A new city is born following a dirty war

The spark that was needed to ignite the flames came in the form of an incident that took place in 1839, when rioting British sailors murdered a Chinese citizen.  The imperial authorities demanded that the sailors will be handed over to them while the Brits insisted they will be put on trial in a British court.  The First Opium War, as it is known, broke out, and it lasted for three years. During the war, The British navy seized Hong Kong Island and following the defeat of China and the Treaty of Nanking, it was declared a Crown colony.

By the end of the war, in 1842, Hong Kong's population counted about 6,000, most of whom were villagers and boat people.  The British government launched a town on the North shore of the island (where Central is today), called Queenstown, with a view to develop it as a free port city that will serve as a bridge between China and the world.  Few years later, the town's name was changed to Victoria City and it started to pull new dwellers from around the world: Asian Opium dealers, American traders and British businessman, alongside Chinese businessman that could see the opportunities of Hong Kong.

A city is born... During the 1840s and 1850s, the newly built town of Victoria City attracted newcomers from all over the world, who could foresee the great potential of this upcoming free port, as a bridge between China and the world.

The Qing dynasty, that ruled China in those years, did not agree with the ambition of Western powers to exploit Chinese resources and surely, could not forgive the West for humiliating them in the First Opium war... The Imperial authorities, therefore, did everything they could in order to limit the Western influence on China and to restrict the trade.

War broke again in 1856 and, as most historians view it as a direct continuation of the previous war, it was called the Second Opium War. 

Just like in the First war, a relatively insignificant incident was enough to put the blazes on ... The Chinese police raided the "Arrow", a Hong Kong registered boat that allegedly hoisted a British flag, suspecting it was involved in smuggling.  The Brits and their allies considered the raid as a "casus belli" and declared war on China. 

Busy with their attempts to crush the Taiping Rebellion, the Qing government could not dedicate its full military force to the war, and so China was defeated, once again.

After signing the Convention of Beijing that formally ended the war, in 1860, Britain annexed the Kowloon Peninsula and the colony of Hong Kong grew bigger.

It is not known until today, whether the "Arrow" did hoist a British flag or whether this story was invented to justify the declaration of war...

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Hong Kong under British colonialism