And that, my friends, is how the discovery of silver in Bolivia contributed to the genius of William Shakespeare. Anyway, American silver didn't cause these wars any more than it wrote Hamlet, but the new wealth made both more possible. Knowing that they had this enormous silver war chest at their disposal made them much more inclined to build all those ships that got sunk in 1588. And soon enough, even a mountain of silver couldn't pay for all their warring and the Spanish crown had to borrow money, which they couldn't pay back, so they defaulted on their debts several times in the 17th century. Yay, silver! So most of the silver mined in the Americas went to Europe, but at least a third of it went to China, either directly on Spanish galleons or indirectly through the purchase of Chinese goods. China had encountered inflation of its own after printing the world's first paper money in the 12th century, so they switched back to coins.