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Modern China is the second-largest economy in the world, soon to be number one. But this isn't anything new for China, which has always been an economic and cultural power in the world; Emperor Qianlong ruled over the empire for over 50 years, which extended from the Himalayas to the Yellow Sea. Spin back just over two hundred years to see what "addictive" commodities are at the heart of China's trade with Great Britain.
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00:12It's here, in a tiny settlement, high in the Andes mountain range of South America, that
00:19global trade begins. And that's because of what is discovered deep inside this mountain.
00:33The purest silver the world has ever seen. It'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
00:50his people must now pay their tax in silver.
00:54This sparks a huge demand for silver in China, to the point where silver was worth more than
00:59gold.
01:00This series explores how the world is transformed when the king of Spain's silver meets the tax
01:07demands of the emperor of China. It's a remarkable story that witnesses how China came to dominate
01:14at the dawn of world trade over 400 years ago.
01:18The first time the whole world was linked into one global network, and the most important
01:24element of this is silver.
01:27Silver allows China's emperors to become the most powerful men on earth. And silver makes
01:33this businessman the richest man in 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
01:49across the world.
01:50already in the 18th century, people were admiring this fantastic work because the wire is so
01:57thin, it's like hair.
02:03China's silver trade drives the growth of world cities from Boston to Hong Kong, Shanghai to
02:12Seville. But it also sows the seeds of China's near destruction and leads to war with Western
02:19powers.
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, the period
02:34when 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.
03:18The skyline of Shanghai is one of the defining views of modern China. It is testament to the
03:25the last 40 years in which China has undergone a meteoric rise to become the second largest economy on the
03:32planet.
03:34Soon it will be number one.
03:38But to have China at the very centre of world trade is nothing new.
03:43250 years ago in the 18th century, China is the greatest economic and cultural empire in the world.
03:52Ruled over by one of its most celebrated emperors, Qian Lu.
03:58Qian Lu displayed his wealth. He built palaces.
04:04Qian Lu was no doubt fully convinced he was one of the wealthiest men living on earth at his time.
04:16China occupies this position of dominance in global trade because all the world loves China's porcelain and silks.
04:25And it pays handsomely for these luxury goods in the only commodity that China wants, silver.
04:35China has been deeply dependent on silver ever since the 16th century when the emperor decides to tax his people
04:43in silver.
04:44But China has little silver of its own, so must import it.
04:49This appears to be the perfect combination of supply and demand, particularly at the end of the 18th century,
04:56because of a unique commodity China controls and one that the rest of the world demands above all else.
05:03China had tea. Nowhere else in the world, as it was known at the time, produced tea.
05:11Tea takes hold quite rapidly. It's an addictive drug.
05:15Britain imports more tea from China than any other European country.
05:2080% of all tea exports from the port of Canton are shipped to Britain.
05:25And the right to import all this tea is held by one remarkable organisation, the British East India Company.
05:32They were much more than the name suggests, not just a company,
05:37but actually a whole semi-governmental organisation in their own right.
05:43By the end of the 18th century, the East India Company boasts a private army of almost 90,000 men,
05:51as well as a fleet of heavily gunned warships.
05:55It has taken control over a large part of India at the expense of the Mughal emperors.
06:01But despite the colossal business in tea, there is a big problem at the heart of all Britain's trade with
06:07China.
06:09British merchants needed to try and find goods which would sell.
06:14They had cottons, they had wools, they tried everything they could,
06:20but it was very difficult to find a good which would significantly take in a Chinese market.
06:25The demand for tea is so great that the British have no choice but to comply with China.
06:32Silver was being essentially leached, leaked out of the coffers of the East India Company
06:39as it sought to find products that it could trade successfully with China.
06:44So the advantage was essentially with China at that stage.
06:49The East India Company convinces the British government to act.
06:54In 1792, Britain launches an enormous trade mission to China.
06:59It's a massive undertaking.
07:01At its head is the statesman and diplomat, Lord George McCartney.
07:05McCartney is expected to hammer out better terms of trade with the most powerful nation on Earth.
07:13The British Library holds the letter from the Home Secretary
07:16that spells out the main problem McCartney has to solve.
07:22You should fairly state, after repeating the general assurances
07:26of His Majesty's friendly and pacific inclinations towards the Emperor,
07:30and it is a mutual benefit to be derived from a trade between the two nations,
07:33in the course of which we receive, besides other articles,
07:36to the amount of 20 millions of pounds weight of a Chinese herb.
07:42So instead of paying for all this tea with silver bullion,
07:45the British must persuade Emperor Cheng Lung to buy British goods in return.
07:53But British ambitions extend way beyond increased sales.
07:57McCartney is told he must convince the Emperor
08:00to provide the British with a trading base, a piece of China itself.
08:07We wish to obtain a grant of a small tract of ground or detached island.
08:13We desire neither fortification nor defence,
08:17but only the protection of the Chinese government for our merchants
08:20and all their agents in trading or travelling through the country.
08:27They were quite optimistic when they sent this embassy off
08:30that they might achieve something of the sort.
08:35There is good reason for British optimism.
08:37It is the first nation in the world to industrialize,
08:41and as a result, its military and economic power is growing.
08:45Britain considers itself an equal to any nation in the world, even China.
08:52In September 1792, Lord McCartney, along with 700 soldiers and servants,
08:58departs for China on a flotilla of three ships.
09:03They sail with interpreters, musicians, they sail with a band.
09:09They have a large number of very innate presence, sing songs,
09:15musical clocks, all sorts of things for the Emperor.
09:19But they have a clear target in terms of their requests.
09:23And at the heart of it, they want the British state to be recognised by the Chinese,
09:27a permanent embassy, to be allowed to reside at the court in Beijing.
09:37When Lord McCartney arrives in China in July 1793,
09:41he's expecting to meet the Emperor.
09:43But the Emperor is nowhere to be seen at the Forbidden City.
09:50Qianlong has moved his court 200 miles north beyond China's Great Wall
09:54to his summer residence at Chengdu.
10:01After almost a year since he set sail from England,
10:05McCartney still must wait before being allowed to meet
10:08with the most powerful man on earth.
10:11The Qianlong Emperor has at this point been on the throne for nearly 50 years.
10:14He's in his 80s.
10:16He is one of the greatest emperors in Chinese history from start to finish.
10:21He's been expanding China into Central Asia,
10:25tremendously successful wars.
10:27So he is extremely proud of his own achievements.
10:56Macartney is asked to join the queue of ambassadors from the distant borders of Qianlong's vast empire.
11:03Zhang Lun receives tribute from each ambassador in turn, not in a palace, but in a tent.
11:35On meeting Chiang Lun, all ambassadors are expected to kneel and press their head nine times to the floor.
11:43McCartney, however, refuses.
11:45So instead of performing the traditional kowtow, he drops on one knee before presenting his gifts.
11:53So this is one of a large set of sketches by William Alexander, who was the junior artist for the
12:00embassy.
12:00And one of the things he drew was this planetarium, which was the grandest and most spectacular gift,
12:07because they had thought from reading the Jesuit missionary accounts of China
12:13that the Chinese court was exceptionally interested in astronomy.
12:17But the most significant gift is a solid gold box encrusted with diamonds,
12:23containing a letter from the British King George III, laying out his hopes for the trade mission.
12:53But before McCartney and his retinue were ushered out,
12:56Chen Lun indulges in some polite conversation that throws the spotlight
13:01on the precocious young son of the British Vice Envoy,
13:06who on the long voyage has learned Mandarin.
13:31But this charming coda to the embassy has little bearing on the outcome.
13:35The letter from George III to Chen Lun is translated,
13:39and the Chinese emperor's reply is extremely dismissive.
13:46And there's a sentence which is tremendously famous.
13:49The productions of our empire are manifold and in great abundance,
13:54nor do we stand in the least need of the produce of other countries.
14:00The embassy is a complete and utter failure.
14:03The Qing are not ready to accord these Britons the status of equals.
14:12The Chen Lun emperor is not just emperor of the Qing empire,
14:17he is the son of heaven.
14:20This King George III, who McCartney represents,
14:25is in fact, within Chen Lun's vision of the world, a subordinate king.
14:34Unfortunately, emperors of Qing dynasty later on became too confident.
14:40Chen Lun thought, you know, as many great emperors in Chinese history,
14:44that he was the king, he was the emperor of the whole world.
14:49Jiang Lun rejects all of the British requests.
14:53Worse still, he issues a stark warning to George III
14:56that he will use force if British ships try and trade anywhere other than Canton,
15:02the one port in China open to them.
15:07The mission is effectively packed off back to where it came from.
15:11It goes back over land.
15:14And Chen Lun issues instructions that all the way south,
15:19Qing military units are to assemble in view of the embassy
15:25to impress upon the British that the Qing has great military strength
15:32and could deal with them.
15:36So, I think everybody who looks at this now
15:41realises that the Qing long emperor and his senior advisers,
15:44these people were not stupid.
15:46They had a very limited knowledge of what was going on
15:50in European politics at this time,
15:52but they were canny political operators
15:55and that they were aware that the British had a heavily armed warship
16:00on the coast and that they wanted to refuse the unacceptable requests
16:06of the British and get rid of them without causing trouble.
16:13Jiang Lun has maintained the status quo.
