The documentary was correctly directed with additional facts i was unaware. Yes, the British modernized chinese harbors and organization but all of this work wasn't done to benefit china. All of the work done by western powers was concentrated around chinas ports in order to streamline the flow of opium into China. Yes silver and tea was a major influence for profits but a kilograms of opium bought in India for 10 pounds would be worth 10k pounds once it reached the chinese coastline. Britain was the first Narco state.

"Being foolish and having too much wealth will increase your faults" - Lin Zexu (林則徐)

This is an amazing documentary series about a topic that's almost forgotten in modern Western societies. I do feel like it still minimized the involvement of Britain, France and Japan in the destruction of the Qing empire. It remarkably leaves out what the British did to Puyi; the last emperor of the Qing, it leaves out the Japanese invasion of China and massacres at Nanjing, Shanghai and other places.

I spent several months in china in the late eighties, my first wife was Chinese. Almost no one in the west has any idea the degree to which china today and since the 19th century have been waiting for revenge for being beaten and exploited. It’s a huge motivation in chinas rise.

So the Americans dumped the tea purchased with opium into the ocean and the Chinese dumped the opium used to buy the tea into the river. Classic.

In french, still today, the word for money is "argent", wich means silver. Now I know why. Wonderful series.

Great documentary and with all the documentaries from this channel its a notch up on everyone else.🎉

The British forced Indian farmers of Bengal to abandon their traditional farming and produce opium. This resulted in severe financial losses and loss of food products in India. The opium was sold in China by the British...the original drug-runners.

China wanted silver for their tea. The British said "no, we're going to introduce an addiction which will allow us to trade opium for tea.

I didn't know how wealthy Chinese traders were at the time. Probably the richest people in the world. They were worldly wise too, funding and transferring cheap Chinese labour to the US to build the railway network.

HSBC: Even worse than you thought.

This is just 1 of the many reasons China has rapidly modernised its military.

In every chinese household they're reminded of the 8 allied nations stealing and invading China lest they forget

Makes me wonder if China's role in the fentanyl manufacture and America's problem with fentanyl is a form of payback/learning from the past.

Shedding light on a key factor in modern history ❤

Chinese people have always used gold, silver and copper as currency, and iron coins have been used in some periods. The problem was that gold was so rare that copper became a supplement at first, and then copper became common and cheap, and silver became the mainstream. By the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the growth of the population and the prosperity of the country led to a shortage of silver until the Qing Dynasty, when a large amount of silver was earned from trade with Western colonists, and then new problems emerged.

I like the statement about people looking at steamships and thinking they ran on fire. When people look at clouds they think they are looking at a question waiting for an answer instead of a fluid acting in a certain way, with certain colors, in a larger fluid.

Film production used to use up a lot of silver. Kodak went through tons per month.

The Brits couldn’t conquer china though, they got India, but not old china.

Great series. Learned a lot. Thanks.

I learned so much, thanks for the insight. Well done.

A very educational video! The title is a little misleading though, i feel like this video was mostly about Chinese Silver and trade, not about Opium so much.

Brilliant presentation of Chinese history that explains why present day China remains hell-bent on modernizing itself.

Hey guys, I absolutely love this series of documemtaries and I noticed that parts of the movie "The Opium War" are used. There also seems to be another movie about the second opium war used in this documentary but I cannot find it. Do any of you know what this other movie is called and where I could watch it? Thanks in advance :)

Short answer is they didn’t the British just took advantage of a already large market

Very well produced documentary. I really appreciate voice-over translation when someone speaks a different language. It helps greatly with maintaining the flow and consistency, and allows one to not have to read the spoken words in a video... I wish this video had incorporated that.

Another brilliant episode. It is no wonder that China views the West with suspicion..

My dad was addicted to opium at China when he ran out of money he committed suicide .

Can anyone inform if the lord Elgin that burned the summer palace was the same that destroyed the Parthenon in Greece?

I am a Brit. For 60 years I have been waiting for those we oppressed, enslaved and impoverished to exact their revenge. China is correctly leading the way legally with diligence. Not all Brits are or were bad people but no one has ever sought to apologise or pay Reparation

This is one of the finest documentaries in this space. Many others cover the Opium Wars and aftermath but the discussion here of the eye-watering amounts of the reparations, the predation by western powers and Japan is astounding. This subject deserves to be better known.

Man, I love this channel. The documentaries are so damn good.

These are exquisitely produced documentaries on a fascinating time in History. However they shape the narrative so it is not very clear to what extent colonialism harmed people in India and China. In stark terms over the period 1769 - 1945 over a 100million people in India died from famines caused by colonial food export systems.

