Naval War Museum

Through Humen fort, and then through a large green belt is the Naval Battle Museum. The vast square sets off the prestige of the museum. Entering the museum, the exhibition is divided into two parts, one is the Opium War history exhibition, the other is the anti drug exhibition. From the exhibition of the history of the Opium War, people can feel an unchanging truth: falling behind means being beaten; while in the drug control Museum, when you see those tragic scenes, you should not touch drugs, even one mouthful.

Naval War Museum

The Museum of naval warfare, the Museum of destructed Opium War (the Lin Zexu memorial hall, the three Humen Museum, and one group of the Museum), located in Humen, Dongguan, Guangdong, is a special museum combining Memorial and site. The former site of the Lin Zexu smoke pool and the fort of Humen is a national key cultural relics protection unit. It is a historical witness during the Opium War period, with an area of about 80. 10000 square meters. The Opium War Museum was founded in 1957. It was named "Lin Zexu Memorial Hall" at the beginning of its construction. It was renamed "Humen people's anti British Memorial Hall" in 1972 and renamed "Humen Lin Zexu Memorial Hall" in 1985. In order to facilitate the management of the Opium War sites, another Museum name, the Opium War Museum, was added.

Development history

Fight against smoking

Around the issue of banning smoking, there was a heated debate within the ruling class of the Qing Dynasty. Before the outbreak of the Opium War, Lin Zexu, governor of Huguang, was the representative of the non-smoking faction. He advocated that "smoking should be strictly controlled" and "the law should be strict", and resolutely banned smoking. After the outbreak of the Opium War, he advocated resolute resistance, also known as the resistance faction. The other group, represented by chief military aircraft minister mu zhanga and Zhili governor Qi Shan, initially opposed severe punishment and advocated the abolition of the ban on smoking. Later, they opposed resistance and advocated surrender, also known as capitulationists. Although the foothold of the resistance faction was to safeguard the interests of the feudal dynasty, when the national contradiction rose to the main contradiction, it was far sighted and consistent with the wishes and interests of the people to advocate the elimination of tobacco and drugs and fight against aggression. In October 1838, Lin Zexu wrote to Emperor Daoguang, saying that opium did great harm and must be strictly prohibited. In the memorial, he cried out that if we go on carelessly, we are afraid that in a few decades, "there will be few soldiers in the Central Plains who can resist the enemy, and there will be no money to pay.". Emperor Daoguang knew that soldiers and salaries were the lifeblood of his rule, and it was impossible to threaten his life, so he decided to ban smoking. In December 1838, Lin Zexu was appointed as the imperial envoy to Guangzhou to ban opium.

Lin Zexu (1785-1850), whose name is Shaomu, was a Marquis of Fujian Province. In 1811, the Jinshi entered the officialdom and successively served as local officials in Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shaanxi, Hubei and other provinces. He also supervised the construction of dikes in Henan Province. He had a better understanding of the social situation and the suffering of the people. He was a landlord class intellectual determined to reform. On January 8, 1839, he was ordered to leave Beijing for Guangzhou. Before he left, he said to his friends, "we have long ignored the misfortunes and blessings of life and death." he was determined to eliminate the scourge of opium. As soon as Lin Zexu arrived in Guangzhou on March 10, he immediately launched a campaign to ban smoking. Deng Tingzhen, the former governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, who was not very active in banning smoking, also became an active figure in the anti smoking faction under the promotion of the situation. He told Lin Zexu that he must "work together to eliminate the source of China's great calamity.". Lin Zexu kept meeting with officials in Guangzhou to exchange opinions on banning smoking. He summoned hundreds of college students and asked them to list the drug trafficking places and the names of drug dealers. He also disguised himself as a common people and went to the boatmen, fishermen and the general public to investigate in person.

After fully mastering the situation, Lin Zexu took decisive measures: first, he ordered all Chinese and foreign cigarette dealers to hand in opium; second, he asked all foreign businessmen to write a guarantee that they would no longer smuggle opium. "If they bring opium, once they find it out, the goods will be empty, and the people will be punished.". On March 18, Lin Zexu informed the foreign drug dealers to give a detailed report of the actual number of cigarettes stored, which was limited to three days. On March 22, when the three-day deadline had expired, the drug dealers only handed over a small change (1037 cases). In the course of resisting opium trafficking, there was a British drug dealer, Diandi, who was an old hand in drug trafficking in China for many years. He was in charge of a large number of opium smuggling. He has the most opium on hand. He not only refuses to hand it in himself, but also prevents others from doing it all. After Lin Zexu grasped the situation, he immediately ordered the arrest of Diandi. At this time, the British commercial supervision law secretly rushed to Guangzhou from Macao, in an attempt to protect the British Opium ships from fleeing, and ordered the British Opium ships berthed outside the Pearl River Estuary to prepare for war. However, when Yilu fled from the commercial building with a murder weapon, the commercial building was surrounded by the angry Chinese people. The Opium dealers, such as Dandi, were finally arrested.