16:16His show of strength is designed to deter British aggression
16:20and for now, he's come out on top.
16:23McCartney returns home empty-handed and belittled.
16:27Back in Britain, the public now view China as despotic and backward
16:32and its ruler disparaged and mocked in popular cartoons.
16:38There's a big shift from enthusiastic Sinophilia, one might say, intellectually,
16:45a love or an interest in China, an appreciation of what seems to be an idealised China,
16:52two first-hand reports from Britons who've been there who say,
16:58ah, it's nothing like that at all.
17:00In fact, as McCartney put it, it's an old first-rate man-of-war,
17:06it's heading for the breaker's yard.
17:09And if we can help it along, that will change things.
17:19Despite being stung by Jiang Lun's rebuttal, Britain has no option but to accept the terms of trade laid down
17:26by China.
17:27And at the dawn of the 19th century, there are still vast fortunes to be made from China
17:33in the most vital trade hub on the planet, Canton.
17:40All the tea in China, along with its silks and porcelains, are shipped out of Canton,
17:46and into Canton flows the world's silver to pay for these goods.
18:08Trade with the West makes Canton, this small and remote part of China's massive empire,
18:14one of the wealthiest and most cosmopolitan cities in the world.
18:18This is the golden age of Canton.
18:22It was the nexus of global trade.
18:24You have people wearing different costumes, speaking different languages,
18:27dealing with goods from all over the world.
18:29Of course, some of them are more prominent than others, tea, silver.
18:33But it was actually quite a vibrant city that people flocked to
18:37because that was where they could pursue their business.
18:41Canton is not only where goods are exchanged, but where they are made.
18:45This city becomes a workshop of the world,
18:49where thousands of low-paid but highly skilled craftsmen
18:52are producing Chinese goods adapted for lucrative foreign markets.
19:11We have to bear in mind that for late 18th century,
19:14Europe could not produce its own very fine porcelains,
19:18and they have to rely on China.
19:21Canton, being the only port which could conduct China trade,
19:25also enjoy the advantage of setting up various manufacturers and workshops
19:31for painting these kind of porcelains.
19:35I think they will find it very surprised why the foreigners need such a large bowl.
19:40We use bowl to eat rice, right, and soup.
19:43And they will be told that, oh, this is punch bowl.
19:46Well, in terms of shape and function, it must sound very exotic to the Chinese.
19:51But in terms of the pictures and also the design and motifs,
19:55it must also look very exotic to the Westerners.
20:06Canton is also home to a developing craft that will also take deep route abroad.
20:12Thousands of workshops are mass-producing silverware for foreign markets and for foreign tastes.
20:20This is a period of time when virtually no one had a clear sense of what China looked like,
20:26and there was tremendous interest, fascination in Cathay,
20:30in this land that almost no one had seen.
20:37These are not depictions of China per se.
20:41They're mythical landscapes with mythical beasts.
20:44There are quite a lot of pagodas, boats, beautiful flowers, prunus.
20:50This fantastical dragon handle, something that would never be on a piece of London
20:55or Philadelphia silver, and that really is proclaiming this as something
20:59that was made in China by Chinese silversmiths.
21:05Those Cantonese silversmiths are mass-producing highly-crafted silverware,
21:09but they're also imitating and undercutting Western silversmiths.
21:17You could have a Chinese silversmith make a spoon that was virtually identical
21:22to your familiar 19th-century flatware for a fraction of the cost.
21:27You can see that these are virtually indistinguishable,
21:33both spoons made in the 1830s, and one made in Scotland, in Edinburgh,
21:41and one made in Guangzhou, but virtually indistinguishable.
21:44The silver itself would have presumably been the same price,
21:49but the labor was infinitely less expensive.
21:53We think about the mass production of goods in the 21st century
21:59and the fact that so many of these things are easily, are so inexpensive,
22:03and indeed, to some extent, the same thing is happening in the 21st century as was in the 19th.
22:11Canton is dynamic. It's a hive of industry and commerce.
22:16And it's one of the vital crucibles where modern international trade is born.
22:21But it presents challenges to Western merchants.
22:25Finding the right commodities to trade, figuring what language to speak,
22:30figuring out what currency to trade in, that's all quite, no small feat.
22:38For the early part of the 19th century when there's no language schools,
22:42there was no business school that would tell you how to surmount any cultural barriers,
22:46that was the world that I think is even more, in many ways,
22:50more fascinating than the world we live in today.
22:55Historic Canton is now buried deep under an immense skyline of concrete and steel.
23:03But in the heart of London, this gallery has a series of remarkable paintings
23:08that capture how strictly controlled life was in Canton for Western merchants.
23:15So they were restricted to this very small strip of riverside,
23:20only about 300 metres long.
