Martin Antonenko
A Fixture
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2008
- Messages
- 8,995
A state as a major drug dealer
By the early 19th century, British merchants and the military had devised a perfidious business model to enrich themselves and the Empire.
Great Britain became the first (and only country in history) to become a wholesale drug dealer - and made every effort to make the population of an entire country drug addicts in order to increase sales even more!
The business model went like this:
In their colonies in Bengal (India) the British had masses of opium cultivated and produced!
The stuff was of high quality and was named "Patna-Opium" after the growing area ...:
The "British East India Company", which ruled India until the Sepoy Uprising, secured a monopoly of trade in the stuff that was valid for the entire Empire.
Pressed into balls the size of a football, the drug was exported en masse by British ships from Bengal to China, where it swept the local opium off the market because of its quality.
Since the opium trade was officially banned in China, the British gentlemen worked on a grand scale with Chinese criminal gangs to bring the stuff into the country.
In this way, the legal business dealings with the Chinese were not endangered.
The British paid for their opium with Chinese silver in bars ...
... with the silver they bought local tea in large quantities, the tea was shipped to England and sold there at exorbitant prices - and the profits were again invested in opium production in Bengal.
For many people, every single step in trading resulted in a nice net profit - the business model practically financed itself!
The Chinese had to pay for them, because they drove them into drug addiction en masse because they were addicted to profit!
The consumption of drugs in "opium dens" (this name has been preserved to this day!) Became normal everyday business - tens of thousands of Chinese literally smuggled their houses, farms, women and daughters!
Forget all the romantic depictions of these drug parlors from that time - the following photos show the truth ...:
This is how the Empire got rich!
Fearing the military superiority of the British, the Chinese imperial court crouched away in fear for a long time.
That changed, however, when a ruler named Daoguang became emperor in 1820!
He is considered a capable, dedicated, and best-intentioned ruler - one of the best (if not THE best) China has ever had!
Daoguang has no desire to pursue the usual diversions of his predecessors - rather he has the books presented to him.
And he reads: In the years 1831 to 1833 alone, China had to spend the same amount (10 million silver ounces) on the drug as it had taken in the entire previous decade in trade with the British East India Company - not to mention a people who were seriously addicted to drugs .
In 1839 the ruler decides to take action!
On March 18, 1839, he met the imperial special commissioner Lin Zexu, who had been given full powers (the following is a comparison between a contemporary Chinese and a western portrait) ...
... in the port city of Canton - and immediately upon arrival orders 22,291 boxes of opium found in the British trading post to be dumped in the sea and the emissaries of the British East India Company to be deported ...:
What neither Lin Zexu nor his emperor suspected:
Great Britain will wage two (victorious) wars against China in order to be able to continue acting as a major dealer. At the end of these two conflicts, which have gone down in history as the "Opium Wars" (1839 to 1842 and 1856 to 1860), China will change from a hegemonic power to one largely dominated by foreign interests regional power will fall ...
And if you really want to understand the current conflicts over the state order in Hong Kong, you have to know that this British "crown colony" was a result of the 2nd opium war against the British, who are really hated in China, whose democratic system so praised in the West for them misery , Drug addiction and war brought!
Special Commissioner Lin Zexu, on the other hand, is still very well respected in China today ...:
By the early 19th century, British merchants and the military had devised a perfidious business model to enrich themselves and the Empire.
Great Britain became the first (and only country in history) to become a wholesale drug dealer - and made every effort to make the population of an entire country drug addicts in order to increase sales even more!
The business model went like this:
In their colonies in Bengal (India) the British had masses of opium cultivated and produced!
The stuff was of high quality and was named "Patna-Opium" after the growing area ...:
The "British East India Company", which ruled India until the Sepoy Uprising, secured a monopoly of trade in the stuff that was valid for the entire Empire.
Pressed into balls the size of a football, the drug was exported en masse by British ships from Bengal to China, where it swept the local opium off the market because of its quality.
Since the opium trade was officially banned in China, the British gentlemen worked on a grand scale with Chinese criminal gangs to bring the stuff into the country.
In this way, the legal business dealings with the Chinese were not endangered.
The British paid for their opium with Chinese silver in bars ...
... with the silver they bought local tea in large quantities, the tea was shipped to England and sold there at exorbitant prices - and the profits were again invested in opium production in Bengal.
For many people, every single step in trading resulted in a nice net profit - the business model practically financed itself!
The Chinese had to pay for them, because they drove them into drug addiction en masse because they were addicted to profit!
The consumption of drugs in "opium dens" (this name has been preserved to this day!) Became normal everyday business - tens of thousands of Chinese literally smuggled their houses, farms, women and daughters!
Forget all the romantic depictions of these drug parlors from that time - the following photos show the truth ...:
This is how the Empire got rich!
Fearing the military superiority of the British, the Chinese imperial court crouched away in fear for a long time.
That changed, however, when a ruler named Daoguang became emperor in 1820!
He is considered a capable, dedicated, and best-intentioned ruler - one of the best (if not THE best) China has ever had!
Daoguang has no desire to pursue the usual diversions of his predecessors - rather he has the books presented to him.
And he reads: In the years 1831 to 1833 alone, China had to spend the same amount (10 million silver ounces) on the drug as it had taken in the entire previous decade in trade with the British East India Company - not to mention a people who were seriously addicted to drugs .
In 1839 the ruler decides to take action!
On March 18, 1839, he met the imperial special commissioner Lin Zexu, who had been given full powers (the following is a comparison between a contemporary Chinese and a western portrait) ...
... in the port city of Canton - and immediately upon arrival orders 22,291 boxes of opium found in the British trading post to be dumped in the sea and the emissaries of the British East India Company to be deported ...:
What neither Lin Zexu nor his emperor suspected:
Great Britain will wage two (victorious) wars against China in order to be able to continue acting as a major dealer. At the end of these two conflicts, which have gone down in history as the "Opium Wars" (1839 to 1842 and 1856 to 1860), China will change from a hegemonic power to one largely dominated by foreign interests regional power will fall ...
And if you really want to understand the current conflicts over the state order in Hong Kong, you have to know that this British "crown colony" was a result of the 2nd opium war against the British, who are really hated in China, whose democratic system so praised in the West for them misery , Drug addiction and war brought!
Special Commissioner Lin Zexu, on the other hand, is still very well respected in China today ...:
