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Britain's quest for a commodity China craved led to the opium trade's calamitous impact, sparking wars between the nations when China tried to stop it.
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00:12It's here, in a tiny settlement, high in the Andes mountain range of South America, that global trade begins.
00:22And that's because of what is discovered deep inside this mountain.
00:33The purest silver the world has ever seen.
00:39It's 1581, and a buyer appears for this silver.
00:4411,000 miles away, the emperor of China, the most powerful man on earth, has decided that his people must
00:50now pay their tax in silver.
00:53This sparks a huge demand for silver in China to the point where silver was worth more than gold.
01:00This series explores how the world is transformed when the king of Spain's silver meets the tax demands of the
01:08emperor of China.
01:10It's a remarkable story that witnesses how China came to dominate at the dawn of world trade over 400 years
01:17ago.
01:18The first time the whole world was linked into one global network, and the most important element of this is
01:26silver.
01:26Silver allows China's emperors to become the most powerful men on earth, and silver makes this businessman the richest man
01:35in the world.
01:36A lot of America's industrial revolution was funded by this Chinese merchant.
01:43Chinese craftsmen go on to create silverware of unparalleled skill and beauty that are coveted across the world.
01:51Already in the 18th century, people were admiring this fantastic work because the wire is so thin, it's like hair.
02:03China's silver trade drives the growth of world cities from Boston to Hong Kong, Shanghai to Seville.
02:14But it also sows the seeds of China's near destruction and leads to war with Western powers.
02:20The British were determined to get a war. They got the war.
02:28It's the time when China enters what's become nicknamed the century of humiliation.
02:34The period when China was not in control of its own external affairs.
02:38But China won't let go its obsession with this precious metal.
02:43Only trust silver. It is almost like religion in Chinese history.
02:49Silver is our gold in Chinese history.
02:55This series reveals how silver changes China's history and the history of the world.
03:01It's like holding a piece of history on your hand.
03:16How China and silver will affect the rest of the world can be seen perhaps for the first time in
03:22July 1588, in one of the most dramatic moments in the history of Europe.
03:28On the north coast of Spain, King Philip II, protector of the Catholic faith, has gathered a mighty armada.
03:36130 ships and 30,000 men. The vanguard of a holy war he's waging across Europe and Asia.
03:44Elizabeth I, Queen of England and ruler of the most powerful Protestant country in Europe, knows she is his target.
03:52If Philip II succeeds, he will overthrow her and make England Catholic again.
03:58But how can Philip put together such an armada? How can he afford it?
04:03The surprising answer is a decision made thousands of miles from Spain.
04:08By another ruler, not about power or religion, but about tax.
04:15In 1581, seven years before Philip unleashes his armada, the emperor of China commands that his people must pay all
04:23their taxes in the silver.
04:25Spain is the one country that can fully satisfy China's huge hunger for silver.
04:31The silver trade between Spain and China, we tend to think of European trade, particularly trade and bullion,
04:38as being something that Europe develops, that Europe pushes for, that Europe is the impetus behind.
04:44It's actually China.
04:47What we explore in this revelatory series is how through this one decision, a Ming emperor placed China at the
04:54heart of world trade.
04:58Globalization isn't a creation of the 21st century. China made it happen over 400 years ago.
05:10It is the 16th century in China. Within the walls of the Forbidden City, the largest palace complex in the
05:17world,
05:17the emperors of the Ming dynasty rule over a quarter of the world's population.
05:23Since the travels of Marco Polo in the 13th century, the rest of the world has been dazzled by the
05:29scale and sophistication of China.
05:31Beijing was impressive. Large city, beautiful buildings, tight control of the emperor.
05:37So visitors to China, the Ming dynasty, were very impressed.
05:40Oh, this country is much more advanced than Western Europe.
05:45And the Chinese think of themselves as the center of civilization, perfectly captured in a unique artifact.
05:54This is one of the most famous maps in history. It's called a map of the myriad countries of the
06:01world.
06:02It was drawn at the request of the Chinese emperor.
06:08At the very center, the map maker placed China, the hub of the world around which everything revolves.
06:15China, the middle kingdom.
06:19The Ming dynasty China, in terms of territory, was a very much larger country than national states that were coming
06:29up in Europe.
06:31The emperor was much more wealthy than the richest kings in Europe.
06:35They were never shaken the belief that China was the center of the world.
06:39But Ming emperors do have one weakness. Their power is built on sand.
