It's here, in a tiny settlement, high in the Andes mountain range of South America, that global trade begins. And that's because of what is discovered deep inside this mountain. The purest silver the world has ever seen. It's 1581, and a buyer appears for his silver. 11,000 miles away, the emperor of China, the most powerful man on earth, has decided that his people must now pay their tax in silver. This sparks a huge demand for silver in China, to the point where silver was worth more than gold. This series explores how the world is transformed when the king of Spain's silver meets the tax demands of the emperor of China. It's a remarkable story that witnesses how China came to dominate at the dawn of world trade over 400 years ago. The first time the whole world was linked into one global network and the most important element of this is silver. Silver allows China's emperors to become the most powerful men on earth. And silver makes this businessman the richest man in the world. A lot of America's industrial revolution was funded by this Chinese merchant. Chinese craftsmen go on to create silverware of unparalleled skill and beauty that are coveted across the world. Already in the 18th century, people were admiring this fantastic work because the wire is so thin, it's like hair. China's silver trade drives the growth of world cities from Boston to Hong Kong, Shanghai to Seville. But it also sows the seeds of China's near destruction and leads to war with Western powers. The British were determined to get a war. They got them. It's the time when China enters what's become nicknamed the century of humiliation. The period when China was not in control of its own external affairs. But China won't let go its obsession with this precious metal. Only trust silver. It is almost like religion in Chinese history. Silver is our gold in Chinese history. This series reviews how silver changes China's history and the history of the world. It's like holding a piece of history on your hand. The skyline of Shanghai is one of the defining views of modern China. It is testament to the last 40 years in which China has undergone a meteoric rise to become the second largest economy on the planet. Soon it will be number one. But to have China at the very center of world trade is nothing new. 250 years ago in the 18th century, China is the greatest economic and cultural empire in the world, ruled over by one of its most celebrated emperors, Qianlong. Qianlong displayed his wealth. He built palaces. Tsen Long was no doubt fully convinced he was one of the wealthiest men living on earth at his time. China occupies this position of dominance in global trade because all the world loves China's porcelain and silks. And it pays handsomely for these luxury goods in the only commodity that China wants, silver. China has been deeply dependent on silver ever since the 16th century, when the emperor decides to tax his people in silver. But China has little silver of its own, so must import it. This appears to be the perfect combination of supply and demand, particularly at the end of the 18th century, because of a unique commodity China controls, and one that the rest of the world demands above all else. China had tea. Nowhere else in the world, as it was known at the time, produced tea. Tea takes hold quite rapidly. It's an addictive drug. Britain imports more tea from China than any other European country. 80% of all tea exports from the port of Canton are shipped to Britain. And the right to import all this tea is held by one remarkable organisation, the British East India Company. They were much more than the name suggests, not just a company, but actually a whole semi-governmental organisation in their own right. By the end of the 18th century, the East India Company boasts a private army of almost 90,000 men, as well as a fleet of heavily gunned warships. It has taken control over a large part of India at the expense of the Mughal emperors. But despite the colossal business in tea, there is a big problem at the heart of all Britain's trade with China. British merchants needed to try and find goods which would sell. They had cottons, they had wools, they tried everything they could, but it was very difficult to find a good which would significantly take in a Chinese market. The demand for tea is so great that the British have no choice but to comply with China. Silver was being essentially leached out of the coffers of the East India Company as it sought to find products that it could trade successfully with China. So the advantage was essentially with China at that stage. The East India Company convinces the British government to act. In 1792, Britain launches an enormous trade mission to China. It's a massive undertaking. At its head is the statesman and diplomat, Lord George McCartney. McCartney is expected to hammer out better terms of trade with the most powerful nation on earth. The British Library holds the letter from the Home Secretary that spells out the main problem McCartney has to solve. you should fairly state