In order to crack down on the sabotage of Yilv, Lin Zexu immediately ordered to send troops to block the commercial building, stop Sino British trade, cut off the communication between the commercial building and the Opium ship, and withdraw the Chinese employees in the commercial building. The law of righteousness had no choice but to order all the opium to be handed over. Lin Zexu, together with Deng Tingzhen, personally checked and accepted it. From April 12 to May 21, more than 20000 boxes of opium, about 2.3 million jin, worth 8 million taels of silver, were collected.

Destruction of opium at Humen

In order not to let opium poison the people, Lin Zexu decided to destroy all the collected opium. On June 3, 1839, the sky was clear and cloudless. On the vast Humen beach, there was a sea of people. At two o'clock pm, several rounds of guns went off, and Lin Zexu announced destructed opium. The soldiers filled the dug pool with sea water, poured opium and sprinkled lime. Brake time, pool water rolling, smoke skyrocketing, all jubilation. The Opium in the pool soon turned into dregs. At this time, when the tide was ebbing, Lin Zexu ordered the gate to be opened, and the waste in the pool was swept into the sea with the rolling tide. In this way, it took 23 days from June 3, 1839 to destroy all the more than 20000 cases of opium.

Destructed opium in Humen shows the patriotic spirit and heroic spirit of the Chinese people in safeguarding national dignity and resisting foreign aggression. Destructed opium from Humen after the victory of the Chinese people's revolution, the spectacular scene of the smoke in Beijing is inscribed on the monument to the people's Heroes in Tiananmen square.

After the success of opium collection, Lin Zexu continued his struggle. He asked the foreign opium merchants to write a letter to promise never to bring opium to China. However, the British government insisted on its aggressive position and ordered the British businessmen to refuse to establish documents and actively prepare for the war. Lin Zexu expected that sooner or later the aggressors would retaliate armed. Therefore, while banning smoking, he, together with Deng Tingzhen, the governor of Guangdong and Guangdong provinces, and Guan Tianpei, the commander-in-chief of the Navy, reorganized the army, seriously practiced, recruited fishermen, organized water bravery, and stepped up combat readiness.

Indeed, China destructed opium with the warship and armed merchant ship in three months (September 1839) after the Humen tobacco was sold, and was attacked bravely by Chinese naval vessels and coastal fort. A British ketch was sunk, and more than a dozen sailors were killed. Yilv had to lead the warships to retreat to Haikou. But he didn't give up. From November on, he continued to take the leading ship to Guangzhou for provocation. Lin Zexu organized the army and the people to fight back resolutely and won seven battles and seven victories successively. The anti smoking movement led by Lin Zexu and the struggle against British bandits show that he is worthy of being the first national hero and outstanding statesman in modern Chinese history.

Brave resistance

When the news of China's ban on smoking spread to Britain, the British bourgeoisie immediately cried out that China's ban on smoking "gave us an opportunity for war", which "can not be easily let go", and slandered that China's ban on smoking was an "act of aggression" against Britain. In October 1839, the British government decided to send troops to China. In February 1840, Yilu was appointed commander in chief and Plenipotentiary of the invading army, and Yilu was appointed deputy representative. An "Eastern expeditionary force" with 16 warships, 28 transport ships, 4 armed steamships, 540 guns and 4000 soldiers was formed. In early June of the same year, they invaded Guangdong and Macao. On June 28, British ships blocked the Pearl River Estuary, and the first Opium War broke out. The war lasted more than two years from June 1840 to August 1842, and roughly went through three stages.

The first stage: from the British blockade of the Pearl River Estuary to the signing of the "Treaty of piercing the nose". After the British ships arrived at the sea of Macao, they sealed off the Pearl River Estuary according to the original aggressive steps. Lin Zexu immediately adjusted his deployment, actively prepared for the war, and put up a notice calling on the people to fight bravely. At the call of Lin Zexu, the army and the people of Guangdong were in high spirits, ready to attack the enemy head-on.

Because the British invading forces were not familiar with the Chinese waterway, they had to hire Chinese to lead the way. According to the water diversion report, Lin Zexu often cooperated with the Navy and fishermen to break into the enemy's fleet unexpectedly, launch fire attacks, and burn down the enemy's ships. Many of the invading troops were burned and drowned. Yilu saw that Guangdong was heavily guarded and could not take advantage of it, which made it easy to invade Xiamen, Fujian Province in July. At this time, Deng Tingzhen, the former governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, was transferred to Fujian and Zhejiang. When he saw the British coming, he quickly organized the navy to carry out a fire attack, and the British were defeated again. Then, the British invaded Zhejiang in the north. Unfortunately, at that time, except for Guangdong and Fujian, most Haikou from Zhejiang to Tianjin were unprepared. On July 5, the British army captured Dinghai, Zhejiang Province, carrying out a frenzied massacre and plunder. After plundering Dinghai, the British continued to commit crimes in the north. Although the people fought bravely and killed many British troops along the way, the Qing government carried out the policy of non resistance, so the British troops soon rushed to Dagukou, Tianjin. At that time, there were only over 200 Qing troops in Dagukou and only 800 in Tianjin. In accordance with a predetermined plan, the British aggressors sent their troops to Japan

Chinese PinYin : Hai Zhan Bo Wu Guan