06:47They are hamstrung by a tax system of extraordinary inefficiency and complexity.
06:56The government was actually founded on people performing service as a kind of taxation and delivery of taxes in kind.
07:06So you had to pay so much in terms of rice or silk or cotton.
07:16In the Ming dynasty, they were master tax dodgers.
07:26It used to be that the emperor would require peasants to turn a certain amount of grain to pay as
07:34tax.
07:34Or a certain amount of meat as taxation, right?
07:38But that's very difficult to implement because it's hard to ship.
07:41Secondly, it's hard to measure the quality of grain, right?
07:44It's much better and much more flexible just to pay money.
07:49But the government has been issuing paper money on and off since the 11th century.
07:54But the people have little trust in its value.
07:57As we know historically, when the emperor or the authority begins to issue paper money,
08:04the temptation to issue a lot of paper money is too hard to resist.
08:08So when everybody has paper money, right, it becomes worthless.
08:13People in Chinese history have deep, deep, deep rooted idea that only trust metal.
08:22So in China, of the 1500s, it is the humble copper coin which remains the most reliable currency.
08:29But it has a major drawback.
08:31Its weight.
08:33This is called one main.
08:35It is 100 coins.
08:37And 10 of the 100, which is 1000, is called guan.
08:43I think about if you put a lot of coins in your pockets,
08:47it would be very heavy and not easy to handle them.
08:49So you can try to buy something which costs 1000 coins,
08:56or maybe you can take only one tear of the silver.
09:03So for good reason, the Chinese people begin to make larger payments in silver,
09:09far lighter and more valuable than copper.
09:14This change in society does not go unnoticed
09:17by one of the most influential politicians in Chinese history.
09:21His name is Jiang Jujang.
09:29But when he was very young, he understood the change in China.
09:36So he found out that now we have many changes in China.
09:41But our government's government has not to fit in this change.
09:47By the 1570s, Jiang Jujang is the senior grand secretary to the emperor.
09:53So you can imagine how powerful the person was.
09:55So this guy was in control of whole China, running day-to-day operations.
10:02He quickly realized that without taxation, without enough financial resources,
10:07the country cannot run.
10:10So in response to the people's choice to use silver,
10:13in 1580, Jiang Jujang boldly alters the tax system.
10:19The single whip reform will forever alter the course of Chinese history.
10:26What is meant by the single whip is to collapse all of these different kinds of labor services
10:32into one silver payment.
10:35In silver, it's much easier for the government to collect a fixed amount of silver from everyone,
10:41rather than going around and saying,
10:44you must go and do this job and you must go and do this kind of work and so forth.
10:51And it works.
10:52At the National Museum of China in Beijing,
10:55one artifact shows how the most powerful government on earth
10:59is no longer financed by complex and inefficient exchanges of wheat, rice and labor,
11:05but by simple payments in silver.
11:08This part of the銀錠 is 50 dollars of a銀錠.
11:13It's a special thing to us.
11:15It's a special thing to us.
11:17It tells us that we have a lot of money.
11:19We have a lot of money,
11:21so it's a special thing to us.
11:23It's a special thing to us.
11:30This says a...
11:32It means that the銀錠 is not left in the central part of the island of Slovenia
11:37as part of the oil market.
11:38This is to transport and U-key to the oil market.
11:41It's a special thing to the oil market.
11:44It's a special thing to the oil market.
11:46The currency of the oil market is involved in and the oil market.
11:52It's a special thing to the oil market.
11:55It's part of it.
11:56It is a special thing to sell for the oil market
12:01But with a population well over 100 million people now taxed in silver,
12:07China requires unprecedented amounts of this metal.
12:12With little silver of its own, China must look to the outside world for silver.
12:17What the single whip reform does is it forces China to be essentially at the mercy of foreign trade.
12:23They are essentially forced to import silver.
12:29This increases their trade with Japan.
12:33Japanese silver reserves were fairly quickly, not necessarily exhausted,
12:38but Japan was unable to meet China's demand.
12:43This single whip reform could look like a massive miscalculation by the Chinese emperor.
12:50Were it not for an amazing discovery 36 years before and thousands of miles across the Pacific Ocean
12:57in one of the remotest corners of the rapidly expanding Spanish Empire.
13:03This is Potosí.
13:074,000 meters above sea level in what was then Peru.
13:13Today, a quarter of a million people live and work here.
13:17But in the early 1500s, there are just a few farmers grazing their lamas.
13:22One lost lama in the mountain leads to an astonishing discovery.
