Within the Chinese mandarinate there was an ongoing debate over legalising the opium trade itself. However, legalization was repeatedly rejected and instead, in 1838 the government sentenced native drug traffickers to death. Emperor appointed a new strict Confucian commissioner, Lin Zexu to controlthe opium trade at the port of Canton.
His first course of action was to enforce the imperial demand that there be apermanent halt to drug shipments into China. On 27 March 1839 Charles Elliot, British Superintendent of Trade agreed that all British subjects should turn over their opium to him.
In a departure from his brief, he promised that the crown would compensatethem for the lost opium. Unable to allocate funds for an illegal drug but pressed for compensation bythe merchants, this liability is cited as one reason for the decision to force a war.
When the British learned of what was taking place in Canton, ascommunications between these two parts of the world took months at thistime, they sent a large British Indian army, which arrived in June 1840.
British military superiority drew on newly applied technology. British warships wreaked havoc on coastal towns; the steam ship Nemesis wasable to move against the winds and tides and support a gun platform with veryheavy guns.
In addition, the British troops were the first to be armed withmodern muskets and cannons which fired more rapidly and with greateraccuracy than the Qing firearms and artillery.
After the British took Canton, they sailed up the Yangtze and took the taxbarges, a devastating blow to the Empire.