In the Qing Dynasty, there was a place called the Thirteen Elements, which was originally used as an intermediary between foreign businessmen and the imperial court, and foreigners came to China and could only live in the Thirteen Elements of Guangzhou, and everything was entrusted to the Thirteen Elements to take care of the imperial court.
In the beginning, China only opened the Mouth of Guangzhou, so all goods could only enter China from here, and the Qianlong Emperor himself was very interested in all kinds of luxury goods in the West, and in order to curry favor with the emperor, the merchants of the Thirteen Lines often paid their own money to buy some rare treasures and pay tribute to Qianlong. However, this did not win the emperor's favor.
In 1780, four of the merchants of the thirteen lines temporarily borrowed one million silver from foreigners because of the problem of capital turnover, but who knew that the payment was not recovered as scheduled, and this million two silver, the profit rolling profit, turned out to be nearly four million, this matter was reported to the imperial court by local officials, Qianlong knew it, he was greatly annoyed, and deeply damaged the face of the Heavenly Dynasty.
Before, when a huge debt owed by foreigners to Chinese businessmen came to the government, the government did not interfere, but this time it was Chinese owed money to foreigners, and Qianlong immediately issued a decree reprimanding the local officials in Guangzhou, ordering them to immediately urge the merchants to pay off the money owed by the foreigners, not to damage the prestige of our heavenly dynasty, and not only to repay the money, but also to repay double, four million profits, to exchange eight million to the foreigners, and not only to repay the money, but also to bear the several merchants who do not owe money. In addition, all four of the four families that owed money confiscated their family property and distributed them to Xinjiang.
At the same time, in England, there was also a thirteen-line company that specialized in the trade of foreigners, and this thirteen-line was called the East India Company.
How did the British treat their merchants, arms and cannons, ships and guns, all the way to the sea, and even when trade was blocked, they did not hesitate to launch a war against the Eastern Empire, that is, the Opium War, and it was in this way that they escorted the trade at all costs, so that Britain obtained a large amount of real money and silver to develop domestic industry, thus leading the world.
It was not until the nineteenth century that a man named Pan Changyao appeared, because an American businessman did not pay back the money, Pan Xingshang bypassed the imperial court and wrote directly to the then US President Madison, accusing the American businessman of not paying attention to honesty, although it was finally not resolved, this letter was still preserved in the American Archives, as a rare historical event of Chinese accusing foreigners, showing it to posterity, and also confirming the embarrassing situation of China's businessmen at that time.