WORLD HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Between 1839 and 1842, British forces fought a war in China that benefitted drug smugglers. Their subsequent victory in the conflict opened up the lucrative Chinese trade to British merchants.

Detailed explanation-2: -Starting as early as the Tang period (618–907 CE), opium arrived in China by sea and caravan. Over centuries, it became a common medical treatment. But, the authors write, recreational smoking of opium only became a thing after Europeans introduced tobacco from the Americas to China in the late sixteenth century.

Detailed explanation-3: -The first Opium War ended, in 1842, with China’s defeat and the signing of the Treaty of Nanking, which forced the Chinese to cede the island of Hong Kong, and accept greater economic openness.