Modern Chinese Opium Number Of Inputs And Value Of,

Opium related to modern China closely. But a basic fact, the total number of chests of opium exported to China by western Powers and its value, is unknown up to now. The thesis tries to make a systematic study of it, according to four periods. In the first period (1773-1795), academic circle for a long time relies on the rough estimates given by Morse's the International Relations of Chinese Empire. The thesis mainly complements them with records of some respective years and counts their total value. In the second period (1796-1840), the thesis puts emphasis on analyzing many different data. On the basis of other researchers' studies, I find that the fourth and fifth tables of Morse's book, the International Relations of Chinese Empire, have five drawbacks, though they are often quoted by various scholars across the world. I finally count the number of opium chests and its value of this period, depending on some original documents such as Medhurst's report, the Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to China, Conion Register and Conion Press, Statement showing the number of chests of opium exported from India to China and the net Revenue of the India Government from Opium during the 30 years from 1829-30 to 1859-60, which is printed in British Parliament Papers. In the third period (1841-1860), abstaining from the traditional dependence on the seventh table of the International Relations of Chinese Empire, 1 fall back on the statement mentioned above, which is more believable but ignored for a long time. In order to calculate its value, I depend on a table of Bengal opium's average selling Price per chest in India, which is printed in British Parliament Papers. In the fourth period,, the thesis adopts generally acknowledged records of China Customs and of the number of chests of opium exported from India to HongKong. Finally, I get the total, which is about 5,260,000 chests of opium worthy of about 2,500,000,000 taels of silver. Of them, the legal part is about 3,380,000 chests worthy of 1,800,000,000 taels, and the illegal part is about 1,880,000 chests worthy of 700,000,000 taels.