Lin Zexu was a scholar in the 16th year of Jiaqing (18 1 1). He used to be editor of Hanlin, provincial judge of Jiangsu, governor of Donghe, governor of Jiangsu and governor of Huguang. In the 19th year of Daoguang (1839), when an imperial envoy went to Guangdong to ban smoking, he sent an unannounced visit to force foreign opium dealers to hand over opium and destroy the confiscated opium in Humen. This incident is considered to be the fuse of the first opium war. Shortly after the war broke out, Lin Zexu was framed and dismissed from office and sent to Xinjiang to defend the border. Twenty-five years after Daoguang (1845), it was put into use again. He has served as governor of Shaanxi and Gansu, governor of Shaanxi, governor of Yunnan and Guizhou, and added Prince Taipo. In the thirty years of Daoguang (1850), Lin Zexu died of illness in Puning, Chaozhou, and was ordered to suppress the uprising of worshipping God. Give a teacher prince, posthumous title as "Wen Zhong". There are works such as Lin Wenzhong's Letters of Public Administration handed down from generation to generation.
Lin Zexu traveled all over his life and made outstanding achievements in governing the country. Although fighting against western invasion in Guangdong and Guangxi, they are open to western culture, science and technology and trade, and advocate taking advantage of their strengths and using them. The Annals of Sizhou compiled by him and the Annals of the Sea compiled by Wei Yuan inspired the Westernization Movement in the late Qing Dynasty and even the Meiji Restoration in Japan.