Lin Zexu: Champion Against Opium

In the first installment of what will be a two-part feature, we’ll talk about Lin Zexu, a visionary reformer and steadfast opponent of the opium trade, who played a pivotal role in defending China’s sovereignty and shaping its policies through his unwavering commitment to public health and national defense.

Transcript

Lin Zexu: Champion Against Opium

In the first installment of what will be a two-part feature, we’ll talk about Lin Zexu, a visionary reformer and steadfast opponent of the opium trade, who played a pivotal role in defending China’s sovereignty and shaping its policies through his unwavering commitment to public health and national defense.

2025 marks the 240th anniversary of the birth of Lin Zexu, a prominent Chinese official, scholar, and reformer during the Qing Dynasty, best known for his staunch opposition to the opium trade.

In 1785, Lin Zexu was born in the city of Fuzhou, Fujian Province. Although his ancestors came from a prominent and respected family in the area, by the time it reached Lin Zexu’s father, Lin Binri, the family’s fortunes had greatly declined. Lin Binri failed the local imperial examination and had no choice but to open a private school to support his family. He had eleven children, and Lin Zexu was the second son.

When Lin Zexu was young, the meager income of the Lin family could no longer cover their ever-mounting daily expenses. At times, they didn’t have enough food for three meals a day and couldn’t afford proper clothes. Nevertheless, Lin Zexu’s father never slackened in his efforts to provide his children with a quality education. At the age of four, Lin Zexu was enrolled in a school to learn calligraphy, and by the age of six, he was already writing essays.

The adversity of poverty made Lin Zexu more mature than most children. He understood the difficulties of life and often helped his mother with household chores in addition to studying hard. But his hard work paid off, and in 1797, he ranked first in the provincial examination. The following year, he passed the lowest degree in the imperial examination system, thereby becoming a Xiucai.

In 1804, at the age of nineteen, Lin Zexu passed the provincial examination to become a Juren, a successful candidate in the imperial examination. On the day the results were announced, he officially married Zheng Shuqing, the daughter of the magistrate of Yongcheng, Henan Province. Finally, after years of tireless study and the arrangement of a successful marriage, Lin Zexu was able to escape the grip of poverty. However, Lin Zexu’s ambitions were far from simply becoming affluent. Since he was a teenager, he had set his sights on saving the country from the scourge of opium. 

You see, back in those days, opium smuggling was rampant, and the social atmosphere was severely corrupted, causing great harm to people’s physical and mental health. Opium had infiltrated every level of society, from officials to common people. Opium had become the most destructive poison eroding the Qing Dynasty, more terrifying than any peasant uprising or foreign invasion in previous dynasties. It was during this period that Lin Zexu became firmly resolved to eradicate opium.

In the years that followed his becoming an official, he consistently worked toward this ideal. In 1806, he was invited by Fang Yongqing, a military official responsible for coastal defense in Xiamen, Fujian Province to serve as a secretary. His primary duties included handling the documentation related to trade, foreign ships, and the supply of rice and military rations.

In 1807, Lin Zexu encountered his first benefactor. That year, he was noticed by Zhang Shicheng, the governor of Fujian Province, who recruited him as a staff member. During the four years he worked alongside Zhang Shicheng, Lin Zexu not only learned about official duties but also acquired a great deal of knowledge about the intricacies of court politics, which laid the ideological foundation for his future career.

In 1811, after failing twice in the imperial examination, Lin Zexu participated in the third round and, this time, achieved the fourth place in the second highest group of candidates, earning the title of Jinshi, the highest degree in the imperial examination system. He was appointed as a scholar at the Hanlin Academy – the nation’s elite scholarly institution – and would spend the next decade working there.

Although the work at the Hanlin Academy was dull and tedious, Lin Zexu did not choose to “lie flat” as the expression goes. Instead, he utilized the resources available to him, studying statecraft even harder while waiting for an opportunity to realize his ambition of saving the country.

Finally, after 10 years, the opportunity came. In 1820, a breach occurred in the embankment on the southern bank of the Yellow River in Henan Province. The governor of Henan, Qi Shan, bungled the repair efforts, resulting in a disastrous flood. Lin Zexu was appointed as an imperial censor to inspect the situation.

Lin Zexu quickly discovered that the disaster had been caused by materials being hoarded by merchants, which delayed the construction project. He proposed a scientific and practical solution to the court, which was adopted by the Jiaqing Emperor. Shortly after, Lin Zexu was appointed as the governor of Hangjiahu in Zhejiang Province, marking the end of his career in the capital and the beginning of his long tenure in local positions.

