The Master of Demon Gorge: A Chinese History Podcast

Regarding the Tang Dynasty writer and his most famous essay.Support the show

The greatest travel writer in Chinese tradition, the late-Ming figure Xu Xiake.Support the show

Regarding the great Yuan Dynasty playwright and his most famous play.Support the show

Regarding the historian of institutions Du You and his grandson, the poet Du Mu.Support the show

The legend of "a dead cat for a prince" and the true story of the career of Empress Dowager Liu of the Song Dynasty.Support the show

On the great Song Dynasty philosopher who redefined Confucian thought.Support the show

Regarding the major Qing Dynasty historian Zhang Xuecheng (1738-1801).Support the show

A chapter in the Daoist text Zhuangzi that launches a sustained attack on Confucianism, through the mouth of a notorious criminal.Support the show

One of the most influential thinkers -- and his most influential work -- in the history of Chinese democratic thought.Support the show

Until the advent of modern scholarship, the earliest definitive date in the chronology of Chinese history was 841 B.C. What happened that year that so marked the calendar?Support the show

Regarding the Han Dynasty physician Zhang Zhongjing.Support the show

Regarding the Song Dynasty architect and scholar of architecture.Support the show

Everyone knows that Shang Yang reformed the laws and institutions of the State of Qin, setting it up for superpower status and paving the way to the Qin Dynasty. But a number of earlier reformers prefigured Shang Yang. Here are two of them.Support the show

The story of the deeply influential Ming Dynasty philosopher.Support the show

The 6th century B.C. statesman of the State of Zheng promulgated the first published criminal code in Chinese history. Moreover, it is through him that we know how the ancient Chinese understood the nature of the soul.Support the show

The hedonist tradition in Chinese philosophy.Support the show

The economic conference of 81 B.C. and the book that resulted from it.Support the show

On the late-5th and early-6th century work of literary criticism and its author.Support the show

Regarding the man who made Confucianism the dominant ideology of China.Support the show

On Chai Rong, the second emperor of the Latter Zhou, and how it became the last of the Five Dynasties.Support the show

Our only source for many of the stories about the life of Genghis Khan, The Secret History of the Mongols is a crucial document for understanding the Mongol Empire.Support the show

On the German scholar of Chinese architecture.Support the show

In 627 A.D., an elderly shepherd chanced upon ten stone drums bearing ancient inscriptions. Since then, they have gone on a topsy-turvy adventure through the tumultuous course of Chinese history, down to the present day.Support the show

Only six emperors in Chinese history are documented to have performed Fengshan, the worship of heaven at earth at the holy Mt. Tai.Support the show

Continuing the series on the Five Dynasties, the story of Guo Wei, founder of the Latter Zhou.Support the show

The life of the great 20th century historian Qian Mu.Support the show

On the 2nd century B.C. courtier, jester, and man of letters Dongfang Shuo, who came to be regarded as the patron saint of "xiangsheng," a traditional form of stand-up comedy.Support the show

The story of an imperial cousin and regent of the Southern Ming Dynasty.Support the show

The next emperor in our series on the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms.Support the show

Regarding Zhuanxu, the second of the so-called "Five Emperors" of China's deep past.Support the show

Continuing our series on the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms: the founder of the Latter Jin Dynasty, Shi Jingtang.Support the show

On "The Troubled Empire: China in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties," by Professor Timothy Brook, of the imperial China series by Harvard University Press.Support the show

On the great Ming Dynasty fantasy-historical novel, "Investiture of the Gods."Support the show

In 281 A.D., a tomb raider discovered a lost ancient text, which came to be known as the "Bamboo Annals." It had an explosive effect on the understanding of the Chinese of their own history...Support the show

Continuing with the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms: the story of Li Siyuan, emperor of the Latter Tang.Support the show

The story of General Hao Bocun.Support the show

Li Keyong and Li Cunxu, father and son, were responsible for building the second of the Five Dynasties.Support the show

