Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchThe Tangut Kingdom of Xixia
Episode 98
Continuing our series on the lesser known regimes contemporaneous with the Song Dynasty, today we look at the Kingdom of Xixia, or "Western Xia," fou…
3 years, 3 months ago
The Jin Empire
Episode 97
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…
3 years, 3 months ago
The Liao Empire
Episode 96
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. Mult…
3 years, 3 months ago
13 Warriors Return to the Jade Gate
Episode 95
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 …
3 years, 3 months ago
Fusang
Episode 94
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 d…
3 years, 4 months ago
The Speech of Soong Mei-ling
Episode 93
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…
3 years, 4 months ago
Zhang Juzheng, the Nine-Headed Bird
Episode 92
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…
3 years, 4 months ago
Wu Peifu
Episode 91
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 …
3 years, 4 months ago
Uncle v. Nephew: Emperor Chengzu of the Ming
Episode 90
It was the Mongols who chose Beijing as the Chinese capital. After the Ming Dynasty overthrow the Mongols, though, the Chinese relocated their capita…
3 years, 4 months ago
Have Bears, Will Govern
Episode 89
Of all the uncertainties and mysterious surrounding China's mythical founder, the Yellow Emperor, one is the name of his father's tribe. Ancient sour…
3 years, 5 months ago