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Treaty Of Nanking
The Treaty of Nanjing was the peace treaty which ended the First Opium War (1839–1842) between Great Britain and the Qing dynasty of China on 29 August 1842. It was the first of what the Chinese later termed the Unequal Treaties. In the wake of China's military defeat, with British warships poised to attack Nanjing, British and Chinese officials negotiated on board HMS ''Cornwallis'' anchored in the Yangtze at the city. On 29 August, British representative Sir Henry Pottinger and Qing representatives Qiying, Yilibu, and Niu Jian signed the treaty, which consisted of thirteen articles. The treaty was ratified by the Daoguang Emperor on 27 October and Queen Victoria on 28 December. Ratification was exchanged in Hong Kong on 26 June 1843. The treaty required the Chinese to pay an indemnity, to cede the Island of Hong Kong to the British as a colony, to essentially end the Canton system that had limited trade to that port and allow trade at Five Treaty Ports. It was foll ...
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Daoguang Emperor
The Daoguang Emperor (; 16 September 1782 – 26 February 1850), also known by his temple name Emperor Xuanxong of Qing, born Mianning, was the seventh Emperor of the Qing dynasty, and the sixth Qing emperor to rule over China proper, reigning from 1820 to 1850. His reign was marked by "external disaster and internal rebellion." These included the First Opium War and the beginning of the Taiping Rebellion which nearly brought down the dynasty. The historian Jonathan Spence characterizes the Daoguang Emperor as a "well meaning but ineffective man" who promoted officials who "presented a purist view even if they had nothing to say about the domestic and foreign problems surrounding the dynasty." Early years The Daoguang Emperor was born in the Forbidden City, Beijing, in 1782, and was given the name Mianning (). It was later changed to Minning () when he became emperor. The first character of his private name was changed from ''Mian'' to ''Min'' to avoid the relatively common ...
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William Frederick Mayers
William S. Frederick Mayers (1831–1878) was a British official and sinologist. About He was son of the Rev. Michael John Mayers, and was born on 7 January 1831 in Tasmania. At the time his father was colonial chaplain there, and was subsequently appointed consular chaplain at Marseille, where Mayers received most of his schooling. After spending some years as a journalist in New York, Mayers in 1859 went to China as a student-interpreter, accompanying Lord Elgin to Beijing. and, after serving as interpreter to the allied commission charged with the government of Canton, was appointed interpreter to the consulate there. He encountered Gustaaf Schlegel there in 1861. In 1864 he was at Shanghai, assisting with Harry Smith Parkes the Bakufu officials Moriyama Takichirō and Yamaguchi Shichijirō. Mayers filled consular posts at Chinese ports until 1872, when he was made Chinese secretary of legation at Pekin. In the same year he visited England, and in August read a paper on the ...
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Treaty Of The Bogue
The Treaty of the Bogue () was a treaty between China and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, concluded in October 1843 to supplement the previous Treaty of Nanking. The treaty's key provisions granted extraterritoriality and most favored nation status to Britain. Background In order to conclude the First Opium War, imperial commissioner Qiying and Henry Pottinger concluded the Treaty of Nanjing aboard the British warship HMS ''Cornwallis'' in 1842 in Nanjing on the behalf of Britain and the Chinese Qing dynasty. The treaty became the first of a series of commercial treaties, often referred to as "unequal treaties", which China concluded against its wishes with Western powers. Terms During the negotiations in Nanjing, China and Britain had agreed that a supplementary treaty be concluded, and on 22July 1843 the two parties promulgated the "General Regulations of Trade with Britain and China" in Canton (Guangzhou). These regulations were included in the "Treaty ...
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Treaty Ports
Treaty ports (; ja, 条約港) were the port cities in China and Japan that were opened to foreign trade mainly by the unequal treaties forced upon them by Western powers, as well as cities in Korea opened up similarly by the Japanese Empire. Chinese treaty ports The British established their first treaty ports in China after the First Opium War by the Treaty of Nanking in 1842. As well as ceding the island of Hong Kong to the United Kingdom in perpetuity, the treaty also established five treaty ports at Shanghai, Canton (Guangzhou), Ningpo (Ningbo), Foochow ( Fuzhou), and Amoy (Xiamen). The following year the Chinese and British signed the Treaty of the Bogue, which added provisions for extraterritoriality and the most favored nation status for the latter country. Subsequent negotiations with the Americans (1843 Treaty of Wanghia) and the French (1844 Treaty of Whampoa) led to further concessions for these nations on the same terms as the British. The second group of treat ...
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Thirteen Factories
The Thirteen Factories, also known as the , was a neighbourhood along the Pearl River in southwestern Guangzhou (Canton) in the Qing Empire from to 1856 around modern day Xiguan, in Guangzhou's Liwan District. These warehouses and stores were the principal and sole legal site of most Western trade with China from 1757 to 1842. The factories were destroyed by fire in 1822 by accident, in 1841 amid the First Opium War, and in 1856 at the onset of the Second Opium War. The factories' importance diminished after the opening of the treaty ports and the end of the Canton System under the terms of the 1842 Anglo-Chinese Treaty of Nanking. After the Second Opium War, the factories were not rebuilt at their former site south of Guangzhou's old walled city but moved, first to Henan Island across the Pearl River and then to Shamian Island south of Guangzhou's western suburbs. Their former site is now part of . Terminology The "factories" were not workshops or manufacturing cent ...
