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First Opium War 1839-42 - Coggle Diagram
First Opium War 1839-42
Consequences
Short term
Even before the war, Chinese had hugely benefittted from the trade at Canton, with the taxes levied on the Chinese tradrs making for a hefty revenue stream. Contributions of millions of taeuls were extracted from the Canton Merchants to undeewrite the Qing's campaigns.
By 1830's, leading Chinese merchant at Canton named Houqua was thought to be the richest man in the world.
Treaty of Nanjing 1842
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Fact that opium was not legalised meant that the British could claim that the war had been entirely about free trade and protection for British citizens instead of protecting drug dealers.
Communication at a footing of perfect equality- meant that other treaties were written and negotiated in English and other MFL, therefore there was often a graceful misunderstanding of the potential impacts among Chinese negotiators, who were not exercised in diplomacy. V. Unethical.
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Causes
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Long term
Long term
Macartney mission 1793
600 crates of gifts, including a howitzer gun and ammunition, a hot air balloon, and a room sized planetarium- all of these were rejected.
Damaged British pride- Napoleon said that he would have let any of his generals do whatever customs the Chinese wished.
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Decay of the Qing empire
Qianlong was verging on senility,
Favourite minister called Heshen married the Emperor's favcourtie daigrter and assumed himself to a stunning level of patronage.
Ostensibly corrupt, so when trying to fight off White Lotus, military generals prolonged the war in order to ensure a constant flow of funding from the government.
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Population increase by 56% in the 70 years from 1779-1850, bringing the total to 430 million
20,000 government positions for 1 million degree holders.
A direct magistrate, the lowest level official for a local administration, was responsible for nearly 250,000 people by the 19th century.
Massive famines as the land around the south yangtze was over cultivated. At least 9.5 million dead between 1876-79.
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19th centiry revolutions in Peru and Mexico destablised world silver trade, British solution to trade imbalance to China was through smuggling Opium
Led to mass inflation
Normal circumstances a tael would be 1000 copper cash, but by 1830's it had reached peaks of 2600
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