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Since the 18th century foreign trades( primarily British) have been illegally exporting opium, mainly from India to china but that trade grows dramatically. Addiction to opium among the Chinese population increases, causing serious social and economic problems
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the Chinese government, determined to suppress the opium treads, confiscates and destroys more than 20,000 chests of opium-some 1,400 tons of the drugs that are warehoused at Canton (Guangzhou) by British merchants. Later that year fighting break out when British warships destroy a Chinese blockade of the Pearl River (zhu Jiang) estuary at hong kong
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A British expeditionary force arrives in hong kong in June. the British fleet proceeds up the Pearl River Estuary to the canton.
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British ships attack a Chinese battery on the Pearl River in China in 1841 during the first Opium War