Maybe if China was willing to buy anything else but opium, that never would have happened. China's exports were in hot demand and they would only transact in silver but wouldn't buy anything to return that silver supply to global markets. It was causing massive problems in the silver market with over 40% of the yearly global supply going directly to purchasing Chinese exports.

Trade imbalances like that always lead to war. historically.

In that case the solution would be a floating silver price. Was this some kind of currency peg breaking? Ironic really.