Neither country signed the treaty and the Opium War continued, with nearly every battle won by the British. The conflict ended in August 1842, when the British threatened to sack Nanjing. The Treaty of Nanjing, signed by Queen Victoria and Emperor Daoguang, was about as lopsided as one could imagine. The Chinese would pay Britain fully ten times the cost of the dumped opium, Hong Kong would become permanent British territory, and several other cities, including Shanghai, would open up to trade. So began the Chinese “century of humiliation.”
