Podcasts about Eurasia

Thanks to Katie, Torin, and Eilee for suggesting this week's topic, foxes! Further reading: Meet the Endangered Sierra Nevada Red Fox Long snouts protect foxes when diving headfirst in snow Black bears may play important role in protecting gray fox The red fox: A black and gold Sierra Nevada red fox [photo taken from the first link above]: The extremely fluffy Arctic fox: The gray fox [photo by VJAnderson - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=115382784]: Show transcript: Welcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I'm your host, Kate Shaw. This week we have an episode about foxes, a suggestion by Katie, and we'll talk about fox species suggested by Torin and Eilee. Foxes are omnivorous canids related to dogs and wolves, and just to be confusing, male foxes are sometimes called dogs. Female foxes are vixens and baby foxes are cubs or kits. But even though foxes are related to dogs and wolves, they're not so closely related that they can interbreed with those other canids. Plus, of course, not every animal that's called a fox is actually considered a fox scientifically. The largest species of fox is the red fox, which also happens to be the one most people are familiar with. It's common throughout much of North America, Eurasia, and the Middle East, and even parts of northern Africa. It's also been introduced in Australia, where it's an invasive species. It's a rusty-red in color with black legs and white markings, including a white tip to the tail. It has large pointed ears and a long narrow muzzle. There are lots of subspecies of red fox throughout its natural range, including one suggested by Eilee, the Sierra Nevada red fox. It lives in the Sierra Nevada and Oregon Cascades mountain ranges in the western United States, in parts of California, Nevada, and Oregon. It's smaller than the red fox and some individuals are red, some are black and gold, and some are a mix of red and gray-brown. Its paws are covered with long hair that protects the paw pads from snow, and its coat is thick. The Sierra Nevada red fox was first identified as a subspecies in 1937, but it took more than half a century until any scientists started studying it. It used to be common throughout the mountain ranges where it lives, but after more than a century of trapping for fur and shooting it for bounty, it's one of the rarest foxes in the world. Fewer than 100 adults are known to survive in the wild, maybe even fewer than 50. For a long time, scientists thought the Sierra Nevada red fox had been extirpated from California, and that it might even be completely extinct. Then a camera trap got pictures of one in 2010. It's fully protected now, so hopefully its numbers will grow. Torin suggested we learn about the Arctic fox, which lives in far northern areas like Greenland, Siberia, Alaska, and parts of northern Canada. The Arctic fox's muzzle is relatively short and its ears are rounded, and it also has a rounder body and shorter legs than other foxes. This helps keep it warm, since it has less surface area to lose body heat. During the summer, the Arctic fox is brown and gray, while in winter it's white to blend in with the snowy background. There are some individuals who are gray or brown-gray year-round, although it's rare. The Arctic fox's fur is thick and layered to keep it warm even in bitterly cold weather, and like the Sierra Nevada red fox, it has a lot of fur on its feet. The Arctic fox is omnivorous like other foxes, although in the winter it mostly eats meat. In summer it eats bird eggs, berries, and even seaweed along with fish and small animals like lemmings and mice. It also eats carrion from dead animals and what's left from a polar bear's meal. It has such a good sense of smell that it can smell a carcass from 25 miles away, or 40 km. Its hearing is good too, which allows it to find mice and other animals that are traveling under the snow. Like other foxes,

