Editing First Opium War (section)

=== Opium trade ===
{{see also|History of opium in China}}
[[Opium]] as a medicinal ingredient was documented in Chinese texts as early as the [[Tang dynasty]] (617–907), but the recreational usage of the drug was limited. As with India, opium (then limited by distance to a dried powder, often drunk with tea or water) was introduced to China and Southeast Asia by Arab merchants.<ref name="Fay-2000g">Fay (2000) p. 38.</ref> The [[Ming dynasty]] banned tobacco as a decadent good in 1640, and opium was seen as a similarly minor issue. The first restrictions on opium were passed by the Qing in 1729 when [[Madak]] (a substance made from powdered opium blended with tobacco) was banned.<ref name="Fay-2000l" /> At the time, Madak production used up most of the opium being imported into China, as pure opium was difficult to preserve. Consumption of Javanese opium rose in the 18th century, and after the [[Napoleonic Wars]] resulted in the British occupying [[Java]], British merchants became the primary traders in opium.<ref>Fay (2000) pp. 74–75.</ref> The British realised they could reduce their trade deficit with Chinese manufactories by counter-trading in narcotic opium, and therefore efforts were made to produce more opium in [[Company rule in India|Company-controlled India]]. Limited British sales of Indian opium began in 1781, with exports to China increasing as the East India Company solidified its control over India.<ref name="Mann-2011" />{{page range too broad|date=September 2021}}<ref name="Hanes 2002" />

The British opium was produced in [[Bengal]] and the [[Ganges]] river plain, where the British inherited an existing opium industry from the declining [[Mughal Empire]] and saw the product as a potentially valuable export.<ref name="Fay-2000m">Fay (2000) pp. 13–14, 42.</ref> The East India Company commissioned and managed hundreds of thousands of poppy plantations. It took care of the painstaking lancing of individual pods to obtain the raw gum, drying and forming it into cakes, before coating and packaging them for auction in Calcutta.<ref>Lovell, p. 3.</ref> The company tightly controlled the opium industry, and all opium was considered company property until it was sold.<ref name="Fay-2000e">Fay (2000) pp. 75–81.</ref> From [[Kolkata]], the company's Board of Customs, Salt, and Opium concerned itself with quality control by managing the way opium was packaged and shipped. No poppies could be cultivated without the company's permission, and the company banned private businesses from refining opium. All opium in India was sold to the company at a fixed rate, and the company hosted a series of public opium auctions every year. The difference of the company-set price of raw opium and the sale price of refined opium at auction (minus expenses) was profit made by the East India Company.<ref name="Fay-2000m" /><ref name="Fay-2000d" />{{page range too broad|date=September 2021}} In addition to securing poppies cultivated on lands under its direct control, the company's board issued licences to the independent [[princely states]] of [[Malwa]], where significant quantities of poppies were grown.<ref name="Fay-2000m" /><ref name="Fay-2000e" />
[[File:William John Huggins - The opium ships at Lintin, China, 1824.jpg|thumb|A depiction of opium ships at [[Nei Lingding Island|Lintin]], China by the British artist [[William John Huggins]] in 1824]]

By the late 18th century, company and Malwan farmlands (which were traditionally dependent on cotton growing) had been hard hit by the introduction of factory-produced cotton cloth, which used cotton grown in Egypt or the American South. Opium was considered a lucrative replacement, and was soon being auctioned in ever larger amounts in Calcutta.<ref name="Fay-2000d" /> Private merchants who possessed a company charter (to comply with the British royal charter for Asiatic trade) bid on and acquired goods at the Calcutta auction before sailing to Southern China. British ships brought their cargoes to islands off the coast, especially [[Lintin Island]], where Chinese traders with fast and well-armed small boats took the goods inland for distribution, paying for the opium with silver.<ref name="Fay-2000d" /> The Qing administration initially tolerated opium importation because it created an indirect tax on Chinese subjects, as increasing the silver supply available to foreign merchants through the sale of opium encouraged Europeans to spend more money on Chinese goods. This policy provided the funds British merchants needed to then greatly increase tea exports from China to England, delivering further profits to the Qing monopoly on tea exports held by the imperial treasury and its agents in Guangzhou.<ref>Peyrefitte, 1993 p. 520.</ref><ref name="Fay-2000e" />
[[File:A busy stacking room in the opium factory at Patna, India. L Wellcome V0019154.jpg|thumb|A British [[lithograph]] depicting a storehouse filled with opium at the factory of the British East India Company in [[Patna]], India {{circa|1850}}]]