The fact that we get free documentaries on KZfaq by Absolute History is truly a gift. 👏👏👏 May I also remind you the fact that our Native American population in our motherland, the Continent of America before the European Colonizers arrived, was around 15 millions, while the European population in their motherland, the Continent of Europe was around 25 millions. Today, Native American population is 15 million, while the European population, in the Continents of America + Europe, is a staggering TWO BILLION! A shocking sad truth. 😔 In my humble opinion, it's about time to decolonize the Colonized lands, and return it to rightful owners Native American people. Notorious global cardinal crimes the Christian West has committed, and benefited a great deals, such as Slavery & Colonialism had long been over, why on earth is notorious Colonization still lingering on, may I ask? 😔

Because opium is amazing Also, dependency is one's most significant weakness (and an opponent's greatest strength)

Fun fact :The Opium Wars primarily involved British trade with China, However the British did play a significant role in the Indian tea trade. In the 19th century, the British East India Company controlled India and sought to establish a profitable tea industry. They promoted tea cultivation in India as an alternative to Chinese tea, which had become expensive due to increased demand.

The silver part was extraordinary

My Mother's family [the Harringtons] as a Upperclass family made one of their financial killings during the Opium Wars!

The British can be blamed for a lot, but don‘t mention😮

Why is China getting america hooked on fentanyl?

Send this documentary to the state department

I enjoyed the first forty minutes of this podcast. I will return to see more of this interesting and educational video. Thank you.

Awesome video! Thank you!

"Love of money is a root of all evil."

"Any goods that the West had except one: Opium" Not entirely. The major source of the drug was a cartle of savage drug dealers from India, a certain Tata. Drugdealing made Tata so rich that they still form the biggest conglomerate in India and their role is measured in percent of total GDP.

Great information

Empires of silver....as I'm in the middle of reading RF Kuang's Babel, this title brings the chills

Riveting. Loved it.

The shipping company was P&O

Dang. Fascinating 3 part series! Learned more listening (at work) then I ever did and in school

Slightly mis-listed as it’s more about China and its reliance on the Silver Standard, although it does cover the basics of the Opium Wars. It is very insightful for us westerners. And good to see history other that WWI and WWII (not that I’m totally against such content, but it’s good to find wider content).

Elgin’s family is also associated with theft of marble statuary of the Parthenon.

You already uploaded this video with a different title?

TOPCON is going to use a huge amount of silver in its next generation solar panels and probably why physical silver prices are being depressed. Fabulous story about the centrality of silver in civilizations rises and falls and to be continued.

China being synonymous with quality silver feels just so weird

Little or nothing to do with the Opium trade and what there is , is according to Chinese historians. Can't wait until the next production " Why did Britain get the World Addicted to Tobacco " or " Why did Britain get the World Addicted to Railways " , then " Why did Britain get the World Addicted to International Trade " perhaps ?

America & Europe hasn't changed. Their attitude "what's yours is mine, & what's mine stays mine".

Great documentary, but good grief, the air in some of those cities looks downright hard to breathe.

Unexpected Wilhelm scream at 24:55 🤣

Just listen to the Brit. He said 'why should Britian be restricted in trade with China. Excuse me, what kind of entitlement is that? What gives Brits the right to trade with China in the first place? China can trade with whom they want, how they want Because they had the goods. That's how business works, they had the leverage.

Can someone please link me to the sequal?

I love this series.

14:17 That air looks so disgusting. So much smog.

My teacher was right, history is the mother of the future 🙈. Never the same, but similarity is astonishing...

In every setback, there is a valuable lesson to be learnt.

3000 to set fire to 1 palace? That's nuts

I would highly recommend everyone to check out Kings and General podcast, they covered this period and a deeper dive. This is wonderful!

Amazing how a handful of people can drive history; always has been the case.

What is not commonly discussed in regards to the fall of ancient Rome and the classical Mediterranean more broadly was that the Mediterranean was a civilization of silver. When the silver first in western Asia and then in southern Europe were exhausted and the Roman Principate blew through much of the inherited stock of silver with its bloated military apparatus and (ironically) appetite for luxury goods from China, there was no longer the ability to reliably pay large armies, easily trade and convert different sorts of goods across continents with a universal token of value, or levy regular taxes. Then you had the Crisis of the Third Century, and then the totalitarian police states of Diocletian and Constantine, and it only kept getting worse.

History can be very infuriating, but still beautiful. To be worthy of the gift of that knowledge passed down through generations by sacrifices and struggle, one needs to suspend judgement and see its splendor by not taking it personally, which is already a way to obscure it. History is reality beyond the individual.

It was disgusting what they did to the Chinese. I remember learning this at school.

You know being able to print dollars is infinitely better.

Drugs such as opioid, cocaine, heroine, etc., are very addictive. Just look at the drug addicts living in the streets of America!

It wasn't "Britain" that got China addicted, it was the Honourable East India Company - the largest conglomerate the world has ever seen. Drug trade and Slavery were two of the reasons they were nationalised by the British Government and an end put to their drug and slave trafficking.

Mans on the left in the thumbnail looks like Mr Bean. Good luck unseeing it.

