鸦片战争前,当中国还老态龙钟地蹒跚在封建社会阶段时,西方的资本主义已经迅速地发展起来,并千方百计地向世界各地进行海盗式的掠夺,寻找和开拓殖民地市场。自从十五世纪末欧洲通往东方的新航路被发现以后,处于资本主义发展初期阶段的西方殖民国家,就把幅员辽阔、物产丰盈的中国当作掠夺和宰割的重要对象,贸然远航,相继东侵。广东是中国最南部的一个省份,背负五岭,面临南海,地当东西航路 Before the Opium War, while China was still staggering in feudal socialism, Western capitalism was rapidly developed and did everything possible to piracy-piracy around the world to find and develop colonial markets. Since the discovery of the new European route to the East by the end of the 15th century, the Western colonial countries in the early stages of capitalist development have taken the vast and abundantly-populated China as an important target for plundering and slaughtering. . Guangdong is a province in the southern part of China, carrying Wuling and facing the South China Sea,