Episode 31: Opium War Part 1 - The World's Greatest Drug Bust

In 1833 the East India Company would lose its monopoly on Chinese trade. This change, and the lack of an effective structure to replace it, would create a power vacuum in and around China's only western trading port (Canton).

British Opium Traders took this opportunity to flood in and make fortunes, and to use those fortunes to promote a more belligerent diplomatic stance towards China.

As the Qing Empire attempted to stamp out the Opium trade, Canton, now awash with Opium, became the flashpoint for a conflict neither the British Empire, nor the Qing Empire actually wanted.

Read more on the Opium War:

Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age - Stephen Platt
The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams, and the Making of Modern China - Julie Lovell