The Nature of Sanyuanli Uprising

Sanyuanli Anti-British Incident was a conflict between British troops and unofficial armed forces in Sanyuanli, a suburb of Guangzhou, during the First Opium War.

Sanyuanli is a small village near northern Guangzhou. 184 1 in may, the British army stationed near sanyuanli. Because British soldiers went to Sanyuanli to rob property and rape women. The wife of villager Wei Shaoguang was molested [1], which aroused the anger of local people. More than ten thousand people in Sanyuanli and its nearby villages organized a rally to besiege and attack the British army. Armed with traditional weapons such as broadswords and spears, people took advantage of the rainy weather to lure an Indian mercenary company (60 people) of the British army to the wet swamp. When muskets were unable to shoot and give full play to their weapon advantages, they besieged the British army, killing four British soldiers and injuring more than 20 others. Britain sent two naval companies to reinforce with "detonators" that were not afraid of rain. After being besieged for two hours, the British troops retreated to the square battery of the British position. More than 10 thousand people in Sanyuanli and its vicinity continued to besiege the British army and surrounded the square fort. After learning the situation, the commander-in-chief of the British army sent a message to the local governor Yu Baochun that if the siege of the volunteers was not lifted, the main force of the British army would attack and slaughter Guangzhou. Yu Baochun had a clear understanding of the strength of the British army, so he advised him to be brave and avoid being slaughtered in Guangzhou, and was called a "traitor" from now on. This is the first time in China's modern history that the people spontaneously fought to defend their homeland against foreign aggression on a large scale.