after repeating the general assurances of his majesty's friendly and pacific inclinations towards the emperor and his immutable benefits to be derived from a trade between the two nations in the course of which we receive besides other articles to the amount of twenty millions of pounds weight of a chinese herb so instead of paying for all this tea with silver bullion the british must persuade emperor changlong to buy british goods in return But British ambitions extend way beyond increased sales. McCartney is told he must convince the Emperor to provide the British with a trading base, a piece of China itself. We wish to obtain a grant of a small tract of ground or detached item. We desire neither fortification nor defense. But only the protection of the Chinese government for our merchants and all their agents in trading or travelling through the country. They were quite optimistic when they sent this embassy off that they might achieve something of the sort. There is good reason for British optimism. It is the first nation in the world to industrialise and as a result its military and economic power is growing. Britain considers itself an equal to any nation in the world, even China. In September 1792, Lord McCartney, along with 700 soldiers and servants, departs for China on a flotilla of three ships. They sail with... interpreters, musicians, let's say, with a band. They have a large number of very innate presence, sing songs, musical clocks, all sorts of things for the emperor. But they have a clear target in terms of their requests. And at the heart of it, they want the British state to be recognized by the Chinese, a permanent embassy, to be allowed to reside at the court. in Beijing. When Lord McCartney arrives in China in July 1793, he's expecting to meet the emperor, but the emperor is nowhere to be seen at the Forbidden City. Xiang Lu has moved his court 200 miles north beyond China's Great Wall to his summer residence at Chengdu. After almost a year since he set sail from England, McCartney still must wait before being allowed to meet with the most powerful man on earth. The Tianlong Emperor has at this point been on the throne for nearly 50 years. He's in his 80s. He is one of the greatest emperors in Chinese history from start to finish. He's been expanding China into Central Asia, tremendously successful wars. So he is extremely proud of his own achievements. When the Great Qing Empire was in power, the people of the Qing Dynasty were in favor of the Emperor Qianlong and they were very popular. So the people of the Qing Dynasty were also in favor of the Emperor Qianlong. McCartney is asked to join the queue of ambassadors from the distant borders of Jianglong's vast empire. On meeting Xianglun, all ambassadors are expected to kneel and press their head nine times to the floor. McCartney, however, refuses. So instead of performing the traditional kowtow, he drops on one knee before presenting his gifts. So this is one of a large set of sketches by William Alexander, who was the junior artist for the embassy. And one of the things he drew was this planetarium, which was the grandest and most spectacular gift, because they had thought from reading the Jesuit missionary accounts of China that the Chinese court was exceptionally interested in astronomy. But the most significant gift is a solid gold box encrusted with diamonds, containing a letter from the British King George III laying out his hopes for the trade mission. 因为当时,因为双方的目的不一样,那么乾隆皇帝觉得你是来助寿的,那么你见到我的,见到我一眼,那这就是我的一个开恩了,你的目的就已经达到了。 But before McCartney and his retinue are ushered out, Qianlong indulges in some polite conversation that throws the spotlight on the precocious young son of the British Vice-Envoy, who on the long voyage, has learned Mandarin. But this charming coder to the embassy has little bearing on the outcome. The letter from George III to Qianlong is translated and the Chinese emperor's reply is extremely dismissive. And there's a sentence which is tremendously famous. The productions of our empire are manifold and in great abundance, nor do we stand in the least need of the produce of other countries. The embassy is a complete and butter failure. The Qing are not ready to accord these Britons the status of equals. The Qianlong Emperor is not just emperor of the Qing Empire, he is the son of heaven. This King George III, who McCartney represents, is in fact within Qianlong's vision of the world, a subordinate king. Unfortunately, emperors of Qing dynasty later on became too confident. Qianlong thought, you know, as many great emperors in Chinese history, that he was the king. He was the emperor of the whole world. Qianlong rejects all the British requests. Worse still, he issues a stark warning to George III that he will use force if British ships try and trade anywhere other than Canton, the one port in China open to them. The mission is effectively packed off back to where it came from. It goes back overland and Chen Long issues instructions that all the way south, Qing military units are to assemble in view of