Since China was so resistant to trade European merchants were determined to find something from China to buy. They found one and that was opium. Opium is an addicting narcotic made from the poppy plant that was used in China for hundreds of years as a pain reliever. But eventually British merchants were smuggling opium into China for non-medical uses such as smoking it. By 1835 12 million Chinese people were addicted to opium. This made the Qing emperor angry so he had one of his advisers write a letter to the queen of England(Queen Victoria) saying that the drug is harmful and since it's not permitted in England it shouldn't be in their country either. The emperor wanted Queen Victoria to make the smoking of the opium stop but Britain refused to stop trading the opium. In result of that was the: Opium War. This lasted from 1839 to 1842. Most of these battles took place at sea. The Chinese ships were no match for the British ships because they were so outdated. This caused China to suffer a great defeat by Britain. In 1842, they signed a peace treaty named the Treaty of Nanjing. This treaty made China give up the island of Hong Kong to Britain. After signing another treaty in 1844, the U.S. and other foreign places gained extraterritorial rights which meant that foreigners did not have to listen to Chinese law at Guangzhou and four other Chinese ports. This resulted in many of the Chinese to have great resentment to foreigners.