Chapter 9 The Calm Before the Storm

Although the harm of opium is so great, Jiaqing did not realize it deeply. Fortunately, shortly after Jiaqing's death, his son Daoguang's brain was enlightened, and he understood that opium could not help.But Daoguang's IQ is not high, so how did he realize this? The first is economic reasons. The monetary system of the Qing Dynasty was based on the silver standard—silver was used as the currency reserve, and copper coins were used as the currency in circulation. In other words, silver is the standard of the economic unit, and copper coins used in daily life maintain a reasonable exchange rate with silver. This reasonable exchange rate is the basis for the normal operation of the entire economic system.

But now there is a problem with this exchange ratio. The influx of opium has caused the continuous loss of silver, which in turn has caused a sharp decrease in the total amount of silver, making the exchange ratio between silver and copper coins no longer able to maintain at a normal level. Depreciation and soaring prices have made many people unable to survive. Secondly, in order to make the chair under the buttocks stronger, the emperor of the Qing Dynasty has always provided good food for the army, which provided the army with the necessary conditions for smoking opium-time and money. Of course, the opium-smoking army is corrupt and corrupt, and they don’t train seriously at ordinary times. They use the saved money and even gray income to eat, drink, prostitute and gamble. Later, when the Qing army and the foreigners fought hand-to-hand battles, they had an absolute advantage in numbers and still lost in a mess.

Just during Daoguang's reign, peasant uprisings occurred from time to time, and the government's opium army was often beaten by the insurgents. Daoguang was in a hurry, and he wanted to completely ban smoking. But Daoguang didn't realize that those who should have helped him ban smoking were not only the main consumer groups of opium, but also the umbrella of opium smuggling. These people have neither national consciousness nor national consciousness. For them, it has nothing to do with me if the common people cannot survive, and it has nothing to do with me if the army has no fighting power. Anyway, the country of the Qing Dynasty belongs to your Aixinjueluo family, not mine. , I’m right to make money while I’m an official.

In this way, a complete ban on smoking is naturally out of the question. It wasn't until the end of 1838 that Daoguang found a person who was really willing to ban smoking-Lin Zexu, governor of Huguang. Lin Zexu's professional ethics is almost impeccable, he is well versed in the dangers of opium, especially his professional level is relatively open-minded, and he is known as "the first person to see the world with his eyes open in modern times". It is said that he is also familiar with English and Portuguese. I have rich experience in smoking ban in my past work. It can be said that Lin Zexu's anti-smoking qualifications are very strong!

From this point of view, Mr. Lin will be a very qualified minister of anti-smoking.But the truth of the matter is that Mr. Lin's own two problems have compromised his qualifications for smoking ban. One is Master Lin’s deep belief that “foreigners will die of indigestion if they don’t have rhubarb and tea as supplementary food. Foreign soldiers are not good at land combat because their legs are inconvenient to bend (flexion and stretching are inconvenient, and if they go to the shore, they are even more useless——Lin Zexu's "The British must be restrained and strictly ordered to check the new British ships when they arrive in the smoke and land")".

Lin Zexu's sense of superiority obviously made him miscalculate the power balance between the enemy and himself, which in turn led him to give priority to and habitually use violence when solving problems, which simply means underestimating the enemy. Another point is that Lin Zexu was not very clear about the situation of the British outside Guangzhou at that time. At that time, the British outside Guangzhou, including serious businessmen who did not smuggle opium, did not do well. Although the British businessmen hoped that the officials in Guangzhou would conduct fair and free trade with them in accordance with Western rules, how could the officials of the Qing Dynasty? According to the meaning of the British?

The Qing government specially stipulated that the goods of foreigners must be transferred through thirteen banks before they can be bought and sold. Foreigners cannot contact other Chinese at will, and they cannot move around China at will. The appropriate words are "foreigners and dogs are not allowed to enter and exit at will". Here comes the contradiction: Britain's national strength does not seem to match the situation of British businessmen in China.You must know that at this time, Britain has defeated France in the Napoleonic Wars, which lasted more than ten years, and has become the only hegemon in Europe, and the empire on which the sun never sets is heading for the peak of glory.

Britain, which was spared from the war, also realized this, so the British government stepped up protection for British businessmen, such as sending commercial supervisors to China to protect the interests of British businessmen. The business supervision of the British is still the same as that of their predecessors, trying to obtain equal diplomatic and free trade treatment from the Guangzhou government, but the officials in Guangzhou do not buy it at all: government officials from all countries can only pay tribute when they come to China. They all follow the procedure of paying tribute.

The British business supervisor has no way to communicate normally with the powerful figures among Chinese officials. Without the military support of the British government for the time being, they can only endure the aggrievedness brought about by unequal treatment. For example, after Mr. Lu Laobei, the first commercial supervisor, came to China, he had conflicts with Guangzhou officials because of dignity issues. Mr. Lu wanted to give Guangzhou officials some tough things, but he didn’t expect that his mental and physical qualities were not strong enough, so he got angry. He fell ill again, and within three months of arriving in China, he died of a wimpy illness in Macau.

From this point of view, the British commercial supervision and businessmen have accumulated considerable enmity with the central government of the Qing Dynasty and the local government of Guangzhou. It is like a volcano about to erupt, and the hot magma is impacting the seemingly calm mountain pass. .