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A journey through the 5000 years of history documented by one of the world's oldest continuous civilizations. For all the episodes for free, as well as additional content, please subscribe and/or visit thehistoryofchina.wordpress.com.
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#352 - Taiping 26: Two Seals and a Coffin
In the summer of 1861, the Xianfeng emperor died at 30, in exile, beyond the Great Wall. He left behind a 5-year-old heir, 8 men to run the empire in the boy’s name… and 2 tiny, little seals out of his personal art collection that are compl
#351.2 – Strange Tales XI.2: The Body Won’t Behave
It’s one thing to go invading the resting places of the dead and reaping the well-deserved consequences of your own bad choices. But it’s a different kind of horror entirely when you don’t even need a shovel and the dead are perfectly capab
#351 - Strange Tales XI.1: Don't Wake the Grave
The leaves are blood-red once again, the coffee’s back to hot, and somewhere in old China, the dead begin to stir restlessly. Grave robbers, well-diggers, strange hobbyists... plenty of folks out there far too willing to go sticking a spade
#350 - Taiping 25: Rings Within Rings
In the summer of 1861, the strangest siege of the war took shape on the banks of the Yangtze. As Heaven itself sent forth cosmic signs – of victory or disaster, no one could be quite sure – an imperial army had a rebel city completely surro
#349 - Taiping 24: The Bouncer
By the autumn of 1860, the Qing Dynasty had run out of armies to lose. What was left of its war was being run out of a mountain valley in southern Anhui by a half-blind scholar-official who was, at that very moment, politely refusing a dire
#348 - Arrow War 2: Ashes of Perfect Brightness
For two days in mid-October, ash fell like snow atop Beijing. All that remained of one of the greatest cultural storehouses in all of human history, put to the torch as an extremely personalized punishment... after everything not nailed dow
#347 - Arrow War 1: The Servants' Entrance
A suspicious ship of dubious registry is boarded by Qing marines off Canton, 12 of her crew are taken captive for piracy, and the British allege their flag was hauled down in the process. That last part, at least, was almost certainly untru
#346 - Taiping 23: Friends From Afar
The Loyal King does everything right. He writes ahead to Shanghai to announce he's coming – as a friend! And only for the Qing parts of the city! His standing orders: no firing on the foreigners, you get your head chopped off. He even signs
#345 - Taiping 22: Heaven Below
For a thousand years, Suzhou and Hangzhou stood as synonyms for the next best thing to Heaven itself. Well... that was before 1860. As of now, Hangzhou is a fire-gutted ruin, and Suzhou is next on the target list. But the army that does the
#344 - Taiping 21: Borrowed Things
The stealth troops successfully sneak past the enemy lines in dead men's coats. The false flags planted on the hillside fool the city guard. The front gate assault diverts, while the sappers around back bring the walls down. I love it when
#308.5 - Zheng Yi Sao, Pt. 3: The Tiger's Mouth
Please check out this entire series-arc, re-written, expanded, & re-recorded as of Aug 2026: - Ep. 306: Dead Men Tell No Tales: https://megaphone.link/ARML5251369441 - Ep. 307: Murders & Acquisitions, Mostly: https://megaphone.link/ARML6215
#343 - Taiping 20: The Guest & the Host
Li Xiucheng thinks the plan is pointless. He said so out loud, to his superiors… and lost. So of course, it’s him tasked with leading it out the gate. He is, after all, the Loyal King. And so 6,000 soldiers cross the river in the dark throu
#342 - Taiping 19: Approved In the Margins
A man disguised as a peddler stands on the bank of the Yangtze watching a British fleet go past, and tries to hitch a ride to Nanjing. He's been trying to reach the rebel capital for 6 years now, and this is the closest he's gotten. He’s to
#341 - Taiping 18: Titles of the Dead
In the Heavenly capital of Nanjing, a government that’s now mostly murdered has to be restaffed… somehow. And so their old titles are simply dusted off and re-distributed who whoever’s still left standing. Meanwhile, the men out actually ru
#340 - Taiping 17: Out of Kings
