The History of China Podcast

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 capable of getting up all on their own. Hopping corpses, flying corpses, corpses sneaking out for a midnight rendezvous, and a few bodies that are still technically alive, but behaving very, very badly. So keep a broom handy... and a couple of bells... just in case. Because tonight, it turns out rigor mortis is... more of a s...

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 into dirt it doesn't belong. And, of course, consequences ensue... Tonight’s Tales: 03:28: “A Coffin For Eighteen” [一棺藏十八人] – from Zibuyu, Yuan Mei 05:19: “Adding Insult to Injury” [漢桓帝馮貴人] – from Soushenji, Gan Bao 07:31: “Outfoxed” [漢廣川王好發冢] – from Soushenji, Gan Bao 09:56: “Does It Taste Good?” [骷髏報仇] – from Zibuyu, Yuan Mei 12:27: “I’d Like a Second Opinion” [掘塚奇報] – from Zibuyu, Yuan Mei 18:22: “The Tomb of Cao Cao” [曹操冢] – from Liaozhai zhiyi, Pu Songling 21:25: “Laundry Day” [噴水] – from Liaozhai zhiyi, Pu Songling 24:48: “A Grounded Edu

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 surrounded. Only for a different rebel army to surround that imperial ringing army. But they were, all of them, deceived... for somewhere out past the hills, another ring was made... Inside the walls, the gardens were planted, the rations were holding, and the markets were open for business. They would stay open to the very end… Time Period...

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 direct order from his emperor. Downriver, the Taiping had a plan to end the whole thing. In March of 1861 the Brave King sprinted 200 miles in 11 days to pull it off, and arrived holding the strongest hand any Taiping commander ever would. And then… the British showed up and had a little conversation. And everything went completely of...

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 down inside it had already been looted off, of course. But the man it was meant to punish... wasn't even there. He'd already slipped out the back door of the Forbidden City weeks before - leaving an opera troupe to play on and cover his escape, as he left his own capital behind to its conquerors for the last time. What...

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 untrue... not that that stops it all from spinning entirely out of control. Within the month, the Royal Navy will be shelling the office of the viceroy who won't meet with them, Parliament's own better angels will be promptly overturned by the public itself at the polls, and the kickoff of a 4-year war… that no one could ever qu...

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 off wishing them all good health until he can meet them in person. The letter is returned unopened. So is the second one. And so, in the third week of August 1860, an army marching under orders not to shoot back spends 5 days being shelled outside the walls of a city they thought friendly… all culminating with the...

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 most damage… is not the invader. The Taiping arrive to find the dirty work done ahead of them, by the very Qing forces assigned to defend the great southern city, and a vast number of the city having decided to "take matters into their own hands." As such, when a party of missionaries sails upriver from Sh...

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 a plan comes together, every single piece locking in like perfect clockwork... Except… it wasn't really the plan. The city that fell was never the objective – it was merely a diversion… a diversion that would leave 60,000 dead within a week. Time Period Covered: 1860 CE Major Historical Figures: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom: Hong Xiuquan, the Heavenly King [1814–1864] Hong Rengan, the Shie...

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/ARML6215286599 - Ep. 308: The Shadow State: https://megaphone.link/ARML7890860851 Bottled up in Tung Chung Bay, subsisting for three weeks on caterpillars & boiled rice, the largest pirate fleet in the history of the world meets six Portuguese ships and the arithmetic that finishes it. What follows is the biggest criminal amnesty the world had yet seen, and a question very few pirates ever get to ask themselves: what does...

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 through the only path still open to them, every one of them clad in the uniform of a dead enemy. Nobody stops them. Nobody even looks twice. 150 miles southeast there's a city that has no idea they’re coming for it, and it’s not even the city they’re really after. Time Period Covered: 1...

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 told “no” … again. So he picks himself up once more and just keeps walking. He’ll get there eventually. And once he does, within three weeks he’ll be made the Shield King – the 2nd most powerful man in the Taiping Kingdom… on paper, at least. Time Period Covered: 1858–1859 CE Major Historical Figures: Taiping Heavenly K...

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 running the war have learned that there’s no use in waiting for the paperwork or permission… neither are coming. They hold their own conference, swear their own oath, and decide to prosecute the war on their own from here on out, regardless of what Nanjing might think about that arrangement. Time Period Covered: 1857–1858 CE Major Historical Figures: Taiping Heavenly Kingdom: Hon...

