Harnessing the Hanjiang River by Promoting Advantages and Eliminating Disadvantages
Lin Zexu was born on August 30th, 785 (July 26th, the 50th year of Qianlong) in Houguan, Fujian (now Fuzhou) to a poor scholar family. As soon as Lin Zexu came to the world, his parents designed and arranged a road of "learning to be an excellent official" for him. As soon as Lin Zexu turned 3, his father took him to a private school and taught him to read the Four Books and Five Classics. Started writing eight-part essay at the age of seven. Lin Zexu, who is clever and eager to learn, lives up to his father's expectations. 12 years old, ranked first in the county exam. At the age of 65,438+03, he was the top scholar in science and went to Aofeng Academy, the highest institution in Fujian at that time. At the age of 20, he successfully took the senior high school entrance examination in the rural examination and obtained the examination qualification. After that, he went to Beijing to take the exam three times. Finally, at the age of 27, he chose Jishi Shu of the Imperial Academy as the No.1 scholar in 18 165438, and began to enter the officialdom. Lin Zexu was an official in imperial academy for nearly 10 years, and his political ambition was put into practice for the first time, which won the attention of the Qing court. From 65438 to 0820, 36-year-old Lin Zexu became the secretariat of Jiangnan Road, and then transferred to Hangjiahu Road, which was the beginning of his appointment as a local official. Since then, in 18, Lin Zexu has successively served as the salt ambassador of Zhejiang, the Huai Hai Road ambassador of Jiangnan, the provincial judge ambassador of Jiangsu and Shaanxi, the political envoy of Jiangning, Henan and Hubei, the governor of Donghe, the governor of Jiangsu and the governor of Huguang. /kloc-in the summer of 0/823, the continuous rainstorm in Jiangsu caused the river to skyrocket, which led to the skyrocketing of Tianhe. Lin Zexu, the provincial judge of Jiangsu Province, suggested that the governor of Jiangsu Province, Han, should "prohibit accumulation, widely persuade fund-raising, attract merchants, exempt from customs duties, levy taxes and help the poor and hunger", which eased the anger of the victims and brought direct benefits to them. Since then, Lin Zexu has taken over as the special envoy of Jiangning, responsible for disaster relief affairs in the province.
183 1 year1kloc-0/month Daoguang Emperor named Lin Zexu as "Governor of Donghe, who has been abroad for ten years, with excellent academic performance and meticulous and reliable work". 1in July, 832, Lin zexu was transferred to the governor of Jiangsu and worked for another five years. 1833 On the Lunar New Year's Eve, he asked the students in Fu Xue, Suzhou 108 to take the snow to provide disaster relief, and then asked them to review the disaster relief situation. In the following years, Jiangsu followed this method in disaster relief work. In order to improve the ability to resist disasters, Lin Zexu believes that only by building water conservancy projects can we ensure that droughts and floods can ensure that we have money. Lin Zexu's achievements in running water conservancy in Jiangsu have been unanimously praised by people. Lin Zexu's ambition is to "promote advantages and eliminate disadvantages". Under the guidance of practical thought, he put forward many ideas to reform internal affairs in the face of the actual situation, and took some measures to "promote the advantages and eliminate the disadvantages" and became a rare doer among the landlord class reformers. Reform grain transportation. When Lin Zexu was in imperial academy, he learned many disadvantages of grain transportation from books. Until 1838 65438+ February, when Lin Zexu went to Beijing to discuss the issue of smoking ban, he wrote Twelve Articles on Water Conservancy in Zhili, Chen Huan (that is, a book on water conservancy in Jifu) and put forward a plan to reform water transport. Monetary reform. At that time, in addition to domestic silver and money, there was also foreign money in the domestic market. After foreign currency silver exchange, silver suffered losses. In order to solve the loss of silver, and from the perspective of facilitating folk circulation and benefiting businessmen, Lin Zexu put forward the idea of casting silver coins for the first time in the history of China. Self-casting silver coins instead of foreign money only solved the price comparison problem between foreign money and silver, and the outstanding problem at that time was that silver caused expensive money and cheap money. Lin Zexu pointed out that this was mainly solved by banning opium. When he was governor of Jiangsu, he insisted on banning smoking and became one of the first representatives to propose it.