This episode is a bit long--we are talking about the last elements of the reign of Takara Hime, the fall of Baekje, and the attempt to restore the kingdom, which culminated in the Battle of Hakusukinoe, aka the Battle of Baekgang.  For more, check out our blog at https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-124 Rough Transcript Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.  My name is Joshua and this is Episode 124:  The Battle of Haku-suki-no-e. Echi no Takutsu looked out from where he stood on the deck of his ship.  The horizon seemed to bob up and down, but he knew that was just an illusion caused by the waves.  And upon those waves, hundreds of Yamato ships floated, ready to do battle.  As a veteran of this and other wars, Takutsu was used to surveying flotillas of ships, and yet, none of his years of experience had quite had this kind of impact upon him.  Yamato's ally, Baekje, had fallen in battle to the combined might of the Tang and Silla forces, and now they were assisting a band of rebels who were trying to once again restore their kingdom.  Silla was, of course, an all too common adversary for the Yamato court, but the Tang: now that was another matter. The Tang dynasty had only grown in the four and a half decades since it was founded.  They had destroyed their enemies and continued to expand.  They had defeated the Gokturks and expanded into the heart of Eurasia. Even in cases like Goguryeo, who had so far managed to hold out against their attacks, it was clear that they had an effect.  The Tang dynasty was the superpower of its day, and for whatever airs Yamato may have put on, they were still a backwater in comparison. And yet, on this day, that backwater seemed, by all rights, to have the upper hand.  In response to the destruction of Baekje, Yamato had marshalled all of their forces.  Their boats greatly outnumbered those of their opponents, and if they could defeat the Tang navy, then they could make landfall and connect with the remaining Baekje forces attempting to restore their kingdom.  And so here they were, at the mouth of the Baengma River, also known as the Baekgang, or, in Japanese, the Haku-suki-no-e.  The Tang forces were bottled up, and the greater Yamato forces seemed poised to take them out.   The only problem was that the river mouth narrowed quickly, so that only a few ships could attack at any given time.  Still, with overwhelming numbers, Echi no Takutsu and his fellow soldiers expected that they would still be able to overcome their enemies and place their allies back in control of their territory. With confidence in their victory, the Yamato ships sailed forward, prepared to crush their enemies, and restore Baekje…   Greetings, everyone, and welcome back.  As you may have figured out we are still in the later half of the 7th century.  During the last episode we talked about the embassy to the Tang dynasty court that got delayed—placed under house arrest for a year—because the Tang dynasty was conducting their special military operations over on the Korean peninsula.  That was in the year 660.  Specifically, the Tang were working in conjunction with Silla to destroy the Kingdom of Baekje, and they even returned to the Tang capital with prisoners, including the royal family and many high-ranking nobles.  That they didn't want the ambassadors leaving, and presumably informing Baekje on their way back, would seem to speak to the strong ties between Baekje and Yamato.  After all, several times in the Nihon Shoki we have seen where the Baekje royal line was endangered and a prince that had been living at the Yamato court was brought across the strait with Yamato support to place them back on the throne. This episode, we are going to look a little closer at what happened on the peninsula and what happened when news of the event reached the Yamato court.  This would culminate in one of the most famous naval battles in east Asia—certainly one of the most famous in Japanese history.  It is recorded in records from various sides, so unlike many of the raids on Silla, and other conflicts on the peninsula, we have multiple accounts documenting it, and if the Japanese account is to be believed than it may have been among the largest naval conflicts in the world at that time. So let me take you through what the Chronicles have to say up until the battle and then we can talk about what happened and a little bit about what it would mean for Yamato in the years to come. We'll start a bit before the conflict, while Baekje was still going strong.  The Chronicles are filled with portents and omens, and of course, they already knew what had happened.  Still, let's talk about some of what they mentioned leading up to the battle, as well as some of the remaining accounts demonstrating the cross-strait exchanges. We'll start in 655, the year after Takara Hime had assumed the throne, being given the name Saimei Tennou by the Chroniclers.  On the first day of the 5th month we are told that a “man of Tang” was seen riding a dragon in the sky.  He is described as wearing a broad hat of blue—or green—oiled cloth.  He rode fast from the peak of Mt. Katsuraki and disappeared on Mt. Ikoma.  At noon he galloped over the pines of Sumiyoshi and disappeared into the west. This is obviously a fantastical story, but let's talk about what we can.  It is hard not to see in this some of the importance that the Tang dynasty would play in this reign, especially given the fact that this occurred in the first year after Takara hime had ascended the throne.  It would seem to have been meant here as an omen.  I have not seen specific comments about this, though I'm sure someone has looked into it.  But for me, I am struck by the fact this person was, first and foremost, identifiable as Tang, likely meaning because of his clothing.  And he was riding a dragon.  Dragons were known in Japan, but not quite as popular in folklore as they are shown to be on the mainland.  The Dragon was the imperial symbol of the Tang and other dynasties.  Japan had its own stories of dragon kings and other such things, but in this case I can't imagine that the connection with the imperial throne would be ignored. The hat is also interesting.  The color is listed as “blue” though Aston translates this as “green”.  The term “aoi” was used for any color on the spectrum from blue to green.  In fact, it is still the case that the “green” light on a Japanese traffic signal is still referred to as “blue”.  There were more specific colors, but the word “midori” would have been more like a specific word, like “teal”, “cerulean”, or “aquamarine”, rather than a core color like we would use blue, yellow, or, in this case, green.  The fact that it was made of oiled stuff suggests to me that it was waterproofed.  It is noted specifically with the character for “kasa”, which typically refers to a wide brimmed hat used to keep the rain off. I suspect that in this case it was the kind of hat that we often see on Tang dynasty figurines of riders.  They often have a tall, wide-brimmed hat, often with drape of sheer fabric around the edge.  This kind of hat would eventually be popular in Japan amongst traveling noblewomen, as it helped keep them out of the sun and away from the bugs and, well, it also acted as a barrier between the them and the rest of the world.  The versions seen on the Tang figurines are usually somewhat short, probably just enough to obscure the face, and may have helped to cut down on glare.  These often aren't obviously oiled, but that certainly could have been the case, and that may have been another method of protecting travelers from anything that nature could throw at them. It does seem a very particular image. The course of the rider is somewhat interesting.  From Katsuraki, on the southwestern edge of the Nara basin, north to Mt. Ikoma.  Then west to Sumiyoshi and off to the far west—in other words, back to the Tang dynasty.  Sumiyoshi is also of particular interest. The pines of Sumiyoshi are a particular poetic trope, or utamakura.  They help to conjure famous imagery of a place, and so it is hardly surprising that they would be found in this context.  In this case I suspect that is the main reason they are mentioned.  However, Sumiyoshi also has its own importance.  Sumiyoshi was once on the seashore, and Sumiyoshi was a common shrine for travelers to pray at for safe travels.  In fact, there are Sumiyoshi shrines across the archipelago that all are tied back to the Sumiyoshi in the modern Ohosaka area, and they often found near the shore as places where travelers could pray for safe passage before they headed off on the sea. And so it would make sense that the rider would head off over Sumiyoshi and to the west, much as the various ambassadors would travel off to the west. There may be more to it, but I suspect that this was either referencing the growing links between Yamato and the Tang, or perhaps simply referring to the various kentoushi—the ambassadors who crossed the seas to the Tang court and brought back so much to the archipelago. The next obvious omen seems to come in 657.  In this case it was a white fox seen in the land of Iwami.  It was mentioned in the same record as when ambassadors Adzumi no Tsuratari and Tsu no Kutsuma came back from the Western Seas via Baekje.  It isn't clear that the two are connected, though.  Perhaps there is something I'm missing.  It is notable that this seems to be the only mention of Iwami that I could find, at least doing a quick search for the characters in the electronic version of the text.  Iwami is the land to the west of Izumo, on the western end of modern Shimane prefecture, and the western end of the San'in-do, along the northern edge of western Honshu.  It is a mountainous region on the edge of the Japan Sea, the Nihonkai. We've talked about many of the other accounts after that, until the following year, 658.  We have a note about a south-pointing chariot, which we'll discuss in a later episode, but that was clearly another connection to continental technologies.  After that we have an account from Izumo.  Huge numbers of dead fish were washing ashore, up to three feet, or roughly a meter, deep.  The fish were apparently the size of a pufferfish, with beaks like a sparrow and thorny scales, several inches long.  I wonder if, by the description, they could be referring to triggerfish or parrotfish, which are found in the Japan Sea.  Fish kills, or mass die-offs, are unfortunate events that occasionally happen for a variety of reasons.  The most common is actually asphyxiation—algae blooms or other such events that eat up the oxygen, causing fish to die off in an area.  Fish kills might also happen because of disease, undersea quakes, and other factors.  Of course, to anyone in Izumo, this would have been a terribly random event.  I can't tell whether or not it was an omen, but it certainly could have been.  If so, I doubt it would have been a very good one. The strange fish that were brought up were called “sparrow fish” by the locals.  They believed they were sparrows that had gone to the ocean and turned into fish. Immediately after that, in the Chronicle, we get a somewhat odd entry in that it seems out of place.  We are told that Baekje had sent to Japan requesting aid.  Tang and Silla had teamed up and captured King Wicha, his queen, and the heir to the throne.  It is probably notable that this is written as “one book says”.  Also, recall that dates were still somewhat problematic at this time.  They were based on the regnal years of the monarch or the dates according to the sexagesimal cycle, either of which could have been off, particularly at this time, in different sources.  I suspect that the fact that they mention it as “one book says” indicates that even the compilers of the Nihon Shoki weren't quite sure that this was in the right spot, but it was an account of what did eventually happen—just not until two years later.  This position is bolstered by the fact that the next account talks about how Azumi no Muarji no Tsuratari had returned from what was apparently another trip to the Western Seas and Baekje, just a year after the previous.  Again, this could be the same expedition, with accounts misplacing the dates, or with dates according to when he left and others when he arrived back.  Still, it brings us yet another omen. Apparently, around this point, Baekje had been successful against Silla.  This is a good reminder that Baekje was not exactly an innocent bystander in everything that had happened.  King Wicha was rather famous in his own day, seen as a paragon of courage, largely because he was taking the fight to Silla, often allying with Goguryeo to block Silla from their access to the Tang and others.  Silla, who had been adopting Tang culture and style, and even claimed some distant descent from ethnic Han immigrants during the time of the Han commandries on the peninsula, were still able to forge close ties with the Tang, who seemed to preference them over Baekje and Goguryeo.  This may have been part of the general diplomatic game of the Middle Kingdom going back to the Han times, where they would often look to ally with those states beyond the immediate border states, so that those on their immediate border would have to defend themselves on two fronts.  This was likely more aimed at Goguryeo than Baekje, at least initially, but the alliance meant that Baekje, whom the Tang regularly chastised for their actions against Silla, was also in the crosshairs. However, up through 658, it seems Baekje's actions were largely successful.  Both the Baekje and Silla annals mention attacks by Baekje against the country of Silla in the following year, which otherwise correlate with the record in the Nihon Shoki.  Here we should remember that the author of the Samguk Sagi, which preserved these records, was writing centuries later, and had a clear pro-Silla bias.  There are several years missing from the Baekje annals at this time, but the idea that Baekje was attacking Silla is hardly controversial.  In the Silla Annals, in 659,  we also get word that Silla sent envoys to the Tang court protesting Baekje's aggression and asking the Tang court for aid.  Aid that would soon come, unbeknownst to others—even Silla wasn't quite sure until they showed up. And this is likely why the Nihon Shoki records a strange incident in Baekje, where a horse, of its own accord, started circling the Golden Hall of a Buddhist temple in the Baekje capital, continuing day and night, and stopping only to graze.  In some regions, walking around a sacred temple or stupa was considered a particular form of prayer, and perhaps the horse knew something and was trying to make merit.  In the text we are told explicitly what this meant:  the downfall of Baekje was nigh, and it would fall in the coming year, 660.  In a similar fashion, the Baekje annals, and the Samguk Yusa, likely pulling from the same sources, go through a series of omens, from birds to fish, to various ghosts, all saying that Baekje was about to fall.  The annals at this point paint Wicha as consumed with the material world and debauchery, likely a largely later indictment to add a moral explanation to the events that would soon occur. In Yamato, there were other omens as well.  Things were not entirely well in the Yamato capital.  Remember, this was Takara Hime's second reign, and her son was fully grown, himself, so she was no spring chicken.  On the 13th day of the 7th month of the year 659, she had the ministers expound the Urabon sutra in all the temples in Asuka and had a requital made to the ancestors for 7 generations.  We are also told that in that same year, the Miyatsuko of Izumo was made to repair the Itsuki god's shrine.  I have to wonder if these were to help make merit, or were just regular occurrences, but we are also told that fox bit at the head of a creeper that a man was carrying and ran off with it, and a dog found a dead man's hand and forearm and dropped them at Ifuya shrine.  The chroniclers claim these omens were not about Baekje, but rather about Takara Hime herself—claiming that she was not long for this world. It is good to remember that it is only now that we can look back and see where things were leading.  At the time, nobody really knew what the future held, and business went on as normal.  The omens and portents were all well and good, but they are being interpreted after the fact.  There is no indication that people were telling Takara Hime that her time was about to come.  This is illustrated by the fact that there are plenty of regular accounts in here as well.  We have a few episodes that actually reference the “shiguma”—the polar bear or the brown bear—and Gogureyo.  The first is of Goguryeo merchants—likely part of an embassy—trying to sell a shiguma fur in the local markets for 60 pounds of floss silk, a price that was apparently laughable, as the market commissioner turned them down.  And here I'll digress briefly because this is rather a remarkable entry, even though it seems like almost nothing, because it demonstrates something we rarely see but often suspect.  For all that the ambassadors to various courts were performing their diplomatic functions, they were also there to trade.  This is part of how they funded the journey.  They would bring some goods for the court and the sovereign, of course, and hopefully get as much or more in return.  But they would also trade in the local markets.  This is probably part of what the embassy to the Tang was doing when they made landfall and then stayed put for a month or so.  I suspect they were working with the local government to ship off the tribute, but also availing themselves of the local markets.  You didn't necessarily exchange currency, but you would sell your trade goods and that would likely help fund the embassy for the time they were in the country, at least for anything the host nation didn't provide. It is also interesting that we talk of a market commissioner.  We've mentioned markets before, and their existence is likely more than just a random assortment of shops with goods to sell.  They were overseen by local officials, and they would have been regulated to some extent by the larger state, probably with taxes and other goods making their way up to the government.  I don't know that we have a clear idea of what it looked like until later, and so an entry like this just gives us a little hint at what was going on in the day to day administration of the entire country. Continuing with the shiguma theme, apparently a painter named Komaro—a Japanese name, but he's described as a “Goguryeo” painter, which could mean that he trained in Goguryeo, or came from there and changed his name.  It is also possible, I supposed, that he was simply trained in the Goguryeo style.  Anyway, he was apparently quite successful because he entertained guests from his own uji—his own surname—and so borrowed 70 official shiguma skins for them to sit on.  Apparently this was a garish display that left the guests astonished and ashamed to even be part of the event, so they went away. So sitting on fur rugs was apparently not a thing to do—or perhaps just not that many.  But I would note that he apparently borrowed them from the government—they were “official” after all.  So what was the government doing with them?  They were probably tribute from the Emishi in the north, or perhaps just the result of regular trade.  And Komaro must have had some pull to be able to request them for his own private use.  Unfortunately, I don't have any further details, so we are left to guess at most of the rest. But we do continue on with the Goguryeo theme in the following year, the first month of 660, with envoys from Goguryeo arriving in Tsukushi.  They likely had no idea that while they were in Yamato, big changes were about to take place back on the peninsula.  It would take them four months to get to Naniwa, arriving on the 8th day of the 5th month.  They couldn't have known everything that was happening on the peninsula, behind them. And that's because it was in the third month of tha year that Tang Gaozong commanded Su Dingfang, along with Kim Inmun and Liu Boying, to take 130,000 land and see troops to subdue Baekje.  They landed at Teongmul islands, west of Baekje, and, word having reached their court, the King of Silla sent the renowned general Kim Yusin in charge of a force of 50,000 troops to lend their support.  Kim Yusin was a veteran of fighting between Baekje and Silla, and he had already face the enemy on the battlefield, but now he had the aid of the Tang troops. King Wicha had heard of their advance, and asked his court for advice.  One suggestion was to try to crush the Tang soldiers as soon as they came ashore—force them to stay on their boats and destroy them before they could get on land and organized.  Another suggested that the Tang army, for all its size, was built for speed and a decisive victory.  If Baekje could simply harry them long enough, it would wear them down, and they would have to return.  They could then turn their sights on Silla, an enemy they knew how to deal with. One noble, Heungsu, who had been out of favor in the court, and even exiled at one point, offered his advice—that they should fortify the Baek river and Tanhyeon Pass, so that they could not approach.  It would be a near suicidal task, but brave soldiers could defend those narrow points against larger forces, since they would be forced to engage with fewer forces at a time.  Heungsu was ridiculed, however, and his ideas were abandoned. Instead, they devised a scheme whereby they would let the Tang ships enter the river, until they could only go two abreast, and then they would attack them from the shore and destroy them.  Likewise, at the pass, rather than fortifying it, as suggested, they would wait in ambush until the Tang forces could not maneuver, and they would then destroy them as well.  This seemed like a plan, and it was given to the general Kyebaek to carry out. At first, it looked like it would work.  General Kyebaek took five thousand soldiers to Hwangsan as soon as the heard that the Silla soldiers were advancing through the pass.  They engaged the Silla forces four separate times, defeating Silla each time.  However, every assault took its toll.  The five thousand troops could not prevail against a force 10 times their size, and eventually they were wiped out, along with general Kyebaek.  Without opposition, the Silla forces met up with the Tang, and the two armies joined forces.  They actually were able to use the mountainous terrain, which otherwise would have been used to keep them out, to their own advantage.  Eventually they were able to advance on the capital.  The Baekje forces fought to exhaustion, but they were outmatched by the Tang-Silla alliance.  Eventually, they marched on the city, and King Wicha knew that they would be defeated. Four years before this, an official had spoken up against King Wicha, and had been thrown in prison, where he died, emaciated.  However, before he died he offered advice that if an enemy were ever to come, the army should be deployed to the passes and to the upstream banks of the rivers, and that no enemy should be allowed to pass those points.  Looking at the enemy at his gates, King Wicha regretted that he had not listened to that advice.  He grabbed his son and fled to the northern border of Baekje while Su Tingfang and the combined forces besieged the capital.  He sought refuge at Ungjin fortress, in modern Kongju.  This all happened in the 7th lunar month of the year 660. With King Wicha fled, along with the crown prince, his second son, T'ae, declared himself king and led the defense of the city.  However, several others of King Wicha's sons looked at this and were afraid that it now didn't matter what happened.  If T'ae defended the city, then they would be next on his hit list, as they were clearly his rivals to power, and if the Tang defeated them, well, it didn't look good, either.  So they and their retainers all fled the city as well.  This sparked a mass exodus as other citizens tried to do the same, and T'ae could not stop them.  Eventually, the forces weakened, Su Tingfang took the city and raised the Tang banners.  T'ae opened the gates and pleaded for his life.  When King Wicha heard all of this, he knew there was no escape.  He and his sons surrendered themselves and the fortresses to the Tang-Silla alliance.  He and his sons, and many of his people, were taken captive and taken back to the Tang court, where the Yamato ambassadors saw them being paraded around. Now the king may have been captured, but Baekje was not completely subdued.  A few of the remaining citizens held out hope that they could gather their forces and kick out the Tang and Silla and take back their country.  They knew that, although most of the royal family was captured there was still one more:  Prince Pung.  Prince Pung, as you may recall from previous episodes, was residing in Yamato, a royal hostage—or perhaps more of a restrained guest.  The rebels acknowledged him as their king and sent word to Yamato asking that he come back, along with reinforcements, and retake the kingdom.  In the meantime, they gathered and fought as they could, wearing down the Tang and Silla forces.  The rebels, after all, knew the land, and the invaders were still reliant on their supply lines.  This situation persisted for several years. Back in Yamato, in the 5th month of 660, they still were likely unaware of what had happened on the peninsula.  There was no social media to alert them to the dangers, and it would still be a few months before the Baekje capital actually fell.  They were busy entertaining the envoys from Goguryeo, or preparing 100 raised seats an one hundred kesa, or Buddhist vestments, for a Benevolent King ritual.  They were focused on their wars in the north, with the Mishihase, which they had been successful in Praising Abe no Hirafu for his successful campaign.  There is one record that says that in the 5th month people started carrying weapons around with them for no good reason, because they had heard of the destruction of Baekje, but that hadn't actually happened yet, so this is likely out of place—possibly by a couple of years. There is a note about the destruction of Baekje in the 7th month, but that is from the “Records of the reigns of Japan” or Nihon Seiki, a work that is no longer extant that was apparently written by a Goguryeo priest, who noted Baekje's destruction in his history, but this was probably not exactly information available to Yamato at the time.  And no, I don't want to gloss over the fact that we are given another source that was likely being used by the Chroniclers.  I want to delve into the fact that this was by a Goguryeo priest, known in Japanese as Doken.  I want to talk about how this work pops up throughout the reigns of Saimei, Tenchi, and apparently even in the Fujiwara Kaden.  It seems like he was close to Nakatomi no Kamatari and the Fujiwara house, which probably explains how he had access to the events mentioned and why his work was known.  However, I don't really have time for all of that because we are trying to focus on what was happening with Baekje and what was happening Yamato at the time. And in Yamato it wasn't until the 9th month that word finally arrived via a Buddhist novice named “Kakchyong”, according to Aston.  He carried word of the defeat, but also word that Kwisil Poksin had taken up arms and was leading a rebellion against Tang and Silla control.    The royal city, which some records say had fallen in mere days, was once more under Baekje control, according to the word that reached Yamato.  It does seem that Poksin held it for a time, but they weren't able to set in for any kind of prolonged fight in any one spot.  It seems that the fighting was going back and forth, and the rebels were remaining on the move while fighting actions against the invading forces.  Poksin had apparently captured some of the enemy troops, though, and sent them to Yamato, possibly as tribute and payment for future reinforcements, and possibly to demonstrate their victories. And if that was the case, it seemed to have worked.  Takara Hime agreed to help Baekje.  She agreed to send troops, commanding them to go from a hundred directions and meet up in Sateok—likely meaning that this was an emergency deployment and rather than everyone gathering in Kyushu and heading over together, they were getting there as fast as they could, however they could, to try and come to Baekje's aid.  She also released Prince Pung to return as well, and basically named him the King of Baekje herself.  As for Takara Hime and the main force, they moved first to Naniwa and gathered there.  She was considering going on to Tsukushi and then traveling with the bulk of the navy from there. Omens were also coming in, and it wasn't good.  In the province of Suruga, they built a boat, but apparently, overnight, the bow and stern switched places, which the Chroniclers saw as a bad omen.  And then there were a swarm of insects reported in Shinano as coming from a westerly direction.  Another bad sign, especially given that Tang and Silla were both west of Yamato. Although they started preparing in the 9th month of 660, it took them until the first month of 661 to have the royal ship ready to go.  It is likely that much of what was happening was not just a waiting navy putting to sea, but rather there were emergency build orders to build or repair ships and make them ready for the crossing and eventual attack.  The royal ship made its through the Seto Inland Sea, past Bizen, the nearer part of ancient Kibi, and on to Iyo, on Shikoku.  They seem to have had a few setbacks in their journey, and it wasn't until the 5th month that they reached the Asakura palace, though to be in Chikuzen, in Tsukushi, aka northern Kyushu.  The month before, Poksin had written and asked to wait upon the prince, which I suspect was a polite way of asking when the reinforcements would finally arrive. Unfortunately, at Asakura, disaster struck.  The Chroniclers claim this was because they had cleared sacred trees in order to make room for the palace and the kami were none to pleased.  The palace itself was demolished and several notable people, including the Grand Treasurer, took ill and died.  Not a great start to things.  It was here that they met up with the envoys coming back from Chang'an who no doubt told them about their house arrest and everything else.  On top of this, we are told that in the 6th month Prince Ise, of whom little more is given, died, and then, a little more than a month later, he was followed by the sovereign herself: Takara Hime. I suspect that Prince Ise may have been one of Takara Hime's sons, possibly in line for the throne, otherwise, why make mention of his death.  However, Takara's passing would have no doubt thrown the war plans into disarray.  It is quite likely that she wasn't actually the one doing most of the heavy lifting—in all likely that was her son, Prince Naka no Oe, who was handling a lot of that.  But still, the death of the sovereign just before you head off to war, was not great.  They had to send a funeral procession back to Naniwa and Asuka.  Prince Naka no Oe accompanied it as far as the Iwase Palace, but didn't go all the way back.  As the procession headed for Naniwa, he composed a poem: Longing as I do For a sight of thee Now that I have arrived here, Even thus do I long Desirous of a sight of thee! Prince Naka no Oe had just lost his sovereign and his mother, and he was now fully in charge of the armada headed to try and relieve Baekje.  He would have to continue the plans while Takara Hime's remains headed back to Asuka.  The funeral procession arrived in the 10th month, and her body was put in temporary interment for at Asuka-gahara as 9 days of mourning began.  Her son, however, would continue to mourn from afar.  He put on white clothing—a symbol of purity and associated with funerals and death, at least in Buddhist tradition. He had no time, though.  By the 8th month, Prince Naka no Oe was sending Adzumi no Hirafu no Omi and Kawabe no Momoye no Omi, as generals of the Front Division, while Abe no Hirafu no Omi and Mononobe no Muraji no Kuma took up the mantle of generals of the rear division.  They sent men, along with arms and grain to help relieve the Baekje forces. After sending the initial forces to make way, in the 9th month he conferred a cap of woven stuff on Prince Pung, indicating his high rank in the Yamato court, and gave to him as a wife, the sister of a high ranking court official.  He then sent him off, with the help of Sawi no Muraji no Ajimasa and Hada no Miyatsuko no Takutsu, along with 5,000 troops to escort him back.  They made it to Baekje and were able to meet up with Poksin and their forces. On the Korean peninsula, one of the strategic objectives of the Tang was to create a foothold on the peninsula so that they could finally take out the Kingdom of Goguryeo.  That year was particularly cold, and apparently Tang forces tried to invade Goguryeo again, attacking with siege weapons and other war machines.  The Goguryeo soldiers fought valiantly, but appear to have reached a stalemate. In 662, some of the Yamato material started appearing for Poksin.  It included 100,000 arrows, 500 kin of raw silk, 1000 kin of floss silk, 1000 tan of cloth, 1000 hides of leather, and 3000 koku, or over 15,000 bushels, of seed rice.  The next month, he sent another 300 tan of silk to the king.  The Silk may not make much sense, but it would have likely been a form of currency that they could use to purchase other goods, and it could be used for clothing.  The leather may have even been useful for armor and other accoutrements.   But mostly, this was probably economic aid, outside of the 100,000 arrows.  That same month, the 3rd month of 662, the Tang-Silla alliance was trying to body Goguryeo,  and Goguryeo reached out for aid.  Yamato troops were reportedly sent to help, and the attacks against Goguryeo were blunted.  This really was, now, the Goguryeo-Baekje-Yamato alliance against the Tang-Silla alliance. Poksin and the rebels had holed up in a place called Chuyu, which they were using as their base of operations.  King Pung had arrived, and Poksin was officially made his Minister, but they decided to move out from Chuyu.  It was fine for defense, but the land was not fertile, and they wanted to establish a base where they apparently had more resources, so they found Phisyeong, with rivers to the north and west, and large earthworks to the south and east.  It had fertile land for growing crops, which could then feed the army. However, one of the veterans pointed out the Phisyeong was less than a day's march from their enemies' encampment, and it would be a simple nights march and the army could be at their doorstep.  Chuyu, for all it was not the most appealing place, was much more defensible.  In the end, though, they decided that they would move the capital to Phisyeong. In the 2nd month of the following year, in 663, Silla troops were ravaging southern Baekje, setting fire to the land, possibly trying to starve out any resistance. Sure enough, they moved in close to Phisyeong, and King Pung and his troops realized they were in danger, and moved back to the defensive position of Chuyu.  In the following month, the Yamato and Baekje forces began to take the fight to Silla.  They advanced on Silla territory with 27,000 troops.  They took some cities and fortresses. As all of this was going on, King Pung was beginning to wonder about Poksin and his loyalties.  After all, Poksin had been running things before Pung showed up, and why wouldn't he think he could run things just fine without Pung once this was all over?  He had raised the soldiers, right?  So who would they be loyal to?  Would they be loyal to Pung, who barely knew Baekje, having lived for so long in Yamato.  Or would they be loyal to Poksin, who had rallied them together at the brink of defeat? And so in the 6th month he conferred with his other ministers.  Now it isn't stated in the text, but I suspect that his other ministers were Baekje nobles, and Poksin, well, there really isn't much indication that he had started this out as a man of high station.  They all agreed that Poksin should be dealt with, and so Pung had Poksin taken into custody and beheaded. Now I don't know if it needs to be said, but putting your own top general to death in the middle of a war is not exactly the best thing for morale.  Silla heard about it, and made plans to attack, hoping to catch Baekje offguard.  Baekje heard about it, and they also knew that about 10,000 reinforcements were supposed to be arriving soon from Yamato.  Those were reinforcements that could turn the tide of any fight.  They just needed to make it up the Baek river, known in Japanese as the Haku-suki-no-e. The Silla and Tang troops surrounded the fortress of Chuyu, and Baekje desperately needed the reinforcements from Yamato.  The Tang navy had 170 ships sitting at the mouth of the Baek River, ready to prevent any reinforcements from getting in.  On the 17th day of the 8th month, according to the Nihon Shoki, the first ships of the Yamato fleet arrived, but they could make no headway against the Tang forces.  Based on other records, it appears that the Yamato fleet swelled to more than 400 ships, well over twice the size of the defending Tang navy.  They attacked at least four separate times, but despite their smaller size, the Tang ships had the advantage of the terrain, using the narrowing at the river, and they also had superior tactics.  Although the Yamato soldiers fought ferociously, they couldn't move the Tang fleet. Speaking of fighting, let's talk about what it meant.  There were no cannons or anything like that.  It is likely that the projectile weapons of the day were arrows, and based on the ship designs, it was likely that ships would need to get close and grapple with each other so that soldiers could actually do the fighting.  In this way, ships were like floating battlefields.  If you could burn the ships, then that was something, but fire would also be a danger to your own wooden vessel.  And so it is likely that ships would have to engage with each other and effectively let the other side grapple if you wanted to fight, unless you just wanted to exchange arrows. After being repulsed four times, ten days after they had first engaged, the Tang vessels finally counterattacked.  They were able to swarm out and envelope the right and left flanks or the Yamato ships.  Four hundred ships were burned and sent to the bottom of the sea.  The Yamato forces were unable to break through the blockade and had to turn around.  The Battle of Haku-suki-no-e was a total defeat, and only ten days later, Chuyu fell.  King Pung was able to escape, fleeing to Goguryeo, but the writing was on the wall: The Kingdom of Baekje would never be reconstituted.  The Yamato forces departed the continent and headed back to the archipelago.  They met up at Honye on the 24th day of the 9th month and started out for the archipelago on the following day, eventually returning to Yamato, along with some of the Baekje nobles and ministers who had fled with them. The results of this defeat were resounding.  The battle of Haku-suki-no-e, known in Korean as the Battle of Baekgang, or the Battle of the Baek River, would change the political landscape.  The Tang-Silla alliance would eventually continue to pressure Goguryeo, and the dictator, Yeong Gaesomun, would die three years later, in 666.  He had held out against Tang and Silla, but with his death, there was a moment of chaos as an internal struggle broke out in the Goguryeo court.  The divisions this caused weakened the country, which fell to the Tang-Silla alliance in 667. With both Goguryeo and Baekje gone, suddenly Silla was now the country on the Tang empire's borders.  Without their shared enemies, there was not longer an alliance between the two, and Silla would push back against the Tang.  The Tang held out on the peninsula for another decade, but without Silla support, it became too costly to continually ship supplies to the troops.  Silla was eventually able to force the Tang forces off of the peninsula, and thus began the period on the Korean peninsula known as Unified Silla, where Silla ruled all of the what is now north and south Korea. In the archipelago, in the aftermath of their ally's defeat, there was worry in the Yamato court.  They were afraid that the Tang empire would come after them, next, and they began building fortresses from Tsukushi all the way along Kyushu and the Seto Inland sea area.  These are peninsular style fortresses, often using earthworks and walls that were built up around the tops of mountains, using the terrain.  A large earthwork was put up between the coast and the Dazaifu, in case Tang troops landed in Hakata bay.  Today, many of these earthworks still exist.  Some were even repurposed for gun emplacements in the lead up to what would become World War II, as they were still highly defensible positions. The feared invasion never came, and the fortresses would eventually be abandoned, but they are still a testament to just how seriously Yamato took this threat. Next up, we'll take a look at Naka no Oe's reign.  Naka no Oe is known in the Chronicles as Tenchi Tennou, the sovereign of Heavenly Wisdom.  We'll talk about that some more as we get into his time on the throne.  Since 645 he had been a force in the Yamato court, but he had not taken the throne at a younger age.  Now, however, his power seemed secure.  He took the throne upon his mother's death, and we'll talk about that and more in future episodes. Until then, thank you once again for listening and for all of your support. If you like what we are doing, please tell your friends and feel free to rate us wherever you listen to podcasts.  If you feel the need to do more, and want to help us keep this going, we have information about how you can donate on Patreon or through our KoFi site, ko-fi.com/sengokudaimyo, or find the links over at our main website,  SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on topics from this episode. Also, feel free to reach out to our Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page.  You can also email us at the.sengoku.daimyo@gmail.com.  Thank you, also, to Ellen for their work editing the podcast. And that's all for now.  Thank you again, and I'll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan

