First Opium War

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The First Opium War (Chinese: 第一次鴉片戰爭; pinyin: Dìyīcì yāpiàn zhànzhēng), also known as the Anglo-Chinese War, was a series of military engagements fought between the British Empire and Qing China between 1839 and 1842. The immediate issue was the Chinese enforcement of their ban on the opium trade by seizing private opium stocks from mainly British merchants at Guangzhou (then named Canton) and threatening to impose the death penalty for future offenders. Despite the opium ban, the British government supported the merchants' demand for compensation for seized goods, and insisted on the principles of free trade and equal diplomatic recognition with China. Twentieth-century nationalists considered 1839 the start of a century of humiliation, and many historians consider it the beginning of modern Chinese history. Senior government officials within the country had been shown to be colluding against the imperial ban due to stocks of opium in European warehouses in clear view being ignored....

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