The Opium War, usually called the First Opium War, is often called the First Sino-British War or "Trade War" by Britain. It was 1840 to 1842 that Britain launched an unjust war of aggression against China, and it was also the beginning of China's modern humiliating history. 1in June, 840, 47 British ships and 4,000 troops led by Major General George Elliott and China Commercial Supervision Law arrived outside the Pearl River Estuary in Guangdong Province, blocking Haikou, and the Opium War began.

The Opium War ended with China's failure and reparations. China and Britain signed the treaty of nanking, the first unequal treaty in China's history. China began to cede territory, pay reparations and negotiate tariffs to foreign countries, which seriously endangered China's sovereignty, became a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society, lost its independent status and promoted the disintegration of the small-scale peasant economy. At the same time, the Opium War also opened a new chapter in the history of modern China people's resistance to foreign aggression.

The Influence of Opium War on China

China was a self-sufficient feudal country before the war, and the natural economy was dominant. After the war, the traditional natural economy began to disintegrate and gradually became a vassal of western capitalism. In a word, post-war China began to become a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society step by step.

The principal contradiction in China society has also undergone fundamental changes. The main contradiction in China society before the war was the contradiction between the peasant class and the landlord class. After the war, the people of China were deeply oppressed by imperialism and feudalism, and the main social contradiction became the contradiction between imperialism and the Chinese nation, feudalism and the masses of the people. From then on, anti-imperialism and feudalism became the theme of modern China, and the history of China began to enter the period of national democratic revolution.