In the 17th century, The East India Company branch of the British trade empire traded with China, primarily for tea. It became popular with British citizens, so more tea was imported. Soon after the British Empire took an interest in this commodity, the Chinese Emperor Qianlong issued a law that stated that China was the centre of the world and everything exported out of it must be paid for in silver. The East India Company officials didn't like this, since it cost them more money than it was worth. As a result, we started exporting opium into China in order to pay for tea imports, which China had a long history related to, but British importation of opium made the use increase immensely, which made opium become an integral part of Chinese society. This led China to ban the opium trade entirely. As a result, the British Empire gave up on buying tea and employed smugglers to smuggle tea out of the country and place plantations in areas such as Darjeeling, Assam and Ceylon in India. Since Britain buying tea from China had become an integral part of the economy and it suddenly stopped when we no longer needed it from China, they quickly became bankrupted. After some tensions, China and Britain went to war. One of the first battles of that war involved a Chinese army that hopelessly dwarfed the British force that faced them. The British won, nonetheless, and the Chinese were humiliated. All because of tea.
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