Join Mr. Bilal Bilici, a member of the Grand National Assembly of Türkiye, and Hoover Senior Fellow H.R. McMaster as they discuss Türkiye's evolving role on the global stage, its central role in the volatile Black Sea and Middle East regions, and its future in NATO. In light of the recent arrest of Istanbul mayor and presidential candidate Ekrem İmamoğlu in March 2025, Mr. Bilici reflects on the state of Turkish politics today, the country's prospects for democracy, US-Türkiye relations and the most pressing issues both countries should align on, his take on Syria following the collapse of Assad, and the future of the tumultuous Turkish-Israeli relationship. ABOUT THE SPEAKERS Bilal Bilici is a member of the Grand National Assembly of Türkiye representing the province of Adana and a former member of the Foreign Policy Committee. Mr. Bilici began his political career in the Good Party, serving as an advisor to the Party Chair. He was the Good Party's representative to the United States before transitioning to the main opposition, the Republican People's Party (CHP), in 2024. In addition to his political career, Bilici has been influential in Turkish business. He has held leadership roles in the Foreign Economic Relations Board of Türkiye, including as Vice President of the Türkiye-Central American and Caribbean Business Council, and has served as Honorary Consul of Guatemala in Istanbul. Mr. Bilici earned an undergraduate degree in economics from Boston University and a master's degree in global affairs from Bahçeşehir University. H.R. McMaster is the Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is also the Bernard and Susan Liautaud Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute and lecturer at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business. He was the 25th assistant to the president for National Security Affairs. Upon graduation from the United States Military Academy in 1984, McMaster served as a commissioned officer in the United States Army for thirty-four years before retiring as a Lieutenant General in June 2018.