the embassy to impress upon the British that the Qing has great military strength and could deal with them. So I think everybody who looks at this now realises that the Qianlong Emperor and his senior advisers, these people were not stupid. They had a very limited knowledge of what was going on in European politics at this time, but they were canny political operators and that they were aware that the British had a heavily armed warship on the coast and that they wanted to... refuse the unacceptable requests of the British and get rid of them without causing trouble. Jiang Long has maintained the status quo. His show of strength is designed to deter British aggression, and for now, he's come out on top. McCartney returns home empty-handed and belittled. Back in Britain, the public now viewed China as despotic and backward, and its ruler disparaged and mocked in popular cartoons. There's a big shift from enthusiastic sinophilia, one might say, intellectually, a love or an interest in China, an appreciation of what seems to be an idealized China, to first-hand reports from Britons who've been there who say, ah, It's nothing like that at all. In fact, as McCartney put it, it's an old first-rate man of war. It's heading for the breaker's yard. And if we can help it along, that will change things. Despite being stung by Cheng's rebuttal, Britain has no option but to accept the terms of trade laid down by China. And at the dawn of the 19th century, there are still vast fortunes to be made from China in the most vital trade hub on the planet, Canton. All the tea in China, along with its silks and porcelains, are shipped out of Canton An intercantant flows the world's silver to pay for these goods. This Pearl Harbor is the only legal harbor in China that accepts foreign silver. So this is the harbor of the foreign silver. Trade with the West makes Canton, this small and remote part of China's massive empire, one of the wealthiest and most cosmopolitan cities in the world. This is the golden age of Canton. It was the nexus of global trade. You have people wearing different costumes, speaking different languages, dealing with goods from all over the world. Of course, some of them are more prominent than others, tea, silver, but it was actually quite a vibrant city that people flocked to because that was where they could pursue their business. Canton is not only where goods are exchanged, but where they are made. This city becomes a workshop of the world, where thousands of low-paid but highly skilled craftsmen are producing Chinese goods adapted for lucrative foreign markets. We have to bear in mind that for the late 18th century, Europe could not produce its own very fine porcelains, and they had to rely on China. Canton, being the only port which could conduct China trade, also enjoyed the advantage of setting up various manufacturers and workshops for painting these kinds of porcelains. I think they will find it very surprising why the foreigners need such a large bowl. We use bowl to eat rice, right, and soup. And they will be told that, oh, this is punch bowl. Well, in terms of shape and function, it must sound very exotic to the Chinese. But in terms of the pictures and also the design and motives, it must also look very exotic to the Westerners. Canton is also home to a developing craft that would also take deep root abroad. Thousands of workshops are mass-producing silverware for foreign markets and for foreign tastes. This is a period of time when virtually no one had a clear sense of what China looked like, and there was tremendous interest, fascination in Cathay, in this land that almost no one had seen. These are not depictions of China per se. They're mythical landscapes with mythical beasts. There are quite a lot of pagodas, boats, beautiful flowers, prunus, this fantastical dragon handle, something that would never be on a piece of London or Philadelphia silver. And that really is proclaiming this as something that was made in China by Chinese silversmiths. Those Cantonese silversmiths are mass-producing highly crafted silverware, but they're also imitating and undercutting Western silversmiths. You could have a Chinese silversmith make a spoon that was virtually identical to your familiar 19th century flatware for a fraction of the cost. You can see that these are virtually indistinguishable. Both spoons made in the 1830s, and one made in Scotland, in Edinburgh, and one made in Guangzhou. But virtually indistinguishable. The silver itself would have presumably been the same price, but the labor was infinitely less expensive. We think about... the mass production of goods in the 21st century and the fact that so many of these things are easily, are so inexpensive and indeed, to some extent, the same thing is happening in the 21st century as was in the 19th. Canton is dynamic. It's a hive of industry and commerce. And it's one of the vital crucibles where modern international trade is born. But it presents challenges to Western merchants Finding the right commodities to trade, figuring what language