Q. Write any three effects of First Opium War?
Answers
Answer:
Opium Wars, two armed conflicts in China in the mid-19th century between the forces of Western countries and of the Qing dynasty, which ruled China from 1644 to 1911/12. The first Opium War (1839–42) was fought between China and Britain, and the second Opium War (1856–60), also known as the Arrow War or the Anglo-French War in China, was fought by Britain and France against China. In each case the foreign powers were victorious and gained commercial privileges and legal and territorial concessions in China. The conflicts marked the start of the era of unequal treaties and other inroads on Qing sovereignty that helped weaken and ultimately topple the dynasty in favour of republican China in the early 20th century.
second Opium War battle
second Opium War battle
See all media
Date: 1856 - 1860 1839 - 1842
Location: Guangzhou China Jiangsu Guangdong Beijing
Participants: China Qing dynasty France United Kingdom
Major Events: Treaty of Nanjing First Opium War Arrow War
Key People: Charles-Guillaume-Marie-Apollinaire-Antoine Cousin-Montauban, count de Palikao Charles George Gordon Sir Hugh Gough Lin Zexu Robert Napier, 1st Baron Napier
The first Opium War
Know about the first and second Opium Wars between China and Western countries
Know about the first and second Opium Wars between China and Western countries
Questions and answers about the Opium Wars.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
See all videos for this article
The Opium Wars arose from China’s attempts to suppress the opium trade. Foreign traders (primarily British) had been illegally exporting opium mainly from India to China since the 18th century, but that trade grew dramatically from about 1820. The resulting widespread addiction in China was causing serious social and economic disruption there. In spring 1839 the Chinese government confiscated and destroyed more than 20,000 chests of opium—some 1,400 tons of the drug—that were warehoused at Canton (Guangzhou) by British merchants. The antagonism between the two sides increased in July when some drunken British sailors killed a Chinese villager. The British government, which did not wish its subjects to be tried in the Chinese legal system, refused to turn the accused men over to the Chinese courts.
Hostilities broke out later that year when British warships destroyed a Chinese blockade of the Pearl River (Zhu Jiang) estuary at Hong Kong. The British government decided in early 1840 to send an expeditionary force to China, which arrived at Hong Kong in June. The British fleet proceeded up the Pearl River estuary to Canton, and, after months of negotiations there, attacked and occupied the city in May 1841. Subsequent British campaigns over the next year were likewise successful against the inferior Qing forces, despite a determined counterattack by Chinese troops in the spring of 1842. The British held against that offensive, however, and captured Nanjing (Nanking) in late August, which put an end to the fighting.
first Opium War
first Opium War
British ships attacking a Chinese battery on the Pearl River during the first Opium War, 1841.
From Narrative of a Voyage Round the World: Performed in Her Majesty's ship Sulphur, During the Years 1836-1842, Including Details of the Naval Operations in China, from Dec. 1840, to Nov. 1841, by Captain Sir Edward Belcher, R.N.
Peace negotiations proceeded quickly, resulting in the Treaty of Nanjing, signed on August 29. By its provisions, China was required to pay Britain a large indemnity, cede Hong Kong Island to the British, and increase the number of treaty ports where the British could trade and reside from one (Canton) to five. Among the four additional designated ports was Shanghai, and the new access to foreigners there marked the beginning of the city’s transformation into one of China’s major commercial entrepôts. The British Supplementary Treaty of the Bogue (Humen), signed October 8, 1843, gave British citizens extraterritoriality (the right to be tried by British courts) and most-favoured-nation status (Britain was granted any rights in China that might be granted to other foreign countries). Other Western countries quickly demanded and were given similar privileges.
Treaty of Nanjing
Treaty of Nanjing
The signing of the Treaty of Nanjing.
Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University Library
The second Opium War
In the mid-1850s, while the Qing government was .