For a millennium and a half, India was a confident exporter of its diverse civilization, creating around it a vast empire of ideas. Indian art, religions, technology, astronomy, music, dance, literature, mathematics and mythology blazed a trail across the world, along a Golden Road that stretched from the Red Sea to the Pacific. In The Golden Road (Bloomsbury. 2025), William Dalrymple draws from a lifetime of scholarship to highlight India's oft-forgotten position as the heart of ancient Eurasia. For the first time, he gives a name to this spread of Indian ideas that transformed the world. From the largest Hindu temple in the world at Angkor Wat to the Buddhism of China, from the trade that helped fund the Roman Empire to the creation of the numerals we use today (including zero), India transformed the culture and technology of its ancient world – and our world today as we know it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

For a millennium and a half, India was a confident exporter of its diverse civilization, creating around it a vast empire of ideas. Indian art, religions, technology, astronomy, music, dance, literature, mathematics and mythology blazed a trail across the world, along a Golden Road that stretched from the Red Sea to the Pacific. In The Golden Road (Bloomsbury. 2025), William Dalrymple draws from a lifetime of scholarship to highlight India's oft-forgotten position as the heart of ancient Eurasia. For the first time, he gives a name to this spread of Indian ideas that transformed the world. From the largest Hindu temple in the world at Angkor Wat to the Buddhism of China, from the trade that helped fund the Roman Empire to the creation of the numerals we use today (including zero), India transformed the culture and technology of its ancient world – and our world today as we know it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For a millennium and a half, India was a confident exporter of its diverse civilization, creating around it a vast empire of ideas. Indian art, religions, technology, astronomy, music, dance, literature, mathematics and mythology blazed a trail across the world, along a Golden Road that stretched from the Red Sea to the Pacific. In The Golden Road (Bloomsbury. 2025), William Dalrymple draws from a lifetime of scholarship to highlight India's oft-forgotten position as the heart of ancient Eurasia. For the first time, he gives a name to this spread of Indian ideas that transformed the world. From the largest Hindu temple in the world at Angkor Wat to the Buddhism of China, from the trade that helped fund the Roman Empire to the creation of the numerals we use today (including zero), India transformed the culture and technology of its ancient world – and our world today as we know it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies

Pada Jumat, 28 Maret 2025, gempa berkekuatan 7,7 magnitudo mengguncang wilayah tersebut. Gempa ini terjadi di Sesar Sagaing, yang merupakan batas antara lempeng tektonik India dan Eurasia. Dampak gempa ini sangat parah. Gempa ini bukan hanya mempengaruhi Myanmar, tapi juga negara-negara tetangga seperti Thailand.

The Light Gate welcomes guest: Paul Stonehill, Russian UFO researcher/author Date: March 31, 2025. Time: 5-7pm pacific / 8-10pm eastern Episode: 101 Discussion: UFO/USO encounters in Russia Tonight, the Light Gate welcomes Paul Stonehill. Paul is an international researcher and author, whose areas of research and published works include: UFOs and USOs (Unidentified Flying Objects, Unidentified Submersible Objects), Soviet space exploration, and Eurasian paranormal phenomena. He was born in Kiev, USSR (now independent Ukraine), and traveled through various parts of the Soviet Union in his youth. Paul is fluent in Russian, and knows Ukrainian. His articles on UFO and anomalous phenomena have been published in a number of languages throughout the world in newspapers and magazines. After the demise of the USSR, his articles were also published in Russia, Ukraine, and Central Asian republics. In October of 1993, OMNI Magazine featured a story about Paul's work, and the research center he had created back in 1991 (Russian Ufology Research Center). Paul has lectured in the U.S., Brazil, and China, and appeared on such TV shows as Ancient Aliens, The Unexplained Files, The Secret KGB Files and more. He has appeared on many of the major UFO podcasts, including Coast-to-Coast, Fade-to-Black, Podcast UFO and many others. He has also spoken at many UFO conventions, such as The International UFO Congress, UFO Megacon, and others. His areas of expertise are: Russian history; Soviet covert operations; warfare in the former USSR; cross-cultural training; paranormal phenomena in the Eastern Europe, Russia, Central Asia, and China (PRC). He has published a number of books, most co-authored by Philip Mantle (U.K.). His books include “Mysterious Sky: Soviet UFO Phenomenon,” “Soviet UFO Files,” “UFO Case Files of Russia,” “Paranormal Mysteries of Eurasia,” “Russia's USO Secrets” and Russia's Roswell Incident.” He also has a popular YouTube channel where he presents much of his research. LINKS: WEBSITE: https://openminds.tv/author/paul/ YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTzjRCRST1H65rC-dzCh18g

Today's podcast is brought to you by COME TO MY TABLE: GOD'S HOSPITALITY AND YOURS where we remember that God invited first! We invite others to our table so that we pass on His invitation to His table. Find more information Amazon as well as on www.welcomeheart.com/shop. Help me welcome, Dr. Connie Champeon, to Living a Legacy Life as we talk about the transformative work of the Word of God in our daily lives. Connie completed her Ph.D. in education and sociolinguistics in 1998. Raised by missionary parents in a thatched hut with mud floors in Northern Brazil, she learned Greek at her father's knee starting at age 3! As an adult, she's  worked with over 30 language groups throughout S.E. Asia, Eurasia, South America , and Africa. Currently working with UnfoldingWord.com, Connie and her husband travel and train and help indigneous language people groups translate Scripture into their heart language. She and her husband, Birch, have twin twenty-one-year-old sons. She enjoys the balancing act of many women - wife, mother, teacher, ministry – as well as organizing teams and equipping others for service. She has a great passion for helping women live differently because of the truth of the Gospel and for living out the gospel in our communities. We talk about her own spiritual wilderness, how talks around the table heal hearts, and why she journals her quiet time on Facebook every morning. Find her on FB here. Or at Connie.Champeon. As a result of her Scripture journaling, she an now provide us with 60 days of devotionals on the always timely topic of HOPE. Sign up for it HERE.  Some gems from our conversation:  To keep a balanced life, don't look for more things to add, look at what God's given you to do, and do it alongside someone else.  My dad helped people see themselves as God saw them—the best of who they could be, greatly gifted and purpose-filled. When I doubted God's love for me, I couldn't escape what He was doing in and through the mess I was making in my life.  To share God is to share how big He is.  When I read the Bible, I try to always answer the question, "What does God want me to do diferently because of what I just read?" When we share food, we share a common need; after all, the Bible starts with a meal and ends with a feast.  God showed vulnerability with arms wide open on the cross; we do the same, opening our lives and doors, our tables and mouths—sharing vulnerably and authentically. Why?  So that the Gospel is replicated in others.    Sign up for HOPE HERE.   