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 brothers – both military novices – and handing supreme military authority to the upjumped royal harem-staffing administrator. Meanwhile, up his own backwater Jiangxi creek, the one man of Great Qing capable of destroying the rebels is finally handed a paddle by his enemies’ infighting... and promptly goes home to bury his father. Two governments, two indispensable men, and one season in which both of them simpl...

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 who once spoke with the voice of God is a head on a pole in the street. Yet the purge doesn't end there: it swallows thousands, devours the men who ordered it, and costs the Heavenly Kingdom its foothold on the Yangtze before the year is out – all without a single Qing soldier's help. Time Period Covered: Dec. 1853–Sep. 1856 CE Majo...

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 of the sieges removes the one thing that had been holding this fractured movement together: sheer external pressure. For three years, the East King has been rehearsing one demand: the same title as the Heavenly King. Absolute recognition, absolute parity - the promotion he believes he's duly owed. Now with the pressure off, he's willing to do anything to get it...

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 worried about. The reward for surviving all that? A "promotion" in-name only... with no province, no funds, no friends, and a bureaucracy that somehow finds the – time mid-civil-war – to mock him personally. He loses his flagship, his files, his seal of command, and even a friend. And all the while, a much bigger disaster is assembling itself in Nanjing, comple...

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 consequentially must rebuild a river fleet from nothing... all while the Taiping's own capital is spared only my a mix-up with the date. By December, the Yangtze has changed hands – and a nervous throne has just learned exactly how dangerous a loyal army, and the man who built it, can become... and exactly how briefly gratitude lasts. Time Period Cove...

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 Heavenly Capital. But waiting for them in Hunan is a man unable to ride a horse, or command an army... who will nevertheless set about constructing their ultimate doom. Time Period Covered: May 1853 – February 1854 CE Major Historical Figures: Taiping Heavenly Kingdom: Hong Xiuquan, the Heavenly King [1814–1864] Hu Yiguang, commander of the Anhui column, Western Expedition Lai Hanying, commander of the Jiangxi column, Western...

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 true, might end the entire war before the teeth of winter bite down. Time Period Covered: May 1853 – March 1855 CE Major Historical Figures: Taiping Heavenly Kingdom: Hong Xiuquan, the Heavenly King [1814–1864] Lin Fengxiang, co-commander of the Northern Expedition [d. 1855] Li Kaifang, co-commander of the Northern Expedition [d. 1855] Li Xiucheng, future Loyal King [c. 1823–1864] Qing Dynasty: The Xianfeng Emperor (Aisin-Gi...

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 working constitution. And as the world begins to take note and come knocking, the question hanging over it all remains: what will come next? Time Period Covered: Spring–Summer 1853 CE Major Historical Figures: Taiping Heavenly Kingdom: Hong Xiuquan, Heavenly King, Second Son of God [1814–1864] Yang Xiuqing, East King, Voice of God the Father [d. 1856] Xiao Chaogui, West King, si...

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 kingdom the likes of which the world has never seen before. This is the story of the Becoming that finally arrived; of the current that finally found its place to pool... and what it cost to stop. Time Period Covered: Mar. 1853 CE Major Historical Figures: Taiping Heavenly Kingdom: Hong Xiuquan, Heavenly King, Second So...

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 and continue to transform, to build a fleet, a state. Now they will find out what it’s all been leading toward. This is the story of the Kingdom In Motion, and the river that carried it east. Time Period Covered: Nov. 1852 – Mar. 1853 Major Historical Figures: Taiping Heavenly Kingdom: Hong Xiuquan, Heavenly King, Second Son of God [1814–1864] Yang Xiuqing, East Kin...

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 the Taiping has yet fielded throws everything it knows at these walls... but the city endures. This is the story of the underground war fought by nameless men in the dark Time Period Covered: Oct. – Dec. 1852 Major Historical Figures: Taiping Heavenly Kingdom: Hong Xiuquan, Heavenly King, Second Son of God [1814–1864] Yang Xiuqing, East King, Voice of God the...

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 of Hunan. At Daozhou, for the first time, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom starts speaking to Empire at large, calls upon brotherhood to honor their blood-oaths, & dares name the emperor himself a demon. It's beginning to get real, and all roads - it seems - lead toward Changsha... Time Period Covered: June – October 1852 Major Historical Figures: Taiping Heavenly Kingdom: Ho...

