The History of China Podcast

It is a Golden Age for the Eastern Han. After decades of tumult, famine, and civil war, the Chinese Empire is poised once again to reclaim its status as preeminent East Asian power. Retaking the abandoned Western Vassal Kingdoms, sending envoys to India and even Rome, and at long last finishing the 200 year old war with the rapidly disintegrating Xiongnu Empire to the north.

In the power vacuum left by the defeated Xin Dynasty's collapse, no fewer than six claimants to the long-vacant Throne of Han will vie for power... one backed by the Lülin Rebels, another by the Red Eyebrow Army, another a northern lord with an axe to grind, and a fortune-teller playing the role of a lifetime... who will emerge victorious to reunify the fractious Chinese Empire?

All hell breaks loose for Wang Mang's Xin Dynasty when the Yellow River flooding its banks in 11 CE combines with the Xin's own incompetent response, leading to famine, rebellion, and a complete breakdown of the social order and the dynasty itself.

Confucian Wang Mang overthrows Han and sets up his Xin Dynasty to renew the Golden Age of Zhou through land nationalization, wealth redistribution, and currency reform. It seemed like a great idea on paper, but in practice things begin to horribly wrong almost immediately.

The Han Dynasty has slipped into a malaise that seems difficult to pull out of. Emperor Yuan is an indecisive Confucianist, his successor Cheng an impotent and free-spending hedonist, and Ai a flamboyant grandma's boy who will try to bequeath the entire Empire to his male lover Dong Xian, with less than successful results. Is this the end for Han?

Following the historically long reign of Emperor Wu, the Han Empire struggles to find a replacement, in light of the designated heir being dead. The first choice will die without ever having tasted real power, the second an incompetent buffoon who won't last a month in office, until finally a real alternative can be found from the most unlikely of places: prison.

In this last of three parts of Wu of Han, with the back of the once-mighty Xiongnu Empire broken, Emperor Wu's Han turns to the South, North, and West to gobble up most of its neighbor states in an orgy of expansion. At home, the aging Wu must contend with peasant uprisings, witchcraft directed against him, and his own building paranoia... any of which could destabilize that which he's spent a lif...

Tensions between the Han and Xiongnu Empires boil over into full-scale war after decades of humiliation at the hands of the northern horse-lords. When the traditional methods of neutralizing Xiongnu power fails, Emperor Wu must turn to a new generation of strategists to turn the Xiongnu's own strength against them: cavalry.

The young Emperor Wu of Han struggles to step out of the shadow of his grandmother and seize power in his own right. Meanwhile, he has sent an emissary behind enemy lines to find what mysterious peoples and empires lie far to the West, but it's uncertain what he'll find... or if he'll live to tell the tale.

The reigns of Han Emperors Wen and Jing took enormous strides to stabilize the dynasty both within and without. Lowered taxes, more lenient laws, and normalization of international relationships saw life under Wen and Jing greatly improve. But a blunder dealing with the autonomous Imperial Princes threatens to unmake everything...

With Han's first Emperor, Gaozu, dead, his wife the first Empress of China Lü Zhi plans on making a few... *alterations* to the goings on of court life. And she doesn't care who she has cut the arms and legs off of to achieve her goals.

The Han Dynasty is established by Liu Bang, who crowns himself it's first Emperor Gaozu. But though this is the beginning of a golden age for China, it get's off to a rough start, as to the north the steppe tribes have united into the terrifying Xiongnu Empire under the ancestor of Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan: Batur Chanyu. Within the empire itself, a murder-happy Empress Lü will inadvertently...

With the Qin Dynasty dead and buried, the victorious rebels turn on one another to establish who will be the next power in China. The Hegemon-King of Chu, Xiang Yu, squares off against his great rival the King of Han, Liu Bang.

Following the First Emperor's "Weekend At Bernie's"-esque death, the Qin Dynasty is thrown into turmoil over who will succeed the Emperor who sought to live forever. But at the heart of this web of intrigue sits the eunuch Zhao Gao, pulling the threads of the dynasty itself toward his own mysterious ends.

The victor of the Warring States Period has unified China into its first Empire and taken the name Shi Huang Di. Thereafter, he will expand his borders, unify his nation's language, build a Great Wall to the north, and attempt to stave off death itself.

In this final conclusion of the Warring States Period, the King of Qin at last begins his campaign to destroy the other six kingdoms and unify China under a new dynasty. But he'll have to contend with military setbacks, tenacious defenders, and assassins who will do anything to stop him.

In this first of two part exploring the end of the Warring States Period, Qin continues its campaign again the six other fractious kingdoms, decimating Zhao and Yan before putting the Zhou Dynasty itself to rest forever.

Qin's power continues to grow unabated, as the other states struggle to put aside their own differences long enough to deal with this emergent threat to their balance of power. As hastily put together "Vertical Alliance" might have the capacity to check Qin encroachment, but the King of Qin has dispatched his own agents to foreign courts to lure them away from their allies by promising them the mo...

A brief synopsis of Tomb Sweeping Festival, it's traditions and expectations... then onto the state of Qin's early defeats at the hands of a combined Wei and Han. It's Qin's subsequent reforms at the hand of the Legalist Shang Yang,however, that are the real focus of this episode. Newly centralized and militarized, the now Kingdom of Qin begins it it's expansion, beginning with the independent rea...

The transition from the Spring and Autumn to the Warring States Period is, all in all, an eight decade process. But the major event that would shape the conflict to come is the civil war that would destroy the pre-eminent power of the 6th century BCE Zhou Empire, and result in the total breakup of the State of Jin into three of the seven soon-to-be warring states: Han, Wei, and Zhao.

The magnum opus of the legendary general and tactician of the Spring and Autumn Period, Sun Tzu. In this episode, we go over the life of the military genius, as well as an overview of his manual to success on the battlefield, and how it remains relevant and insightful even today.

This episode we chronicle the life of Master Kong A.K.A. Confucius, as well as detail his socio-political philosophies which would shape the future of China, as well as those of much of the rest of East Asia. Less fighting, more thinking, in the first of two interim episodes before plunging headlong into the chaos of the Warring States...

Spheres of domination, intrafamiliar betrayal, and tangled alliances are the markers of the second portion of the Spring and Autumn period, called the Age of Encroachments. All of this leading to the major powers of the Zhou Empire to engage in decades-long draw out proxy-wars along their borders... all leading toward war outright and the near-destruction of Chu by a new player from the southeast,...

King You of Zhou lays headless, the capital a smouldering ruin, and royal authority utterly destroyed. Regional lords exploit the chaos at hand to expand their own domains - and at times declare their own kingdoms - while the new, toothless Eastern Zhou kings struggle to stabilize the situation. After a holiday break, we're right back into the action with the beginnings of the Spring and Autumn Pe...

This Episode, we take a time-out from the historical flow to take advantage of the upcoming Chinese New Year festivities. We explore the history, legends, customs, and meaning behind this ancient and storied period of celebration. Happy Year of the Yang Wood Horse!