In this bonus episode of Escalation, you'll hear our conversation with Evelyn Farkas, who is the Executive Director for The McCain Institute, and served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia in the Obama Administration. Farkas describes the US government's reaction to the invasion of Crimea, and discussions over aid to Ukraine. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this extended Frontline conversation, Timothy Ash, an economist and associate fellow at Chatham House's Russia and Eurasia programme, says Russia's escalating demands over a ceasefire in the Black Sea and a resumption of the grain export deal risk bringing down the whole US-led peace process for Ukraine.The World in 10 is the Times' daily podcast dedicated to global security. Expert analysis of war, diplomatic relations and cyber security from The Times' foreign correspondents and military specialists. Watch more: www.youtube.com/@ListenToTimesRadio Read more: www.thetimes.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In a distinguished diplomatic career spanning 35 years, Ajay Bisaria dealt with some of India's key economic and security relationships, including as envoy in Canada (2020 to 2022), Pakistan (2017-2020), Poland and Lithuania (2015-2017).He represented the country at the World Bank in Washington DC and in embassies in Berlin and Moscow.He served in various capacities in the Ministry of External Affairs, Department of Commerce and the Prime Minister's Office, where he was a key aide to Prime Minister Vajpayee from 1999 to 2004.As a specialist on the region, he dealt extensively with India's Eurasia policy including with Russia, Ukraine and Central Asia.He has a Bachelor's Degree in Economics from St Stephen's College, Delhi University; an MBA (Finance and Marketing) from IIM Calcutta; and a Master's Degree in Public Policy from Princeton University. He speaks Russian, German and Urdu, apart from Hindi and English.

We often think of the modern era as the age of American power. In reality, we're living in a long, violent Eurasian century. Eurasia is a strategic prize without equal—which is why the world has been roiled, reshaped and nearly destroyed by clashes over the supercontinent.To discuss the fight for Eurasia in 2025 and beyond, and how to compete with China, Russia, and Iran, Will is joined by one of the world's most respected foreign affairs experts, Hal Brands. Hal is the author of the new book, 'The Eurasian Century: Hot Wars, Cold Wars, and the Making of the Modern World.'Follow Will Kingston and Fire at Will on social media here.Read The Spectator Australia here.

On today's Strategy Series program, sponsored by General Atomic Aeronautical Systems, Sam Bendett of the Center for Naval Analyses and Dr. Eugene Rumer, the director of the Russia and Eurasia program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, join Defense & Aerospace Report Editor Vago Muradian to discuss Ukraine's retreat from 450 of the 500 square miles its forces occupied in Russia's Kursk region; what's next for the war as Washington pressures Kyiv to a ceasefire; whether Ukraine can survive without US aid and European support; prospect of European troops in Ukraine; whether Vladimir Putin can claim victory in Ukraine;; impact of the war on Russia and Russian support for the conflict; and the Trump administration's decision gutting the Voice of America as well as Radio Liberty, Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia.

Alina Hrytsenko is an international relations and security analyst. Her key focus lies in international security issues, particularly in Eurasia and conflicts across the continent. She has contributed to shaping national security and foreign policy strategies through her work with the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine. Alina has provided support, advice, and recommendations to high-ranking officials, including the Office of the President of Ukraine, the National Security and Defence Council, and other ministries. ----------LINKS:https://www.linkedin.com/in/alina-hrytsenko-phd-285090230/https://www.kyivpost.com/authors/1032https://euromaidanpress.com/author/alinahrytsenko/https://english.nv.ua/opinion_author/alina-hrytsenko.html----------https://dzygaspaw.com/triad-silicon-curtain?notes=Jonathan%20Fink%20for%20TRIAD&project=Triad:%20Night%20Drones----------SILICON CURTAIN FILM FUNDRAISERA project to make a documentary film in Ukraine, to raise awareness of Ukraine's struggle and in supporting a team running aid convoys to Ukraine's front-line towns.https://buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain/extras----------SILICON CURTAIN LIVE EVENTS - FUNDRAISER CAMPAIGN Events in 2025 - Advocacy for a Ukrainian victory with Silicon Curtainhttps://buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain/extrasOur first live events this year in Lviv and Kyiv were a huge success. Now we need to maintain this momentum, and change the tide towards a Ukrainian victory. The Silicon Curtain Roadshow is an ambitious campaign to run a minimum of 12 events in 2025, and potentially many more. We may add more venues to the program, depending on the success of the fundraising campaign. https://buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain/extrasWe need to scale up our support for Ukraine, and these events are designed to have a major impact. Your support in making it happen is greatly appreciated. All events will be recorded professionally and published for free on the Silicon Curtain channel. Where possible, we will also live-stream events.https://buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain/extras----------SUPPORT THE CHANNEL:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtainhttps://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtain----------TRUSTED CHARITIES ON THE GROUND:Save Ukrainehttps://www.saveukraineua.org/Superhumans - Hospital for war traumashttps://superhumans.com/en/UNBROKEN - Treatment. Prosthesis. Rehabilitation for Ukrainians in Ukrainehttps://unbroken.org.ua/Come Back Alivehttps://savelife.in.ua/en/Chefs For Ukraine - World Central Kitchenhttps://wck.org/relief/activation-chefs-for-ukraineUNITED24 - An initiative of President Zelenskyyhttps://u24.gov.ua/Serhiy Prytula Charity Foundationhttps://prytulafoundation.orgNGO “Herojam Slava”https://heroiamslava.org/kharpp - Reconstruction project supporting communities in Kharkiv and Przemyślhttps://kharpp.com/NOR DOG Animal Rescuehttps://www.nor-dog.org/home/----------PLATFORMS:Twitter: https://twitter.com/CurtainSiliconInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/siliconcurtain/Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/4thRZj6NO7y93zG11JMtqmLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finkjonathan/Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtain----------Welcome to the Silicon Curtain podcast. Please like and subscribe if you like the content we produce. It will really help to increase the popularity of our content in YouTube's algorithm. Our material is now being made available on popular podcasting platforms as well, such as Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Francis Farrell is a journalist and photographer, as well as a reporter at the Kyiv Independent. He is a recent international studies graduate and Russia & Eurasia area specialist with interest and experience in areas of elections, media freedom, regional and hybrid conflicts. He is a native English and Hungarian speaker with fluent Russian and Ukrainian languages.----------'Can You Hear Me?' Francis Farrell's film made with Olena Zashko, that brings the life of war medics to audiences around the world:https://kyivindependent.com/the-kyiv-independents-film-about-ukrainian-military-medics-will-be-screened-in-10-european-capitals/----------LINKS:https://kyivindependent.com/author/francis-farrell/https://x.com/francisjfarrellhttps://www.europeanpressprize.com/laureate/francis-farrell/https://www.linkedin.com/in/francis-farrell-474517a6/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-4Dz3x8AdY----------SUPPORT THE CHANNEL:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtainhttps://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtain----------TRUSTED CHARITIES ON THE GROUND:Superhumans - Hospital for war traumashttps://superhumans.com/en/UNBROKEN - Treatment. Prosthesis. Rehabilitation for Ukrainians in Ukrainehttps://unbroken.org.ua/Come Back Alivehttps://savelife.in.ua/en/Chefs For Ukraine - World Central Kitchenhttps://wck.org/relief/activation-chefs-for-ukraineUNITED24 - An initiative of President Zelenskyyhttps://u24.gov.ua/Serhiy Prytula Charity Foundationhttps://prytulafoundation.org----------PLATFORMS:Twitter: https://twitter.com/CurtainSiliconInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/siliconcurtain/Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/4thRZj6NO7y93zG11JMtqmLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finkjonathan/Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtain----------Welcome to the Silicon Curtain podcast. Please like and subscribe if you like the content we produce. It will really help to increase the popularity of our content in YouTube's algorithm. Our material is now being made available on popular podcasting platforms as well, such as Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

This episode is part of our Think&Drink Series in collaboration with the Georg-Simmel-Centre for Urban Studies working with the Humboldt University Berlin. Today's speaker is Andrei Semenov, an assistant professor at the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Nazarbayev University in Astana, Kazakhstan. Authoritarian urbanism has recently become a buzzword applied to different settings and situations. Andrei attempts to clarify the conceptual foundations of this term by using a combination of political science and urban sociology analytical frameworks. He shows that the authoritarian part refers to the dictators' response to two key challenges to their rule: elite factionalism and mass uprisings. While a wide set of strategies is available to dictators, the instruments and practices of urban development constitute one possible way of responding. More specifically, he argues that authoritarian urbanism simultaneously aims at two (not always compatible) goals: providing rents to ensure the elites' loyalty and satisfying the mass demand for housing and a comfortable urban environment. He illustrates these features with examples from Eurasian countries and concludes with some further research questions.

