Entry 2493.46

Location: China, Port of Canton
Year: 1839-60

Good day my fellow time travelers, today I continue my journey through the years in China. With the ending of the East India Company  the Taipans, traders from around the world, came to fill in the gap the company left. But the same happened to them, their goods were of no interest to the Chinese. So they started to use Opium, the dried latex of the Opium poppy as a trading commodity. Opium wis used to make drugs and that concernes the Chinese government, so they decided to appoint Lin Tse-hsu to be high commissioner at the port. Lin told me it is very hard to stop all the Opium to enter china but he is doing his best get most of the Opium that is supposed to be traded. I traveled on to 1940, British ships have invaded many ports of China and are threatening of bombing the ports if their what they demand is not given. Again I travel, now to 1842, the Chinese and British have come to an agreement. The Chinese have given the British the rockey island that will be known as Hong Kong and also free trade with the mainland. The British government did not like the island, it was small and had only about 1500 people living from fishing in small wooden houses that were devastated by the Typhoons that passed by the island. But with the free port and space in the island other European countries came to trade with the mainland, labourers came from the mainland to build hoses and structures, in two years the population rose to 19000 people. On to 1860 I go, the second Opium war as it was called  led to the Peking convention, I spoke to the Chinese negocator and he told me that they weren't very happy but they had to give Britain the Kowloon peninsula and Ngon Sun Chau. These areas in the continent gave space for the port to expand and for more people to come.