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. Initially, Chinese coins were made out of copper or bronze, but their economy was so big, they were the leading producer of consumer goods until the 19th century, that they ran out. So they went to silver. Now, China didn't have a lot of silver itself, but Japan did, so they traded manufactured goods for it, but soon even that wasn't enough.