In a land far to the East and at a time not all that long ago Britain decided it needed a whole bunch of stuff that only China could provide, silks, fine porcelain, and oh yeah TEA. You know how they are about Tea. Well trouble was Britain really didn't have China wanted. What they did want was silver. The Brits didn't have silver, but they did have a ton of opium they grew in the newly colonized India. Funny thing about Opium, it was illegal in Britain. So what do you do, well you smuggle it into China where it's also very much illegal and use the silver earned to buy all the stuff you want from China. Effectively Britain pumped China full of drugs, then paid them for other stuff with the illegal funds earned from said drug sales. Well eventually China had enough and this is where we come to the Opium Wars. I'm not going to give you anymore information, you're gonna have to just listen to the episode. It's good I swear. 

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