However, opium usage continued to grow in China, adversely affecting social stability. From Guangzhou, the habit spread outwards to the North and West, affecting members from every class of Chinese society.<ref name="Fay-2000f" /> By the early 19th century, more and more Chinese were smoking British opium as a recreational drug. For many, what started as recreation soon became a punishing addiction: many people who stopped ingesting opium suffered chills, nausea, and cramps, and sometimes died from withdrawal. Once addicted, people would often do almost anything to continue to get access to the drug.<ref>{{Cite web |publisher=Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada|title=The Opium Wars in China |url=https://asiapacificcurriculum.ca/learning-module/opium-wars-china |website=Asia Pacific Curriculum}}</ref> These serious social issues eventually led to the Qing government issuing an edict against the drug in 1780, followed by an outright ban in 1796, and an order from the governor of Guangzhou to stop the trade in 1799.<ref name="Fay-2000f">Fay (2000) pp. 73–74.</ref> To circumvent the increasingly stringent regulations in Guangzhou, foreign merchants bought older ships and converted them into floating warehouses. These ships were anchored off of the Chinese coast at the mouth of the Pearl River in case the Chinese authorities moved against the opium trade, as the ships of the Chinese navy had difficulty operating in open water.<ref name="Fay-2000j">Fay (2000) pp. 41–62.</ref>{{page range too broad|date=September 2021}} Inbound opium ships would unload a portion of their cargo onto these floating warehouses, where the narcotic was eventually purchased by Chinese opium dealers. By implementing this system of smuggling, foreign merchants could avoid inspection by Chinese officials and prevent retaliation against the trade in legal goods, in which many smugglers also participated.<ref name="Fay-2000f" /><ref name="Fay-2000e" />{{page range too broad|date=September 2021}}

In the early 19th century, [[Old China Trade|American merchants joined the trade]] and began to introduce [[Turkey merchant|opium from Turkey]] into the Chinese market—this supply was of lesser quality but cheaper, and the resulting competition among British and American merchants drove down the price of opium, leading to an increase in the availability of the drug for Chinese consumers.<ref name="China: The First Opium War" /> The demand for opium rose rapidly and was so profitable in China that Chinese opium dealers (who, unlike European merchants, could legally travel to and sell goods in the Chinese interior) began to seek out more suppliers of the drug. The resulting shortage in supply drew more European merchants into the increasingly lucrative opium trade to meet the Chinese demand. In the words of one trading house agent, "[Opium] it is like gold. I can sell it anytime."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Peyrefitte |first=Alain |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iELwe9Klc2sC&q=Opium+is+like+gold%2C+sell+it+at+anytime&pg=PA520 |title=The Immobile Empire |year=2013 |publisher=Vintage |isbn=978-0345803955}}</ref> From 1804 to 1820, a period when the Qing treasury needed to finance the suppression of the [[White Lotus Rebellion]] and other conflicts, the flow of money gradually reversed, and Chinese merchants were soon exporting silver to pay for opium rather than Europeans paying for Chinese goods with the precious metal.<ref>[[History of opium in China#CITEREFLayton1997|Layton 1997]], p. 28.</ref> European and American ships were able to arrive in Guangzhou with their holds filled with opium, sell their cargo, use the proceeds to buy Chinese goods, and turn a profit in the form of silver bullion.<ref name="Goldstone-2016" />{{page needed|date=September 2021}} This silver would then be used to acquire more Chinese goods.<ref name="Peyrefitte-1792" />{{page range too broad|date=September 2021}} While opium remained the most profitable good to trade with China, foreign merchants began to export other cargoes, such as machine-spun cotton cloth, [[rattan]], [[ginseng]], fur, clocks, and steel tools. However, these goods never reached the same level of importance as narcotics, nor were they as lucrative.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Early American Trade with China |url=http://teachingresources.atlas.illinois.edu/chinatrade/introduction04.html |access-date=8 August 2017 |website=teachingresources.atlas.illinois.edu}}</ref><ref name="JEAL">{{Cite journal |last=Davis |first=Nancy |date=February 1989 |title=Cargo Manifests and Custom Records from American China Trade Vessels Bound for the Port of Philadelphia 1790–1840 |url=https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/jeal/vol1989/iss86/5 |journal=Journal of East Asian Libraries |volume=1989 |issue=86 |pages=17–20 |access-date=23 September 2018}}</ref>
[[File:Opium imports into China 1650-1880 EN.svg|thumb|upright=1.6|Graph showing the increase in Chinese opium imports by year]]