En su encuentro con una delegación ucraniana en Arabia Saudita, Estados Unidos propuso una tregua de 30 días entre Kiev y Moscú. El Gobierno de Volodímir Zelenski, que ya había apuntado a un alto el fuego parcial, aceptó esa propuesta. No obstante, Washington afirmó este miércoles que sigue a la espera de contactos con Rusia para lograr una respuesta positiva y admitió que la situación es aún incierta. "El balón está ahora en el campo de Rusia", coincidieron varios líderes europeos, incluidos Emmanuel Macron, de Francia, y el británico Keir Starmer, en sintonía con las declaraciones del secretario de Estado de Estados Unidos, Marco Rubio.Ucrania aceptó el martes el plan propuesto de EE. UU. para que se declare un alto el fuego total inmediato, con posibilidad de extensión, entre Kiev y Moscú, en tierra, mar y aire. Ahora todas las miradas están sobre el presidente ruso, Vladímir Putin, y su respuesta."Ucrania expresó su disposición a aceptar la propuesta de EE. UU. de declarar un alto el fuego inmediato de 30 días que puede extenderse con el acuerdo mutuo de las partes y que está sujeto a la aceptación y consiguiente implementación por parte de la Federación Rusa", según la declaración conjunta firmada por las delegaciones de Washington y Kiev que se reunieron en Arabia Saudita.El presidente de Estados Unidos, Donald Trump, ya expresó su esperanza de que Putin acepte la iniciativa y los líderes europeos también apuntaron a ello."La pelota está ahora claramente en el campo de Rusia", afirmó Macron, algo que luego repitió el primer ministro británico."Francia y sus socios siguen comprometidos con una paz sólida y duradera, respaldada por sólidas garantías de seguridad para Ucrania", añadió.Leer tambiénUcrania acepta una propuesta de alto el fuego: ¿la seguirá Rusia?¿Podrá haber una tregua en Ucrania? ¿Qué está dando Kiev a cambio? Para analizar el tema, participan en El Debate dos invitados.- Desde La Plata (Argentina), Gabriel Merino, doctor en Ciencias Sociales, profesor de la Universidad Nacional de La Plata y coordinador del Departamento de Eurasia del Instituto de Relaciones Internacionales.- En Uppsala (Suecia), Zayra Badillo, analista política internacional, historiadora, especialista en historia de Rusia y profesora en la Universidad de Puerto Rico

In this episode, Dr. Pierce Salguero sits down with David Gordon White, a distinguished indologist and scholar of Tantra. Our conversation focuses on David's most recent project tracing the transregional histories of spirits, gods, demons, and their associated rituals across Eurasia. Along the way, we dive into an intellectual conversation about dog-headed men, angry goddesses, alchemical mercury, body-snatching yogis, the origins of Dracula, and much, much more. If you want to hear scholars and practitioners engaging in deep conversations about the dark side of Asian religions and medicines, then subscribe to Black Beryl wherever you get your podcasts. You can also check out our members-only benefits on blackberyl.substack.com. Enjoy the show! Resources mentioned David Gordon White, Daemons are Forever (2021) David Gordon White, Myths of the Dog-Man (1991) David Gordon White, The Alchemical Body (1997) David Gordon White, Kiss of the Yogini (2006) David Gordon White, Sinister Yogis (2011) Michel Strickmann, Chinese Magical Medicine (2002) Michel Strickmann, Mantras et Mandarins (1996) David Gordon White, “Three Shades of Tantric Yoga,” in Oxford Handbook of Tantric Studies (2024) David Gordon White, "Were-Creatures of the Eurasian Ecumene," Journal Asiatique(2020) David Gordon White, "Dracula's Family Tree," Gothic Studies (2021) Pierce Salguero is a transdisciplinary scholar of health humanities who is fascinated by historical and contemporary intersections between Buddhism, medicine, and crosscultural exchange. He has a Ph.D. in History of Medicine from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine (2010), and teaches Asian history, medicine, and religion at Penn State University's Abington College, located near Philadelphia. www.piercesalguero.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In this episode, Dr. Pierce Salguero sits down with David Gordon White, a distinguished indologist and scholar of Tantra. Our conversation focuses on David's most recent project tracing the transregional histories of spirits, gods, demons, and their associated rituals across Eurasia. Along the way, we dive into an intellectual conversation about dog-headed men, angry goddesses, alchemical mercury, body-snatching yogis, the origins of Dracula, and much, much more. If you want to hear scholars and practitioners engaging in deep conversations about the dark side of Asian religions and medicines, then subscribe to Black Beryl wherever you get your podcasts. You can also check out our members-only benefits on blackberyl.substack.com. Enjoy the show! Resources mentioned David Gordon White, Daemons are Forever (2021) David Gordon White, Myths of the Dog-Man (1991) David Gordon White, The Alchemical Body (1997) David Gordon White, Kiss of the Yogini (2006) David Gordon White, Sinister Yogis (2011) Michel Strickmann, Chinese Magical Medicine (2002) Michel Strickmann, Mantras et Mandarins (1996) David Gordon White, “Three Shades of Tantric Yoga,” in Oxford Handbook of Tantric Studies (2024) David Gordon White, "Were-Creatures of the Eurasian Ecumene," Journal Asiatique(2020) David Gordon White, "Dracula's Family Tree," Gothic Studies (2021) Pierce Salguero is a transdisciplinary scholar of health humanities who is fascinated by historical and contemporary intersections between Buddhism, medicine, and crosscultural exchange. He has a Ph.D. in History of Medicine from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine (2010), and teaches Asian history, medicine, and religion at Penn State University's Abington College, located near Philadelphia. www.piercesalguero.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/folkore

In this episode, Dr. Pierce Salguero sits down with David Gordon White, a distinguished indologist and scholar of Tantra. Our conversation focuses on David's most recent project tracing the transregional histories of spirits, gods, demons, and their associated rituals across Eurasia. Along the way, we dive into an intellectual conversation about dog-headed men, angry goddesses, alchemical mercury, body-snatching yogis, the origins of Dracula, and much, much more. If you want to hear scholars and practitioners engaging in deep conversations about the dark side of Asian religions and medicines, then subscribe to Black Beryl wherever you get your podcasts. You can also check out our members-only benefits on blackberyl.substack.com. Enjoy the show! Resources mentioned David Gordon White, Daemons are Forever (2021) David Gordon White, Myths of the Dog-Man (1991) David Gordon White, The Alchemical Body (1997) David Gordon White, Kiss of the Yogini (2006) David Gordon White, Sinister Yogis (2011) Michel Strickmann, Chinese Magical Medicine (2002) Michel Strickmann, Mantras et Mandarins (1996) David Gordon White, “Three Shades of Tantric Yoga,” in Oxford Handbook of Tantric Studies (2024) David Gordon White, "Were-Creatures of the Eurasian Ecumene," Journal Asiatique(2020) David Gordon White, "Dracula's Family Tree," Gothic Studies (2021) Pierce Salguero is a transdisciplinary scholar of health humanities who is fascinated by historical and contemporary intersections between Buddhism, medicine, and crosscultural exchange. He has a Ph.D. in History of Medicine from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine (2010), and teaches Asian history, medicine, and religion at Penn State University's Abington College, located near Philadelphia. www.piercesalguero.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Dr. Pierce Salguero sits down with David Gordon White, a distinguished indologist and scholar of Tantra. Our conversation focuses on David's most recent project tracing the transregional histories of spirits, gods, demons, and their associated rituals across Eurasia. Along the way, we dive into an intellectual conversation about dog-headed men, angry goddesses, alchemical mercury, body-snatching yogis, the origins of Dracula, and much, much more. If you want to hear scholars and practitioners engaging in deep conversations about the dark side of Asian religions and medicines, then subscribe to Black Beryl wherever you get your podcasts. You can also check out our members-only benefits on blackberyl.substack.com. Enjoy the show! Resources mentioned David Gordon White, Daemons are Forever (2021) David Gordon White, Myths of the Dog-Man (1991) David Gordon White, The Alchemical Body (1997) David Gordon White, Kiss of the Yogini (2006) David Gordon White, Sinister Yogis (2011) Michel Strickmann, Chinese Magical Medicine (2002) Michel Strickmann, Mantras et Mandarins (1996) David Gordon White, “Three Shades of Tantric Yoga,” in Oxford Handbook of Tantric Studies (2024) David Gordon White, "Were-Creatures of the Eurasian Ecumene," Journal Asiatique(2020) David Gordon White, "Dracula's Family Tree," Gothic Studies (2021) Pierce Salguero is a transdisciplinary scholar of health humanities who is fascinated by historical and contemporary intersections between Buddhism, medicine, and crosscultural exchange. He has a Ph.D. in History of Medicine from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine (2010), and teaches Asian history, medicine, and religion at Penn State University's Abington College, located near Philadelphia. www.piercesalguero.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies

In this episode, Dr. Pierce Salguero sits down with David Gordon White, a distinguished indologist and scholar of Tantra. Our conversation focuses on David's most recent project tracing the transregional histories of spirits, gods, demons, and their associated rituals across Eurasia. Along the way, we dive into an intellectual conversation about dog-headed men, angry goddesses, alchemical mercury, body-snatching yogis, the origins of Dracula, and much, much more. If you want to hear scholars and practitioners engaging in deep conversations about the dark side of Asian religions and medicines, then subscribe to Black Beryl wherever you get your podcasts. You can also check out our members-only benefits on blackberyl.substack.com. Enjoy the show! Resources mentioned David Gordon White, Daemons are Forever (2021) David Gordon White, Myths of the Dog-Man (1991) David Gordon White, The Alchemical Body (1997) David Gordon White, Kiss of the Yogini (2006) David Gordon White, Sinister Yogis (2011) Michel Strickmann, Chinese Magical Medicine (2002) Michel Strickmann, Mantras et Mandarins (1996) David Gordon White, “Three Shades of Tantric Yoga,” in Oxford Handbook of Tantric Studies (2024) David Gordon White, "Were-Creatures of the Eurasian Ecumene," Journal Asiatique(2020) David Gordon White, "Dracula's Family Tree," Gothic Studies (2021) Pierce Salguero is a transdisciplinary scholar of health humanities who is fascinated by historical and contemporary intersections between Buddhism, medicine, and crosscultural exchange. He has a Ph.D. in History of Medicine from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine (2010), and teaches Asian history, medicine, and religion at Penn State University's Abington College, located near Philadelphia. www.piercesalguero.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/indian-religions

In this episode, Dr. Pierce Salguero sits down with David Gordon White, a distinguished indologist and scholar of Tantra. Our conversation focuses on David's most recent project tracing the transregional histories of spirits, gods, demons, and their associated rituals across Eurasia. Along the way, we dive into an intellectual conversation about dog-headed men, angry goddesses, alchemical mercury, body-snatching yogis, the origins of Dracula, and much, much more. If you want to hear scholars and practitioners engaging in deep conversations about the dark side of Asian religions and medicines, then subscribe to Black Beryl wherever you get your podcasts. You can also check out our members-only benefits on blackberyl.substack.com. Enjoy the show! Resources mentioned David Gordon White, Daemons are Forever (2021) David Gordon White, Myths of the Dog-Man (1991) David Gordon White, The Alchemical Body (1997) David Gordon White, Kiss of the Yogini (2006) David Gordon White, Sinister Yogis (2011) Michel Strickmann, Chinese Magical Medicine (2002) Michel Strickmann, Mantras et Mandarins (1996) David Gordon White, “Three Shades of Tantric Yoga,” in Oxford Handbook of Tantric Studies (2024) David Gordon White, "Were-Creatures of the Eurasian Ecumene," Journal Asiatique(2020) David Gordon White, "Dracula's Family Tree," Gothic Studies (2021) Pierce Salguero is a transdisciplinary scholar of health humanities who is fascinated by historical and contemporary intersections between Buddhism, medicine, and crosscultural exchange. He has a Ph.D. in History of Medicine from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine (2010), and teaches Asian history, medicine, and religion at Penn State University's Abington College, located near Philadelphia. www.piercesalguero.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, six US presidential administrations of both parties pursued policies for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia that emboldened Russia, playing into its imperialist, centuries-long mythos of regional hegemony. The result: military aggression and full-scale invasion. It was all too foreseeable.In The Folly of Realism, leading national security expert and bestselling author Alexander Vindman argues that America's mistakes in Eastern Europe result from policymakers' fixation on immediate, short-term problem-solving and misplaced hopes and fears. He proposes a new long-term, values-based approach that insists on the fundamentals of liberal democracy and a rules-based world order.Alexander Vindman, lieutenant colonel US Army (retired), was the director for European Affairs on the White House's National Security Council, former Political-Military Affairs Officer for Russia, and diplomat at the American Embassies in Moscow and Kyiv. He is a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute, the author of the New York Times–bestselling memoir Here, Right Matters, and leads the Here Right Matters Foundation organization which focuses on helping Ukraine win the war against Russia.Michael previously spoke with Col. Vindman about his book "Here, Right Matters" in 2022, listen in Episode 162.