13:27A discovery that will make this corner of the new world a jewel in the crown of the Spanish Empire.
13:34The history mitological, the history romantical,
13:37says that Dio Huaypa, who was a natural person of these places,
13:41was walking by the Cerro Rico of Potosí, apacenting his sheep.
13:46But what happened?
13:46He lost one of his llamas and he had to be lost in the river.
13:50He recurred to the practice of a fogata to maintain the heat of the body.
13:54And great was his surprise.
13:55At the next time, the fogata organized hilos of silver that began to correr throughout the mountain.
14:04The Spanish give the mountain the name by which it is still known today,
14:09Cerro Rico, rich mountain,
14:12a mountain of the purest silver the world has ever seen.
14:20In the 16th and 17th century, at least at certain times,
14:24it's estimated that 50% of all the silver produced in the world
14:28was coming out of upper Peru, Potosí.
14:32It's amazing.
14:34So the Spaniards were very fortunate to discover the richest silver mines
14:38in the history of the world and also in Mexico.
14:41But the big one was Potosí.
14:45The Potosí discovery unleashes a silver rush.
14:49Its impact, global and local.
14:53Cuando arranca la explotación en el Cerro Rico,
14:56no tenía iglesias, no tenía palacios, no tenía plazas.
14:59Solamente era una juxtaposición de diferentes cacerillos.
15:04The population in 1545 was roughly zero.
15:11And 60 years later, it was 160,000.
15:15So it was really a mind-boggling,
15:18probably the greatest boom city in the history of the world.
15:31But even with this population explosion,
15:34the Spanish face a problem all across their empire in the New World.
15:39Where to get the manpower to extract the silver?
15:44You've got these vast continents with huge resources,
15:48but you have no labor supply,
15:49or at least a very depleted labor supply.
15:53So what are you going to do?
15:54In order to get the silver,
15:56the Spanish enslave the indigenous people of the New World.
16:01One mind boss said,
16:02if 20 healthy Indians enter on a Monday,
16:05half may emerge crippled by Saturday.
16:09When the Indian population is decimated by European diseases and warfare,
16:13the Spanish then turn to slaves from Africa.
16:30This mine, it was called by many of the people who worked it
16:35as the mountain that eats men.
16:38And it's an illustration of the terrible human cost,
16:41the very real cost in blood, in lives of this silver trade.
16:55Even today, it is a dangerous place to work.
17:07The life of a miner here is a bit,
17:10it's a bit, it's complicated, right?
17:13Because we, as miners here,
17:15we are at risk of the gases,
17:19we are at risk of the perils that we use in the interior of the mine.
17:24And then, because of that,
17:25a long time, comes the disease of the mine.
17:28There is a mineral here, no?
17:30The problem is that we use the risk that we use.
17:32Like we have already seen in the potassium,
17:36We have been told by the companies that have been arrested,
17:42we think it's not even going to be rescued.
17:49Over the centuries, millions of African and indigenous people die extracting New World Silver.
17:57In the words of one writer, you could build a bridge from Potosi to Madrid from what was mined here
18:04and one back with the bones of those that died taking it out.
18:22But once the silver was mined, the Spanish still had to find a market for it.
18:28They find it 12,000 miles away across the Pacific in another part of the world they'd recently colonized
18:34and named in honor of Philip II, the Philippines.
18:40The Spanish established Manila as its capital.
18:44When the Spanish arrived in this fantastic bay, one of the finest harbors in the world,
18:50they already found Chinese junks engaged in a low-level regional trade with the Philippines.
18:57And the Chinese would sail from the ports of Yangzhou and also from Canton, bringing their
19:03wares from further inland in the factories in China, silk from Nanjing, porcelain from Jingdechen.
19:11All these wares were exchanged in Manila.
19:17Thousands more Chinese traders now sail to Manila with these luxury goods to sell to the Spanish.
19:24And when they return home to China, their ships are laden with one precious commodity.
19:30Already, in 1570, the viceroy of New Spain in Mexico, Don Martin Enriquez wrote to the king,
19:40And there is nothing we can export to China that they don't already have.
19:46And the only way to trade with the Chinese is silver.
19:50Silver is the only thing they want.
19:53Silver defines this trade so much so that we can call this trade the silver way.
20:03It's the silver pouring into China that's helping fuel the economic miracle in the Middle Kingdom.
20:20China that's the manufacturer of the world dates from this time.
20:24They were manufacturing goods on spec for foreign buyers.
