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In recent days, I read the sentence "In England, Fu Qiong is a botanist who has made outstanding contributions to the country;In the eyes of the Chinese, he is a successful super thief. ”
I was stunned, even a long time ago, I already knew that Fu Qiong was a tea thief, and it was because of him that it led to the decline of China's tea industry, which made the most important export product of China at that time drop significantly.
But when I heard this historical name again, I was still a little unhappy, probably in my bones I was a "stingy" person, and I was also stingy with people in history.
Robert Fortune, also known as Robert Fortune or Robert Fortune, was an English horticulturist.
In the book "The Tea Thief: Chinese Tea That Changed World History", it is described: "At the end of the 19th century, there were two great empires in the world: China and the British Empire...... coexisted in the East and WestFor two flowers, the two countries went to war: poppy and camellia. ”We are no strangers to the opium poppy, which is the opium in the tobacco sold in Humen, and the camellia is the tea in China at that time.
Before the Opium War, China was the only country that exported tea to the world. But after the Opium War, China's tea status was in jeopardy.
Because at that time, the British were successful in growing tea in their colony of Assam, India, and also produced tea successfully.
The only drawback is that the quality of the tea that Gordon sent back to Kolkata a long time ago is not high, and the quality of the tea produced is not as good as China's
Therefore, he sent Fu Qiong to continue to go to China to steal tea seeds and tea seedlings, and at the same time asked him to Xi learn more about tea making methods and find skilled tea workers.
The Marquis of Dalhousie, the British Viceroy in India, issued an order to Robert Fortune: "You must select the best tea trees and tea tree seeds from the tea-rich regions of China, and then you shall be responsible for transporting them from China to Calcutta, and from Calcutta to the Himalayas." You also have to make every effort to recruit some experienced tea growers and tea processors, without whom we would not be able to develop tea production in the Himalayas. ”At that time, Europeans did not know that Chinese tea was derived from the same tea tree species, and thought that black tea was black tea and green tea was green tea.
But after the thief shaved his head and disguised himself as a Chinese, he went deep into various tea processing production areas, used various methods to obtain tea seedlings and tea seeds, and finally learned that the original tea leaves were all one tea species, but the processing methods were different.
Last time, Fu Qiong also took 8 tea makers from Wuyi Mountain, and then began the journey of the British to make tea in India.
But from another point of view, Fu Qiong's actions have given a huge boost to the tea industry in India and Sri Lanka.
Without his theft, the tea industry in India and Sri Lanka would not have surpassed China so quickly.
In fact, it is very simple, it is the issue of tea between Great Britain and China, **, and then a third party opium was added.
Tea was introduced to Britain in the 17th century, and it didn't take long to catch up with the industrial revolution in Britain, which led to the fact that Britain could not do without tea from the royal family to the common people.
And buying tea requires a large amount of **, and the UK is increasingly unable to take it, after all, tea is available in China every year, but the UK's ** is not necessarily.
It happened that the British discovered opium poppy in colonial India at this time, and they thought of a way to exchange opium for **, and then exchange ** for tea.
Who knew that the reaction of the Chinese at that time was unexpected, not only allowing the British to exchange opium for **, but also for tea.
The British were happy at this time, not only did they not have to worry about the silver, but they also had to worry about the tea.
All of this is indispensable to the East India Company's strategy. The Chinese, on the other hand, have fallen into a desperate life, from nobles to commoners, all of whom smoke opium.
But the British and the East India Company never gave up, they always thought that if the Chinese could grow tea, then we could grow it too.
So the people of the East India Company, under the instruction of the British royal family, kept stealing tea seedlings and trying their best to plant them in England.
The tea saplings they stole from China were still alive and well when they set out, but after a few months at sea, they were left with few or no lives.
No matter how well they took care of them, the tea seedlings that finally returned to England either lost their vitality halfway through, or returned to their homeland within a few months of being transplanted to the botanical garden.
No single tea tree can thrive and produce tea in the UK. So the British royal family changed their strategy, they felt that Britain itself could not be planted, so other countries and regions could always be.
So they kept sending botanists to find countries and regions suitable for planting tea trees all over the world.
Of course, these actions were unknown to China at the time. After many years of not giving up, not abandoning, and not giving up, they finally found it in colonial India.
India's Assam region is their ideal tea plantation area, with abundant rainfall, tall, dense forests, tigers and wild elephants.
So they domesticated wild elephants, let them travel, transport tea, and the tea seedlings they stole could be picked and made within a few years, and finally shipped back to England.
At this time, the British were happy, they finally had their own tea plantations, their own tea.
There was no need to look for China to buy it, and in China, when Lin Zexu was still on his way to Guangdong to ban smoking, the British Assam Tea Company was founded, symbolized by a tea tree and an elephant.
Later, the company grew in size and produced more and more tea, and the British began to sell tea all over the world.
And Chinese tea ushered in a big blow.
This blow is not only international, but also from the roots, at that time Britain issued a statement internationally: the origin of tea is in India, and there are tea plants in India, which cuts off the connection between tea and China from the root.
Such an approach was a sure victory for Britain, and for China at that time, the blow was undoubtedly huge.
So at that time, some people in China also slowly rose, they kept making statements to prove that the origin of tea plants is in China, and they kept creating new teas. This behavior has also remedied some of this, but it is difficult to return to the glory days of the world, when only China exported tea.
Is it fortunate or unfortunate?I'll just finish this story about a tea thief, but the intricate relationships behind it, ** can I finish it in one or two thousand words?
If you are interested, you can learn about it privately!Tea
May the breeze blow on your face and you will be safe and well!
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Typography |Little Moon.
Finishing |Little Moon.
Praise rich for a lifetime, ** three generations of beauty.
About the Author:
Hi, hello, I'm Xiaoyue, an ordinary and ordinary tea master
The follow-up will share dry goods for personal growth.
From**dry goods|Money-making experience.
My story will be told to you slowly.