to speak, figuring out what currency to trade in, that's all quite no small feat for the early part of the 19th century when there's no language schools, there was no business school that would tell you how to surmount any cultural barriers. That was the world that I think is even more, in many ways, more fascinating than the world we live in today. Historic Canton is now buried deep under an immense skyline of concrete and steel. But in the heart of London, this gallery has a series of remarkable paintings that capture how strictly controlled life was in Canton for Western merchants. So they were restricted to this very small strip of riverside, only about 300 meters long. There wasn't much they could do for exercise. You can see if you look carefully in this picture, there's four little westerners rowing along. But apart from that, there were the occasional trips to the flower gardens or the temples across the river. Otherwise, they were stuck here. This small section outside the city walls of Canton becomes known as the Thirteen Factories. The buildings don't look particularly Chinese because the Westerners were allowed to adapt certainly the facades and to some extent the interiors to suit themselves. You'll look at the garden on the right-hand side in front of the British factory. The Cantonese authorities were very suspicious of this garden because it suggested to them that the British were here to stay. Garden means settlement, possibly the first step towards a colony. So there was a lot of aggravation out of that. There are also heavy restrictions on the social life of the merchants. They are forbidden to learn Chinese, discouraged from mixing with Chinese people, and all women, even wives, are banned. But when foreign women appear on the streets, it's not good. Foreign merchants can make their fortune in China, so the heavy restrictions are worth enduring. They make the best of their sometimes tedious lives in what becomes known as the Chinese capital. as the Golden Ghetto. We know that they drank well and ate well, that insofar as they could they sampled and enjoyed all the joys of Chinese leisure life. Whether it's brothel boats, high class brothel boats, they were invited by their merchant friends and collaborators to parties. So in one sense the merchants had... Very little to complain about. Writing of his time in Canton in the 1830s, an American diplomat, Gideon Nye, describes a party that includes one of Canton's most prominent British merchants. Then was seen what had never been seen at Canton before. Mr. Jarden himself and Mr. Wetmore attempting a waltz to a simple Negro melody. but by far the most serious restriction is the emperor's ruling that these foreign merchants in canton must conduct their business through a small select group of powerful chinese merchants known as the If you were a foreign trader in Canton, you couldn't just trade with anybody. You were required by the Qing Dynasty to work with one of, oh, eight to twelve men, the Hong merchants, who were charged with this amazing task of handling the entire international trade of the Chinese empire. Well, of those ten or twelve merchants, really one separated himself from all the others. This merchant is one of the most remarkable men in Chinese history. Born in the same year as Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington, this Chinese merchant prospers during a time of great global change and increasing trade to become, it's said, the richest man in the world. His name is He Kua. Hoopa Smallframe. This is a guy who doesn't look as rich as he really was. He was an enterprising and daring business person at the port of Canton in the early part of the 19th century. When you have linguistic barriers, he maneuvered the turbulent waters of global finance and global trade in a very careful yet bold manner. Haqua establishes himself from selling vast quantities of tea to the British, allowing him to amass a fortune in silver that would be valued at more than a billion dollars today, said to be greater than the Rothschild family in Europe at that time. Well, how did they amass such a huge fortune? That was through years of business, primarily with the East India Company, because the return profit was just enormous and it was reliable. It was annual. Where did the silver go? Well, Haokua had, of course, his vault where he would hold his silver. There is a funny story that during the 1822 fire, as Canton burned down, witnesses identified rivers of silver flowing out of these vaults as all the silver was melting into liquid. So instead of letting his money sit idle in a vault, Hawquah starts lending money. Ten million pounds to the British East India Company and then to his fellow Canton merchants. He didn't feel secure with all his silver sitting in a vault in Canton. He was afraid that at any time an avaricious official might find a way to take it from him. So he wished to invest his money elsewhere to keep it safe. He made money with money. So not only was he a success story in the international trade of tea, he