The History and Background of Tiger Selling Door Cigarettes

British opium trade invasion

The Qing dynasty closed its doors to the outside world, and European capitalist countries rose rapidly. Britain basically completed the industrial revolution in the twenties and thirties of 19, which represented the most advanced productivity level at that time. China has huge population resources, which is the potential market that the British bourgeoisie dreams of. China's self-sufficient natural economy and China's closed-door policy are stumbling blocks for Britain to dump industrial products to China. 65438+Before 1930s, China was always in a position of transcendence in foreign trade. The trade between China and Britain has always maintained the advantage of more than 23 million taels of silver per year.

Desperate opium dealers are popular in China, and coastal officers and soldiers even send warships to offshore to deal with drug traffickers, and then they are transported by warships to inland cigarette shops for dumping. The British bourgeoisie first exported textiles to India, then opium from India to China, and then tea and raw silk from China to Britain. The British benefited a lot from this triangle trade. Drug dealers come like flies. In addition to Britain, the United States also imports opium from Turkey to China, and Russia imports opium from Central Asia to northern China.

Lin Zexu wrote to Daoguang Emperor.

Due to the sharp increase in opium imports, the trade status between China and Britain has completely changed. Britain changed from surplus to surplus, while China did the opposite, resulting in a large outflow of silver. According to statistics, during the period of 1820- 1840, the silver outflow from China was about 654.38+200 million taels. The continuous outflow of silver caused by a large number of opium imports has begun to disrupt the treasury and currency circulation of the Qing Dynasty, bringing the economy of the Qing Dynasty to the brink of collapse. More seriously, the spread of opium has greatly damaged the physical and mental health of smokers. If left unchecked, the Chinese nation will face the danger of extinction. The anti-smoking faction in China, led by Qishan, criticized Huang Juezi, blaming other social problems for smoking problems for various reasons, and only a few officials advocated smoking ban. Even Emperor Daoguang tasted opium before he ascended the throne, and later he woke up to give up smoking, which made him hesitate to ban smoking.

However, Lin Zexu had already banned smoking during his tenure as Governor of Jiangsu and Governor of Huguang, and swept away cigarette dealers and opium addicts. In view of Lin Zexu's success, Daoguang Emperor thought it was not impossible to ban smoking, so Daoguang Emperor made up his mind to remove the title of Prince Yidou, who smoked opium, and the title of Puxi, who assisted the Lord protector, and degraded Xu Naiji's taste as a heavy smoker. Daoguang called Lin Zexu into Beijing, and every eight days called Lin Zexu to discuss smoking ban. Lin Zexu pointed out the harm of opium.

Opium caused a large outflow of silver from China, which triggered the financial crisis in China.

Opium corrupted China's ruling institutions. Many nobles, bureaucrats and landlords became more corrupt after smoking opium, which aggravated the parasitism and decay of the ruling group. They took bribes, sheltered opium smuggling, and passed on the cost of buying opium to the people by increasing rents and taxes, which increased the burden on the people.

Opium weakened the combat effectiveness of the army. Some generals and soldiers of the Qing army also smoked opium. For example, in the Guangdong navy, officers and men not only smoke opium, but also accept a lot of bribes. The navy patrolled the ship and even agreed with the British opium ship that each box of opium would be charged 50,000 yuan to 65,438+10,000 yuan. A large number of "anti-smuggling ships" even became opium smuggling ships.

Opium harms the health of China people. At that time, there were many smoking rooms in some towns in China, and thousands of smokers smoked opium.

Finally, in the 18th year of Daoguang (1838 12 3 1), on November 15th, Lin Zexu was appointed as an imperial envoy to clear customs, and smoking was banned nationwide.

After Lin Zexu became an imperial envoy, he was dissatisfied with Yan School and Manchu nobles. However, due to the imperial power of Emperor Daoguang, he dared not openly oppose it and had to secretly obstruct it. Qishan, the leader of the Chiyan Sect, threatened Lin Zexu, and later generations described the situation like this:

"Tell zhili, meet zhili Qishan, tell no qi and trouble. When Gai Wenzhong was appointed as Jiang Gang, Qi was the governor and once recommended Wen Zhong. Today, when I heard that Zhong forbade this matter, it seemed public and private. Respond to it in the article. "

Gong Zizhen is also worried about Lin Zexu's safety. He suggested that Lin Zexu bring a skillful craftsman, who could fight back immediately in case of war, preferring to go south with Lin Zexu, but Lin Zexu did not want him to be involved in the political whirlpool and declined Gong Zizhen's kindness.

Deng Tingzhen, the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, and Yiliang, the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, jointly issued the imperial edict of Daoguang Emperor, sealed up cigarette houses, arrested cigarette dealers, and ordered the execution of Feng Angang, a China cigarette dealer. Lin Zexu's greatest resistance is William Jardine of Jardine Matheson and Lan Shilu's younger brother of Baoshun Foreign Firm. William Jardine returned to England to stop Lin Zexu and lobbied the government to take tough measures against the Qing court. As soon as Lin Zexu heard that William Jardine, the "iron-toed rat", had left, he said happily, "Iron-toed rat, the cunning opium smuggler, is afraid of angering China and has returned to the land of rime."