Man I myself I’m addicted to opium , shout out carti

Inefficient markets are a problem for people participating in those markets. Inefficient means of exchange is critical

It’s wrong to say ‘Britain’ sought to get ‘China’ hooked on opium. The early colonialists were not government employees but traders. The East India Company was a private company, tiny in comparison to China. The East India Company was successful beyond its wildest dreams but just a trading operation, albeit that it acquired a private army after being attacked by the French colonial operation. But like Japan, the Chinese Emperor preferred isolationism. Yet the British were in the vanguard of a global movement towards global trading. The British like tea, which came from China. As China then refused to trade any longer, a British tea merchant, Twining, crept over the border and stole some tea plants, which he brought back to plant in India - and he wound up getting only black tea, which we now prefer. The East India Company was nationalised in 1857, a time when the British government was becoming concerned over the activities of its subjects overseas, and the implications, after putting down the Indian Mutiny. But the British Government took a moral and ethical view, where the East India Company was only interested in profiteering. This ultimately lead Britain to lose India, as it began to interfere in local Indian customs of the era the British found unacceptable, like Suttee, the habit Indian noblemen had of burning their wives when they died, on their own funeral pyre (look it up). You’re not dealing with saints here - neither with the Chinese. The British Empire was importing Western values into an orient that had a very different social setup to our own. Clashes were inevitable. There is nothing wrong, however, in international trading. It is the lifeblood of the global economy and source of all our shared affluence and wealth today. I would argue rather that it is immoral - and unsustainable - to refuse to trade, as did China and Japan, as it holds back the whole world. Back then, Chinese peasants ate no meat and could not even afford a candle. Today they’re driving around in EV’s and living in high rise buildings with all the modern accoutrements. So who was right: the Emperor or the Colonialists? Indigent poverty for 95% of the population, or relative universal affluence?

An example of how the brita of that time just had to take and take and take, looting and pillaging. And the artifacts? Of course, STILL in a british museum… not the first countey they did this to. How luch India property is in Brit museums. “We’re saving it from themselves..” i’v heard. It’s THEIRS to do with what they please.

And of course it won't be a history video without a hidden Wilhelm scream

What was British India’s role in the OPIUM WARS 💥 and the Indian Gujarati BANIA and Parsi Traders involvement in procuring and shipping Opium should be highlighted as well to understand why CHINA 🇨🇳 and INDIA 🇮🇳 are in Territorial CONFLICT ☠️ even today ‼️

Unfortunately the one with the bigger stick wins

her very last words- "those who cannot learn from the story of silver will forced to pay the price" YES! The run-up in silver and gold has begun and it will make 76'-80' look very tame in comparison.

China has never forgotten this period in history when it was bullied by the West and its sovereignty was trampled on. Scholars would argue that’s part of the reason why China has risen to world superpower status in such a short amount of time.

Hart the Irish man who helped the Chinese modernise, had seen the genocide the English inflicted upon his homeland.. He had every incentive to even the scales.

The aspect of silver is interesting to learn, did not know much about this part of China's history.

And that is Why we have a FENTANYL problem. Exactly this. China never forgets.

I find it astounding what a huge impact we Brits had around the planet because when you travel and see how huge other places are and get some perspective of just how tiny England is and then try imagine how we went to these vast continents and countries back when you could only get a few ppl onto a wooden ship and were able to challenge and dominate these huge civilizations seems insane ! Im pretty much halfway up England in Hull and I could drive for 4/5 hrs in any direction and fall off the edge We are tiny in world terms and it baffles me how we even did any of this just in China alone let alone India and the continent of Africa because no matter how good your ships are and technology when push comes to shove you still have to back and threats up with force and it's not like we had hundreds of millions of ppl at any point in history

This is the number one reason why in Southeast Asia the war on drugs looks very different than its western counterpart.

Excellent storytelling.

China was making the Brits pay for tea with silver, instead of having a reciprocal trade of goods. Tea import barons wanted to keep their silver. So they flooded China with opium from their lucrative poppy fields, located in colonial India ~ so the rigid societal control of China would fail, to the British advantage.

Why make out China to be a victim of British bullying, when China also was imperialistic and the British force in the opium war was only one-tenth the size of the opposing Chinese force!!! And why no criticism of the Manchu for conquering China, something which the British didn't achieve, despite victories in the opium wars!!! People will say that the British had better weaponry. But muskets aren't enough to overcome odds of ten to one. And anybody who says that the British force had better commanders than the Chinese did are just making the Chinese look even worse. However one looks at it, China has to look at itself for losing a war that it shouldn't have lost. That is the plain, hard truth.

Moral corruption is the heart of weakness

Terrific ! Thank you. …

Interesting how literally none of this is taught in US history.

Bet they never covered this story in their schools, huh?🤣

Summer palace destruction was very bad.

In school they teach that the British were trying to "help" the Chinese people with their addiction. C'mon now, how ridiculous and inverted.

the Chinese were smoking and trading opium before Britain even heard about it, for thousands of years they traded with arabs who brought it from persia, they created the opium pipe for smoking cooked opium many dynasties ago. read The opium poppy historical note: Opium the poppy in China

Ahh British hostility--a tale as old as time