Lin Zexu, or Lin Tse-Hsu, was a well-known politician, thinker and poet in the late Qing Dynasty in China. Also, he was a great national hero who helped Chinese nation to fight against foreign humiliation. Lin Zexu played an important role in the opium war. The Chinese famous event called 'the Humen Destruction of Opium' was exactly held by Lin Zexu.
►Introduction
Lin Zexu, also known as Lin Tse-hsu in Chinese, was a Chinese scholar and official during the Qing dynasty. He was born on August 30th , 1785, in Fuzhou, in Fujian province, and died on November 22nd , 1850, in Chaozhou, in
Guangdong province.
Lin's father was a teacher who was poor. He gave his little sons a thorough education in the Confucian classics so that they could succeed in the civil service examinations and obtain positions in the government bureaucracy.
Lin Zexu, the second son, proved immensely capable and passed the initial examinations in 1804 and was made an aide to the governor of his native province, a position which gave him practical experience in politics and an informal apprenticeship that served to balance the abstract, moral, and largely literary content of his early education.
In 1811, he received the Jinshi degree which was one of the highest titles in the imperial examinations by passing the highest of the examinations. In the same year, he was appointed to the prestigious Hanlin Academy ,which advised the emperor and helped him to draft documents. Lin took up his first regular administrative assignment in the salt monopoly in 1820. After starting in the salt monopoly, He then supervised water-control systems in several localities, served as tax collector, and served a term as a local judge, during which he earned the respectful nickname “Lin the Clear Sky.”
While leading Chinese scholar and official of the Qing dynasty, Lin Zexu played a significant role in the events leading up to the Opium War between Britain and China. His efforts to end opium smuggling into Guangzhou are considered to be the primary catalyst for the Opium War of 1839–42.
In 1838, Lin forced foreign merchants to surrender their stocks of opium, making them guarantee that they would cease importing it to China, and dumped it into the ocean. In 1839, the British retaliated by sending troops to ravage large areas of South China. Lin grossly overestimated the military capacity of his own forces and underestimated that of the British warships. China was defeated and forced to make many concessions to the British and then to other foreign powers, including the eventual legalization of the opium trade.
Also, Lin Zexu was a proponent of the revitalization of traditional Chinese thought and institutions, a movement that became known as the Self-Strengthening Movement.
►The Humen Destruction of Opium 虎门销烟
Background
Domestic situation in China: from 18 th century to the middle of the 19th century , the late Qing Dynasty, China had its feudal system for over two thousand years. During this period, Chinese domestic situation includes economic backwardness, political corruption, weakness on defense strength, depression of thought cultural and the close-door policy.
The invasion of British trade: In the 1830s, merchants from western countries like Britain, France and other countries sold a great quantity of opium in Guangzhou,Guangdong province , brought China a serious social problem.
Process
In the middle of the 1830s, the Daoguang emperor became alarmed over the growth of the opium trade carried on by British and Chinese smugglers—both for the obvious moral reasons and for the more practical one that even illegal imports had to be paid for with the export of Chinese silver—Lin Zexu submitted a memorial condemning a suggestion that the trade be legalized. In support of his position he cited the measures by which he had suppressed the drug traffic in the provinces of which he was then governor general.
On December 31st of 1838, Lin Zexu was appointed imperial commissioner and sent to Guangdong to stop illegal trade of opium in the area. On April 11th , Lin, along with his colleague Deng Tingzhen, had arrived in Humen (A Town of Dongguan City in Guangdong ) and checked up on the opium trade and confiscating supply of opium from British traders. From April 12th to May 21st, Lin had confiscated a total of 19,187 bags of opium, retained 8 crates as sample – which were destroyed later on. On June 3rd , Lin proceeded to stage a public event to destroy crates of opium and the entire process took 22 days to complete. The public destruction of opium marked the peak of the early struggles in China against drug use and was known in history as the Humen Destruction of Opium.
Influences
From a certain degree, the Humen Destruction of Opium had suppressed the spread of opium in China and had made a positive effect in the folk.
Also, the smoking ban movement significantly increased the Chinese general public understanding of the harmfulness of opium, made a lot of people clearly see the essence of the British selling opium to Chinese people and woke up people's patriotic consciousness.
However, the smoking ban movement directly damage the interests of the British bourgeoisie, so the British government quickly decided to launch a deliberate war of aggression to China. Then 'the Humen Destruction of Opium' has become a fuse for the first opium war. In another hand, 'the Humen Destruction of Opium' accelerated the form of the semi-colonial China and promote the development of China's modern history from a great extent.
►The death of Lin Zexu
Lin Zexu died in 1850 while on his way to Guangxi, where the government was sending him to help put down the Taiping Rebellion. He was a patriot of ability who achieved a global reputation as "Commissioner Lin." He was in opposition to the opening of the country but felt the need of a better knowledge of foreigners, which drove him to collect more materials for a geography of the world. He later gave these materials to Wei Yuan, who published an Illustrated Treatise on the Maritime Kingdoms in 1844.
To sum up, Lin Zexu was a national hero for Chinese people for his contribution on the opium war. He has been regarded as a great Chinese historical people for many years. His forceful opposition to the trade on moral and social grounds is worth learning by modern people.
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