was also an instrumental player in the global business of finance as well. Haukua is also a businessman blessed with foresight. He is aware of the pitfalls of relying too heavily on his one major client, the East India Company. He sees golden opportunity in partnering with merchants from a country that is about to embark on a remarkable rise to power, America. Well, he looked at the American partners as a way for him to get into the global network beyond his connections with the British. And a recently independent America is equally keen to forge trade links with China. Here was a new country, the United States, which measured its length in years, contemplating the oldest country in the world that had multiple dynasties and measured its duration in centuries, even millennia. And so when they journeyed to China, they understood that they were tapping into a vast economic powerhouse. This is Cape Cod, a wealthy and exclusive enclave on the east coast of America. And in this house, there's a portrait of Haokua, which helps illustrate how some of America's greatest dynasties were founded on the back, the China trade. He's here because this is a painting that was brought back from Canton by my great-great-grandfather. And this is the painting that Warren Delano II was a prominent American China trader. He makes a fortune in China. We don't really know the amount, but certainly it would have been at least 100,000 Spanish dollars, probably more. That's over $20 million in today's money. And it's the money that establishes one of the most significant families in American history. Warren Delano's grandson is Franklin Delano Roosevelt, America's longest-serving president, whose family fortunes are tied to Hawkeye. He was held in extremely high regard. He was incredibly honorable. He was punctual in his dealings. He delivered as he wanted. He was nobody's fool. He enjoyed exceptionally close relations with Bostonians, period. occasionally in canton his american partners got a privileged glimpse inside hauquas's spectacular residence when invited for a rare banquet fred grant's great-great-grandfather warren and warren's brother edward record an astonishing level of hospitality Today we dined luxuriously at about four o'clock. Our dinner set out by Hao Kua, the senior Hong merchant, Chinese style. About 15 courses, bird's nest soup, shark fins, pigeon's egg. We were three hours getting through it. It is many years since Hao Kua has given a Chinese dinner at his own house, and perhaps never before did he give to a friend the like of this. With banquets like this, Halcua further strengthens his American bonds. His ties run so deep that he entrusts part of his fortune to be invested on his behalf by his closest business partners in America. His money is invested at a turning point in American history. You could argue that Haqqa helped build America. He invests his money in American railroads and American factories and American coal mines, thus leading to the development of the United States. And so a lot of America's Industrial Revolution was funded by this Chinese merchant who lived in Canton in the early part of the 19th century. Today, there's much fear about Chinese investment. Many Americans wonder if Chinese economic power has too much influence over American companies. Well, what they don't know is that this was happening in a pretty substantial way. over a hundred years ago, thanks to the China trade. Despite the wealth it's creating, the Americans encounter the same problem with the China trade as all Western merchants before them. They struggle to find anything the Chinese want to buy. American traders reluctantly brought silver to China. They would far prefer to have brought commodities. When one brought silver, silver is essentially a currency, and that meant that they weren't really traders so much as wholesalers. Initially, they tried ginseng. That was good for a season or two. Then efforts were made to bring furs from the Pacific Northwest. That lasted a few more seasons, but what they found over time was that It's plant-based, but what Western merchants are preparing to flood the Chinese market with is a powerfully addictive and illegal drug, opium. It's a shocking decision then, and now, and one that alters the history of the world. The opium trade has a profound impact on the Chinese economy, on the Chinese government. at Chinese society and Chinese individuals. It's a winner for foreign traders. It has a devastating impact on Qing China. Smoking opium has been banned in China since 1813. But the trade not only continues, it increases dramatically. In 1767, 1,000 chests of opium are imported from India. The principal players in this illegal trade are the British, who are cultivating huge amounts of opium in Bengal in India, the jewel in the crown of their growing empire. At last, Britain has a product other than silver that the Chinese crave. But this is not good for China's vital silver reserves. By the mid-19th century, silver was being drained from China to pay for this incoming opium, and