Chinese Picture quiz - 2 - First question

Advanced level picture quiz all about China
Only a handful of people have achieved 70% or higher score.

This building is associated with which religion?

Wed 6^th Feb

Pieces of Eight

It is little known that for China it was the trade across the Pacific in the 16th and 17th centuries that really opened up international trade and not the Portuguese at Macau. When the pope divided the world between the Spanish and Portuguese the line drawn had wide repercussions. Portugal could trade from Europe via the Cape of Good Hope to the Spice Islands and China while Spain had the control of trade to Mexico ('New Spain') and then over the Pacific to East Asia. The discovery of huge amounts of silver in Mexico and Peru gave the Spanish something with which to buy Chinese luxury goods. The Spanish dollar 'pieces of eight' became the common currency and it was on this coin that the American dollar was based (and later the Hong Kong dollar). Many of the luxury items from China that arrived in Mexico were carried over to the eastern coast and from thence by sea to Europe. It was a very lucrative trade and only ended when Mexico gained independence and the opium trade began. The trade is less well known because the main port was not on the Chinese mainland but at Manilla in the Philippines where a thriving Chinese colony rapidly expanded.

This page on SCMP gives a huge amount of interesting information about this trade route, including the details of how the mighty galleons were built.

Read full story…
Read all our news stories...

Switch off sounds