Destroy opium in Humen, the main user.
From 1836 to 1838, when Lin Zexu was acting as the governor of Liangjiang and Huguang, the contradiction between foreign capitalism and the Chinese nation on the opium issue became increasingly obvious and acute, and whether to ban smoking began to become the focus of attention of all sectors of China society. At that time, there were a lot of discussions about opium in the Qing dynasty ruling group, and there were two factions of "relaxing the ban" and "banning", and the debate was getting worse and worse. Some local officials also participated in the debate, and Lin Zexu was one of them. Lin Zexu, who was already the governor of Huguang at that time, expressed support for Huang Jue's prohibition in July. To this end, he proposed six specific measures to ban smoking. Later, Lin Zexu went to Mizhe to explain the importance of severely treating smoking and launching a comprehensive anti-smoking campaign, and asked the court to make up its mind to "work together and swear to get rid of this harm." Before the court made the final judgment, Lin Zexu issued a notice of no smoking in Huguang and began to resolutely ban smoking. In just two months, 5,000 pieces of marijuana were confiscated and burned in public. A large number of opium was seized, and Hanyang County alone seized more than 65438+2000 opium. On the basis of the fruitful ban on smoking in Huguang, in September, Lin Zexu went to shoot "Money ticket is not very important, so it is necessary to ban smoking again to eliminate the disadvantages", pointing out the great harm of relaxing the ban and the necessity of banning it, which greatly shocked the hesitant Daoguang Emperor. Finally, I adopted Lin Zexu's idea. Xu Naiji, who advocated relaxing the ban, was dismissed and Lin Zexu was called to Beijing to discuss the ban. At the end of February, 65438 was awarded to Minister Lin Zexu and sent to Guangdong to investigate opium.
Lin Zexu arrived in Guangzhou on March 1839 10 and began to understand the situation. He worked with Guangdong Governor Deng Tingzhen, Yiliang and Navy Governor Guan Tianpei to determine the smoking ban policy. Lin Zexu took a set of powerful and thorough measures and actions. /kloc-in March, 2008, he solemnly declared to the British supervisor and opium dealer, "If the opium is not exhausted, the governor will always be with this matter, and there is no reason to stop." By May, all 22 barges had paid 19 187 boxes and 2 1 19 bags of opium. While paying opium, Lin Zexu also focused on the future and put an end to opium that has not yet reached China. He asked foreign opium dealers to "make a statement on the contract between foreign characters and Chinese characters, and never dare to bring opium aboard again;" If it is brought, once it is found out that there is no official goods, people are right. "1June 3, 839, accompanied by the sound of gongs and drums, the opium destruction operation in Humen, which shocked China and foreign countries, began. Lin Zexu personally watched, and there were tens of thousands of onlookers. I saw a group of soldiers bravely standing on a few boards opposite the tobacco pond, sprinkling salt, cutting opium into four small petals one by one and throwing them into the pond. After soaking for a period of time, pour in quicklime and dig repeatedly with an iron hoe. Suddenly, the smoke pool boiled like soup, like a mountain rising from the sea and opium standing in the slag foam. When the first pool was destroyed, the culvert was opened and washed into the sea, and so on. By June 25th, opium had been completely destroyed, accounting for 2.37 million Jin. As the starting point of China people's anti-imperialist struggle, the Humen Opium War, which shocked China and foreign countries, wrote a glorious page in the history of China's anti-aggression. In this sense, Lin Zexu made great contributions to the Chinese nation and became the first outstanding national hero in modern China.
Against Britain's reputation in the western regions by force
Guangzhou was the only port for foreign trade at that time, and it was also an important area for China people to contact with foreign countries. While banning smoking, Lin Zexu actively understood and studied foreign countries, and for the first time put forward a major topic of learning from the West, becoming "the first person to see the world with his eyes open". First of all, he understands the external situation through the translation of books and newspapers. Lin Zexu recruited four English-speaking China people in his shogunate to translate relevant English books and newspapers, and then carefully read and study these translated materials. Secondly, in order to learn more about foreign countries, Lin Zexu also took advantage of the opportunity to contact foreigners directly. Understand the situation of British navy and steamboat, expose the shame of opium trade and the firm determination to ban smoking. In the struggle against smoking, Lin Zexu knew that he would face the threat of force from Britain. He was not timid at all, and made it clear that "we are not afraid of war". Under the principle of "defending is fighting, waiting for work", Lin Zexu carried out a series of preparatory activities: First, strict coastal defense. Three lines of defense were laid from the Pearl River Estuary to Humen, and the forts were inspected one by one, and many western cannons were added. The second is to enrich and train the Guangdong navy and improve its combat effectiveness. The third is to buy foreign naval guns. Lin Zexu believed that the British invaders relied on the power of ships and cannons.