The Heavenly Kingdom, having recently killed kings three and four of its founding five – and misplaced the fifth – attempts to solve its acute leadership shortage. To that end, the Heavenly King turns to his own blood, promoting his brother
#339 - Taiping 16: At Sixes & Sevens
The Taiping's greatest summer curdles into its bloodiest autumn. Two months after the East King demands to be crowned Hong Xiuquan's equal, three of his brother-kings converge on Nanjing with an army he never sees coming. By dawn, the man w
#338 - Taiping 15: The Summer of 10,000 Years
The Taiping Army is riding high. Having finally broken two massive, three-year-long sieges over the course of a single summer, ultimate victory seems within their grasp. Yet, that taste of triumph acts like blood in the water. The lifting o
#337 - Taiping 14: Tears Enough to Swell the River
Three months after the biggest win of his life, Zeng Guofan tries to drown himself. Again. His fleet gets ambushed, split in half, & set ablaze by a 23-year-old nobody bothered to worry about – right up until he became the guy everybody wor
#336 - Taiping 13: The Order of Caps and Shoes
Zeng Guofan goes to war to defend a fixed universe – and nearly drowns proving how unfixed his own place in it actually is. Across a single year, Hunan's most unlikely general brutally finds out that he is indeed no warrior, and consequenti
#335 - Taiping 12: The Man In Hunan
While the Northern Expedition dies in the freezing mud of Shandong, the Taiping's second strike — the Western Expedition — turns its sights on the provinces they've already ridden through on the Yangtze, a kingdom to go with their new Heave
#334 - Taiping 11: The Spear of Heaven and the Winter Wolf
The Taiping Army commits to one of its most audacious acts yet – an assault on the Qing throne itself, a thousand miles north in Beijing. To reach it, it will launch its great Northern Campaign: a single spear-throw that, if its aim holds t
#333 - Taiping 10: All Things In Common
Finally pooled and stilled at Nanjing, in the afterglow of victory, the Taiping reflect on what they’ve become, and what they’ve yet to accomplish. In the cold light of the morning after, though, dreams do not equal result, nor clouds a wor
#332 - Taiping 9: Heaven Is A Place On Earth
The Heavenly Host arrives at last before the walls of the South Capital. What follows is not a battle so much as a verdict – rendered in powder, fire, and seven days of smoke and blood. A city is taken, renamed, and remade in the image of a
#331 - Taiping 8: Kingdom Come
The Heavenly Host marches north out of Hunan. Ahead of them lies the spine of China itself – the mighty Yangtze; maker and breaker of dynasties. The trading capitals strung along its southern bank glimmer like beads on a thread. They have a
#330 - Taiping 7: Beneath the Walls of Changsha
The Heavenly Host has arrived at the great provincial capital of Hunan - Changsha. The mighty bastion that will prove to be the first city on the long march north that simply refuses to fall. For two months in late 1852, the largest army th
#329 - Taiping 6: River of Souls
The army that marches north out of Quanzhou in June 1852 is not the same one that left Jintian 18 months prior. It has left its prime architect in an unmarked grave, massacred the city that killed him, and crossed into the unknown territory
#328 - Taiping 5: The Way Ahead
The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom has been proclaimed — but proclamations don't feed armies. As such, its Divine Host will enjoy all of 11 days before sheer arithmetic forces them back onto the road. What follows is eight months of movement thro
#327 - Taiping 4: The Heavenly Kingdom
The God-Worshippers of Thistle Mountain managed to survive their first test — but now the world itself seems dead-set on finishing the job. When unprecedented rains lead to flooding, famine, and pestilence across southern China, the last in
#326 - Taiping 3: The Image-Breakers
The God-Worshippers of Thistle Mountain, under the dual leadership of Hong Xiuquan and Feng Yunshan, had gone from being a quirky, backwater oddity... to, by 1847, a real local headache. When they get bold enough to deface a local temple, t
#325 - Taiping 2: The God Worshippers
Amidst the ashes of the Opium War, a new flame is beginning to kindle – not in the halls of power, but in the distant, forgotten hills and mountains. While the would-be prophet Hong Xiuquan returns home, his closest friend vanishes into the
