History is often stranger than fiction. Victoria’s countrymen broke Daoguang and shattered his empire for that most British of vices—a cup of tea (or, to be precise, several billion cups of tea). In the 1790s the British East India Company, which ran much of South Asia as a private fiefdom, was shipping 23 million pounds of Chinese tea leaves to London every year. The profits were enormous, but there was one problem: the Chinese government was not interested in importing British manufactured goods in return. All it wanted was silver, and the company was having trouble raising enough to keep
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