After September, Liu Yi and other British invaders carried out many armed attacks along the coast of Guangdong. Due to effective preparations and Lin Zexu's command, many attacks by the British invaders were repelled by the defenders of China, and British ships were forced to withdraw from the Tsim Sha Tsui Ocean and spread to the ocean. At that time, some people compared Lin Zexu to Zhuge Liang who was resourceful. Wei Yuan said: "Since the Western Expedition, only Gong Lin has been guarding Guangdong, and the Great Wall stands tall, without paying a single soldier from other provinces." . 1In June of 840, the British aggressor troops arrived in Guangdong Sea one after another, shelled Guangzhou, and officially launched a war of aggression against China. The broad masses of patriotic officers and soldiers and the people, led by Lin Zexu, resolutely raised the anti-British banner. Because Lin Zexu was heavily guarded in Guangdong and often launched fire attacks on enemy ships, British ships dared not attack Guangdong easily and turned to the north one after another. After the British invaders went north, they occupied Dinghai, Zhejiang, and then invaded Tianjin. At this time, the moderates within the Qing government resumed their activities. An investigation into the dismissal of Lin Zexu by Daoguang Emperor. Before receiving the imperial edict of dismissal, Lin Zexu also wrote "Chen Mi Can't Quit Smoking", and advocated adhering to the military war of resistance. In order to show sincerity, he begged to go to the front line in Zhejiang to "make meritorious deeds with crimes", but he was not allowed. In July, 184 1 received an imperial edict to send troops to Yili, Xinjiang for atonement. Lin Zexu left in tears because his ambition failed to come true. 1842 65438+In February, 58-year-old Lin Zexu ended his sad garrison trip and arrived in Huiyuan City, Yili, Xinjiang. He compared himself to a "veteran of the Hogwarts garrison" and wanted to contribute his life in the desolate northwest border. After arriving in Yili, Lin Zexu studied the history and geography of Xinjiang with the belief that "peace of mind can also be home" and learned about the preparation of the frontier in Xinjiang in the Qing Dynasty. In the winter of 1834, the initial reclamation of the wasteland in Aziwusu began. In order to solve the water conservancy problem, Lin Zexu undertook the Longkou Project. Lin Zexu built water conservancy projects and vigorously promoted the local groundwater irrigation method "karez". 1845, 6 1 year-old Lin zexu was ordered to be released, ending his garrison life. In the following years, he successively served as governor of Shaanxi and Gansu, governor of Shaanxi and governor of Yunnan and Guizhou to suppress the uprising of Tibetans, Muslims in Shaanxi, Muslims in Yunnan and Yi people in Xining.
1June, 850,165438+1October, served as an imperial minister and went to Guangxi to suppress the uprising of the Heaven and Earth Society. Lin Zexu went to Chaozhou, Guangdong Province with illness. His condition worsened, with vomiting and diarrhea. He died in Puning Pavilion on the 22nd at the age of 66. "Grow old together, share weal and woe, who will decide the right and wrong of history?" This is the sigh of Lin Zexu when he was guarding Yili. History is fair, and its merits are judged by itself. Lin Zexu was an official all his life and spent 40 years in officialdom. He was also a pioneer of bourgeois reformism in modern times. Among the corrupt rulers of the Qing Dynasty, his incorruptible style of seeking truth from facts and not keeping pace with the times is even more commendable. His achievements in harnessing the Jianghuai River earned him a reputation as an expert in water control engineering. Lin Zexu was active in the historical stage of the Opium War. Humen destroyed opium and fought against Britain by force, which wrote a glorious page in the history of the Chinese nation's resistance to foreign humiliation. Lin Zexu is worthy of being a great patriot and a hero of the first nation in modern times, and he is famous in history.