The fleet has arrived. Now two empires that barely understand each other are about to find out just how differently they've spent the last fifty years.
In this episode: the strange iron ship that broke the rules of naval warfare, a Chinese defence built on assumptions the Industrial Revolution simply erased, and the palace complex so beautiful it took a century to build — and a single order to destroy. We follow the war to its end, through treaties, indemnities, and a fresh conflict a generation later, all the way to a five-year-old emperor, a five-year-old's mother who quietly seized an empire, and a phrase every Chinese schoolchild still learns today: the century of humiliation.
This is the story of how a trade dispute over tea and opium ended with smoke over Beijing — and why the bill for it is still being paid.
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