The principal contradiction in China's feudal society before the Opium War was ().

Before the Opium War, the main contradiction in China feudal society was the contradiction between the landlord class and the peasant class.

1. Before the Opium War, China was an independent feudal country, and the feudal small-scale peasant economy was dominant. Therefore, the main contradiction in China society at that time was the class contradiction between the feudal landlord class and the peasant class.

2. 1840 After the Opium War, China changed from a feudal society to a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society. Therefore, social contradictions have gradually changed from the contradiction between the landlord class and the peasant class to the contradiction between feudal rulers and the masses, imperialism and the Chinese nation. Among them, the contradiction between imperialism and the Chinese nation is the most important contradiction among all social contradictions.

3. The Opium War, the First Opium War. Britain usually calls it the First Sino-British War or "Trade War", which was a war of aggression launched by Britain against China from 1840 to 1842, and it was also the beginning of the modern history of China.

Introduction to the Opium War:

1 and 1840 (20 years of Daoguang), the British government decided to send an expeditionary force to invade China on the pretext that Lin Zexu destroyed opium in Humen. 1in June, 840, 47 British ships and 4,000 army personnel, led by Yi Law of Chinese businessmen, arrived outside the Pearl River Estuary in Guangdong, blocked Haikou, and the Opium War began.

2. The Opium War ended with China's failure and reparations. China and Britain signed the treaty of nanking, the first unequal treaty in China's history. China began to cede territory, pay reparations and negotiate tariffs to foreign countries, which seriously endangered China's sovereignty, became a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society, lost its independent status and promoted the disintegration of the small-scale peasant economy. At the same time, the Opium War also opened a new chapter in the history of modern China people's resistance to foreign aggression.