Wednesday, December 12, 2007

The Opium Wars


The Opium war started when Britain wanted Chinas tea. China was always an isolated country. So china didn’t want to trade with any nation. This made the British pretty furious. So the British decided to make the Chinese drug addicts in order to trade their tea for their opium. (The drug) The British succeeded. The Chinese people were addicted and couldn’t stop taking Opium. No one in China knew how to plant or even find Opium. So their only source was Britain. The British started trading their opium for Chinas tea. The Chinese emperor didn’t approve of this; Opium was destroying their nation. But Britain didn’t choose to stop; they were making a lot of money out of their tea, when they got it for a little price (opium). The Chinese decided that they had to go to war in order to stop these trades. But unfortunately Britain won. Because of Chinas isolation they were behind in technology. But Britain wasn’t. Their steam powered boats, cannons and machine guns were no match for Chinas swords and sailboats.

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