20:27These were things that were not made in China for Chinese use.
20:32They would be made for order for customers in Europe and Spanish America.
20:44Driven by China's need for silver, the early global economy is taking shape.
20:51In 1573, a mint opens in Potosi that produces a silver coin
20:56that is at the heart of this early trade and one that becomes the first global currency.
21:03The eight real Spanish peso, better known as pieces of eight.
21:08The Spanish coin of eight reales, the concept of a global economy.
21:15And it is notably accepted in all the corners of the planet.
21:20And of course, this coin also came to the most remote borders of Christianity,
21:24to the borders of the Chinese Empire, to the borders of India.
21:30Global trade really started, you know, in the 16th century.
21:36You can see the world to a certain degree was beginning to be connected as integrated whole.
21:41This is the first time the whole world was linked into one global network.
21:45And the most important element of this is silver.
21:51Manila becomes one of the most important global hubs in this silver circuit.
21:56Between 1572 and 1580, the number of Chinese junk sailing to Manila,
22:02laden with silk and porcelain, jumps by over a thousand percent.
22:08To accommodate this increase in trade, the Spanish need to build boats on a scale and durability never attempted before.
22:17These were, of course, wooden sailing ships, built here in the Philippines for the most part of tropical hardwoods.
22:23They were almost indestructible.
22:24They were impervious to ship rot and even cannonballs to a very large extent.
22:29And they were huge. They were up to 2,000 tons at a time when a typical ship was 200
22:35tons.
22:36So these were what we call today container ships, the largest ships in the world at the time.
22:43These ships become known as the Manila galleons.
22:48Twice a year, weighed down with New World silver, they sail nearly 9,000 miles from Acapulco to Manila.
23:00Manila is actually the center of a global trade that is immensely profitable on not only both sides of the
23:07Pacific,
23:08but on both sides of the Atlantic as well.
23:11Thanks to the silver China demands, Spain can now command a colossal empire.
23:18A Franciscan monk is moved to describe it to the king of Spain as an empire on which the sun
23:23never sets.
23:42It's a country of 6 million people, going to become the dominant military power, fighting the British, the Armada, or
23:53the endless fighting.
23:54Against the Ottomans in the Mediterranean and also fighting the Dutch endlessly and Asian waters for control.
24:01I mean, how is a small country without an industrial revolution, agricultural revolution going to pay for this?
24:08Well, silver mines, thanks to China.
24:18In Manila, the opportunities of the silver trade gives rise to something new.
24:24A phenomenon that has been repeated in almost all of the great trading cities of the world ever since.
24:35Welcome to Binondo, Manila's Chinatown. This is supposedly the oldest Chinatown in the world.
24:43When Spain settled in Manila in the late 1500s, the Chinese followed suit.
24:48They became the traders and the middlemen and also the skilled craftsmen for the Spanish colonial government.
24:56Trade in Manila brings fantastic profits, but it also brings suspicion and fear.
25:02There is distrust and hostility between the Chinese and Spanish for one specific reason.
25:09In the beginning, the Spanish hoped to use Manila as a springboard to potentially invade and conquer China.
25:18The idea was that they could do this using the same model they had used to conquer Mexico.
25:25After the Spanish realized that conquering China was not going to happen, they began to focus on Manila as a
25:33trade center.
25:36The relationship between the Spanish and the Chinese and Manila was extremely tense.
25:47In the early 1600s, the Chinese population in Manila massively outnumbers the Spanish.
25:55In a city that forms a crucial part of the empire, the Spanish start to behave as if they are
26:02under siege.
26:02In most early modern cities, fortifications like cannons, primitive artillery, these sorts of things are pointed outward.
26:14As time went on in Manila, these weapons began to be pointed inwards.
26:19So this is a situation that could at any moment escalate into violence.
26:27So this is Intramuros. Intramuros literally means inside the walls.
26:31And these are the walls, these are the walls we're walking on.
26:35The Spanish part of the city was on this side of the walls, this is inside, and this is outside
26:40here.
26:42There were never more than a few thousand Spanish here at any one time.
26:47There were many, many more, for example, Chinese who lived on the other side of the wall, sometimes up to
26:52tens of thousands of them.
26:57There was always a love-hate relationship between the Chinese and the Spanish.
27:03When there's too many of the Chinese in the country, the Spanish would restrict immigration, deport the Chinese en masse,
27:11or even massacre them.
27:14In 1603, the tensions erupt into a rebellion by the Chinese against the Spanish.
