30 Facts About Lin Zexu

Lin Zexu, courtesy name Yuanfu, was a Chinese political philosopher and politician.

Lin Zexu is praised for his constant position on the "moral high ground" in his fight, but he is blamed for a rigid approach which failed to account for the domestic and international complexities of the problem.

The Emperor endorsed the hardline policies and anti-drugs movement advocated by Lin Zexu, but placed all responsibility for the resulting disastrous Opium War onto Lin Zexu.

Lin Zexu was born in Houguan towards the end of the Qianlong Emperor's reign.

Lin Zexu rose rapidly through various grades of provincial service.

Lin Zexu opposed the opening of China but felt the need of a better knowledge of foreigners, which drove him to collect material for a geography of the world.

Lin Zexu later gave this material to Wei Yuan, who published the Illustrated Treatise on the Maritime Kingdoms in 1843.

Lin Zexu became Governor-General of Hunan and Hubei in 1837, where he launched a suppression campaign against the trading of opium.

Lin Zexu argued that China was providing Britain with valuable commodities such as tea, porcelain, spices and silk, with Britain sending only "poison" in return.

Lin Zexu accused the foreigner traders of coveting profit and lacking morality.

Lin Zexu's memorial expressed a desire that the ruler would act "in accordance with decent feeling" and support his efforts.

In March 1839, Lin Zexu started to take measures that would eliminate the opium trade.

Lin Zexu was a formidable bureaucrat known for his competence and high moral standards, with an imperial commission from the Daoguang Emperor to halt the illegal importation of opium by the British.

Lin Zexu arrested more than 1,700 Chinese opium dealers and confiscated over 70,000 opium pipes.

Lin Zexu initially attempted to get foreign companies to forfeit their opium stores in exchange for tea, but this ultimately failed.

Lin Zexu resorted to using force in the western merchants' enclave.

Lin Zexu composed an elegy apologising to the gods of the sea for polluting their realm.

The immediate effect was that both sides, by the words of Charles Elliot and Lin Zexu, banned all trade.

Lin Zexu made significant preparations for war against the possible British invasion.

The governors of these two provinces failed to heed a warning from Lin Zexu and were unprepared when the British easily landed and occupied Dinghai.

Lin Zexu became a scapegoat for these losses due to court politics.

Lin Zexu's position was then given to Qishan in September 1840.

Lin Zexu recorded several Kazakh oral tales, such as one concerning a green goat spirit of the lake whose appearance is a harbinger of hail or rain.

Lin Zexu died in 1850 while on the way to Guangxi Province, where the Qing government was sending him to help put down the Taiping Rebellion.

Lin Zexu became a symbol of the fight against opium, with his image displayed in parades, and his writings quoted approvingly by anti-opium and anti-drugs reformers.

In China, Lin Zexu is popularly viewed as a national hero.

Monuments to Lin Zexu have been constructed in Chinese communities around the world.

Lin Zexu's grandson Commodore Lin Taizeng was an officer in the Beiyang Fleet and commanded one of China's two modern battleships purchased from Germany in the 1880s, Zhenyuan, during the First Sino-Japanese War.

Lin Zexu committed suicide with an opium overdose after the ship ran aground and had to be abandoned.

Lin Zexu descendants are living in Fuzhou, Fujian and surroundings, Jieyang, Meizhou, Guangdong and surroundings, various places in China and United States.