Opium Wars

Drugs have been around for hundreds of years and it modifies normal body functions depending on the drug. During the 19th century, the Chinese had become a victim under the dangerous drug of Opium. When opium was first introduce in China it was like any other drug, addictive and harmful to the human body but the Chinese weren’t aware of the opium negative effects. Opium the narcotic drug is derived of from immature seed pods of poppy plants. Opium was used for pain relieving, it was one of the first drugs able to relieve pain before morphine was invented, and morphine is safer drug then opium and they both came from the same plant. Before the opium war, foreign trade to Western countries was limited and strictly controlled by the government since the Chinese believes they won’t benefit from the Western countries such as England. The Chinese felt very superior comparing to the Western Countries and ironically England is actually more superior then China in every aspect; political dominance, military dominance and economical in particular. The Opium wars are conflicts between China and England over trading rights on the dangerous narcotic of opium, periods of the two conflicts are between 1839-1842, & 1856-1860. The English and Chinese hostilities ended with the Treaty of Nanjing for the first conflict and convention of Peking for the second conflict. The Chinese suffered one of their most humiliating defeats from the opium wars, when they lost to a country that they considered barbaric. Britain’s military triumph over China’s military has dictated the results of the Opium Wars. By the end of the Opium wars Britain had asserted a dominant military force and influenced the importance of Western technology into military. When the Chinese was bombarded with the newly steam iron ship, Nemesis, Lin Zexu urges the Chinese government to start adapting towards western technologies to balance out their military disadvantages. Technology into the military plays a key role