That time China declared a war on drugs, and found themselves pitted against the narco traffickers of the 19th century - the British Empire. Welcome to the first Opium War.

Image

Commissioner Lin and the Destruction of the Opium in 1839.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Destruction_of_opium_in_1839.jpg

Sources

Chang, Hsin Pao. Commissioner Lin and the Opium War. The Norton Library. W.W. Norton and Company, inc. New York, 1970.

Cree, Dr. Edward H. Naval Surgeon: The Voyages of Dr. Edward H. Cree, Royal Navy, as Related in his Private Journals, 1837-1856. Dutton Adult, 1982.

Fu, Lo-shu (1966). A Documentary Chronicle of Sino-Western relations, Volume 1. p. 380

Fairbank, John King. Trade and Diplomacy on the Chinese Coast, Vol. 1. The Opening of the Treaty Ports, 1842-1854. Harvard University Press, 1953.

Farooqui, Amar. Smuggling as Subversion: Colonialism, Indian Merchants, and the Politics of Opium, Lexington, 2005.

Fu, Lo-shu (1966). A Documentary Chronicle of Sino-Western relations, Volume 1. p. 380

Haijian, Mao. The Qing Empire and the Opium War: The Collapse of the Heavenly Dynasty. English text edited by Joseph Lawson. Cambridge Univeristy Press, 2016.

Letter to Queen Victoria. Chinese Repository, vol. VIII, no 10 (February 1940): 497-503. Internet Archive

Levanthes, Louise. When China Ruled the Seas: The Treasure Fleet of the Dragon Throne, 1405-1433. Oxford University Press, 1994.

Lovell, Julia. The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams, and the Making of Modern China. Picador, 2011.

Morse, Hosea Ballou. The Trade and Administration of the Chinese Empire. London and New York, 1908.

Morse. International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Vol. 1, Appendix A

https://web.archive.org/web/20160502205830/http://chinaforeignrelations.net/node/247

The Times (London). August 19, 1840, p. 3. [An account of the 1839 confinement of the foreign shipping at Whampoa by the surgeon of a detained ship, taken from The Times (London), August 19, 1840, pg. 3] in Hsin-pao Chang. Commissioner Lin and the Opium War. The Norton Library. W.W. Norton and Company, inc. New York, 1964.

“Treaty of Nanking” https://worldjpn.net/documents/texts/pw/18420829.T1E.html

Waley, Arthyr. The Opium War Through Chinese Eyes. Stanford University Press, 1958.

Lin Zezu, Letter to Queen Victoria (1839) https://media.bloomsbury.com/rep/files/Primary%20Source%2013.0%20-%20Lin.pdf