So why did the Chinese merchants exchange their tea for opium? If they didn't already have a market for it, did they set about creating the market.
AIUI the opium was traded in local ports, then smuggled to the interior by locals (because other ethnicities couldn't get access). Is that wrong; could you cite sources.
Are you saying British merchants navigated the Yangtze and Huang He in order to initiate opium use, just to trade tea ... why didn't BEIC choose some other product (whatever drug was being used, for example) if opium wasn't already in demand -- it must have taken decades to create that demand, especially as they might AIUI be killed just for being there (in the interior) and stood out from the crowd quite considerably.
It seems somewhat analogous to blaming North African nations (Kenya, Ivory Coast, etc) for my coffee/chocolate use, Nestlé are still evil, but I'm the one buying it.
>So why did the Chinese merchants exchange their tea for opium? If they didn't already have a market for it, did they set about creating the market.
The market built up over the century before the war by introducing it then importing enough to make it affordable.
>AIUI the opium was traded in local ports, then smuggled to the interior by locals (because other ethnicities couldn't get access). Is that wrong; could you cite sources.
The opium was generally traded in ports, but more as different boats were needed. Access was not a major issue. I don't know what sources you want, river deltas have been trade hubs for millennia.
>just to trade tea ... Why didn't BEIC choose some other product (whatever drug was being used, for example) if opium wasn't already in demand -- it must have taken decades to create that demand, especially as they might AIUI be killed just for being there (in the interior) and stood out from the crowd quite considerably.
"Just to trade tea" made them filthy rich in Britain, it's like saying the Spanish conquered Peru "just for gold and silver." There weren't other British products the Chinese had interest in, and the British decision to push opium happened sixty years before the war.
AIUI the opium was traded in local ports, then smuggled to the interior by locals (because other ethnicities couldn't get access). Is that wrong; could you cite sources.
Are you saying British merchants navigated the Yangtze and Huang He in order to initiate opium use, just to trade tea ... why didn't BEIC choose some other product (whatever drug was being used, for example) if opium wasn't already in demand -- it must have taken decades to create that demand, especially as they might AIUI be killed just for being there (in the interior) and stood out from the crowd quite considerably.
It seems somewhat analogous to blaming North African nations (Kenya, Ivory Coast, etc) for my coffee/chocolate use, Nestlé are still evil, but I'm the one buying it.