal principles are big on communal responsibility where communities were expected to police themselves and the law would crack down on the entire community until it sorted it out should one fail to. Lin Zexu's actions were in no small part based on treating the factories of Guangzhou like any other community. This obviously clashes with European concepts of individual responsibility. When said individual responsibility is then tied up into a system to make sure nobody can actually persecute anybody, it's a recipe for both avoiding repercussions for actions and finding outrage when victims get fed up with your actions. And, of course, Elliot did kinda break the concept of the laws by trying two sailors according to British law for a crime committed outside the factories in China itself. While a treaty of extradition didn't exist between the UK and China, the factories weren't British territory making the whole thing muddled. It wasn't like it was a terribly complicated case either, they had committed murder and the punishment would be execution, mostly likely through public beheading. The UK did have treaties with countries such as Denmark, where the last public beheading was in 1882, that still maintained it as a punishment on the books. Trying them under British law, and not even the full extent of it which would have seen them hanged, was quite an insult not only to Lin Zexu, but to all of China, by calling their laws and their people less important than Europeans.

Anonymous

Now this is what you call a REAL War on Drugs!

The Cayute

And all of this happening because the Chinese were isolationist jackasses.....I'm foreseeing a repeating cycle.

Anonymous
>>2027911

It also happened because the British were arrogant jerks who didn't even pretend to respect the Chinese. As well as macroeconomic forces, British slowness in just growing their tea in India and that inherent instability of currency based on precious metals.

Anonymous

I really love that you guys give context for these conflicts. It'd be so easy to just start the series at the first official battles, but I think it really helps o know WHY war happened. Even if it's a very abbreviated context, it helps set the stage

Anonymous
>>2028297

Honestly, as a military operation the war is really uninteresting. The Opium Wars are all about the political context and fallout. The actual fighting is straighforward, highly one-sided and pretty lacking in anything of interest.

Anonymous

"All we wanted was tea chaps! Now you'll have opium to deal with, what what."

Anonymous

LOL! 'Rated E for Everyone!' That was dark as the inside of an opium den. Though I am curious to know if you guys will explain why the Opium outside China was more potent than the ones grown in China in your Lies portion.

Anonymous

I keep waiting for "It was Walpole"

Anonymous
>>2031842

In the UK, this would probably be rated E for Educational (We... Actually have that as a rating. E, UC, U, PG, 12, 15 and 18 for home video, and the same but PG-12 for cinemas. Because apparently obnoxious 8 year olds seeing 12 rated films was something we needed...

ExtraCredits
>>2027743

I did appreciate the fact that Lin Zexu's approach incorporated rehab, which I was surprised to see existed as a concept back then.

Anonymous

well, Lin ZeXu and Daoguang Emperor really thought about trading tea for the opium from English merchants, UNTIL... they realized that that amount of tea is almost equal to the 1/6 of the government annual income.

Anonymous

And China was not doing well financially in that time

Anonymous

Also, I'm not sure if Lin hate opium that much, after the war, he wrote a note to the Emperor said:" well, maybe we should grow poppies and make opium by ourselves, this could hopefully prevent us keep dumping silver into the pockets of English merchants."

Anonymous

lastly, opium could got such a popularity is due to the fact that English merchants advertised it as something help you to have a longer and better life and... enhance men's SEXUAL ability.... Otherwise, opium smelled like urine due to the unadvanced ed extract technology in that age. Definitely something to think about when you watching Youtube ads...