23:22There wasn't much they could do for exercise.
23:25You can see, if you look carefully in this picture,
23:27there's four little Westerners rowing along.
23:30But apart from that, there were the occasional trips
23:33to the flower gardens or the temples across the river.
23:36Otherwise, they were stuck here.
23:39This small section outside the city walls of Canton
23:42becomes known as the Thirteen Factories.
23:46The buildings don't look particularly Chinese
23:48because the Westerners were allowed to adapt certainly the facades
23:54and, to some extent, the interiors to suit themselves.
24:00You'll look at the garden on the right-hand side
24:03in front of the British factory,
24:05and the Cantonese authorities were very suspicious of this garden
24:09because it suggested to them that the British were here to stay.
24:14A garden means a settlement,
24:16possibly the first step towards a colony.
24:18So there was a lot of aggravation over that.
24:21There are also heavy restrictions on the social life of the merchants.
24:25They are forbidden to learn Chinese,
24:27discouraged from mixing with Chinese people,
24:30and all women, even wives, are banned.
24:33According to China, it is very suitable for the Chinese people.
24:38It is very suitable for the Chinese people.
24:40Because the Chinese people
24:41and the Chinese people,
24:45they feel it's very extraordinary.
24:47But when they meet the Chinese women
24:50and their families,
24:51it is very different.
24:54Foreign merchants can make their fortune in China,
24:57so the heavy restrictions are worth enduring.
24:59They make the best of their sometimes tedious lives
25:03in what becomes known as the Golden Ghetto.
25:06We know that they drank well and ate well,
25:11that insofar as they could,
25:14they sampled and enjoyed all of the joys of Chinese leisure life,
25:22whether it's brothel boats, high-class brothel boats.
25:26They were invited by their merchant friends
25:29and collaborators to parties.
25:32So, in one sense,
25:34the merchants had very little to complain about.
25:38Writing of his time in Canton in the 1830s,
25:42an American diplomat, Gideon Nye,
25:44describes a party that includes
25:46one of Canton's most prominent British merchants.
25:51Then was seen what had never been seen at Canton before.
25:54Mr. Jarden himself and Mr. Wetmore,
25:58attempting a waltz to a simple Negro melody.
26:03But by far the most serious restriction
26:06is the emperor's ruling
26:07that these foreign merchants in Canton
26:09must conduct their business
26:11through a small select group of powerful Chinese merchants,
26:15known as the Koh Hong.
26:17If you were a foreign trader in Canton,
26:20you couldn't just trade with anybody.
26:22You were required by the Qing dynasty
26:25to work with one of, oh, eight to twelve men,
26:29the Hong merchants,
26:31who were charged with this amazing task
26:35of handling the entire international trade
26:38of the Chinese empire.
26:40Well, of those ten or twelve merchants,
26:43really one separated himself from all the others.
26:47This merchant is one of the most remarkable men
26:50in Chinese history.
26:53Born in the same year as Napoleon Bonaparte
26:55and the Duke of Wellington,
26:57this Chinese merchant prospers
26:59during a time of great global change
27:01and increasing trade
27:02to become, it's said,
27:04the richest man in the world.
27:06His name is Ho Khoa.
27:14Ho Khoa, small frame.
27:16This is a guy who doesn't look as rich as he really was.
27:24He was an enterprising and daring business person
27:27at the port of Canton in the early part of the 19th century.
27:30When you have linguistic barriers,
27:32he manoeuvred the turbulent waters
27:36of global finance and global trade
27:38in a very careful yet bold manner.
27:45Ho Khoa establishes himself
27:47from selling vast quantities of tea to the British,
27:51allowing him to amass a fortune in silver
27:53that would be valued at more than a billion dollars today,
27:56said to be greater than the Rothschild family
27:59in Europe at that time.
28:01Well, how did they amass a huge fortune?
28:04That was through years of business,
28:07primarily with the East India Company,
28:09because the return profit was just enormous
28:11and it was reliable.
28:13It was annual.
28:14Where did the silver go?
28:16Well, Ho Khoa had, of course, his vault
28:18where he would hold his silver.
28:20There is a funny story that during the 1822 fire,
28:25as Canton burned down,
28:28witnesses identified rivers of silver flowing out of these vaults
28:34as all the silver was melting into liquid.
28:42So, instead of letting his money sit idle in a vault,
28:46How Khoa starts lending money.
28:49Ten million pounds to the British East India Company,
28:52and then to his fellow Canton merchants.
28:55He didn't feel secure with all his silver sitting in a vault in Canton.
29:00He was afraid that at any time,
29:03an avaricious official might find a way to take it from him.
29:07So, he wished to invest his money elsewhere to keep it safe.
