British Military “Expedition” Narratives of the Opium War and Their Influence

Following the outbreak of the Opium War,many military officers who participated in the conflict began to compose personal narratives,which were subsequently published in Britain.This article refers to such texts as “Narratives of the Expedition to China”.Before arriving in China,these authors had already encountered various discourses about China through novels and monographs.The pre-existing narratives not only constituted their primary sources of knowledge about China but also shaped their observational perspectives.The personal narratives of the officers exhibit pronounced self-justificatory characteristics.They rejected the term “Opium War” and employed strategies such as travel writing and humanitarian narratives to downplay wartime violence and construct the legitimacy of the “expedition”.These “Narratives of the Expedition to China” attracted a considerable readership in Britain,including the general public,China affairs specialists,and anti-war activists.Initially circulated through newspaper serializations and books,the geographical and cultural descriptions of China contained in these texts were later extracted and integrated into popular publications,thereby completing a transformation from individual memory to imperial knowledge.