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 through the hills and river valleys of Guangxi: not quite a military campaign, not quite a refugee march. When they finally stop, it will be inside the walls of a city called Yong'an - "Eternal Peace." There, for the first time, the blueprint of the kingdom they have been promising can at last be seen in outline. Kings will be named, & time it...

Very important breaking news from the Second Son of God, folks

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 institutions holding things together collapse, leaving those on the margins to their own survival. Until, that is, the divine summons of the Second Son of God calls them — one and all — to the village of Jintian, a bold maneuver that will force a response from the Qing dynasty itself. Time Period Covered: 1849-1851 CE Major Historical Figures: God-Worshippers/Taiping: Hong Xiuquan, prophet, Heavenly King [1814–1864] Feng Yun...

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 wilds of Guangxi – a world of ethnic tensions, criminal brotherhoods, pirates-turned-river-bandits… and a government far too distant and preoccupied to care. What Feng Yunshan finds there, and what he builds among its dispossessed and desperate Hakka denizens, will become the backbone of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom: the God Worshipping Society. Time Period Covered: 1844–1847 Major Historical Figures: Feng Yunshan, organize...

Even in the fallout of the Opium War, dreams endure—but what happens to a dream deferred? In Canton, one young man’s starry-eyed visions of success run headlong into the brutal wall of the Imperial Examination system. And when that dream finally shatters, it neither dries up, nor festers.... it explodes into prophetic visions so awesome and so terrible that they will shake the very foundations of Heaven itself. Time Period Covered: 1827 – 1844 Major Historical Figures: The Daoguang Emperor (Aisin-Gioro Minning) [r. 1820–1850] Hong Xiuquan (Hong Huoxiu), failed examination candidate, Second Son of God[1814–1864] Li Jingfang, friend, relative, first convert [fl. 1840s] Hong Re...

The war is over. The treaty is signed, sealed, & delivered. Yet though the smoke has cleared, the haze of uncertainty over what - exactly - just happened... lingers on. And that misunderstanding will echo for the next century. While Qiying writes love letters to Pottinger and the opium clippers resume business at anchorages just outside the new treaty ports, the machine set in motion by the Treaty of Nanjing is only just beginning to roll out. Time Period Covered: Aug. 1842 - c. 1860 Major Historical Figures: The Qing Empire: The Daoguang Emperor (Aisin-Gioro Minning) [r. 1820–1850] Qiying, Imperial Commissioner and chief negotiator [1787–1858] Yili...

The new envoy from London arrives at Qing's doorstep in August 1842 with a simple mandate: stop allowing Britain to be "humbugged" & finish the war Elliot started. What follows is the British Empire at its most efficient & brutal... and a treaty that, somehow, doesn't mention opium once... Time Period Covered: Aug. 1841–Aug. 1842 Major Historical Figures: The Qing Empire: The Daoguang Emperor (Aisin-Gioro Minning) [r. 1820–1850] Yijing, Imperial Commander [1793–1853] Qiying, Imperial Commissioner [1787–1858] Yilibu, Imperial Commissioner [1772–1843] Niu Jian, Governor-General of Liangjiang [1785–1858] Zhang Xi, intermediary [1840s] Yuqian, Zhejiang Imperial Commissioner [1841] The British Empire: Queen Victoria [r. 1837–1901] Sir Henry Pottinger, Plenipotentiary to China [1789–1856] Sir Hugh Gough, Commander of Bri...

The Ransom of Canton. The lame-duck Superintendent watches helplessly as a triumvirate of Qing officials arrives to reverse every compromise his predecessor had wrought... & promptly launches the most ambitious Chinese military operation of the entire war. In the midst of that rain-soaked battlefield, a brief skirmish between British soldiers and peasant militiamen plants the seed of a legend that will haunt Chinese politics for the next century. Time Period Covered: Feb. 1841–Oct. 1841 Major Historical Figures: The Qing Empire: The Daoguang Emperor (Aisin-Gioro Minning) [r. 1820–1850] Yishan, Imperial Commissioner and Pacifier-General of the Rebellious (靖逆) [1790–1878] Longwen, Manchu nobleman and ministerial attaché [d. 1841] Yang Fang, Gover...

Britain carries the Opium War to Beijing's unready doorstep with steam and iron, moving the crisis from the border frontiers to the heart of the imperial court itself. As imperial defenses strain and diplomacy replaces defiance, the two empires probe each other’s resolve — and discover that both of their understandings of the other have been built on little more than smoke. Time Period Covered: July 1840 – March 1841 Major Historical Figures: The Qing Empire: The Daoguang Emperor (Aisin-Gioro Minning) [r. 1820–1850] Lin Zexu, Imperial Commissioner [1785–1850] Qishan, Imperial Commissioner and Governor-General of Zhili [d. 1854] Yiliang, Governor-General of Liangguang [fl. 1840s] The British Empire: Queen Vict...

