1839, when Lin Zexu banned smoking in Guangdong, he asked foreign opium dealers to hand over opium and destroy it in Humen.
The destruction of opium in Humen became the fuse of the first opium war between the Qing Empire and the British Empire.
Lin Zexu, an official of the Qing Dynasty, was ordered to deal with the West all his life, but he was open to western culture, technology and trade, and advocated taking advantage of his strengths and using them.
According to the literature, he knows at least a little English and Portuguese, and is committed to translating western newspapers and books.
Wei Yuan, a thinker in the late Qing Dynasty, compiled the documents translated by Lin Zexu and his aides into "Seaside Map", which inspired the Westernization Movement in the late Qing Dynasty and even the Meiji Restoration in Japan.
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Lin Zexu calls himself "politics before literature". However, he is not only an outstanding political figure, but also brilliant, keen in writing and widely read in history.
His poems have high artistic achievements.
When Lin Zexu was a child, he loved literature under his father Lin Binri. When he was eight or nine years old, he could write couplets.
Later, Lin Zexu took part in the college entrance examination. Of the more than 10,000 candidates, only Lin Zexu and one old boys were eliminated. The examiner decided to compete with couplets. Lin Zexu won the first case at the age of thirteen and became a scholar at the age of fourteen.
Lin Zexu loved Bai Juyi's poems when he was a teenager, so he tried to imitate Bai Juyi's style. Most of his poems are about exposing the dark side of society and attacking corrupt officials. The main works of this period are: Walking on a Sick Horse, Walking on a Horse, and Answering Chen Gongfu's Senior Shou Qi.
When an imperial envoy banned smoking, his poems mainly described the anti-smoking movement, the attack on the invaders and the situation in the war. Among them, the most representative of Lin Zexu's mood at that time was the poem "High Balcony and the Rhyme of Yi Yun's predecessors".
Lin Zexu's poems are rich in his life, but few have been handed down from generation to generation. I have written poems such as Trial Post Poem, Singing Grass in Yunnan, Poem of Worshipping a Stone Mountain House, Collection of Black Head, Collection of Small Problems in the Middle of Fujian, Poem of Yunzuo Mountain House, etc.
The trial poems were found in Zhejiang, and only remnants remained. "Let Yunnan sing opera grass" exists in Fuzhou Cultural Management Association; The collection of small and medium-sized problems in Fujian was discovered in Quanzhou, Fujian Province in 2005, and it is also the only one that has been circulated so far. The most widely circulated is "Good Shi Chao on the Left Side of the Cloud", and the rest are lost.
In addition, Lin Zexu studied calligraphy and painting, and he has the original works of Mifei. From Shu Sutie, he saw that there were pictures in the book. He thought that painting and calligraphy were interlinked, that is, "draw a book, draw a book", and people who are not calligraphers can't read books.
Painted with "Dream Vegetable Map", "Apricot Flowers and Red Rain Map" and "Newspaper Leap Map", but there are not many works handed down from generation to generation.
Lin Zexu also makes seal cutting and integrates poetry and calligraphy into seal cutting. His seal cutting works are very prolific and are rated as ambitious, skillful and graceful.
In his youth, influenced by Buddhist thought, Lin Zexu insisted on chanting and believed in it no matter how complicated his government affairs were, no matter how he sat in a sedan chair.
Lin Zexu, the great-grandson of Lin Xiang, the president of the front court of the Supreme Court of the Republic of China, has a Buddhist book "Pure Land Resources" by Lin Zexu, which is divided into five chapters: Tommy, King Kong, Heart Sutra, Great Compassion and Past Life.
Until he was sent to Xinjiang, Lin Zexu still sneaked into Pure Land Sect.