"Preview: Colleague Simon Constable reports in Barron's that the farmers of Eurasia anticipate a poor wheat crop of Russia and Ukraine because of frost, -- a crop that Africa depends upon. More later."

This week, Anthony talks with Hal Brands, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, about his book 'The Eurasian Century: Hot Wars, Cold Wars, and the Making of the Modern World.' They discuss the historical significance of Eurasia, the dynamics of US-Russia-China relations, and the challenges facing global leaders today. Hal emphasizes the strategic importance of Eurasia in global affairs and the need for the US to engage effectively in this region to maintain stability and counteract the influence of autocratic powers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today I sit down with David Gordon White, a distinguished indologist and scholar of Tantra. Our conversation focuses on David's most recent project tracing the transregional histories of spirits, gods, demons, and their associated rituals across Eurasia. Along the way, we dive into an intellectual conversation about dog-headed men, angry goddesses, alchemical mercury, body-snatching yogis, the origins of Dracula, and much, much more. If you want to hear scholars and practitioners engaging in deep conversations about the dark side of Asian religions and medicines, then subscribe to Black Beryl wherever you get your podcasts. You can also check out our members-only benefits on blackberyl.substack.com. Enjoy the show!Resources mentionedDavid Gordon White, Daemons are Forever (2021)David Gordon White, Myths of the Dog-Man (1991)David Gordon White, The Alchemical Body (1997)David Gordon White, Kiss of the Yogini (2006)David Gordon White, Sinister Yogis (2011)Michel Strickmann, Chinese Magical Medicine (2002)Michel Strickmann, Mantras et Mandarins (1996)David Gordon White, “Three Shades of Tantric Yoga,” in Oxford Handbook of Tantric Studies (2024)David Gordon White, "Were-Creatures of the Eurasian Ecumene," Journal Asiatique (2020) David Gordon White, "Dracula's Family Tree," Gothic Studies (2021)Resources provided by the interviewee on blackberyl.substack.com:PDF of David's chapter in Oxford Handbook of Tantric Studies PDF of David's article, "Were-Creatures of the Eurasian Ecumene"PDF of David's article, "Dracula's Family Tree" 

Join Aishwaria Sonavane and Arindam Goswami in this episode of All Things Policy, where we explore one of the most consequential yet understudied strategic relationships in Eurasia. The Turkey-Pakistan alliance has evolved from cultural kinship to a comprehensive strategic partnership with profound implications for regional security, nuclear diplomacy, and counterterrorism efforts. As Turkey emerges as Pakistan's second-largest arms supplier after China, and as both nations provide unwavering diplomatic support on issues like Kashmir and Cyprus, we must ask: Is India facing a new geopolitical challenge that extends beyond its traditional concerns with Pakistan?Join us as we navigate this intricate web of ideology, security partnerships, and diplomatic manoeuvring.Aishwaria has written a wonderful op-ed on this very topic which you can read here: https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/indias-stakes-in-erdogans-pak-trip-3418457The PGP is a comprehensive 48-week hybrid programme tailored for those aiming to delve deep into the theoretical and practical aspects of public policy. This multidisciplinary course offers a broad and in-depth range of modules, ensuring students get a well-rounded learning experience. The curriculum is delivered online, punctuated with in-person workshops across India.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://school.takshashila.org.in/pgp⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠All Things Policy is a daily podcast on public policy brought to you by the Takshashila Institution, Bengaluru.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Find out more on our research and other work here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://takshashila.org.in/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠...⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Check out our public policy courses here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://school.takshashila.org.in⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

In this episode of the Lausanne Movement Podcast, Jason Watson sits with Ruslan Zagidulin, a Lausanne Regional Director for Eurasia, to explore the region's dynamic and complex spiritual landscape. From his personal story of faith—growing up in an interethnic Soviet family—to the unique challenges and opportunities for the church in Eurasia today, Ruslan provides deep insights into the region's identity, mission work, and the next generation's role in shaping the future. If this conversation inspired you, take a moment to subscribe to the podcast, share this episode with a friend, and pray for the church in Eurasia. Want to get involved? Connect with Ruslan on social media and learn more about the work being done in the region.