29:12He made money with money.
29:13So, not only was he a success story in the international trade of tea,
29:19he was also an instrumental player in the global business of finance as well.
29:27How Khoa is also a businessman blessed with foresight.
29:31He is aware of the pitfalls of relying too heavily on his one major client,
29:36the East India Company.
29:39He sees golden opportunity in partnering with merchants
29:42from a country that is about to embark on a remarkable rise to power.
29:47America.
29:49Well, he looked at the American partners as a way for him to get into the global network
29:55beyond his connections with the British.
29:58And a recently independent America is equally keen to forge trade links with China.
30:05Here was a new country, the United States, which measured its length in years.
30:13contemplating the oldest country in the world that had multiple dynasties and measured its duration in centuries, even millennia.
30:24And so, when they journeyed to China, they understood that they were tapping into a vast economic powerhouse.
30:32This is Cape Cod, a wealthy and exclusive enclave on the East Coast of America.
30:41And in this house is a portrait of How Khoa, which helps illustrate how some of America's greatest dynasties were
30:47founded on the back of the China trade.
30:51He's here because this is a painting that was brought back from Canton by my great-great-grandfather.
30:59Warren Delano II was a prominent American China trader.
31:04He makes a fortune in China.
31:07We don't really know the amount, but certainly it would have been at least a hundred thousand Spanish dollars, probably
31:13more.
31:15That's over 20 million dollars in today's money.
31:18And it's the money that establishes one of the most significant families in American history.
31:25Warren Delano's grandson is Franklin Delano Roosevelt, America's longest-serving president, whose family fortunes are tied to How Khoa.
31:36He was held in extremely high regard. He was incredibly honorable. He was punctual in his dealings. He delivered as
31:46he wanted. He was nobody's fool.
31:48He enjoyed exceptionally close relations with Bostonians, period.
31:55Occasionally in Canton, his American partners got a privileged glimpse inside How Khoa's spectacular residence,
32:02when invited for a rare banquet.
32:07Fred Grant's great-great-grandfather Warren and Warren's brother Edward record an astonishing level of hospitality.
32:17Today we dined luxuriously at about 4 o'clock. Our dinner set out by How Khoa, the senior Hong merchant,
32:24Chinese style.
32:25About 15 courses, bird's nest soup, shark fins, pigeon's eggs.
32:30We were three hours getting through it.
32:33It is many years since How Khoa has given a Chinese dinner at his own house,
32:37and perhaps never before did he give to a friend the like of this.
32:43With banquets like this, How Khoa further strengthens his American bonds.
32:48His ties run so deep that he entrusts part of his fortune to be invested on his behalf by his
32:55closest business partners in America.
32:58His money is invested at a turning point in American history.
33:05You could argue that How Khoa helped build America.
33:10He invests his money in American railroads and American factories and American coal mines, thus leading to the development of
33:19the United States.
33:21And so a lot of America's industrial revolution was funded by this Chinese merchant who lived in Canton in the
33:30early part of the 19th century.
33:31Today, there is much fear about Chinese investment.
33:36Many Americans wonder if that if Chinese economic power has too much influence over American companies.
33:44Well, what they don't know is that this was happening in a pretty substantial way over 100 years ago, thanks
33:52to the China trade.
34:00Despite the wealth it's creating, the Americans encounter the same problem with the China trade as all Western merchants before
34:07them.
34:07They struggle to find anything the Chinese want to buy.
34:12American traders reluctantly brought silver to China.
34:16They would far prefer to have brought commodities.
34:20When one brought silver, silver is essentially a currency.
34:24And that meant that they weren't really traders so much as wholesalers.
34:28Initially, they tried ginseng.
34:30That was good for a season or two.
34:32Then efforts were made to bring furs from the Pacific Northwest.
34:36That lasted a few more seasons, but what they found over time was that silver was the magic ingredient.
34:46More than ever before, at the beginning of the 19th century, Western merchants desperately need a product to sell to
34:53China instead of silver.
34:56They do find a product that they are confident will take hold.
35:03Like tea, it's plant-based.
35:06But what Western merchants are preparing to flood the Chinese market with is a powerfully addictive and illegal drug.
35:14It's a strong.
35:15Opium.
35:17It's a shocking decision then, and now, and one that alters the history of the world.
35:25The opium trade has a profound impact on the Chinese economy, on the Chinese government,
35:34and Chinese society, and Chinese individuals.
35:37It's a winner for foreign traders.
35:42It has a devastating impact on Qing China.
35:47Smoking opium has been banned in China since 1813.
35:51But the trade not only continues, it increases dramatically.
35:56In 1767, 1,000 chests of opium are imported from India.
36:01By 1838, it's 40,000.
