Comparing The Opium Wars In China From 1856-1860

The Opium Wars, which were the multiple wars that took place in China from 1839-1842 and 1856-1860, were fought between the British Empire, and Qing Dynasty for many different reasons. In many ways, these events helped shape and mold China into the country that it is today. These events are some of the most crucial events to happen in Chinese history, and were the start to the "Century of Misery" or "Century of Humiliation" for China. My research will focus on both Opium Wars that occurred, the first of which went from 1839 - 1842, and the second, which went from 1856 -1860. Background Trade between Europe and Asia and the Introduction of Opium (1500 – 1839)

Before the start of the Qing dynasty, China was very isolated and wary of foreign

All their foreign trading was put down into just one port: Canton. (Chinese name: Guangzhou) This was stated in The Canton Trade System. Under this system, many rules were put in place for trade. Foreigners were not allowed to travel to other parts of China. No foreigners was allowed to learn Mandarin or any other dialect of the Chinese language. Direct communication between seller and buyer was to be done only in the presence of a government official, and no war ships were to be sailed into Canton. Merchants families were not allowed in Canton, and they had to reside only to their warehouses. Merchants were also only allowed to stay in China for few months of the year. Finally, the only source of payment that the Chinese would accept was silver. Because silver was the only accepted currency, what resulted was a chronic trade deficit in European countries, especially Britain. In the 17-century alone, China accumulated a total of 28 million kilograms of silver mostly from European countries in exchange for Chinese goods (Goldfinger). European countries had to pay directly in silver for porcelain, silk, spices and tea that they imported from China. This put more stress on the European economy, which was already struggling with internal conflicts. Although silk and porcelain were highly desired goods in Europe, Britain had a undeniable demand for black tea. However, Britain had just come out of multiple wars and

In 1817, the British realized that they could reduce the trade deficit by counter-trading with the Chinese merchants in narcotic Indian opium. The British found that poppy was very easy to grow in India and decided to take advantage of that. By doing this, the colony would become very profitable, which gave India a use to the British. In the early 1700's, the Portuguese introduced a new form of opium, which was opium mixed with a Tobacco compound. The British adopted this new way of creating opium, and sold this stronger strain of opium to the Chinese. Opium trade with China was originally ruled by the Dutch, but was later taken over by the British East India Company, which was a joint-stock company that was formed to pursue trade with south-east China. The East India Company was the source of opium and eventually led the opium trade in China on behalf of Britain. The main job of The East India company in relations to China, was to oversee the production and distribution of the opium