Background
Lin Zexu was born on August 30, 1785 in Fuzhou, Fujian, China. He was the second son in the family.
An 1843 drawing of Lin
The Lin Zexu Memorial in Fuzhou from 2004
Statue of Lin Zexu in Chatham Square in Chinatown, Manhattan, New York City, United States
林则徐
Lin Zexu was born on August 30, 1785 in Fuzhou, Fujian, China. He was the second son in the family.
In 1811, Lin Zexu obtained the position of advanced Jinshi (進士) in the imperial examination, and in the same year he gained admission to the Hanlin Academy.
As an official in the provinces, beginning in 1820, Lin Zexu gained a reputation for his sincerity and dedication. Between 1820 and 1850, in any crisis situation involving flood control, sea transportation, the salt administration, or military affairs, Lin Zexu was almost certain to be considered for the job.
War on the Opium Trade in the late 1830 in China had reached crisis proportions. On July 10, 1838, Lin Zexu submitted a memorial in which he advocated strong measures for its suppression. His ideas, as well as their implementation while he was governor general of Hunan and Hupei between 1837 and 1838, resulted in his being appointed imperial commissioner with full powers to suppress the opium evil.
Lin Zexu arrived in Canton, the center of the opium trade, on March 10, 1839. In Canton, he used a "get-tough" policy to bring the trade to a halt and force the foreign traders to surrender their existing supplies of opium. A total of 2, 613, 879 pounds of opium, worth about $9 million, was turned over to Lin Zexu, which to everyone's amazement promptly destroyed. In an attempt to persuade the British to stop producing opium in India, Lin Zexu also wrote his famous letter to Queen Victoria in which he admonished her, on moral grounds, to stop the practice.
While in Canton, he collected every scrap of information he could about the West-mainly from Western periodicals which he had translated into Chinese. This material was later compiled under the title Gazetteer of the Four Continents and was the first book to provide the Chinese with any reasonably reliable information about the West. Lin's high-handed tactics and his insistence that foreigners be subject to Chinese law brought matters to a head. In August 1839, when the British refused to turn over some seamen involved in the murder of a Chinese, all British residents were ordered to leave China, and the Opium War (1839 - 1842) was on. When it became obvious in 1840 that China could not win the war, Lin Zexu was dismissed and later banished to the northwest frontier. He was recalled in 1845 and given high office, but he retired in 1849.
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. Though he was originally blamed for causing the First Opium War, Lin's reputation was rehabilitated in the last years of the Qing dynasty, as efforts were made once more to eradicate opium production and trade. Lin Zexu became a symbol of the fight against opium.
Lin's former home, situated in Fuzhou's historic Sanfang-Qixiang district, is open to the public. Inside, his work as a government official, including the opium trade and other work where he improved agricultural methods, championed water conservation and his campaign against corruption are well documented.
In China, Lin Zexu is popularly viewed as a national hero. June 3, the day when Lin confiscated the chests of opium, is celebrated as Anti-Smoking Day in Taiwan.
Monuments to Lin Zexu have been constructed in Chinese communities around the world. A statue of Lin stands in Chatham Square in Chinatown, New York City, United States.
Quotes from others about the person
The English sinologist Herbert Giles praised and admired Lin: "He was a fine scholar, a just and merciful official and a true patriot."
