I was rereading it the other day and like how it references real events like the Japanese blowing up railways and using that as an excuse to occupy China. But what about drugs plotline? Was their such a thing as the 'madness' poison and were the Japanese really smuggling and selling drugs to fund their aggressions against China like Mitsuhirato does? Please recommend some sources too
The events portrayed in the Blue Lotus has combined Mukden incident (1931), which resulted in the establishment of Manchukuo as the Japanese puppet state in Manchuria, and Shanghai Incident/January 28 Incident (1932) when Japan invaded Shanghai under the guise of protecting Japanese civilians when anti-Japanese riots broke out on January 18th. Keep in mind that "Blue Lotus" was published between 1934 and 1935, years before the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War.
The incident -Japanese blowing up the railways- was basically what happened in 1931. Lt. Suemori Kawamoto, under the order of the several hard-line Kwantung Army colonels, blew up the railway belonging to the Japanese-owned South Manchuria Railway Company (Mantetsu) as a pretext for the invasion. Ironically, the damage to the railway was almost negligible, and the train passed through the damaged railway later that day without much of an issue. The invasion began without consultation to the civilian government in Tokyo, almost entirely under the initiative of the Kwantung army. Nevertheless, war fever engulfed the nation and liberal MinseitÅ government led by Wakatsuki ReijirÅ collapsed, unable to rein in the army nor stop the invasion. Mukden incident and later, May 15 incident of 1932 had effectively demonstrated army's dominance over the civilian government, a killing blow to the Japanese parliamentary democracy. Faced with criticism for the invasion of Manchuria and Shanghai, Japan withdrew from the League of Nations on March 27th, 1933.
Something like the 'madness' poison is most likely from Herge's imagination. However, most Chinese and foreign entities in China in the 1930s; Warlords, Kuomintang government, International Settlements, Communists tacitly accepted the trade of opium as a useful source of revenue. By early 1900s most of the opium circulating in China was produced domestically.
Rana Mitter's Forgotten Ally: China's World War II, 1937-1945 would be an obvious choice. Recent work and Mitter's attempt to contextualize Sino-Japanese War within the international framework of "WWII history" has been very well received and is a hot topic atm.