[
    {
        "id": 214959,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2000",
        "page_number": 55,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "10\n\nLin Zexu and the Conflict\n\nLin Zexu is not the subject of this paper. However, since he is the central figure of the Symposium, it seems appropriate to devote some little space to this extraordinary man, who no doubt cast a giant shadow on Anglo-Chinese relations.\n\nEmperor Qianlong, great emperor though he was, apart from issuing prohibitive edicts seems to have done little to stop the opium trade. Jiaqing (1796-1820) who followed was equally ineffectual. His successor Daoguang (1821-1850), however, was a man of a different mettle. In 1836, Imperial edicts having failed to check the opium trade, the problem was hotly debated in Beijing. There was one faction that favoured legalizing opium importation and so turning it to public profit. To this Emperor Daoguang replied: 'It is true, I cannot prevent the introduction of the flowing poison; gain-seeking and corrupt men will, for profit and sensuality, defeat my wishes; but nothing will induce me to derive a revenue from the vice and misery of my people,\" noble words by a great monarch. In 1839, deciding to take forceful action, the Emperor appointed Lin Zexu as his Commissioner charged with total eradication of the infamous trade. Commissioner Lin journeyed to Guangzhou and immediately ordered all commerce in opium to be stopped. He further demanded that merchants should surrender all stocks and sign a bond to cease importing, in effect laying the factories to siege. This much is well documented as well as the ensuing course of events which led to the 1st Opium War.\n\nLin Zexu presents an interesting character study of contrasting portraits. For many years the British sources had portrayed him as 'fierce, unscrupulous, and fanatical.'\" Most of the known paintings of him show a fierce, pugnacious countenance. It is, therefore, gratifying to include in this paper a reproduction of a rare painting depicting him as a handsome man with a dignified yet kind expression on his face.** Gradually the picture has changed and Lin is being recognized as an intelligent and learned man, a capable and resolute official, a competent administrator, and a fair and just dispenser of the law; most importantly, he was incorruptible. A modern, progressive man, he observed, however, all the Chinese ceremonies, made sacrifices at temples, and made offerings to the spirits of his ancestors. He liked poetry, which he practised for his own leisure. A man who, at the height of the opium",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 214961,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2000",
        "page_number": 57,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "12\n\nالرقاب\n\nwe wanted might have been got, if it had not been for the unaccountably strange conduct of Charles Elliot - not Admiral Elliot, for he was obliged to come away from ill-health who completely disobeyed his instructions and tried to get the lowest terms he could......Albert is so much amused at my having got the Island of Hong Kong...' (author's italics).\n\nWaley compares Lin and Elliot, the opponents in the opium dispute, and finds similarities; for instance, both were civil servants carrying out tasks imposed on them from above, both being cashiered for failing to fulfil these tasks. Strangely, Waley does not mention what is perhaps the most significant similarity: they both detested the opium trade. Elliot saw it as a disgrace and a sin and the blackest stain on the British character. It has even been suggested that Elliot, under instructions to protect the opium traders - a task he resented - deliberately disobeyed his orders and demanded less from the Chinese than the Government at home had ordered him to do.\n\n21\n\nLin was dismissed in late 1840. He left Guangzhou in May 1841, exiled to Xinjiang (Turkestan). He failed through no fault of his own; he was sent on a “mission impossible.\" Booth sums it up by saying that Lin had powerful forces massed against him - the military power of the British, the corruption of the Chinese government, and the devious immorality of the opium dealers.'22 The Opium War settled nothing. The long line of an unprotected Chinese coast threw the opium trade, in Elliot's words, 'into desperate hands.' Opium smuggling became totally out of control, and relations between Britain and China remained unstable and hostile. The measures Emperor Daoguang took to stop the opium traffic may have led to war, but it would be inaccurate to say that they caused it. It has been strongly argued that they merely gave an excuse for the war, which certain groups in Britain had been long demanding. It would be wrong, however, to assume that British public opinion was solidly behind the government and its war with China. Elsewhere in the Symposium it will be pointed out that a strong anti-opium sentiment existed in Britain, which in the end could not be silenced and led eventually to the end of the infamous trade. Two examples will suffice here: The Times, upon receiving the news of the Treaty of Nanjing wrote that the moment had come for Britain to extricate herself from her involvement with opium. Some moral compensation was owed to China 'for pillaging her towns and",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n",
        "rank": 0
    }
]