The narrator describes how the Han dynasty of Ancient China came to power and how they depended on a Steppe nation, the Yuezhi, for horses. The Xiongnu, a group of mounted nomads, came to power. The Han government made peace by giving the Xiongnu various resources, including silk. This material became widely known and gave other countries a romanticized view of China.

The overshadowed first Sino-Japanese war is often seen as a stepping stone in the story of japan's imperial expansion and china's decline preceding the second world war. We take a look at the Korean strategry, Meiji restoration of 1868 and Go jong ascension to the throne and how the they played a major role in the beginning of the Sino war

A soldier patrolling the Great Wall witness an attack from the Hun army. In this example of smoke signals, one of the oldest forms of long-distance communication, he lights one of the beacon towers to warn the rest of China about an enemy invasion.

Queen Min escape the royal place as 4,500 Qing soldiers arrived in Korea and captured the deawon reasserting Qing inflince over the kingdom. The Japenese responded only by placing an armed guard on its returning litigation, but this promted Mejij to begin a massive military buildup

In the beginning of the 19th century, a new era of interconnectedness had swept the globe, and the term "international" was born. Merchants and travellers navigated the globe, searching for resource-rich lands and gladly alleviating the natives of their abundances, splaying the rapidly industrializing west. China, was this new land where a new trading good would be discovered that would sweep the land would be find.