And after winning the First Opium War, the British are able to extract concessions from the Chinese, including opening up these ports. And even that does not satisfy the British. And so you have the Second Opium War from 1856 to 1860, after which opium, this addictive drug, is legalized. And to make matters worse for China, during the same period, they have an incredibly bloody civil war where over 20 million people die. Historians think in part due to the lack of confidence in the Qing Dynasty because of the opium wars and the opium itself that is very destructive to society. Now, the Japanese were watching all this, and they also had their own interactions with the West. In 1853, the American commodore Matthew Perry comes in with some of his ships into Edo Harbor, which is modern-day Tokyo, and is able to convince the Japanese to trade with the United States.