27:32This is a rebellion that went on for multiple days.
27:35There are multiple verifiable reports of the severed heads of both Chinese and Spanish being displayed throughout Manila,
27:44on pikes, held in people's hands, essentially to intimidate.
27:50And when it was over, over 20,000 people had been killed.
28:00Despite the carnage in Manila, the Chinese population never dwindles for long.
28:06The financial pull of the Manila trade is too powerful.
28:11They're never able to fully expel the Chinese or even come close to it, because of not only the numerical
28:18difference,
28:19but because of the vital role the Chinese play in this silver trade and how economically dependent both Spain and
28:27China had become on this trade.
28:31For more than 50 years, silver flowing into China sees the Ming dynasty prosper.
28:38But in the early decades of the 17th century, silver will become a major factor in the downfall of the
28:45Ming.
28:46Military campaigns are draining China's silver reserves.
28:50The government cannot collect enough tax from its suffering people.
28:55And China's economy is now precariously yoked to silver from the mines of the New World.
29:02The amount of silver required to sustain this economy from the Spanish alone averages about 50 tons a year throughout
29:11the 17th century.
29:13When that supply is interrupted, Chinese emperors face an immediate problem.
29:19In the late 1630s, several galleons sunk, one after another.
29:30It meant that the flow of silver stopped for a while.
29:36This was the first time when financial activities in one part of the world had a global reach, had a
29:43global effect.
29:44So when, for example, one of these ships would sink on the way to Manila and the silver would go
29:50down with the ship,
29:51it would have what we would now call a money supply shock in China.
30:07The silver had created an economic revolution in China, but now its scarcity causes catastrophe.
30:14Emperor Chongzhen doesn't have the money to bankroll his troops, and his country is threatened by rebels and enemies to
30:21the north.
30:37And that, of course, is creating all kinds of discontent, you know, not being able to pay the soldiers has
30:42huge damaging impact on the morale and the possible rebellion.
30:53The consequences for the Ming Empire are devastating.
30:59In 1644, after 276 years of Ming rule, Beijing falls to a rebel army.
31:11Disgraced and in despair, Emperor Chongzhen walks to a small hill overlooking the Forbidden City and hangs himself.
31:19The man whose empire is tied to silver is undone for the lack of it.
31:29A new dynasty, the Qing, takes control of China.
31:34They are fearsome warriors from the north, where there is a long tradition of fine horsemanship and hunting.
31:43For 40 years, the Qing put down resistance to their rule.
31:48Only after then, can the new emperor, Kangxi, devote time to what role China will play in the wider world.
32:13For the last 40 years, all maritime trade has been blocked.
32:16Now Kangxi's empire is secure, he has a decision to make.
32:21Should he maintain the ban or open China to maritime trade?
32:28In 1684, Kangxi issues an edict to his people.
32:32I command you to go abroad and trade to show the populist and affluent nature of our rule.
32:39By imperial decree, I open the seas to trade.
32:45With China's coast now open, a vigorous trade develops, and the flow of silver resumes.
32:52Kangxi sets up custom houses at four major ports.
32:56Custom silver flows directly into his personal coffers.
33:00In the United States, a period of peace and prosperity begins, unparalleled in Chinese history.
33:07After these ships were built,
33:09and of course, due to the expansion of foreign trade,
33:14the gold from the ships will increase from the ships.
33:20Because they receive the capital of the ships.
33:25This is where Kangxi's edict has the greatest impact.
33:28Kangxi, also known as Canton.
33:34Today, ten miles east of Canton, vast container ships dock here at its port of Wampoa.
33:42Round the clock, 365 days a year.
33:47Its location has made it one of the busiest waterways in the world.
33:51In the wake of Kangxi's edict, foreign ships, laden with silver, make their way to Canton, up the estuary of
33:58the Pearl River.
34:01This is where they will be supposed to be.
34:03They will set the place to the land, and leave the stand, and move the land to the island.
34:18They will then move this place, and move the land to the island.
34:23Over the land, theیze of the land will be replaced by the island, and move the land back on the
34:26island.
34:26Now, they will then walk to the island, and walk to the island.
34:42The leading maritime powers of the world all come to Canton.
34:46British, Dutch, French, Danish and Swedish merchants all set up shop in this Chinese port.
34:54So this is an incredibly elaborate set of 18 panels of Chinese export wallpaper with many
35:02different scenes of daily life in Guangzhou.
35:07We see small shops that are selling local fare.