The Qing imperial court debated whether or how to end the opium trade, but their efforts to curtail opium abuse were complicated by local officials and the Cohong, who profited greatly from the bribes and taxes involved in the narcotics trade.<ref name="Fay-2000j" />{{page range too broad|date=September 2021}} Efforts by Qing officials to curb opium imports through regulations on consumption resulted in an increase in drug smuggling by European and Chinese traders, and corruption was rampant.<ref>Fay (2000) pp. 76–80.</ref><ref name="Janin-1999" /> In 1810, the Daoguang Emperor issued an edict concerning the opium crisis, declaring,

{{blockquote|Opium has a harm. Opium is a poison, undermining our good customs and morality. Its use is prohibited by law. Now the commoner, Yang, dares to bring it into the [[Forbidden City]]. Indeed, he flouts the law!

However, recently the purchasers, eaters, and consumers of opium have become numerous. Deceitful merchants buy and sell it to gain profit. The customs house at the [[Ch'ung-wen Gate]] was originally set up to supervise the collection of imports (it had no responsibility with regard to opium smuggling). If we confine our search for opium to the seaports, we fear the search will not be sufficiently thorough. We should also order the general commandant of the police and police—censors at the five gates to prohibit opium and to search for it at all gates. If they capture any violators, they should immediately punish them and should destroy the opium at once. As to Kwangtung [Guangdong] and Fukien [Fujian], the provinces from which opium comes, we order their viceroys, governors, and superintendents of the maritime customs to conduct a thorough search for opium, and cut off its supply. They should in no ways consider this order a dead letter and allow opium to be smuggled out!<ref name="fu">{{Cite book |last=Fu |first=Lo-shu |title=A Documentary Chronicle of Sino-Western relations, Volume 1 |year=1966 |page=380}}</ref>}}

Nonetheless, by 1831, the annual opium traffic neared 20,000 chests, each with a net weight of around 140 pounds, compared with just about 4,000 chests per year between 1800 and 1818. After the East India Company's monopoly on tea ended in 1833 and private merchants began to join in, this quantity would go on to double before the close of the decade.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lovell |first=Julia |title=The Opium War: drugs, dreams and the making of China |year=2014 |isbn=978-1468308952 |location=New York |pages=2–3 |publisher=Harry N. Abrams}}</ref>

Bengal and India, under the [[British Raj]], experienced mixed effects from the Britain-China opium trade. On one hand, millions died in Bengal during the famine of 1770 after agricultural land was forcibly converted to poppy cultivation. Small farmers in India's [[Bihar Province]] were compelled to grow poppies without profit. On the other hand, opium became the main driver of capital accumulation for merchants and bankers in western India.<ref name="Conversation">{{cite web |last1=Foster |first1=Kevin |title=Exploitation, brutality and misery: how the opium trade shaped the modern world |url=https://theconversation.com/exploitation-brutality-and-misery-how-the-opium-trade-shaped-the-modern-world-227356 |website=The Conversation |date=6 May 2024}}</ref> The Indian government's revenue from opium trade rose from less than five percent of its total in the early 1800s to nearly 17 percent in 1890.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Opium Trade—Observations |url=https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/1880-06-04/debates/b53a59e8-4235-47f9-beec-31da92fdfbf4/TheOpiumTrade%E2%80%94Observations |website=Hansard |date=4 June 1880}}</ref> The income helped British rule and the East India Company expand further in the region.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bhattacharya |first1=Prabir |title=India in the Rise of Britain and Europe: A Contribution to the Convergence and Great Divergence Debates |journal=Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics |date=January 2021 |volume=33 |issue=1 |pages=24–53 |doi=10.1177/0260107920907196 |url=https://doi.org/10.1177/0260107920907196 |issn=0260-1079}}</ref>

The opium profits of the Royal Dutch Trading Company in the [[Dutch East Indies]] financed several enterprises, such as [[Shell plc|Royal Dutch Shell]]. A few American merchants also made a fortune from the opium trade and invested their proceeds in railroads, hotel chains, and manufacturing in the United States.<ref name="Conversation" />