the British were doing very well out of it. Two ambitious Scotsmen make a killing from selling opium. Their names, still well known for the company they begin in 1832, that grows to become a massive multinational, with an annual turnover in excess of $40 billion. William Jardine and James Matheson, who proceed to have a massive impact on this illegal trade in China. They are influential because of their systematic innovation. So whereas other traders are content to sell in the Pearl River estuary out of sight of Qing officials. Jardines commission ships to be built which will sell the drug along the coast. They commission new clipper ships, fast sailing vessels which will bring the opium as quickly as possible to the China coast. Jardine and Matheson buy opium in British-controlled Bengal and moor their ships off the Chinese coast. The opium is offloaded and delivered by Chinese middlemen to Chinese customers. What's most important about Jardine and Matheson is the fact that they do not consider themselves to be smugglers. They are not smugglers. They are gentlemen. They are traders. They are licensed traders. The Chinese who come to buy the opium from their ships in discrete anchorages off the coast of Fujian province, they are smugglers. But their business invites considerable disdain back in Britain. William Jardine is described by Benjamin Disraeli, the British Prime Minister, as a dreadful man, a Scotchman, richer than Croesus, one Macdruggy, fresh from Canton, with a million of opium in each pocket. But in the minds of Jardine and Matheson, their company is merely supplying a commodity the Chinese crave. And it's a trade that is eyed enviously from the other side of the Atlantic by the Americans. Particularly the China trader Thomas and Dacid Perkins, one of the most respectable names in Boston society, who resents being frozen out of the lucrative opium trade by the British. That fact had always bothered Thomas Perkins, who enjoyed a healthy rivalry with his British competitors. If Thomas Perkins could exchange opium for tea, he knew he could become a much, much richer trader than if he were exchanging silver for tea. The Americans joined this illegal trade when they sourced their own opium through Turkey. The number of opium chests now being smuggled into China grows at an astonishing rate. There was of course a growing social crisis. The use of opium was being noticed by the officials of the Qing dynasty. who were increasingly worried about what they saw as the harmful effects of smoking or chewing opium on large proportions of society. By the 1830s, the number of opium addicts is counted in millions. The drug is taking a terrible toll on the health of the nation. In Beijing, Emperor Daoguan must confront a huge dilemma. He must stem his people's growing addiction to opium and stop precious silver flowing out of his empire. In March 1839, he reaches a decision. He dispatches his most incorruptible official to Canton, Commissioner Ling Xie Xu. Commissioner Ling is appointed to crack down on the illegal opium trade. He moves fairly swiftly and he moves fairly ruthlessly. First of all, he would descend on the scene and demand that all opium addicts and all opium dealers immediately surrender their stores of the drug. That was number one. Number two. he was lenient. As long as you complied with his wishes and gave up your opium, he would not penalize you at all. He might even help you get some assistance. However, if you did not surrender your opium, he would put you to death. He then demands that the British surrender their chests of opium. When they refuse, he blocks the Pearl River and confines all foreign merchants to their residences. He holds them under house arrest. Their servants are taken away from them. Some of them have to learn to cook. This is a great shock. Ling Xie Xu's focus is not confined to foreign merchants. He holds Canton's chief merchant to account for the rampant opium smuggling. Hou Kua, in particular, being the chief home merchant for a long time, was under heavier scrutiny by the Qing court. So there are various rounds of assessment, financially and otherwise, that cost Hou Kua and his family dearly. Hou Kua lives under threat of beheading during this tense standoff. At the same time, one of his American business partners in Canton, Robert Bennett Forbes, reflects candidly on the lucrative nature and the morality of the opium trade in a letter to his wife. The import of opium has gradually increased under the connoisseurs. of the local authorities until the quantity is amounted to fifty thousand chests worth nearly fifteen million dollars it is generally sold readily for cash down fifteen millions of dollars is a great deal of money and all at once the government determine To cut off this trade, which has been demoralizing the minds and destroying the bodies and draining the country of money, there has been no moral feeling of indignation connected with the business. I would mention that I made my first fortune by the same. To bring this impulse to an end and return to