William Jardine was a Scottish opium trader and physician who co-founded the Hong Kong–based conglomerate Jardine, Matheson & Co. Educated in medicine at the University of Edinburgh, in 1802 Jardine obtained a diploma from the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. The next year, he became a surgeon's mate aboard the Brunswick belonging to the East India Company, and set sail for India. In May 1817, he abandoned medicine for trade.
The Haijin (海禁) or sea ban were a series of related isolationist policies in China restricting private maritime trading and coastal settlement during most of the Ming dynasty and early Qing dynasty.
The First Opium War, also known as the Anglo-Chinese War, was a series of military engagements fought between the British Empire and the Qing dynasty of China between 1839 and 1842. The immediate issue was the Chinese enforcement of their ban on the opium trade by seizing private opium stocks from mainly British merchants at Guangzhou and threatening to impose the death penalty for future offenders. Despite the opium ban, the British government supported the merchants' demand for compensation for seized goods, and insisted on the principles of free trade and equal diplomatic recognition with China. Opium was Britain's single most profitable commodity trade of the 19th century. After months of tensions between the two states, the Royal Navy launched an expedition in June 1840, which ultimately defeated the Chinese using technologically superior ships and weapons by August 1842. The British then imposed the Treaty of Nanking, which forced China to increase foreign trade, give compensation, and cede Hong Kong Island to the British. Consequently, the opium trade continued in China. Twentieth-century nationalists considered 1839 the start of a century of humiliation, and many historians consider it the beginning of modern Chinese history.
The Opium Wars were two conflicts waged between China and Western powers during the mid-19th century.
SunDog: Frozen Legacy is a 1984 space trading and combat simulator video game. SunDog was first developed for the Apple II, with version 1.0 being released in March 1984, and version 1.1 released three weeks later. Version 2.0, which included enhancements and improved performance, was released in October, 1984. An enhanced version was released for the Atari ST in December 1985.
Tai-Pan is a 1966 novel written by James Clavell about European and American traders who move into Hong Kong in 1842 following the end of the First Opium War. It is the second book in Clavell's Asian Saga, and the first to feature the fictional Struan family.
The Port of Hong Kong located by the South China Sea, is a deepwater seaport dominated by trade in containerised manufactured products, and to a lesser extent raw materials and passengers. A key factor in the economic development of Hong Kong, the natural shelter and deep waters of Victoria Harbour provide ideal conditions for berthing and the handling of all types of vessels. It is one of the busiest ports in the world, in the three categories of shipping movements, cargo handled and passengers carried. This makes Hong Kong a Large-Port Metropolis.
Charles Chan and Lee-lee Chan were the parents of actor/director/singer Jackie Chan and the grandparents of actor/singer/composer Jaycee Chan. Due to being the father of Jackie Chan, Charles made cameos in some of Chan's films such as Police Story 2 and also starred in his own film once made by a company trying to advertise it as a Jackie Chan film.
The Customs and Excise Department (C&ED) is a government agency responsible for the protection of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region against smuggling; the protection and collection of revenue on dutiable goods on behalf of the Hong Kong Government; the detection and deterrence of drug trafficking and abuse of controlled drugs; the protection of intellectual property rights; the protection of consumer interests; and the protection and facilitation of legitimate trade and upholding Hong Kong's trading integrity.
The Marine Department of the Hong Kong Government is responsible for maintaining safety and environmental protection of the harbour, ships registered/foreign ships in Hong Kong and monitor shipping traffic in Hong Kong waters, search and rescue operations for large waters of the South China Sea.
