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How much opium did Lin Zexu confiscate and destroy in 1839?

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opium trade The clipper ship *Le-Rye-Moon*, built for the opium trade, 19th-century wood engraving from the *Illustrated London News*.

In 1839, after arriving in Guangzhou, the imperial commissioner Lin Zexu confiscated and destroyed more than 20,000 chests of opium, which amounted to approximately 1,400 tons of the drug.123