business, the British surrendered their opium to Ling Se Shun. In March 1839, he orders their 20,000 chests of opium to be publicly destroyed. He wanted to transport the 230,000 kg of opium he had collected to Beijing. The road to Beijing was too far away, with more than 20,000 boxes of opium. He was afraid that it would leak on the road. The emperor said, don't transport it. You can directly use the port to digest the opium. When the opium was digested, the local people and some foreigners who were doing business in Guangzhou also came to see. It is broken down from these cannonball-sized balls of compacted open paste, mixed with water and poured into the sea. Millions and millions of pounds worth in today's money of this precious drug is flushed into the Pearl River. Lin Zixu was in a way a kind, humane man. He realized that vast amounts of narcotics were heading into the water system. He gave a little prayer for the fish and the aquatic life so that they could survive the sudden influx of drugs into their environment. He then followed up with a letter to Queen Victoria, basically admonishing her for allowing her traders to come to China and sell this particular drug. So long as you tempt the people of China to buy it, you will be showing yourselves careless of the lives of others, indifferent in your greed for gain to the harm you do to others. Your Majesty must never again allow such a poison to exist in heaven or on earth. And he had thought, very much in the traditional Confucian way, that having been admonished, this foreign monarch would learn the error of her ways and the opium traders from Britain would stop. It turned out that that was not at all the case. Instead, after the destruction of their opium, the British demand compensation. When it's refused, it's taken as an insult to the British state. Canton's two biggest opium traders, William Jardine and James Matheson, spearhead a furious response. They published pamphlets going around the country, speaking to people who could then lobby Parliament. There was a strong belief that a short, sharp shock... It would solve the China problem and force the Qing to accept the new reality of a world of British power and a world in which the British had to be taken seriously, treated with respect and allowed to trade. The British Foreign Minister Lord Palmerston needs little persuasion. His rallying cry, let us give China a good thrashing and explain ourselves afterwards. They were determined to get a war. They got them. By June 1840, a British flotilla reaches the Pearl River. China is confident it has all its defenses in place. It was a major operation to get the entire China coast ready for an attack. But they did not realize how fierce the attack would be. There is a gun platform here, but if we look at the gun platform, it is actually shooting forward. The gun is fired forward. The gun on this side is facing this side, and the gun on this side is facing this side. Both sides form an intersectional fire network. Even if the ship passes through here, like a ship passing through here, the gun will be attacked by a large force. But what China has not realized is that Britain in the early 19th century has transformed. No longer the nation that had to kneel before the Chinese emperor to bear gifts. It has emerged triumphant from the Napoleonic wars and now has imperial ambitions. Despite Britain's population being 30 times smaller than China's, the British government can now raise the same amount of revenue each year as the Chinese emperor. First of all, it was fuelled, literally you might say, because of coal, by the new capacity of the Industrial Revolution. The gunboats that came off the coast of China were very different from the old sorts of sailing vessels you might have had even a hundred years earlier. Along with the guns themselves, this was high level, very high precision technology. In other words, the British had taken a quantum leap in terms of the amount of violence they were able to inflict on those who ran up against them. The key battleship, the Nemesis, almost won the Opium War single-handedly. Obviously, travel against the wind, being steam-powered, could do all the things that the Chinese war junks couldn't do. It was really a technological mismatch as far as the Chinese were concerned. China's ports come under relentless attack. Its ships are hopelessly outgunned and outmaneuvered. The British enjoy as much of a technical advantage when the wall reaches land. The British have been using the machine gun. There is also a new equipment that the British don't have. It is the knife they use when they are on the road. The advantage is that he could open the window and use a knife to cut the hair. According to the records of the British, the British soldiers were very brave. The British didn't understand why they didn't surrender. They would rather die in battle. The injury was very serious. China has lost the war and has no option but to negotiate a peace treaty. In 1842, they sign the Treaty of Nanking. It's a document which reflects