In 1823, Lin Zexu was promoted to the position of Judicial Commissioner of Jiangsu Province. As the chief judicial officer of the province, Lin Zexu worked tirelessly upon his arrival, addressing a backlog of cases. Within just four months, he resolved nearly 90 percent of the accumulated cases in Jiangsu, earning the admiration of the people, who began to refer to him as “Lin the Just”.

At the same time, Lin Zexu issued the first opium ban in Jiangsu to defend against the spread of opium smuggling. By the end of the year, he was appointed as the Governor of Jiangsu. Over the next seven years, Lin Zexu served in various official roles, including Judicial Commissioner of Shaanxi, Governor of Jiangning, and Governor of Hubei. During this period, he worked on projects to improve water management, assist with disaster relief, and reform local administration, all of which yielded positive results. His efforts were so appreciated that, “children, servants, women, and girls all regarded it as an honor to be in the presence of the public office. [They would say], when Lin Zexu arrives, my life is saved.”

Due to his growing reputation, Lin Zexu was promoted in 1831 by Emperor Daoguang to the position of Governor-General of the Hedong River, the highest administrative official in charge of the Yellow River, Grand Canal, and other rivers in the Henan and Shandong regions during the Qing Dynasty, tasked with addressing long-standing issues with river management.

Despite his rapid rise, Lin Zexu did not become complacent. In fact, he felt an even greater sense of responsibility. As Governor-General of the Hedong River, he often braved the harsh winds, walking hundreds of miles to inspect thousands of water projects, as well as examining the river’s terrain and flow. Under his leadership, the river management showed significant improvements. Even Emperor Daoguang remarked, “In all previous inspections of riverworks, there has never been one conducted with such thoroughness.”

Thanks to his impressive achievements, Lin Zexu was transferred in 1832 to become the Governor of Jiangsu and was promoted in 1837 to the position of Governor-General of Hunan and Hubei. There, he encouraged agricultural development, reformed local administrations, and diligently served the public.

In response to the widespread flooding of major rivers in Hubei Province, Lin Zexu implemented effective measures that resulted in the creation of “thousands of miles of long dikes in the Jianghan region, ensuring peace and stability throughout, and reinforcing the river dikes without any breaches.”

In the 19th century, Western capitalist countries had completed their first industrial revolution. They began to open up worldwide markets for raw materials. They would expand their territories by utilizing powerful naval fleets, then establish overseas colonies where they would dump their goods and seize local resources.

As the first country to industrialize, Britain led the way in colonization and trade. At this time, China was a self-sufficient agrarian society that relied on exporting tea, silk, and porcelain, earning large amounts of silver in foreign exchange.

In order to open up the Chinese market and reverse the trade deficit, Britain began smuggling opium into China, flooding the market with the drug. Unfortunately, the strategy worked, and by the 1830s, China was losing around five to six million taels of silver annually.

Over ten million people in China became addicted to opium, from nobles and high-ranking officials to soldiers, small government clerks, and ordinary citizens, all suffering from the destructive effects of the drug. At the time, officials were divided into two main camps: those who supported relaxing the ban on opium, and those who advocated for strict prohibition. The former suggested allowing the domestic production of opium in order to compete with British imports and thereby curb the outflow of silver. The latter group held a firm stance against the use of opium for any reason.

Among the 29 memorandums submitted by governors from various regions, only eight were in favor of strict prohibition, while 21 opposed it. As you can easily guess, Lin Zexu, then the Governor-General of Hunan and Hubei, was a staunch advocate for a total ban on opium. In his memo to Emperor Daoguang, he warned, “If we continue to tolerate this, within a few decades, the central plains will have no soldiers to defend against enemies, nor will there be silver enough to fund the army!”

As a result, in mid-November of 1838, Lin Zexu was summoned to the capital, and over the course of eight days, Emperor Daoguang met with him eight times to express his firm support of a complete ban on opium. The emperor appointed Lin Zexu as an imperial commissioner with the rank of Minister of the Army and Right Censor of the Court, ordering him to go to Guangdong Province in southern China to eradicate the opium market.

Lin Zexu felt the weight of his mission and hurriedly made his way to Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong Province. However, Lin was not a man to act recklessly. Before setting off, he had already sent people to secretly gather intelligence in Guangzhou, obtaining the names, addresses, and other details of key opium dealers.

Finally, his long-held dream to rid the nation of its debilitating drug addiction was becoming a reality. The question was, would the complex geopolitical circumstances of his time allow that dream to come true? 

Well, that’s the end of part one of Lin Zexu’s story. We hope you’ll tune in next time to learn more. Our theme music is by the famous film score composer Roc Chen. Our writer is Lü Weitao, translator Wang Yuyan, and copy editor Pu Ren. And thank you for listening. We hope you enjoyed it, and if you did, please tell a friend so they, too, can understand The Context.