35:13We see craftsmen creating things, people at leisure.
35:17You can see the bustle of commerce on the river and indeed there are views of the river
35:23where you can virtually not see the water.
35:25There are so many of these small Sampan boats in which many Chinese were living as well
35:30as transporting.
35:35This trade is only good news for China who levy tax on the goods and silver arriving in
35:41Canton.
35:42To the other people, go and look into theitoление of the important
35:52It is very important to have a personal appeal and the best to keep the opportunity
36:00to have a huge impact on it.
36:00I am part of my life at the moment.
36:00For the past, I am part of my life at the moment of the time I am not going to
36:04and I am not going to leave the chat.
36:05I am not going to come to the point of my life.
36:05For example, I am going to have a baby now on the road to my home.
36:06It's a huge amount of money and magnitude.
36:11The European Union is high-quality,
36:14which means that these countries
36:16are all in our country.
36:21The trade-off trade-off trade-off
36:24is not very complicated.
36:27The trade-off trade-off trade-off trade-off trade-off.
36:29We can also use the trade-off trade-off trade-off trade-off trade-off.
36:36We have the trade-off trade-off trade-off trade-off trade.
36:42The merchants come to buy silks and ceramics,
36:45but in the 1700s,
36:47demand grows enormously for a product
36:49that only the Chinese produce.
36:53One that they've treasured for thousands of years.
36:56It's a drink that will change the world.
37:00China had tea nowhere else in the world
37:03as it was known at the time.
37:06produced tea tea takes hold quite rapidly it's an addictive drug attempts to find and export seeds
37:20of tea plants covertly generally failed because the Qing empire refused to allow foreigners to
37:29enter the interior of the country they could only deal with traders at the points of entry
37:37these tea terraces are in Guizhou in southwestern china known locally as the sea of tea
37:46today tea exports from the area bring in millions of dollars
37:51250 years ago the trade is just beginning to take off
38:14in the 17th century it's catherine of braganza wife of charles ii who makes tea popular in the royal
38:22court in london and where the royals lead the rest of the nation follows the more demand grows the more
38:32china benefits and it's a trade that guarantees return business tea the caffeine itself you know
38:41that you and i addicted to that caused the return that resulted in return of of traders from the
38:48western world to china to canton asking for more year after year
38:56the tea trade becomes one of the largest trades in the world
39:03the holds of merchant ships are packed with tea crates
39:09but it also travels overland to another great empire on china's northern border
39:15russia russia
39:37caravans of camels make the long and dangerous journey along the tea road which stretches over
39:43two thousand miles from the plantations of eastern china across the vast mongolian steps and ends in the
39:49great russian city of st petersburg it's an exchange of chinese luxury goods and tea for russian furs and of
39:58course silver
40:04the wealth generated from the tea trade helps build the monumental architecture of st petersburg
40:12the fabulously elegant city of russia's imperial czars
40:18this trade was very important not only because it brought taxes
40:23this to russian state but because of this trade new generation of merchants have
40:31has appeared in russia and they were eager to invest their fortunes in different spheres of life
40:40so a lot of a lot of spheres of the russian life economic and cultural
40:47were flourishing due to the money that were initially gained at the trade at the tea trade
40:56like oil in the 20th century tea becomes one of the most valuable traded commodities throughout the
41:0218th century world it generates huge revenues and the wealth has a transformative effect across china
41:12by the middle of the 18th century china's population has doubled and is on its way to tripling an increase
41:20virtually unprecedented in the history of the modern world
41:25china's growing population needs to be housed and its wealthy emperors want ever more lavish palaces
41:32so the demand for timber increases massively buying the wood in ever greater volume
41:40forces merchants to travel deeper and deeper into china's interior many come here to the densely forested
41:48hills of southeast guizhou to trade with one previously self-reliant community called the miau
42:02在贵州的这些苗人呢他们其实对外部世界的商品的需求是很小的
42:06因为在贵州是一个自然资源非常丰富的地方
42:11所以他们基本上没有任何的需求对外部世界除了言以外
42:16这样的话他大量的木材的这个从他那里获取
42:17用什么去换这些木材
42:22那就要想有一个他们能接受的东西
42:31This trade in timber for silver would not only boost the fortunes, but would profoundly
42:36alter the way of life of the Miao, one of China's most distinctive people.
42:45Having little use for silver as money, the Miao used this beautiful white metal to create
42:51fabulous and intricate jewellery.