how much China's world has changed. The British copy is here in the National Archives in London. Treaty her majesty the queen of the united kingdom of great britain and ireland and his majesty the emperor of china being desirous of putting an end to the misunderstandings and consequent hostilities which have arisen between the two countries have resolved to conclude a treaty for that purpose So, although the language of this treaty is warm and friendly, it's in fact a statement that from this point onwards China is going to have to do what the British say. The treaty achieves all and more of the British requests of the McCartney Embassy of 1793 that had been so swiftly denied by the Chinese Emperor. his majesty the emperor of china agrees that british subjects with their families and establishments shall be allowed to reside for the purpose of carrying on their mercantile pursuits without molestation or restraint at the cities and towns of canton amoy fujofu ningbo and shanghai but there is an even greater demand from the british his majesty the emperor of china cedes to her majesty the queen of great britain the island of hongkong to be possessed in perpetuity by her britannic majesty and to be governed by such laws and regulations as her majesty the queen of great britain shall see fit to direct The Emperor of China, who until this point perhaps never really had to cede anything to anyone, is being told that under the influence of gunships, he is going to have to let the Queen of Great Britain, this far-off country, essentially take over, colonise part of his territory, this rather obscure little bit of southern China, an island called Hong Kong. If you could imagine the reverse of this, that a Chinese set of warships had turned up in the late 19th century off the Solent, maybe deciding that they wanted the Isle of Wight, and you have to reverse that thinking to understand how outrageous this would have seemed in China. I think the Treaty of Nanjing is one of the most important documents in Chinese history because it marks the beginning of a period that shapes Chinese thinking even today in the early 21st century. It's the time when China enters what's become nicknamed the century of humiliation. Being forced to sign this treaty, and they were forced, was essentially a sign that China could no longer decide on its own foreign relations. Instead, it could be ordered, it could be told. how to relate to the outside world, and the memory of that humiliation has never gone away in China. China's fall is spectacular. The loss of the war is felt nationally and personally. It brings to an end the golden age of Canton, and the rapid demise of its chief merchant, and one-time richest man in the world, Hao Kua. He dies in 1843, one year after the end of the Opium War, His son continues the business, but the vast fortune dwindles, and today, only the family name survives. Wu Bingjun, this one, as that... 这个不能是这个无后嘛 是过激到这边做的 所以我既是武炳建的后人 也是武炳君的后人 这是武家武炳建 这一支的武家花园 Only rare photographs allow a glimpse of Haqua's once magnificent residence and ornamental gardens. Today, almost nothing remains. This is a fairy tale that should have been left behind. 这个没动过,原来进来的时候呢,他们后人在这里住的话,这个基本上就是原貌,是原来的那个留下来的。 For the victors, the Opium War is transformative. Hong Kong begins its spectacular rise from what is dismissed at the time as a barren lump of rock on the Chinese coast to become an integral part of the British Empire. And at the heart of Hong Kong, the business empire of Jardin and Matheson, founded on opium, dominates. In less than 50 years, the silver that helped China dictate world trade has played a profound role in China losing its place as the world's leading economic power. China is now experiencing a harsh new reality. Opium triggers another disastrous war for China and the country must witness the deliberate destruction of a masterpiece of Chinese civilization. The destruction of the Summer Palace was very much an act of punishment. It was designed absolutely to humiliate and lower the standing of the Qing court. China is then overwhelmed not just by Western powers but also Japan. You see the gathering together of different imperial powers, all seeking a slice of China. But worse is to come when China's very existence is threatened. Many Chinese officials and observers think that, in fact, China faces national extinction. We talk about this, the threat of extinction. I'm going to go ahead and start the recording. I'm going to go ahead and start the recording. I'm going to go ahead and start the recording. I'm going to go ahead and start the recording. I'm going to go ahead and start the recording. I'm going to go ahead and start the recording. I'm going to go ahead and start the recording. I'm going to go ahead and start the recording. I'm going to go ahead and start the recording. I'm going to go ahead and start the recording. I'm going to go ahead and start the recording. I'm going to go ahead and start the recording. I'm going to go ahead and start the recording. I'm going to go ahead and start the recording.