On this day, 185 years ago, June 28, 1840 (May 29, 1840 in the lunar calendar), the Opium War broke out. The Opium War was a war of aggression launched by Britain against China from 1840 to 1842. Its outbreak marked the beginning of China's modern history, and China has since entered a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society. At the beginning of the 19th century, major Western capitalist countries such as Britain, France, and the United States successively completed the bourgeois revolution and have completed or are carrying out the industrial revolution. With the rapid development of the capitalist economy, capitalists urgently needed to plunder overseas colonies as commodity markets and raw material suppliers. Therefore, China, with its vast territory, abundant resources and a large population, became an important target for their invasion into the East. At that time, China was dominated by a self-sufficient natural economy. It was tenacious in resisting the invasion of Western capitalist industrial products. It was difficult for British goods to gain widespread sales in China for a while. Therefore, the British bourgeoisie used opium as an important means to open the door to China. Opium, commonly known as big tobacco, contains a large amount of morphine and nicotine. It is a drug that is not easy to quit after being addicted. Since the late 18th century, Britain imported large quantities of opium to China. The steady flow of opium not only poisons the China people physically and mentally, but also causes a large outflow of silver, resulting in the poverty of China's people. Faced with the serious harm caused by the spread of opium, insightful people in China's ruling class and the broad masses of the people launched a struggle to ban opium. In June 1839, Lin Zexu was ordered by the Qing government to go to Guangdong to ban opium. In just over 20 days, more than 2.3 million kilograms of smuggled opium were confiscated and destroyed in public on Humen Beach. The China people have achieved a major victory in their fight against smoking. In order to protect the evil opium trade, the British bourgeoisie openly launched the Opium War of aggression against China. In 1840, the British government sent troops to invade China under the pretext of "protecting treaty ports." In June, the British fleet arrived at the sea of Guangzhou. Because Guangzhou soldiers and civilians under the leadership of Lin Zexu were closely defended, the British army had no chance to take advantage of it. They turned to Xiamen and were also repelled. Later, the British army took advantage of the lack of defense in Zhejiang to capture Dinghai, and went north along the coast to capture Dagu, Haikou, Tianjin. The Qing government was scared by the foreign guns and cannons. It dismissed Lin Zexu and sent Qi Shan, the governor of Zhili, to replace Lin Zexu as an imperial envoy to Guangdong. In February 1841, the British army took advantage of Qiqi's withdrawal from combat readiness and captured Humen in Guangzhou. In May, it occupied Nicheng and Sifang Fort and bombarded Guangzhou. In August, Britain expanded its war of aggression and captured Xiamen. The following year, the British army attacked downstream along the Yangtze River. In June, Wusong was captured, Zhenjiang was captured in July, and Nanjing was invaded. The decadent Qing government surrendered to the invaders and signed the Treaty of Nanjing in August 1842, which humiliated the country. From then on, imperialism intensified its military, political, economic and cultural aggression, control and plunder of China, gradually disintegrating the feudal society that had lasted for thousands of years in China and became a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society.