#320 - Opium War 5: Bayonets In the Dragon's Teeth

The History of China

Chris Stewart

History

4.6 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 22 February 2026

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Britain carries the Opium War to Beijing's unready doorstep with steam and iron, moving the crisis from the border frontiers to the heart of the imperial court itself. As imperial defenses strain and diplomacy replaces defiance, the two empires probe each other’s resolve – and discover that both of their understandings of the other have been built on little more than smoke. Time Period Covered:July 1840 – March 1841 Major Historical Figures:The Qing Empire:The Daoguang Emperor (Aisin-Gioro Minning) [r. 1820–1850]Lin Zexu, Imperial Commissioner [1785–1850]Qishan, Imperial Commissioner and Governor-General of Zhili [d. 1854]Yiliang, Governor-General of Liangguang [fl. 1840s]The British Empire:Queen Victoria [r. 1837–1901]Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, Foreign Secretary [1784–1865]Charles Elliot, Chief Superintendent of British Trade in China [1801–1875]Sir Henry Pottinger, Plenipotentiary to China [1789–1856]Sir James Bremer, Royal Navy commander [1786–1850] Major Sources Cited:Platt, Stephen R. Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China’s Last Golden Age.Lovell, Julia. The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China.Wakeman, Frederic Jr. Strangers at the Gate: Social Disorder in South China, 1839–1861.Fairbank, John K. Trade and Diplomacy on the China Coast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:00.0	You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast.
0:04.6	Welcome to True Spies.
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0:12.5	Suddenly out of the dark that's appeared in Laub.
0:14.5	You'll meet the people who live life undercover.
0:18.1	What do they know?
0:19.2	What are their skills?
0:20.5	And what would you do in their position?
0:22.9	Vengeance felt good. Seeing these people pay for what they'd done felt righteous.
0:29.1	True spies from Spyscape Studios, wherever you get your podcasts.
0:43.3	Hello. Hello and welcome. To the history of China.
0:48.3	Episode 320, Bayonets and the Dragon's Teeth.
0:59.0	Sometimes, the connections we perceive across cultures and distances, our hopes for an underlying unity of human virtue,
1:02.0	our belief that underneath it all we are somehow the same,
1:06.0	can turn out to be nothing more than the fictions of our own imagination.
1:11.1	And when we congratulate ourselves on seeing through the darkened window that separates us
1:16.1	from another civilization, heartened to discover the familiar forms that lie hidden among the shadows
1:22.1	of the other side.
1:24.2	Sometimes we do so without ever realizing that we are only gazing at our own reflection.
1:30.3	Stephen R. Platt, Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom.
1:34.3	The barbarians demands no no bounds. If they are not checked by force, there will be no end of trouble.
1:42.3	Commissioner Lin Zeshu, memorial to the Daugong Emperor 1840.
	...

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