The story of Zhu Wen, the man who formally ended the Tang Dynasty and began the period in Chinese history known as the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms.Support the show

About the Song Dynasty official, scholar, and philosopher Zhou Dunyi.Support the show

Yan Jiagan is the forgotten president of the Republic of China or Taiwan. He served between 1975 and 1978 but was largely considered a transitional figure. However, before he was president, in 1949, he first rescued Taiwan from economic catastrophe, paving the way for all future developments. For that reason alone, the man deserves to be remembered.Support the show

"The man from Qi worries about the sky" is a Chinese idiom meaning to worry unnecessarily about things that won't happen. It comes from a story found in Liezi, an ancient tract of philosophy.But what was this place called Qi? What does the original fable say? Have we misunderstood it this whole time?Support the show

The story of the Ming Dynasty secret police led by eunuchs, the most infamous eunuch among them, and the faction of mandarins who opposed them.Support the show

Regarding Gu Yanwu, the 17th century intellectual who has recently been the subject of controversy in Taiwanese politics.Support the show

The remarkable Dujiangyan irrigation system in Sichuan was constructed in the 250s B.C. but remains in use today and remains crucial to the Chinese economy.Support the show

Regarding Zizhi Tongjian, or "General Mirror on Good Governance," and the man who wrote it during the 11th century.Support the show

Taiping Guangji or "Extensive Records of the Taiping Era" is an anthology of stories compiled during the early Song Dynasty. Its editors chose to collect the stories under a series of clearly unworkable categories. In so doing, they made Taiping Guangji a perfect illustration of the point made in an essay by the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges.Support the show

In 1615, the Tokugawa Shogunate made a rule that all Japanese emperors must study "Policy Digests of the Zhen'guan Era," written 900 years earlier in Tang Dynasty China. What is this book and what's important about it?Support the show

The Ming Dynasty novel "Journey to the West" ranks among the great classics of Chinese literature. I recently reread it, and I have thoughts.Support the show

The story of the somewhat mysterious Tocharian people of Kuche in today's Xinjiang, confusingly named after the Tokharoi of Bactria in modern Afghanistan, from whose language Chinese gets its word for "honey."Support the show

The story of the "Door Gods" and how a pair of Tang Dynasty generals came to serve in that role.Support the show

The tale of another short (not to mention poor) man who achieved greatness. Chunyu Kun was a famed "wit" from Warring States era State of Qi. Besides services as a diplomat and political advisor, he was famous for being the sort of party guest you may not allow to leave by evening's end...Support the show

A fascinating minority group in the former USSR, chiefly Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, is the people known as the Dungan. Originally Hui Muslims from northwestern China, they migrated into Central Asia in the 19th century. This story is about them, their Chinese-derived language, and one of their most significant cultural figures, Iasyr Shivaza.Support the show

The Confucian philosopher Zengzi and some of his ideas that became deeply influential in Chinese culture.Support the show

Even as I want to finish telling you the story of Wu Zixu, the fact is that his life so intersected with the lives and careers of other major figures that in this second part of his story I must shift the spotlight onto someone else. King Goujian of Yue, initially defeated and kept by his enemy as a hostage, would rise to the status of a hegemon of the Spring and Autumn period. During his career he would duel against his nemesis, King Fuchai of Wu. And his triumph would also be the time for W...

One of the most famous personalities from the late-Spring and Autumn period, Wu Zixu was someone I grew up learning about as a commendable character. But, upon revisiting his story, I find him closer to being the hero of a Greek tragedy than a role model. Here we tell the first half of his story and how his life intersected with other major figures like King Helü of Wu and Sunzi, the author of "The Art of War."Support the show

Yan Ying, the statesman of the State of Qi during the Spring and Autumn era, was famously diminutive. But his short stature was only cover for a brilliant intellect. And he went down in Chinese history as a great man.Support the show

"History is written by the victors," so goes the common saying. But Chinese court historians actually usually provided us with honest accounts of events, even if they made the rulers of their times look bad. Why? Why gave them the right, as well as the sense of responsibility, to speak truth to power?Support the show

