CHIN 50W Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: Guangxu Emperor, Kang Youwei, Spirit Possession
Document Summary
The british grew concerned with the continual flow of silver and gold into china for tea which was growing in popularity in britain. They introduced a new commodity for sale in china-- opium imported from bengal. Opium had been used medicinally in china, but never as a narcotics. Most common means of consumption was through a long stemmed pipe. Many people soon became addicted to it, 200 chests were shipped in 1767, in 1838 it was 40,000. Huge amounts of silver were flowing out of china every year. The qing attempted to discourage its use by making it illegal to import, produce, or use. Opium trade continued between british ships moored off the coast of china and chinese smugglers. The qing court appointed lin zexu as the leader in their efforts to end the opium trade. Lin had two jobs, to get chinese to stop smoking opium and to get the british to stop selling it.