36:05You might find officials, the highest officials at court, who took a bit of opium to basically relax.
36:10You would find middle-class scholars whirling away their time by smoking opium pipes, perhaps in a dedicated opium parlour.
36:18Or, indeed, men working in back-breaking labour, who would take opium to try and ease the pain in their
36:25muscles.
36:26The principal players in this illegal trade are the British, who are cultivating huge amounts of opium in Bengal and
36:34India,
36:34the jewel in the crown of their growing empire.
36:38At last, Britain has a product, other than silver, that the Chinese crave.
36:44But this is not good for China's vital silver reserves.
36:49By the mid-19th century, silver was being drained from China to pay for this incoming opium,
36:56and the British were doing very well out of it.
37:00Two ambitious Scotsmen make a killing from selling opium.
37:04Their names, still well-known for the company they begin in 1832,
37:09that grows to become a massive multinational, with an annual turnover in excess of $40 billion.
37:15William Jardin and James Matheson, who proceed to have a massive impact on this illegal trade in China.
37:23They are influential because of their systematic innovation.
37:34So, whereas other traders are content to sell in the Pearl River estuary, out of sight of Qing officials,
37:44Jardin's commissioned ships to be built, which will sell the drug along the coast.
37:51They commissioned new clipper ships, fast sailing vessels, which will bring the opium as quickly as possible to the China
38:00coast.
38:03Jardin and Matheson buy opium in British-controlled Bengal, and more their ships off the Chinese coast.
38:09The opium is offloaded and delivered by Chinese middlemen to Chinese customers.
38:16What's most important about Jardin and Matheson is the fact that they do not consider themselves to be smugglers.
38:23They are not smugglers. They are gentlemen. They are traders. They are licensed traders.
38:27The Chinese who come to buy the opium from their ships in discrete anchorages off the coast of Fujian province.
38:36They are smugglers.
38:38But their business invites considerable disdain back in Britain.
38:42William Jardin is described by Benjamin Disraeli, the British Prime Minister, as a dreadful man, a Scotchman, richer than Croesus,
38:50one mcdruggy, fresh from Canton, with a million of opium in each pocket.
38:58But in the minds of Jardin and Matheson, their company is merely supplying a commodity the Chinese crave.
39:06And it's a trade that is eyed enviously from the other side of the Atlantic by the Americans.
39:14Particularly the China trader, Thomas Handacid Perkins, one of the most respectable names in Boston society, who resents being frozen
39:23out of the lucrative opium trade by the British.
39:27That fact had always bothered Thomas Perkins, who enjoyed a healthy rivalry with his British competitors.
39:34If Thomas Perkins could exchange opium for tea, he knew he could become a much, much richer trader than if
39:44he were exchanging silver for tea.
39:46The Americans join this illegal trade when they source their own opium through Turkey.
39:52The number of opium chests now being smuggled into China grows at an astonishing rate.
40:00There was, of course, a growing social crisis. The use of opium was being noticed by the officials of the
40:05Qing dynasty, who were increasingly worried about what they saw as the harmful effects of smoking or chewing opium on
40:13large proportions of society.
40:17By the 1830s, the number of opium addicts is counted in millions.
40:22The drug is taking a terrible toll on the health of the nation.
40:26In Beijing, Emperor Daoguan must confront a huge dilemma.
40:31He must stem his people's growing addiction to opium and stop precious silver flowing out of his empire.
40:39In March 1839, he reaches a decision.
40:43He dispatches his most incorruptible official to Canton, Commissioner Ling Xerxu.
40:49Commissioner Ling is appointed to crack down on the illegal opium trade.
40:55He moves fairly swiftly and he moves fairly ruthlessly.
41:00First of all, he would descend on the scene and demand that all opium addicts and all opium dealers immediately
41:08surrender their stores of the drug.
41:11That was number one.
41:13Number two, he was lenient.
41:17As long as you complied with his wishes and gave up your opium, he would not penalize you at all.
41:25He might even help you get some assistance.
41:27However, if you did not surrender your opium, he would put you to death.
41:36Commissioner Ling arrests over 1,500 Chinese dealers and confiscates 70,000 opium pipes.
41:43He then demands that the British surrender their chests of opium.
41:47When they refuse, he blocks the Pearl River and confines all foreign merchants to their residences.
41:55He holds them under house arrest.
41:58Their servants are taken away from them.
42:01Some of them have to learn to cook.
42:03This is a great shock.
42:05Ling Xerxu's focus is not confined to foreign merchants.
42:09He holds Canton's chief merchant to account for the rampant opium smuggling.
42:14Hou Khoa, in particular, being the chief home merchant for a long time, was under heavier scrutiny by the Qing
42:20court.