The legend of the "James Bond" of Republican China and how his fictional codename became a household name.Support the show

Continuing our series on the hegemons of the Spring and Autumn era: Duke Wen of Jin, who as a prince lived in exile for 19 years.Support the show

Continuing our discussion of the hegemons of the Spring and Autumn period, we look at Duke Xiang of Song, whom some consider a hegemon but perhaps shouldn't.Support the show

Duke Huan of Qi dominated the politics of Spring and Autumn China from the 680s B.C. until the 640s under the slogan of "respecting the king and suppressing the barbarians." Here is why the role he played was similar to that being played by the United States in the modern international state system.Support the show

In 413 A.D., the self-proclaimed king of Daxia or Great Xia, one of the Sixteen "Barbarian" Kingdoms of the age, ordered the construction of a new capital city to be named Tong'wan. The only trouble was, the spot King Helian Bobo chose was in the middle of nowhere...Support the show

In 1222, a Daoist priest from eastern China went to Afghanistan to sit down with a man who had already shaken the world to its core: Genghis Khan. This is the story of that priest, whose name, perhaps serendipitously, is widely remembered even today.Support the show

"The Chronicles of the Eastern Zhou Kingdoms," written in the Ming Dynasty, recounts the history of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States eras. It is considered a novel but is basically nonfiction, so closely as it hews to actual historical records. We discuss the novel, the nature of what a novel is in Chinese tradition, and a key work of history that formed the basis of the "Chronicles": "The Commentary of Zuo."Support the show

You're read about them in the news and read about the area they call home, what the Chinese call Xinjiang. But what do we talk about when we talk about Uyghurs? Where did this people come from?Support the show

Western writers like Kipling produced literature depicting imperial peripheries during the height of the British Empire. Similarly, Chinese poets during the height of the Tang Empire wrote many poems about life and scenery and war on the frontiers. These form a genre in its own right in Chinese literature known as "frontiers poetry." And, as so often happens with imperial writings, they by turns celebrate the glories of empire and question its morality and costs.Support the show

On November 27, 1542, shortly after 5 in the morning, a group of palace girls in the Forbidden City gathered at the bedroom of their would-be victim: Emperor Jiajing of Ming China. At a sign, they jumped on him, ready to strangle the life out of him.What transpired was one of the oddest and most notable episodes in history of Chinese imperial harems.Support the show

Thoughts on friendship from Montaigne, Aristotle, and the Daoist philosopher Zhuangzi, who advises us all not to be too eager to hang out.Support the show

Inspired by recent discussions elsewhere of the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail, we take a look at some of the most sought after objects in Chinese tradition: the Nine Cauldrons and the Jade Imperial Seal, both symbols of royal or imperial authority on earth.Support the show

On that great leader of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Xie An, who saved his country in the late-4th century and came to be remembered for his preternatural sangfroid.Support the show

The parallel lives of two great physicians who were contemporaries of each other, one in Han Dynasty China and one in the Roman Empire. By extension, a comparison between traditional Chinese medicine and traditional Western medicine.Support the show

The Sui Dynasty (581-619) doesn't get much respect, largely because it was short-lived. Even so, and perhaps paradoxically, its founder implemented a number of measures that far out-lasted the dynasty itself. This is the story of that man, Yang Jian, Emperor Wendi of Sui.Support the show

Two of the most infamous tyrants from ancient Chinese history, the women who enabled them, and why it all might be the worst libel.Support the show

Hu Qubing was one of the most remarkable and meteoric military figures in Han Dynasty China during the second century B.C. Meteoric because he rose fast (thanks to nepotism), burned bright, and died young. A kind of soldierly James Dean. But in his brief but brilliant career, he left an indelible mark on Chinese and world history.Support the show

