The First Opium War: Canton to Nanjing

In March 1839 Lin Zexu began his drive against the opium trade here. The Thirteen Factories, a strip of warehouses on the Pearl River, were the principal and sole legal site of most Western trade with China from 1757 to 1842. Lin forced the foreign merchants to give up nearly 1.2 million kg of opium. During the war that followed, the factories were burnt to the ground. Nothing of them stands today: the site is part of a cultural park, and the old Thirteen Factories Street is now Shisanhang Road.

Visitor guidance: Look for Shisanhang Road in Guangzhou's Liwan District; the old waterfront buildings are gone.

From 3 June 1839, 500 workers laboured for 23 days to destroy the confiscated opium, mixing it with lime and salt and throwing it into the sea outside Humen. Lin composed an elegy apologising to the gods of the sea for polluting their realm. Today the Opium War Museum, also called the Humen Lin Zexu Memorial Hall, stands here. Opened in 1957, it holds materials on Lin's anti-narcotics policy and manages the old sites of his Smoke Pond and Humen Fortress.

Visitor guidance: The museum and the Smoke Pond are in Humen Town, Dongguan.

On 3 November 1839 HMS Volage fired a warning shot across the bow of the British ship Royal Saxon, which had tried to defy a blockade. Chinese war junks under Admiral Guan Tianpei moved out to protect it. A Chinese account says the English mistook red flags for a declaration of war. One junk was blown up and three sunk. Shajiao Fort nearby is where the Convention of Chuenpi was signed in 1841.

Location precision: The fighting took place on the water off the Chuenpi battery; the pin marks Humen Town, near Shajiao Fort.

Visitor guidance: Shajiao Fort is one of several Qing forts in Humen Town.

On the afternoon of 5 July 1840 the British landed unopposed on a deserted beach, about a mile from the walls of Dinghai. After a cannonade of 7 to 8 minutes the Chinese troops fled to the city walls. Dinghai was taken on 6 July. The occupation was costly in another way: by 22 October only 2,036 of 3,650 troops were fit for duty. Britain handed Dinghai back, then recaptured it on 1 October 1841.

Location precision: The landing beach and positions are not located exactly; the pin marks Dinghai District.

On 26 January 1841 Bremer took formal possession of Hong Kong here, under a feu de joie from the Royal Marines and a royal salute from the ships. The date is considered the founding of Hong Kong. Local Chinese called the open space Tai Tat Tei. The point itself has vanished from the coastline, but Possession Street and the sudden turn of Queen's Road West reveal where it was.

Location precision: Land reclamation removed the original headland; the pin marks its approximate former position.

Visitor guidance: Walk Possession Street in Sheung Wan and follow the bend of Queen's Road West.

By mid-July 1842 British ships blocked the route between the Yangtze and the Grand Canal at Zhenjiang. On 21 July they attacked from three directions with four brigades. Before dawn the first brigade occupied the highlands near Jinshan, and engineers later blew up the west gate with gunpowder. After fierce street fighting the city fell. Hai Ling, the supreme Qing commander, and his family committed suicide. Jinshan Temple, a Buddhist temple in Zhenjiang, marks the area.

Location precision: The fighting covered the whole city; the pin marks Jinshan Temple, the landmark near the first landing.

Visitor guidance: Jinshan Temple is open as a Buddhist temple in Zhenjiang's Runzhou District.

With British warships poised to attack Nanjing, the Qing government discussed the treaty with the British four times in Jinghai Temple, a temple built in 1416 to honour Zheng He. The treaty itself, thirteen articles, was signed on 29 August 1842 aboard HMS Cornwallis in the Yangtze, followed by a royal salute of twenty-one guns. It ceded Hong Kong Island and opened Shanghai, Ningbo, Xiamen and Fuzhou. Since 1990 the temple has housed a museum of the Treaty of Nanking.

Visitor guidance: The temple houses the Historical Exhibition Museum of the Treaty of Nanking.