42:55Silver becomes a symbol for wealth and status.
43:00Miao's silver art endures today in an unbroken line of unique craftsmanship.
43:06I want to honor my father, to honor my father, to honor my father, to honor my father, or
43:14to honor my father.
43:14I will be able to make this money and make this money.
43:20I want to be able to do this.
43:22Because in the Miao's silver art, many of the many of the traditional things
43:25of the Miao's silver art, the Miao's silver art, the Miao's silver art,
43:31Miao's silver art is a crown of the Miao's silver art.
43:35It's really important to me.
43:38We have to wear our clothes.
43:40We have to wear our clothes, wear our clothes, wear our clothes, wear our clothes.
43:50When I was married, I was very happy to wear my clothes.
43:55I was wearing my clothes.
43:58as the picture
44:00has also been
44:03this illustration
44:05more than the picture
44:05more than the pictureousseau
44:17I was
44:20going to leave for my mother and I
44:22was going to crime for my mother later I
44:23will do my wife
44:33Less than 200 years after China demands that its people pay their tax in silver, China
44:39has been transformed.
44:44Increased wealth and unstoppable foreign trade has also created a more material mindset
44:50in China.
45:09Trade is bringing in silver, but it also heralds the arrival of ambitious foreigners who
45:15are becoming a permanent feature in the daily life of the coastal ports of China.
45:23And by the middle of the 18th century, that, for the young emperor Chiang Lung, is becoming
45:29a greater and greater problem.
45:32European merchants trigger a constant stream of trade disputes and complaints.
45:37Their sailors are quarrelsome, rowdy and drunk.
45:41Western traders consider themselves gentlemen. They came from advanced, enlightened societies.
45:51Chiang officials and others would increasingly come to regard them as uncouth barbarians.
45:57In 1757, worried by the disputes and disorder, the emperor, Chiang Lung, takes drastic action.
46:05With the exception of one port, Canton, the Chinese coast will no longer be open to Western trade.
46:15Chiang Lung was in which they are still in the 19th century.
46:23He was frightened by the border in the country.
46:24He was frightened by the border, and he was frightened by the border.
46:28He was frightened by the border, and he was frightened by the border.
46:35it. Emperor Chiang Rung can use the very river that brings the foreign ships to Canton to
46:43his advantage. The Pearl River is the only route into the city, and at the Boca Tigris,
46:49the mouth of the tiger, where the river narrows, it is decreed that merchant ships can go no
46:55further. This keeps foreigners at arm's length, and previous restrictions are now enforced
47:01more strictly. Those foreigners are confined to a small enclave outside Canton city walls,
47:27in residences known as factories. What you're seeing here are the foreign factories in which
47:35all foreigners would have lived and worked from the late 18th century until really the first quarter
47:42of the 19th century. These look like Western style buildings, they're fundamentally Chinese buildings
47:49with a Western facade. And the foreign merchants who were coming to Guangzhou would have both lived
47:56and worked in these spaces. So having come halfway around the world, this is literally all of China
48:02that you ever would have had an opportunity to see. The restrictions on the life of foreigners may
48:08be stifling and monotonous. But what is becoming intolerable for Western merchants, in particular the
48:16British, is a restriction that could be curving profits. They start to believe that there is a coalition of
48:26interests based in Canton now, which has a grip of the Canton trade, which is going to prevent them getting
48:34to Chinese markets.
48:38In Canton, all Western merchants must deal exclusively with a small select group of influential Chinese merchants,
48:45called the Koh Hong. They are an official barrier to the potential riches of the Chinese interior.
48:54If British traders can only get beyond Canton, they can sell to the 300 million residents of China.
49:03Spearheading this discontent is the most significant foreign trading operation, not just in Canton, but across the world.
49:11The British East India Company. It is a company like no other, immensely rich and powerful, with a private army
49:19that would grow to number 200,000 men.
49:21It has the ability to act with the decisiveness and confidence of a nation state.
49:27The East India Company was a monopoly that was frustrated by the monopolies of others.
49:33It had a monopoly of the trade with the Indies, but it objected to the fact that the Chinese controlled
49:39the terms of the trade.
49:40In China, its officials were always men on the make. Men keen to make the fortune that they could make
49:50a very few successful trading systems and then get out of the East, get back to Britain, buy an estate,
50:00settle down.
50:04One such man is James Flint, a junior officer of the East India Company, fired by raw ambition.
50:12Flint takes it upon himself to contest the Chinese terms of trade on behalf of the British.