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Cohong
The ''Cohong'', sometimes spelled or , a guild of China, Chinese merchants or Hong (business) , ''hongs'', operated the Canton System, import-export monopoly in Canton (present-day Guangzhou) during the Qing dynasty (16441911). During the century prior to the First Opium War of 1839-1842, trade relations between China and Europe took place exclusively via the ''Cohong'' - a system formalised by an imperial edict of the Qianlong Emperor in 1760. The Chinese merchants who made up the ''Cohong'' were referred to as (行商) and their foreign counterparts as (literally "foreign traders"). Foundation and structure In 1704, the ''Baoshang'' system was established. This system granted a number of Chinese merchants license to trade with Western merchants as long as they helped to collect duties from the Westerners, successfully aligning trading interests with the government's revenue collection. This was the predecessor for the later Cohong system. According to John Phipps, author ...
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Canton System
The Canton System (1757–1842; zh, t=一口通商, p=Yīkǒu tōngshāng, "Single orttrading relations") served as a means for Qing China to control trade with the West within its own country by focusing all trade on the southern port of Canton (now Guangzhou). The protectionist policy arose in 1757 as a response to a perceived political and commercial threat from abroad on the part of successive Chinese emperors. From the late seventeenth century onwards, Chinese merchants, known as '' Hongs'' (), managed all trade in the port. Operating from the Thirteen Factories located on the banks of the Pearl River outside Canton, in 1760, by order of the Qing Qianlong Emperor, they became officially sanctioned as a monopoly known as the ''Cohong''. Thereafter Chinese merchants dealing with foreign trade ( zh, t=洋行, p=yángháng, links=no, "ocean traders", i.e. "overseas traders" or "foreign traders") acted through the ''Cohong'' under the supervision of the Guangdong Customs Su ...
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London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major settlement for two millennia. The City of London, its ancient core and financial centre, was founded by the Romans as '' Londinium'' and retains its medieval boundaries.See also: Independent city § National capitals The City of Westminster, to the west of the City of London, has for centuries hosted the national government and parliament. Since the 19th century, the name "London" has also referred to the metropolis around this core, historically split between the counties of Middlesex, Essex, Surrey, Kent, and Hertfordshire, which largely comprises Greater London, governed by the Greater London Authority.The Greater London Authority consists of the Mayor of London and the London Assembly. The London Mayor is distinguished fr ...
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Foreign, Commonwealth And Development Office
The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) is a department of the Government of the United Kingdom. Equivalent to other countries' ministries of foreign affairs, it was created on 2 September 2020 through the merger of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) and the Department for International Development (DFID). The FCO, itself created in 1968 by the merger of the Foreign Office (FO) and the Commonwealth Office, was responsible for protecting and promoting British interests worldwide. The head of the FCDO is the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, commonly abbreviated to "Foreign Secretary". This is regarded as one of the four most prestigious positions in the Cabinet – the Great Offices of State – alongside those of Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Home Secretary. James Cleverly was appointed Foreign Secretary on 6 September 2022. The FCDO is managed day-to-day by a civil servant, the permanent under-secret ...
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Destruction Of Opium At Humen
The destruction of opium at Humen began on 3June 1839 and involved the destruction of 1,000 long tons (1,016 t) of illegal opium seized from British traders under the aegis of Lin Zexu, an Imperial Commissioner of Qing China. Conducted on the banks of the Pearl River outside Humen Town, Dongguan, China, the action provided ''casus belli'' for Great Britain to declare war on Qing China. What followed is now known as the First Opium War (18391842), a conflict that initiated China's opening for trade with foreign nations under a series of treaties with the western powers. Background A reduction in import duty by the British government on Chinese tea from 110 per cent to an average of 10 per cent in 1784 caused a surge in domestic demand, which in turn led to a huge silver deficit for the East India Company (EIC), who were the sole importers of the commodity. Silver was the only currency the Chinese would accept in payment for their tea, and to redress the balance in 179 ...
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Lin Zexu
Lin Zexu (30 August 1785 – 22 November 1850), courtesy name Yuanfu, was a Chinese political philosopher and politician. He was the head of states (Viceroy), Governor General, scholar-official, and under the Daoguang Emperor of the Qing dynasty best known for his role in the First Opium War of 1839–42. He was from Fuzhou, Fujian Province. Lin's forceful opposition to the opium trade was a primary catalyst for the First Opium War. He is praised for his constant position on the "moral high ground" in his fight, but he is also blamed for a rigid approach which failed to account for the domestic and international complexities of the problem. The Emperor endorsed the hardline policies and anti-drugs movement advocated by Lin, but placed all responsibility for the resulting disastrous Opium War onto Lin. Early life and career Lin was born in Houguan (侯官; modern Fuzhou, Fujian Province) towards the end of the Qianlong Emperor's reign. His father, Lin Binri (), served as an offic ...
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Plantation
A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The crops that are grown include cotton, coffee, tea, cocoa, sugar cane, opium, sisal, oil seeds, oil palms, fruits, rubber trees and forest trees. Protectionist policies and natural comparative advantage have sometimes contributed to determining where plantations are located. In modern use the term is usually taken to refer only to large-scale estates, but in earlier periods, before about 1800, it was the usual term for a farm of any size in the southern parts of British North America, with, as Noah Webster noted, "farm" becoming the usual term from about Maryland northwards. It was used in most British colonies, but very rarely in the United Kingdom itself in this sense. There, as also in America, it was used mainly for tree plantations, a ...
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