The Thirteen Factories, also known as the Canton Factories, was a neighbourhood along the Pearl River in southwestern Guangzhou (Canton) in the Qing Empire from c. 1684 to 1856 around modern day Xiguan, in Guangzhou's Liwan District. These warehouses and stores were the principal and sole legal site of most Western trade with China from 1757 to 1842. The factories were destroyed by fire in 1822 by accident, in 1841 amid the First Opium War, and in 1856 at the onset of the Second Opium War. The factories' importance diminished after the opening of the treaty ports and the end of the Canton System under the terms of the 1842 Anglo-Chinese Treaty of Nanking. After the Second Opium War, the factories were not rebuilt at their former site south of Guangzhou's old walled city but moved, first to Henan Island across the Pearl River and then to Shamian Island south of Guangzhou's western suburbs. Their former site is now part of Guangzhou Cultural Park.
The Old China Trade refers to the early commerce between the Qing Empire and the United States under the Canton System, spanning from shortly after the end of the American Revolutionary War in 1783 to the Treaty of Wanghia in 1844. The Old China Trade represented the beginning of relations between the United States and East Asia, including eventually U.S.–China relations. The maritime fur trade was a major aspect of the Old China Trade, as was illegal trafficking in opium. The trade era overlapped the First Opium War, which resulted from an attempt by China to enforce its prohibition on opium smuggling by Western traders and blockade-runners.
The Golden Triangle is a large, mountainous region of approximately 200,000 km2 (77,000 sq mi) in northeastern Myanmar, northwestern Thailand and northern Laos, centered on the confluence of the Ruak and Mekong rivers. The name "Golden Triangle" was coined by Marshall Green, a U.S. State Department official, in 1971 in a press conference on the opium trade. Today, the Thai side of the river confluence, Sop Ruak, has become a tourist attraction, with the House of Opium Museum, a Hall of Opium, and a Golden Triangle Park, and no opium cultivation.
Mine a Million or The Business Game is a 1965 board game for 2-6 players previously published by Waddingtons. The game models the economic business of mining tin and gaining profit by transporting it to markets. The "million" in the game's title refers to the target profit players must reach.
Space Trader is a strategy game for Palm OS and Windows Mobile PDAs. It was released in 2002 by Pieter Spronck, a scientist at Tilburg University, and was inspired by David J. Webb's PalmPilot game SolarWars and the 1980s classic 3D strategy game Elite. The game is free software under the GNU General Public License. It has since been ported to various other Platforms by other people as well.
High Seas Trader is a 1995 naval business simulation video game. The player runs trade routes, fends off pirates, collects artifacts and offers transport to fellow countrymen in need, all for the sake of climbing up the game's ranking ladder, which in turn allows the player to buy bigger ships, more firepower and larger cargo holds to progress more quickly in the ranks.
HMS Curlew (1812) was a Royal Navy Cruizer class brig-sloop built by (William) Good & Co., at Bridport and launched in 1812. She served with the Navy for only 10 years. During the War of 1812 she sailed from Halifax and captured several American privateers. Her greatest moment was her role in the 1819 British occupation of Ras Al Khaimah, leading to the signature of the General Maritime Treaty of 1820, which established the Trucial States, today the United Arab Emirates. Curlew was sold in 1822 in Bombay. She then had a 13 or so year career as an opium runner for James Matheson, one of the founders of the firm Jardine Matheson.
Sylph was a clipper ship built at Sulkea, opposite Calcutta, in 1831 for the Parsi merchant Rustomjee Cowasjee. After her purchase by the Hong Kong–based merchant house Jardine Matheson, in 1833 Sylph set a speed record by sailing from Calcutta to Macao in 17 days, 17 hours. Her primary role was to transport opium between various ports in the Far East. She disappeared en route to Singapore in 1849.
Jardine, Matheson & Co., later Jardine, Matheson & Co., Ltd., forerunner of today's Jardine Matheson Holdings, was a Far Eastern company founded in 1832 by Scotsmen William Jardine and James Matheson as senior partners. Trafficking opium in Asia, while also trading cotton, tea, silk and a variety of other goods, from its early beginnings in Canton, in 1844 the firm established its head office in the new British colony of Hong Kong then proceeded to expand all along the China Coast.
Ocean Trader is a board game published by Clipper Games Ltd in 1988 that simulates global trade via clipper ship in the 19th century.
