Lin Zexu Memorial Hall

Lin Zexu (1785-1850), a native of Fuzhou City, was a national hero in modern times. Since childhood, his diligence led to his success to become a candidate in the imperial examination. In his forty years’ career as an official, he obtained great achievements, such as the reduction of crop taxes, harness of the Yellow River, the build-up of the coast defense and stationing troops to reclaim wasteland.

The most outstanding of his deed was his resolute elimination of the opium trade in 1939, when he was acting as an imperial envoy to Guangdong on the mission, and had 1,185,000 kilograms of opium destroyed at Humen beach, thus greatly inspiring the Chinese people throughout the country and fiercely discouraging the American and English opium traders. To commemorate his tremendous contributions, people built the Hall of Master Lin on the Women Road in the city proper, which was renamed the Memorial Hall of Lin Zexu in 1982. The Inscription Pavilion in the hall keeps three stone tablets on which are inscribed the imperial edict, funeral oration and biography of Lin Zexue. Emperor Daoguang (1821-1850) of the Qing Dynasty bestowed the tablets at Lin’s death. Displayed in the hall are also Lin’s poems, notes seals, five tablets of his copy of Huangpu’s inscription written by a Tang-dynasty calligrapher Ouyang Xun (557-641), and other relics Lin Zexu left behind.