The early Sino-foreign trade was dominated by Sino-British trade for a long time, while the British trade right with China was controlled by the British East India Company for a long time. The East India Company has established a policy of importing a large number of opium to China, and monopolized the opium trade for a long time, monopolizing the exclusive rights and manufacturing rights of opium.
(A) British East India Company and its conquest of India
Columbus sailed to America and mistakenly thought he had arrived in India. Although it was soon proved to be the "New World", it was not India. However, the island between North and South America, which Columbus first reached, has always been called the West India by westerners, but he "regards Asia as a whole and calls it the East India" (Danielle: an American in East Asia). In the process of the East's invasion of Asia, western countries successively established colonial ruling institutions-the East India Company (for example, the Dutch East India Company was established in 1602 and the French East India Company was established in 1664).
The British East India Company was established on 1600. 1588, Britain became a maritime power after defeating Spain's "Armada", and since then, it has actively invaded and expanded from the sea to the east. 1598, 100 businessmen in the London banking district jointly established the East India Company, monopolizing the trade of all countries east of the Cape of Good Hope. 1600 65438+February 3 1 approved by Queen Elizabeth, allowing commercial monopoly. Set up military privileges and the company was formally established. At first, the East India Company was only a private enterprise. 177 1 year, the British government sent Hastings, a former employee of the East India Company, as the governor of Bangladesh. The following year, Hastings was promoted to Director of India. Since then, the East India Company, a private enterprise, has actually become the general organ of British aggression against East Asia (Yao Weiyuan: A Historical Review of the Opium War). The British invasion of India was entirely arranged by the East India Company. They took advantage of the civil strife in the Mughal Empire of India to sow dissension among feudal lords, create wars, and make them live in harmony. In the end, the fishermen benefited, thus seizing India's political and military dominance.
(B) Early Sino-British trade
In early Sino-British trade, the British side was arranged by the East India Company. 1637, British merchant ships came to China for the first time. 1685, the East India Company was granted the right to open a business office in Guangzhou. 17 15, "The East India Company was determined to establish trade with China on a normal basis, so it set up a business hall in Guangzhou with permanent staff and dispatched ships regularly" (Mars: History of Foreign Relations of the Chinese Empire 1). In Guangzhou, the East India Company usually consists of 65,438+02 business management agents, and generally consists of three or four senior members, who are directly led by the board of directors of the London East India Company. The leader of this special committee is called Taipan in China.
In the early Sino-British trade, British exports to China were mainly wool textiles, Indian cotton and sandalwood. The main commodities exported by China to Britain are tea, silk, porcelain, lacquerware, etc., among which tea is the bulk. Tea is particularly popular with the British, so the import volume has soared. /kloc-in 0/664, only two pounds and two ounces (about one kilogram) of tea were imported into Britain and sold as medicinal materials with scales. A century later, there was no one in the British Isles who didn't know about tea, and no one didn't drink tea. 1770- 1774, with an average annual import of 42,065 tons (5,608,527 pounds) of tea from China. 1800- 1804, increasing to 22 1027000 tons (29469530 pounds) annually on average. In Britain, tea has become such a popular national drink that Parliament issued a decree requiring the East India Company to keep a stock supply for one year.
Britain needs a lot of goods from China, but there is almost no market for British goods in China. The East India Company's goods to China have always been at a disadvantage, and Britain has to rely mainly on exporting silver to maintain its trade with China. Britain's first merchant ship to China didn't sell a single British commodity, but threw away 80,000 silver dollars. 1722- 1723, the east India company has four ships to Guangzhou, and more than 90% of the goods on board are silver. Since the British Industrial Revolution, the cotton textile industry has made great progress, but there is still no big market for cotton textile in China, and the trade deficit between China and Britain has not changed much. 1792- 1807, Britain bought 27 million pounds (one pound is about three taels of silver) from Guangzhou, but only16 million pounds of goods were exported to Guangzhou, with a deficit of110 million pounds. The mercenary British bourgeoisie will never want to stay in this unfavorable position for a long time. In order to reverse the trade deficit, the East India Company tried its best to finally find opium and established the policy of importing opium to China in large quantities.
(3) The East India Company seized the exclusive right to sell opium.
Opium, also known as "opium", commonly known as smog, also known as hibiscus, is extracted from the juice of poppy fruit. Poppy originated in Asia Minor and Southeast Europe, and later spread to Arabia and India. Poppy is a beautiful herb with green or white branches, bright red, orange red, pink or white flowers, and spherical fruit with white solution. Poppy contains a lot of alkaloids, such as morphine, cocaine and narcotine, which have the functions of refreshing, stopping diarrhea and relieving pain. So it was originally used as medicine. China imported a small amount of opium from Arabia as a medicinal material from the Tang Dynasty. /kloc-Since the 6th century, with the frequent introduction of western colonialism, the bad habit of smoking opium was gradually introduced to China from Nanyang. The Portuguese stole Macau and set a bad example of importing opium from overseas to China. Since then, the Dutch, British, French, American and other colonists have followed suit and started importing opium to China.
Opium is not a British product, but British colony India is the largest opium producing area in the world. After the East India Company conquered India, it forced Indian farmers to grow poppies by means of loans, expanded opium production, and then shipped them to China. British businessmen made a lot of money in selling opium to China and tasted the sweetness. In order to monopolize the opium trade and crowd out western competitors such as Portugal, Netherlands, France and the United States, the East India Company established the opium exclusive right in 1773. British colonists forced Indian poppy growers to sell opium to the East India Company at a prescribed price, but not to other companies. The East India Company bought opium from Indian farmers at a low price, then auctioned it at a high price in Calcutta to Hong Kong businessmen, who then shipped it to China for illegal sale at a higher price. The so-called Hong Kong foot businessmen refer to those private businessmen who trade between China and India. They are either British businessmen or Indian businessmen, and their folk trade is the so-called port-foot trade. The merchant ships they own to transport goods between China and India are called port-footed ships. Although the port foot does not belong to the East India Company, it is licensed by the East India Company to conduct shipping and trade under the overall control of the company.
The East India Company made huge profits from the opium monopoly. 1805, the price of opium auctioned by the East India Company in Kolkata was 988 rupees per box, while the price it bought was only 160 rupees, with a profit rate as high as 5 17.5%. The selling price of Hong Kong businessmen to Guangzhou is 3500 rupees, and the profit rate is 254.25% excluding a small amount of circulation expenses. 18 13 years, the cost of a box of opium (common land) was 237 rupees, while the auction price was 2428 rupees. The profit of the East India Company in selling cigarettes is as high as 92.4%. Such a high profit is unprecedented in the history of world trade (Mou Anshi: Opium War). During the period of 20071797-1865438+21,the net profit of the East India Company's opium auction in Kolkata reached 1 105475800 rupees.
Seizing the monopoly right of opium is the first step for the East India Company to promote the opium trade. 1780, the East India Company announced that it "monopolized opium transportation and took all this trade into its own hands" (Mars: History of Foreign Relations of the Chinese Empire 1). 1797 further monopolized the right to manufacture opium. Under the monopoly of the East India Company, the opium trade with China has developed rapidly.