Mandarin Gold — James Leasor

This was Robert Gunn's introduction to the China coast. The young Englishman little suspected that he would remember it later as one of the least shocking and least shameful things he had done on his ruthless search for money and power... It was the year of 1833 when Robert Gunn arrived on the China coast. Only the feeblest of defences now protected the vast and proud Chinese Empire from the ravenous greed of Western traders, and their opening wedge for conquest was the sale of forbidden opium to the native masses. This was the path that Robert Gunn chose to follow... a path that led him through a maze of violence and intrigue, lust and treachery, to a height of power beyond most men's dreams -- and to the ultimate depths of personal corruption. Here is a magnificent novel of an age of plunder -- and of a fearless freebooter who raped an empire.