Xiwangmu or the Mother Goddess of the West is one of the most important and familiar deities in the Daoist pantheon. "The Biography of King Mu of Zhou," dug up in 281 A.D. from a royal tomb, gives a euhemerist account of her as the queen or princess of a distant nation, and tells of how King Mu of Zhou visited her in the 10th century B.C.Much more besides, including King Mu's appearance in what amounts to an ancient work of science fiction...Support the show

In part 2 of our mini-series on the Chinese underworld, we look at the Green Gang, an alleged offshoot of the Heaven and Earth Society, and one of its most notorious members who came to be called "the Emperor of Shanghai."Support the show

The Heaven and Earth Society, a.k.a. the Hong Society, is one of the most famous underground organizations in Chinese tradition. But its origin is shrouded in legends and myths, many of which connect it to Taiwan.Support the show

The story of the curious and arguably proto-Socialist figure who founded a dynasty so brief that it's often left out when we enumerate Chinese imperial dynasties.Support the show

The story of an expression, from its origin in the 7th century B.C. to the reason it's associated with so many places today in Taiwan.Support the show

The bloody tale of the salt merchant, failed scholar, and reasonably good poet who very nearly destroyed the Tang Dynasty. Support the show

It is often said that Taiwan came into the Chinese orbit as far back as the 3rd century. Is that true? How? The story of the Three Kingdoms era exploration of (maybe) Taiwan.Fast forward a few hundred years to the early 7th century, and records show that the Sui Dynasty fought a war against an indigenous kingdom that the chroniclers called "Liuqiu." Today, that name refers to Ryukyu, also known as Okinawa. But could it have meant Taiwan at the time?Support the show

Of all the recent feverish discussions on the prospect of war in the Taiwan Strait, no alleged expert that I've come across has talked about the obvious historical precedent: Emperor Kangxi's invasion and conquest of Taiwan in 1683.Let's remedy that.Support the show

The late-Ming and early-Qing literary critic Jin Shengtan was quite a character. He never advanced beyond the rank of xiucai, the lowest-level degree in the imperial civil service exam system, but his legacy became far greater than most men who achieved more conventional success.That legacy was in teaching the Chinese how to read and why, in showing them why the great works of Chinese fiction and drama were great. His influence continues to this day.Support the show

Chinese culture is stereotypically perceived as authoritarian. Although there is obviously a lot of truth to the cliche, it is by no means the full picture. Indeed, ancient Chinese philosophy already introduced certain ideas that might been called democratic, through the figure of Mencius, the second most important personality in Confucianism...Support the show

It's come to my attention in recent years that a certain portion of Westerners, including people who ought to know better such as academics, believe that the concept of "China" is a modern invention dating only to the early 20th century. Their argument is that the Chinese historically never referred to their country by its modern name, "Zhongguo," in ancient times.For avoidance of doubt, here's an episode setting forth the voluminous evidence as to why they're wrong: the Chinese have been usi...

By tradition, a man named Cangjie invented the Chinese system of writing that is the bane of so many foreign students trying to acquire the language.Trouble is, Cangjie is supposed to have lived some 26 centuries ago, in the time of the Yellow Emperor, but the earliest texts attesting to his creation of Chinese writing date to the Warring States period over 2,000 years later...Support the show

Though largely forgotten in the West, during the First World War, some 140,000 Chinese went to the Western Front to support Britain, France, and the United States. They were not meant to play a combat role but instead to help with logistics and support so that the Allies could free up more soldiers for fighting. Nonetheless, some 2,000 of them ended up buried in northern France and Belgium.This is the story of how they went and why, and how their story and its aftermath indirectly but crucial...