42:21So there are various rounds of assessment, financially and otherwise, that cost Hou Khoa and his family dearly.
42:28Hou Khoa lives under threat of beheading during this tense standoff.
42:33At the same time, one of his American business partners in Canton, Robert Bennett Forbes,
42:38reflects candidly on the lucrative nature and the morality of the opium trade in a letter to his wife.
42:45The import of opium has gradually increased under the connoisseurs of the local authorities,
42:54until the quantity has amounted to 50,000 chests worth nearly 15 million dollars.
43:01It has generally sold readily for cash down.
43:0515 millions of dollars is a great deal of money.
43:09And all at once, the government determined to cut off this trade,
43:14which has been demoralizing the mines and destroying the bodies and draining the country of money.
43:20There has been no moral feeling of indignation connected with the business.
43:25I would mention that I made my first fortune by the same.
43:32To bring this impasse to an end and return to business,
43:35the British surrender their opium to Lingxer Shun.
43:39In March 1839, he orders their 20,000 chests of opium to be publicly destroyed.
43:46People are very muchonn apart.
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44:35It is broken down from these cannonball sized balls of compacted open paste mixed with water and poured into the
44:45sea.
44:47Millions and millions of pounds worth in today's money of this precious drug is flushed into the Pearl River.
45:01Alin Zishu was in a way a kind, humane man. He realized that vast amounts of narcotics were heading into
45:10the water system.
45:12He gave a little prayer for the fish and the aquatic life so that they could survive the sudden influx
45:20of drugs into their environment.
45:23He then followed up with a letter to Queen Victoria, basically admonishing her for allowing her traders to come to
45:30China and sell this particular drug.
45:34So long as you tempt the people of China to buy it, you will be showing yourselves careless of the
45:39lives of others.
45:40Indifferent in your greed for gain to the harm you do to others.
45:44Your majesty must never again allow such a poison to exist in heaven or on earth.
45:50And he had thought, very much in the traditional Confucian way, that having been admonished, this foreign monarch would learn
45:58the error of her ways and the opium traders from Britain would stop.
46:02It turned out that was not at all the case.
46:07Instead, after the destruction of their opium, the British demand compensation.
46:13When it's refused, it's taken as an insult to the British state.
46:18Canton's two biggest opium traders, William Jardin and James Matheson, spearhead a furious response.
46:26They published pamphlets going around the country, speaking to people who could then lobby parliament.
46:36There was a strong belief that a short, sharp shock would solve the China problem and force the Qing to
46:46accept the new reality of a world of British power.
46:54And a world in which the British had to be taken seriously, treated with respect and allowed to trade.
47:02The British foreign minister, Lord Palmerston, needs little persuasion.
47:06His rallying cry, let us give China a good thrashing and explain ourselves afterwards.
47:13They were determined to get a war.
47:15They got the war.
47:18By June 1840, a British flotilla reaches the Pearl River.
47:23China is confident it has all its defences in place.
47:28It was a major operation to get the entire China coast ready for an attack.
47:34But they did not realize how fierce the attack would be.
47:39The B-16 socialism building came out to action, but it originally started to do it in a assault.
47:45Ordinner, we are excited about the German rifle introduction.
47:57It has beenization of sort of force testing, so that the cargo should come out of me.
48:07You have got to stop broadcasting on site about the flight that we could be ROSE.
48:29But what China has not realised is that Britain, in the early 19th century, has transformed, no longer the nation
48:36that had to kneel before the Chinese Empire.
48:39It has emerged triumphant from the Napoleonic Wars and now has imperial ambitions. Despite Britain's population being 30 times smaller
48:50than China's, the British government can now raise the same amount of revenue each year as the Chinese Emperor.
48:57First of all, it was fuelled, literally you might say because of coal, by the new capacity of the Industrial
49:04Revolution.
49:05The gunboats that came off the coast of China were very different from the old sorts of sailing vessels you
49:11might have had even a hundred years earlier.
49:13Along with the guns themselves, this was high level, very high precision technology. In other words, the British had taken
49:19a quantum leap in terms of the amount of violence they were able to inflict on those who ran up
49:25against them.
49:33The key battleship, the nemesis, almost won the opium war single-handed.
49:39It could obviously travel against the wind, being steam-powered, could do all the things that the Chinese war junks
49:45couldn't do.
49:46It was really a technological mismatch as far as the Chinese were concerned.
49:55China's ports come under relentless attack. Its ships are hopelessly outgunned and outmaneuvered.
50:01The British enjoy as much of a technical advantage when the war reaches land.
50:07The British are using a sword weapon.
50:13The British are using a sword weapon.
50:14They also have a new equipment that has no one, which is when they're using sword weapon.
