The Master of Demon Gorge: A Chinese History Podcast

Yan Jiagan is the forgotten president of the Republic of China or Taiwan. He served between 1975 and 1978 but was largely considered a transitional figure.  However, before he was president, in 1949, he first rescued Taiwan from economic catastrophe, paving the way for all future developments. For that reason alone, the man deserves to be remembered. Support the show

"The man from Qi worries about the sky" is a Chinese idiom meaning to worry unnecessarily about things that won't happen. It comes from a story found in Liezi, an ancient tract of philosophy. But what was this place called Qi? What does the original fable say? Have we misunderstood it this whole time? Support the show

The story of the Ming Dynasty secret police led by eunuchs, the most infamous eunuch among them, and the faction of mandarins who opposed them. Support the show

Regarding Gu Yanwu, the 17th century intellectual who has recently been the subject of controversy in Taiwanese politics. Support the show

The remarkable Dujiangyan irrigation system in Sichuan was constructed in the 250s B.C. but remains in use today and remains crucial to the Chinese economy. Support the show

Regarding Zizhi Tongjian, or "General Mirror on Good Governance," and the man who wrote it during the 11th century. Support the show

Taiping Guangji or "Extensive Records of the Taiping Era" is an anthology of stories compiled during the early Song Dynasty. Its editors chose to collect the stories under a series of clearly unworkable categories. In so doing, they made Taiping Guangji a perfect illustration of the point made in an essay by the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. Support the show

In 1615, the Tokugawa Shogunate made a rule that all Japanese emperors must study "Policy Digests of the Zhen'guan Era," written 900 years earlier in Tang Dynasty China. What is this book and what's important about it? Support the show

The Ming Dynasty novel "Journey to the West" ranks among the great classics of Chinese literature. I recently reread it, and I have thoughts. Support the show

The story of the somewhat mysterious Tocharian people of Kuche in today's Xinjiang, confusingly named after the Tokharoi of Bactria in modern Afghanistan, from whose language Chinese gets its word for "honey." Support the show

The story of the "Door Gods" and how a pair of Tang Dynasty generals came to serve in that role. Support the show

The tale of another short (not to mention poor) man who achieved greatness. Chunyu Kun was a famed "wit" from Warring States era State of Qi. Besides services as a diplomat and political advisor, he was famous for being the sort of party guest you may not allow to leave by evening's end... Support the show

A fascinating minority group in the former USSR, chiefly Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, is the people known as the Dungan. Originally Hui Muslims from northwestern China, they migrated into Central Asia in the 19th century. This story is about them, their Chinese-derived language, and one of their most significant cultural figures, Iasyr Shivaza. Support the show

The Confucian philosopher Zengzi and some of his ideas that became deeply influential in Chinese culture. Support the show

Even as I want to finish telling you the story of Wu Zixu, the fact is that his life so intersected with the lives and careers of other major figures that in this second part of his story I must shift the spotlight onto someone else. King Goujian of Yue, initially defeated and kept by his enemy as a hostage, would rise to the status of a hegemon of the Spring and Autumn period. During his career h...

One of the most famous personalities from the late-Spring and Autumn period, Wu Zixu was someone I grew up learning about as a commendable character. But, upon revisiting his story, I find him closer to being the hero of a Greek tragedy than a role model. Here we tell the first half of his story and how his life intersected with other major figures like King Helü of Wu and Sunzi, the author of &qu...

Yan Ying, the statesman of the State of Qi during the Spring and Autumn era, was famously diminutive. But his short stature was only cover for a brilliant intellect. And he went down in Chinese history as a great man. Support the show

"History is written by the victors," so goes the common saying. But Chinese court historians actually usually provided us with honest accounts of events, even if they made the rulers of their times look bad. Why? Why gave them the right, as well as the sense of responsibility, to speak truth to power? Support the show

The legend of the "James Bond" of Republican China and how his fictional codename became a household name. Support the show

Continuing our series on the hegemons of the Spring and Autumn era: Duke Wen of Jin, who as a prince lived in exile for 19 years. Support the show

Continuing our discussion of the hegemons of the Spring and Autumn period, we look at Duke Xiang of Song, whom some consider a hegemon but perhaps shouldn't. Support the show

Duke Huan of Qi dominated the politics of Spring and Autumn China from the 680s B.C. until the 640s under the slogan of "respecting the king and suppressing the barbarians." Here is why the role he played was similar to that being played by the United States in the modern international state system. Support the show

In 413 A.D., the self-proclaimed king of Daxia or Great Xia, one of the Sixteen "Barbarian" Kingdoms of the age, ordered the construction of a new capital city to be named Tong'wan. The only trouble was, the spot King Helian Bobo chose was in the middle of nowhere... Support the show

In 1222, a Daoist priest from eastern China went to Afghanistan to sit down with a man who had already shaken the world to its core: Genghis Khan. This is the story of that priest, whose name, perhaps serendipitously, is widely remembered even today. Support the show

"The Chronicles of the Eastern Zhou Kingdoms," written in the Ming Dynasty, recounts the history of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States eras. It is considered a novel but is basically nonfiction, so closely as it hews to actual historical records. We discuss the novel, the nature of what a novel is in Chinese tradition, and a key work of history that formed the basis of the "Ch...