Britain and China both saw the opium crisis clearly enough to know it would end in disaster. Each believed it understood the situation, and the other, well enough to keep events from spinning out of control. And yet... it happened anyway. Time Period Covered: Late 1839 – April 1840 Major Historical Figures: The Qing Empire: The Daoguang Emperor (Aisin-Gioro Minning) [r. 1820–1850] Lin Zexu, Imperial Commissioner and Governor-General of Huguang [1785–1850] The British Empire: Queen Victoria [r. 1837–1901] Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, Foreign Secretary [1784–1865] Charles Elliot, Chief Superintendent of British Trade in China [1801–1875] William Gladstone, Member of Parliament [1789–1898] Sir James Graham, Member of Parliament [1792–1861] Major Sources Ci...

Britain carries the Opium War to Beijing's unready doorstep with steam and iron, moving the crisis from the border frontiers to the heart of the imperial court itself. As imperial defenses strain and diplomacy replaces defiance, the two empires probe each other’s resolve — and discover that both of their understandings of the other have been built on little more than smoke. Time Period Covered:July 1840 – March 1841 Major Historical Figures: The Qing Empire: The Daoguang Emperor (Aisin-Gioro Minning) [r. 1820–1850] Lin Zexu, Imperial Commissioner [1785–1850] Qishan, Imperial Commissioner and Governor-General of Zhili [d. 1854] Yiliang, Governor-General of Liangguang [fl. 1840s] The British Empire: Queen Vict...

Lin Zexu believed moral clarity and the largest drug bust in history could end the opium crisis and avert war. Yet, as his solution drained into Humen Bay, so too did the last hope of peace between China and Britain. Time Period Covered: 1836–June 1839 Major Historical Figures: The Qing Empire: The Daoguang Emperor (Aisin-Gioro Minning) [r. 1820–1850] Lin Zexu, Imperial Commissioner and Governor-General of Huguang [1785–1850] Deng Tingzhen, Governor-General of Liangguang [1776–1846] Huang Juezi, Minister and court official (opium policy advocate) The British Empire: King William IV [r. 1830–1837] Queen Victoria [r. 1837–1901] Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, Foreign Secretary [1784–1865] Charles Elliot, Chief Superintendent of British Tra...

In 1834, Britain sent a man to China almost perfectly unsuited to the job... only to forbid him from actually doing it. William John Napier, naval officer, socialite, & dilettante with no experience in diplomacy, trade, or China, arrived at Canton convinced he was destined to break open the Qing Empire by force of his will alone. But he would not get quite the war he wanted. Nor the recognition he imagined. Nor the vindication he believed history owed him. Which is not to say he got nothing at all... Time Period Covered: January-October, 1834 Major Historical Figures: The Qing Empire: The Daoguang...

In this empire business, you gotta make the opium first. Then when you get the opium, you get the silver. Then when you get the silver, then you get the tea. Time Period Covered: ca. 1760-1839 CE Major Historical Figures: Qing Empire: The Daoguang Emperor (Minning) [r. 1820–1850] Governor-General of Liangguang, Ruan Yuan [1764–1849] "The Hoppo" (Imperial Superintendent of Maritime Customs), The emperor’s personal revenue agent at Canton Chinese Commercial Interests: "The Cohong" (Gonghang), the licensed guild of Cantonese merchants authorized to trade with foreigners "The Consoo Fund" (Gongsuo), the Cohong’s collective insurance pool Yaokou Dealers & River Smugglers, opium wholesale intermed...

Great Qing begins to buckle under early 19th c. internal pressures. Unrest first erupts not at the imperial core but along its social and geographic margins. This time, we look at three of the early warning shocks: the Miao frontier rebellions, the rise of Triad networks across the southern coastal cities, & the formation of the apocalyptic White Lotus uprising. Time Period Covered: ~1790s-1840s CE Major Historical Figures: Qing Empire: Fu Nai, Qing magistrate Heshen, grand councilor under the Qianlong Emperor, (1750-1799) Miao People: Shi Sanbao, Miao rebel leader, (d. ~1796) Shi Liudeng, Miao rebel leader, (d. 1797) White Lotus Sect: Lin...