Bucephalus, the beloved horse belonging to Alexander the Great, brings to mind two famous horses from Chinese history: the Chitu or "Crimson Hare" Horse of Guan Yu from the Three Kingdoms era and the Wuzhui Horse of Xiang Yu from the time of the founding of the Han Dynasty.Support the show

The Tang Dynasty poet Liu Yuxi led a largely disappointing political career, but he left us with some of the most memorable expressions of individualism and humanism in Chinese literature. Even today, his most famous work remains required reading and is often quoted even by average people.Support the show

A few weeks ago, then out-going Taiwanese Premier Su Tseng-chang (or Su Zhenchang in standard Pinyin) said something that caused quite a stir: "Had Yuan Chonghuan not died, how could the Manchu army have breached the Great Wall?"To understand why this rather curious rhetorical question caused the controversy it did, you obviously have to know who Yuan Chonghuan was.Here, then, is the story of the Cantonese man who, in the waning years of the Ming Dynasty, did perhaps more than anyone els...

Completing our series on the other, lesser-known regimes that coexisted with the Song Dynasty, we look at the Kingdom of Dali located in picturesque Yunnan in China's southwest.Led by the Duan family for most of its history, Dali was a minor player in East Asian international relations at the time, and the Song was happy to have a harmless and peaceful kingdom to its rear so that it could focus on threats coming from the north.In the Chinese imagination, though, and for a literary reason, the...

Continuing our series on the lesser known regimes contemporaneous with the Song Dynasty, today we look at the Kingdom of Xixia, or "Western Xia," founded and run by the Tangut people.Smaller than the Liao and the Jin Empires discussed in our recent episodes as well as the Han Chinese regime of the Song, the Xia was nonetheless at one point a true power to be reckoned with.But, sadly, history destined the Xixia to obscurity. In the wake of 20th century excavations and the rediscovery of the Ta...

Continuing our series on the "other" dynasties and kingdoms and co-existed with the Song Dynasty, which we typically think of as the mainline Chinese regime of this period, we look at the Jin Empire.The Jurchen people rose up against the Khitan Liao Empire in the early 12th century and established their own empire and called it the Jin. But, at every turn, they seemed destined (doomed?) to repeat the drama that the Liao already played out.And yet another nomadic people waited in the wings, al...

The period in Chinese history we typically think of as the Song Dynasty was much more complicated than that single dynastic name makes it sound. Multiple regimes co-existed and came upon the stage and exited, fighting each other repeatedly but also engaging in diplomacy and cultural exchanges.Today, we look at one of them: the Liao or Khitan Empire, which gave the Russian language its word for "China"...Support the show

Some time in 76 A.D., a band of Chinese soldiers, the last survivors of a garrison, their clothes torn to ribbons and their bodies emaciated so that they barely seemed like living men, stumbled into Yumen Guan or "the Jade Gate Pass," the western terminus of the Han Dynasty Great Wall.We may consider their story in light of episodes from the same period in Roman history. And we may ask: what can it teach us about contemporary Chinese nationalism? What does it mean that many modern Chinese cal...

In 499 A.D., a Buddhist monk named Hui Shen walked into the city of Jingzhou and regaled the people there with tales from his recent adventure to a distant country called Fusang.Fusang, according to a number of scholars, was in modern-day Mexico.Was it? What does "The Book of Liang," the original Chinese source for this account, really say about it? Why did some scholars come to this seemingly outlandish conclusion?Support the show

A nation under attack by a superior foe. A desperate people suffering through a long season of privation, a time that tries men’s souls, and yet they remain resilient and determined. In their struggle for survival, they rely on that so-called “Arsenal of Democracy,” the United States of America. And, at a critical juncture in the war, a leader of their nation travels to Washington to address a joint session of Congress...I am, of course, talking about the visit by Madame Chiang Kai-shek (bett...

In my travels around Mainland China, I often heard a saying: "In the sky there is the Nine-Headed Bird, so on earth there is the man from Hubei."What does this saying mean, and where does it come from? It all has to do with the Ming Dynasty statesman Zhang Juzheng...Support the show

A century ago, in December 1922, a New York Times front page article confidently predicted that the next leader of China would be a military officer named Wu Peifu. The Times was wrong about this: General Wu turned out to be little more than a footnote in the great trends of modern Chinese history.But who was he? And how did he get into a position where such a prediction might have seemed plausible in the 1920s?Support the show