50:22The British are using sword weapon.
50:26But the British can't be used to use sword weapon.
50:31This way, the British has remained bravely in the conduct.
50:38The British have struggled with the cavalry in the war and the fighting.
50:38As the British are almost golden-handedел
50:47China has lost the war and has no option but to negotiate a peace treaty.
50:52In 1842, they signed the Treaty of Nanking.
50:56It's a document which reflects how much China's world has changed.
51:00The British copy is here in the National Archives in London.
51:10Treaty. Her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
51:15and His Majesty the Emperor of China,
51:18being desirous of putting an end to the misunderstandings
51:21and consequent hostilities which have arisen between the two countries,
51:25have resolved to conclude a treaty for that purpose.
51:32So, although the language of this treaty is warm and friendly,
51:36it's in fact a statement that from this point onwards,
51:39China is going to have to do what the British say.
51:42The treaty achieves all and more of the British requests
51:46of the McCartney Embassy of 1793
51:48that had been so swiftly denied by the Chinese Emperor.
51:53His Majesty the Emperor of China agrees that British subjects,
51:57with their families and establishments,
51:59shall be allowed to reside for the purpose of carrying on
52:02their mercantile pursuits without molestation or restraint
52:05at the cities and towns of Canton,
52:09Amoy,
52:10Fujofu,
52:11Ningbo
52:12and Shanghai.
52:14But there is an even greater demand from the British.
52:18His Majesty the Emperor of China
52:20cedes to Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain
52:23the island of Hong Kong
52:25to be possessed in perpetuity by Her Britannic Majesty
52:28and to be governed by such laws and regulations
52:31as Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain
52:33shall see fit to direct.
52:35The Emperor of China,
52:37who until this point perhaps never really had to cede anything to anyone,
52:41is being told that under the influence of gunships,
52:44he is going to have to let the Queen of Great Britain,
52:47you know, this far-off country,
52:49essentially take over, colonise part of his territory,
52:53this rather obscure little bit of southern China,
52:56an island called Hong Kong.
53:00If you could imagine the reverse of this,
53:03that a Chinese set of warships
53:05had turned up in the late 19th century
53:08off the Solent,
53:10maybe deciding that they wanted the Isle of Wight,
53:13and you have to reverse that thinking
53:14to understand how outrageous
53:16this would have seemed in China.
53:23I think that the Treaty of Nanjing
53:25is one of the most important documents in Chinese history
53:28because it marks the beginning of a period
53:31that shapes Chinese thinking even today,
53:34in the early 21st century.
53:36It's the time when China enters what's become nicknamed
53:39the Century of Humiliation.
53:41Being forced to sign this treaty,
53:43and they were forced,
53:44was essentially a sign that China
53:46could no longer decide on its own foreign relations.
53:49Instead, it could be ordered.
53:51It could be told how to relate to the outside world.
53:54And the memory of that humiliation
53:55has never gone away in China.
53:59China's fall is spectacular.
54:01The loss of the war is felt nationally and personally.
54:06It brings to an end the golden age of Canton
54:09and the rapid demise of its chief merchant
54:12and one-time richest man in the world, Haokwa.
54:16He dies in 1843,
54:19one year after the end of the Opium War.
54:22His son continues the business,
54:24but the vast fortune dwindles,
54:27and today, only the family name survives.
54:39The small outside of the estate
54:41and last
54:41is a little more
54:43so I get ahorita into this.
55:18Only rare photographs allow a glimpse of Harqua's
55:21once-magnificent residence and ornamental gardens.
55:26Today, almost nothing remains.
56:04For the victors, the Opium War is transformative.
56:08Hong Kong begins its spectacular rise, from what is dismissed at the time as a barren lump
56:14of rock on the Chinese coast to become an integral part of the British Empire.
56:20And at the heart of Hong Kong, the business empire of Jadin and Matheson, founded on Opium,
56:26dominates.
56:32In less than 50 years, the silver that helped China dictate world trade has played a profound
56:38role in China losing its place as the world's leading economic power.
56:44China is now experiencing a harsh new reality.
56:49Opium triggers another disastrous war for China, and the country must witness the deliberate
56:54destruction of a masterpiece of Chinese civilization.
56:58The destruction of the Summer Palace was very much an act of punishment.
57:02It was designed absolutely to humiliate and lower the standing of the Qing court.
57:08China is then overwhelmed, not just by Western powers, but also Japan.
57:13You see the gathering together of different imperial powers, all seeking a slice of China.
57:21But worse is to come when China's very existence is threatened.
57:26Many Chinese officials and observers think that, in fact, China faces national extinction.
57:32We talk about this, the threat of extinction.
58:10Thus, the different citizens of the S scorched retraite can be found.
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