Geography of China Japanese junior high textbook minimized the atrocities of Nanjing stating that the massacre was an "incident". The textbooks transgression sent thousands of Chinese citizens out to protest and three weeks of state sanctioned protest led to rising tensions between Japan and China. Due to the opium wars between the British from 1839 to 1842, the British were able to make demands to the Chinese government before removing blockades and stopping bombardment on key ports. The Chinese agreed to cede the island of Hong Kong which in the control of the British, witnessed phenomenal growth. The population grew from 1,500 to
Global silver trade from the 16th to 18th centuries became a player in the global economy via frequent Ming merchant ships arriving to extract Japan's abundance of silver and exchange goods. Japan increased its wealth through successful trilateral trade with Portugal and China as Japan now had Chinese goods to offer the Portuguese who had silver mines of their own. Founder of the Ming China dynasty, Hongwu, actually sought to eliminate silver from the market due to his fear of inflation which he previously experienced in the Yuan dynasty. His attempt involved imposing harsh limits on silver mining to stop its flow into the market and subsequently replaced it