experiences in the Ming Empire, logged by the Jesuits at Goa in 1561, was the first non-clerical account of China to reach the West since Polo's.
Qing Dynasty
In the 19th century, Lin Zexu, born in Fuzhou, a high-ranking official of Qing Dynasty, led an attempt to resist British colonialism at Guangzhou. Unsuccessful and reviled by the East India Company, he was internally exiled to Xinjiang near the Russian border. By the 1842 peace treaty which concluded the Opium War I, Fuzhou became one of the five Chinese treaty ports, and it became completely open to Western merchants and missionaries.
Fuzhou was one of the most important Protestant mission fields in China. On January 2, 1846, the first Protestant missionary, Rev. Stephen Johnson from ABCFM, entered the city and soon set up the first missionary station there. ABCFM was followed by the Methodist Episcopal Missionary Society that was led by Revs. M. C. White and J. D. Collins, who reached Fuzhou in early September 1847. The Church Missionary Society also arrived in the city in May 1850. These three Protestant agencies remained in Fuzhou until the communist revolution in China in the 1950s, leaving a rich heritage in Fuzhou's Protestant culture.
On August 23, 1884, the Battle of Fuzhou broke out between the French Far East Fleet and the Fujian Fleet of the Qing Dynasty. As the result, the Fujian Fleet, one of the four Chinese regional fleets, was destroyed completely in Mawei Harbor.
Republic of China
On November 8, 1911, revolutionaries staged an uprising in Fuzhou. After an overnight street battle, the Qing (Manchu) army surrendered.
Revolutionary Republic
On November 22, 1933, Eugene Chen and the leaders of the National Revolutionary Army's 19th Army set up the short-lived People's Revolutionary Government of Republican China. Blockaded by Chiang Kai-shek and left to twist in