50:17In so doing, he sets a chain of events that lead to imprisonment and execution.
50:27In 1759, Flint goes on the offensive. He sails out of Canton to confront the Chinese emperor himself.
50:36He sails north to Tianjin with a petition which he was trying to send to the emperor to complain about
50:43the specific terms of trade,
50:44to complain about corruption at Canton. And this petition did in fact get to the emperor.
50:51When Qianlun receives the petition, he at first orders an investigation and then changes his mind and meets out tough
51:00justice.
51:01Quite a large number of officials at Canton lost their jobs.
51:07Two men who helped him lead the preparation of the petition lost their heads.
51:13Having dealt with his Chinese subjects, Qianlun then takes action against Flint for his impudence.
51:20He imprisons him for three years and banishes him from the country forever.
51:26James Flint was the first of a number of British officials and traders who tried to push the boundaries
51:33and change the rules of the game. This would happen again and again and again.
51:40But at this moment, China sits unrivalled at the top of world trade.
51:46The Flint affair allows Qianlun to show the rest of the world that if it wants to trade with China,
51:52they must abide by his rules.
51:57In 1760, he issues his regulations against the barbarians, definitively spilling out all the restrictions on foreigners.
52:09China essentially runs the world economy and we tend not to think of it as Westerners because
52:15we operate on the assumption that major global currents are initiated by Europeans,
52:21when in fact China is very much the catalyst in all of this.
52:27But China's global dominance is not restricted to trade. Its culture has taken hold of the world's imagination.
52:36The Royal Courts of Europe are obsessed with the idea of China itself.
52:41When Catherine the Great, the Empress of Russia, builds her famous Catherine Palace near St. Petersburg,
52:47she also commissions the building of an entire village for visiting nobility.
52:53It is built in a fanciful and decorative Chinese style that becomes known as chinoiserie.
53:00In the 18th century, China was very fashionable throughout Europe.
53:06Of course, this is more their fantasy. That's how China was imagined.
53:12You see these beautiful dragons there, the fish scale roof patterns on the roofing, the curved roofs.
53:21Some people say that's a mockery, yeah, but I would say that's like a nice fairy tale, what they created
53:28here.
53:32The Hermitage Museum is Catherine the Great's legacy to Russia.
53:38It houses one of the finest art collections in the world, bequeathed by Catherine on her death in 1796.
53:47Part of the Empress of Russia's vast collection contains an extraordinary work of Chinese silver.
53:55A 32-piece toilette set, gifted to Catherine on her wedding in 1745.
54:04Such fine lace filigree. It was special of Chinese in the 18th century and at the moment I think now
54:16we
54:17can be sure that no one can imitate it or it takes so much labor and well money that it's
54:27not possible to do
54:28that. Some of the details have Chinese symbolism like these apples of pomegranate. So you can see that
54:38it's like a broken pomegranate with seeds and that was the symbol of omnipotence. Have as many suns as seeds
54:49in this pomegranate.
55:06The wire is so thin it's like hair and you see that possibly this crepe was used for lipstick or
55:16for rouge or for some cosmetics.
55:23This mirror is adorned with more than 400 diamonds. This mirror you can see the shape
55:33is typically Chinese. It's decorated with dragons, Chinese dragons and of course well you smile looking at
55:44it's because they are all shiny and beautiful and again show the richness and the wealth of Russian court and
55:54of Catherine the Great.
55:57As the 18th century draws to a close, China is at the height of its powers.
56:02It remains the middle kingdom, the axis of civilization and world trade.
56:10In 200 years silver has led to an economic miracle making China an even greater engine of global growth.
56:19The world is clamoring for its exquisite crafts and its tea and the middle kingdom has never reigned
56:26over so much territory. The Qing dynasty appears to be invulnerable.
56:32For most of human history, China has represented the world's foremost economic power.
56:39But the challenge posed by James Flint heralds a new and ominous chapter in the fortunes of China.
56:47British merchants fired by the rigid doctrine of free trade grow even more frustrated in their dealings
56:53with China. But now they are backed by unparalleled firepower. The British have taken a quantum leap in
57:01terms of the amount of violence they were able to inflict on those who ran up against them.
57:10Because of silver, China has no choice but to confront this seismic force and that will lead to war
57:17and national shame. It marks the beginning of a period that shapes Chinese thinking even today,
57:24in the early 21st century. It's the time when China enters what's become nicknamed the century of humiliation.
57:31this year for 2015.
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