#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...
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The History of China
An audio journey through the 5000 year history of one of the world's oldest continuous civilizations.
Episodes
20 of 402 episodes#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 al...
#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...
#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 no...
#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....
#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://megap...
#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...
#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...
#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...
#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 acu...
#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,...
#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 vict...
#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 ablaz...
#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...
#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...
#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...
#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 acco...
#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 pow...
#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 dynast...
#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 o...