This episode we continue to follow the monk Xuanzang on his path along the silk road.  From Gaochang, he traveled through the Tarim Basin, up over the Tianshan Mountains, to the heart of the Western Gokturk Qaghanate.  From there, he traveled south, through the region of Transoxania to Bactria and the land of Tukhara.  He pushed on into the Hindu Kush, witnessing the stone Buddha statues of Bamiyan, and eventually made his way to the land of Kapisa, near modern Kabul, Afghanistan.  From there he would prepare to enter the Indian subcontinent: the home of the historical Buddha. For more discussion and some photos of the areas along this journey, check out our podcast blog at https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-121   Rough Transcript Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.  My name is Joshua, and this is Episode 121: Journey to the West, Part 2   The cold winds blew through the travelers' doubled up clothing and thick furs.  Cold, wet ground meant that even two sets of boots were not necessarily enough after several days.  The frozen mist would often obscure everything except for the path immediately in front, hiding the peaks and making the sky a uniform white. In many places, the path would be blocked by rock, ice, or snow—the remnants of an avalanche, which could easily take an unsuspecting traveler.  And there was the elevation.  Hiking through the mountains, it was easy enough to reach heights of a mile or higher, and for those not accustomed to that elevation the thin air could take a surprising toll, especially if you were pushing yourself.  And the road was no less kind to the animals that would be hauling said travelers and their gear. And yet, this was the path that Xuanzang had agreed to.  He would continue to push through, despite the various deprivations that he would be subjected to.  No doubt he often wondered if it was worth it.  Then again, returning was just as dangerous a trip, so why not push on?   Last episode we introduced the monk Xuanzang, who traveled the Silk Road to India in the 7th century and returned to China.  He brought back numerous sutras to translate, and ended up founding a new school, known as the Faxian school—or the Hossou school in Japan.   As we mentioned last time, Xuanzang during his lifetime met with students from the archipelago when they visited the continent.  The records of his travels—including his biography and travelogue—are some of the best information we have on what life was like on the silk road around this time. In the last episode, we talked about Xuanzang: how he set out on his travels, his illegal departure from the Tang empire, and his perilous journey across the desert, ending up in Gaochang.  There, King Qu Wentai had tried to get him to stay, but he was determined to head out.  This episode we are going to cover his trip to Agni, Kucha, and Baluka—modern Aksu—and up to the Western Gokturk Qaghanate's capital of Suyab.  From there, we'll follow his footsteps through the Turkic controlled regions of Transoxania and into Tukhara, in modern Afghanistan.  Finally, we'll cover the last parts of his journey before he reached the start of his goal:  India. From Gaochang, Xuanzang continued on, through the towns he names as Wuban and Dujin, and into the country of Agni—known today as the area of Yanqi—which may also have been known as Wuqi.  The route was well-enough known, but it wasn't necessarily safe.  At one point, Xuanzang's caravan met with bandits, whom they were fortunately able to pay off.  The following night they encamped on a river bank with some merchants who also happened to be traveling the road.  The merchants, though, got up at midnight and headed out, hoping to get to the city early so that they could be the first ones to the market.  They only made it a few miles down the road, however, before they encountered more bandits, who slaughtered them and took their goods.  The following day, Xuanzang and his retinue came upon the merchants' remains lying in the road and saw the aftermath of the massacre. This was an unforgiving land, and the road was truly dangerous, even for those who traveled it regularly.  And yet Xuanzang was planning to travel its entire length until he reached India. So with little alternative, they carried on to the royal city of Agni. Agni, or Yanqi, sits on the southwestern edge of the basin, west of Bositeng lake, on the border between the Turfan basin and the larger Tarim Basin.  The name is thought to be a Tocharian—or Turfanian—name for the city, which is also known as Karashr. According to the biography by Huili, Xuanzang and his party didn't stay long in Agni.  Apparently Agni and Gaochang were not exactly on friendly terms, and even though the King of Agni and his ministers reportedly came out to greet Xuanzang and welcome him to their city, they refused to provide any horses.  They spent a single night and moved on. That said, Agni still made an impression on Xuanzang.  He noted how the capital was surrounded by hills on four sides, making it naturally defensible.  As for the people, he praises them as honest and straightforward.  They wore clothing of felt and hemp cloth, and cut their hair short, without hats or any kind of headwear.  Even the climate was pleasant, at least for the short time he was there.  He also notes that they used a script based on India—likely referring to the Brahmic script, which we find in the Tarim basin. However, as for the local lord, the King of Agni, he is a little less charitable.  Xuanzang claimed he was brave but “lacked resourcefulness” and he was a bit of a braggart.  Furthermore, the country had “no guiding principles or discipline and government orders are imperfect and not seriously implemented.”  He also mentioned the state of Buddhism in the country, noting that they were followers of Sarvastivada school, a Theravada sect popular along the Silk Road at the time.  Xuanzang was apparently not too pleased with the fact that they were not strict vegetarians, including the “three kinds of pure meat”.  From Agni, Xuanzang continued southwest, heading for the kingdom of Kucha.  He seems to have bypassed the nearby kingdom of Korla, south of Agni, and headed some 60 or 70 miles, climbing over a ridge and crossing two large rivers, and then proceeding another 200 miles or so to the land of Kucha. Kucha was a kingdom with over one hundred monasteries and five thousand monks following a form of Theravada Buddhism.  Here, Xuanzang was welcomed in by the king, Suvarnadeva, described as having red hair and blue eyes.  While Xuanzang was staying in Kucha, it is suspected that he probably visited the nearby Kizil grotto and the Buddhist caves, there, which include a painting of King Suvarnadeva's father, King Suvarnapuspa, and his three sons. You can still visit Kucha and the Kizil grottos today, although getting there is quite a trek, to be sure.  The ancient Kuchean capital is mostly ruins, but in the Kizil caves, protected from the outside elements, you can find vivid paintings ranging from roughly the 4th to the 8th century, when the site was abandoned.  Hundreds of caves were painted, and many still demonstrate vibrant colors.  The arid conditions protect them from mold and mildew, while the cave itself reduces the natural bleaching effect of sunlight.  The paintings are in numerous styles, and were commissioned by various individuals and groups over the years.  They also give us some inkling of how vibrant the city and similar structures must have been, back when the Kuchean kingdom was in its heyday. The people of Kucha are still something of a mystery.  We know that at least some of them spoke an Indo-European language, related to a language found in Agni, and both of these languages are often called Tocharian, which we discussed last episode.  Xuanzang himself noted that they used Indian writing, possibly referring to the Brahmi script, or perhaps the fact that they seem to have used Sanskrit for official purposes, such as the inscription on the cave painting at Kizil giving the name of King Suvarnapuspa.  The Kucheans also were clothed in ornamental garments of silk and embroidery.  They kept their hair cut, wearing a flowing covering over their heads—and we see some of that in the paintings. Xuanzang also notes that though we may think of this area as a desert, it was a place where rice and grains, as well as fruit like grapes, pomegranates, plums, pears, peaches, and almonds were grown.  Even today, modern Xinjiang grows some absolutely fantastic fruit, including grapes, which are often dried into raisins. Another point of interest for Xuanzang may have been that Kucha is known as the hometown of none other than Kumarajiva.  We first mentioned Kumarajiva back in episode 84.  Kumarajiva was one of the first people we know of who translated many of the sutras from India that were then more widely disseminated throughout the Yellow River and Yangzi river basins.  His father was from India and his mother was a Kuchean princess.  In the middle of the 4th century, when he was still quite young, he traveled to India and back with his mother on a Buddhist pilgrimage.  Later he would start a massive translation project in Chang'an.  His translations are credited with revolutionizing Chinese Buddhism. Xuanzang was initially welcomed by the king, his ministers, and the revered monk, Moksagupta.  They were accompanied by several thousand monks who set up tents outside the eastern gate, with portable Buddha images, which they worshipped, and then Xuanzang was taken to monastery after monastery until sunset.  At one of the monasteries, in the southeast of the city, there were several tens of monks who originally came from Gaochang, and since Xuanzang had come from there, they invited him to stay with them. The next day he met and feasted with the King, politely declining any meat, and then went to the monastery in the northwest to meet with the famous monk: Moksagupta.  Moksagupta himself had made the journey to India, and had spent 20 years there himself.  It seems like this would have been the perfect person for Xuanzang to talk to about his plans, but instead, the two butted heads.  Moksagupta seems to have seen Xuanzang's Mahayana faith as heretical.  He saw no reason for Xuanzang to travel all the way to India when he had all the sutras that anyone needed there in Kucha, along with Moksagupta himself.   Xuanzang's response seems to have been the Tang dynasty Buddhist version of “Okay, Boomer”, and then he went ahead and tore apart Moksagupta's understanding of his own sutras—or so Xuanzang relayed to his biographers.  We don't exactly have Moksagupta's side, and, let's face it, Xuanzang and his biographers are not necessarily reliable narrators.  After all, they followed Mahayana teachings, which they considered the “Greater Vehicle”, and they referred to the Theravada teachings as the “Hinayana” or “Lesser Vehicle”.  Meanwhile, Theravada Buddhists likely saw many of the Mahayana texts as extraneous, even heretical, not believing them to actually be the teachings of the Buddha. It must have been winter time, as the passes through the mountains on the road ahead were still closed, and so Xuanzang stayed in Kucha, spending his time sightseeing and meeting with various people.  He even went back to see Moksagupta, but the older monk shunned him, and would get up and exit the room rather than engaging with him, so they had no more conversations. Eventually, Xuanzang continued on his way west, following along the northern rim of the Tarim basin.  Two days out from Kucha, disaster struck.  Some two thousand or so Turkish bandits suddenly appeared—I doubt Xuanzang was counting, so it may have been more or less.  I imagine that memories of what had happened to the merchants near Agni must have gone through Xuanzang's mind.   Fortunately, for him, they were fighting over loot that they had pillaged from various travelers, and since they couldn't share it equally, they fell to fighting each other and eventually dispersed. He travelled for almost 200 miles after that, stopping only for a night at the Kingdom of Baluka, aka Gumo—the modern city of Aksu.  This was another Theravada Buddhist kingdom.  Xuanzang noted tens of Buddhist temples, and over 1000 Buddhist monks.  The country was not large—about 200 miles east to west and 100 miles north to south.  For reference that means it was probably comparable in size with Kyushu, in terms of overall area, or maybe the size of Denmark—excluding Greenland—or maybe the US state of Maryland.  Xuanzang described the country as similar to Kucha in just about every way, including the written language and law, but the spoken language was different, though we don't get many more details. From Baluka, he crossed northward through the Tianshan mountains, which are classified as an extension of the Pamirs known as the Ice Mountains.  Had he continued southwest, he would have hit Kashgar and crossed over between the Pamir and Tian Shan ranges into the Ferghana valley, but instead he turned north. We don't know exactly why he took this perilous option, but the route that may have been popular at the time as it was one of the most direct routes to the seat of the Western Gokturk Empire, which he was currently traveling through. The Tian Shan mountains were a dangerous journey.  Avalanches could block the road—or worse.  Xuanzang describes the permanent ice fields—indeed, it is the ice fields and glaciers of the Tian Shan that melt in the summer and provide the oasis towns of the Tarim Basin with water, even to this day.  In Xuanzang's day, those glaciers were likely even more prevalent than today, especially as they have been recorded as rapidly disappearing since 1961.  And where you weren't on snow and ice, the ground was probably wet and damp from the melt.  To keep warm, you would wear shoes over your shoes, along with heavy fur coats, all designed to reduce exposure. Xuanzang claims that 3 or 4 of every 10 people didn't survive the crossing—and that horses and oxen fared even worse.  Even if these numbers are an exaggeration, the message is clear:  This was a dangerous journey. After about seven days, Xuanzang came out of the mountains to the “Great Pure Lake”, the “Da Qing Hai”, also known as the Hot Sea or the Salt Sea, which likely refers to Issyk Kul.  The salt content, along with the great volume of water it possesses, means that the lake rarely freezes over, which is likely why it is seen as “hot” since it doesn't freeze when the fresh water nearby does.  This lake is the second largest mountain lake in the world, and the second deepest saltwater lake.  Traveling past the lake, he continued to Suyab, near modern Tokmok, in Kyrgyzstan, just west of the modern capital of Bishkek.  This was an old Sogdian settlement, and had since become the capital of the Western Gokturks.  Sogdians—like Xuanzang's guide, Vandak—were integral to the Gokturk kingdom. Their language was the lingua franca of the Silk Road, and at the time of the Gokturk Khaganate, it was also the official court language, and so when Xuanzang appeared at the court of the Great Khagan of the Western Gokturks, it was likely the language of diplomacy. When we think of Turkic people, many in the English speaking world think of Turkiye, and perhaps of the mighty Ottoman empire.  Some may think of Turkmenistan, Kazhakstan, Kyrgyzstan, or Uzbekistan, among others.  And of course, there are the Uyghur people in Xinjiang.  All of these people claim roots in the ancestral Turkic homeland in the Altai mountains, which sit largely in western Mongolia, north of China's Xinjiang region.  Much like the Xiongnu and the Mongols, they were pastoral nomads, moving their herds across the steppes, often covering great distances.  They would regularly move through different regions, perhaps returning each season, though sometimes not returning for years at a time.  They were often seen as barbarians by settled people living in cities, and yet their goods and horses were highly prized. Nomad and sedentary lifestyles would often collide.  Farmers would turn pastureland into fields, and when the nomadic people returned on their circuits, they would find walls and fences where there was once open land, and the people there would claim to “own” the land, a concept often foreign to people who were always on the move.  Nomadic people, such as the Gokturks, were not necessarily keeping vast libraries of records about themselves and their histories, and so much of what we get comes from external sources, which do not always have incredibly reliable narrators.  To many of the settled agriculturalists, groups like the Turks were marauders who raided their villages and farms.  They were a great bogeyman of the steppes, which required the firm hand of strong defenses to keep out—or so their opponents would want people to think. While they were known for their warfare, which incorporated their mobility, but they were keenly interested in trade, as well.  They understood the value of the trade routes and the various cities and states that they included in their empire.  Thus, the Sogdians and the Gokturks seem a natural fit: the Sogdians were more settled, but not entirely so, as demonstrated by their vast trade networks.  And the Sogdians also were part of the greater central Eurasian steppe culture, so the two cultures understood each other, to a degree.  They are even depicted similarly in art, with slight differences, such as long hair that was often associated with Turks over the Sogdians.  In some areas of the Gokturk empire, Sogdians would run the cities, while the Gokturks provided military aid and protection. Xuanzang's description of the people of Suyab, or the “City of Suye River”, doesn't pick out anyone in particular, and he even says that it was a place where traders of the Hu, or foreign, tribes from different countries mingle their abodes.  He mentions the people here as being called Suli, which is also the name given to the language—this may refer to “Sogdian” in general.  They write with an alphabet that is written vertically rather than horizontally—this may refer to a few scripts that were written this way, possibly based off Syriac or Aramaic alphabets that were adapted to Sogdian and other Iranian languages, but it isn't clear. We are told that the people dressed in felt and hemp clothing, with fur and “cotton” garments.  Their clothes fit tightly, and they kept their hair cut short, exposing the top of their heads—though sometimes they shaved it completely, tying a colored silk band around the forehead. He goes on to describe these people as greedy liars, possibly a reference to the mercantile nature of many of the people at the time. Something to note: The Turks of this time had not yet encountered Islam, which was just now starting to rise up in the Middle East.  The Prophet Muhammad is said to have been born around the end of the 6th century CE and was preaching in the early 7th century, though his teachings would begin to spread outward soon enough.  But that means that the Gokturks were not an Islamic empire.  Rather, their own traditions seem to have focused on the worship of Tengri, an Altaic personification of the universe, often simplified as a “sky god”.  Tengrism can be found amongst the Xiongnu, Mongols, and others, and it was the national religion of the Gokturks themselves, but there were many who also adopted other religions that they encountered, including Zoroastrianism, Christianity, Manichaeism, and Buddhism.  In fact, Xuanzang notes that the Turks he met in Suyab would not sleep or sit on beds made of wood because wood was thought to contain the spirit of fire, which he says they worshipped.  That sounds similar to Zoroastrian beliefs, where fire is associated with Ahura Mazda, who is also worshipped as a sky god.  These may have been beliefs inherited from their Eastern Iranian Sogdian partners. In Xuanzang's biography, we are given more details about his visit to Suyab.  Apparently, as he was headed to the city, he met a hunting party, which we are told was the retinue of Yehu Khan.  Hunting was an important part of life on the steppes, and it continued to be a favorite sport of the Gokturk nobility. Yehu Khan—possibly Yagbhu Khan, though that is up for some debate—is described as being dressed in a green silk robe, with his hair exposed, and wearing  a turban of white silk about ten feet long that wrapped his forehead and hung behind his back.  His “hunting” expedition wasn't just a couple of the guys.  It included about 200 officials, all with plaited hair and dressed in brocade robes—they weren't exactly out there roughing it.  He also had his soldiers, dressed in furs, felt, or fine woolen clothes, and there were so many cavalry that they stretched out of sight.  The Khan seemed pleased to meet Xuanzang, but his hunt was expected to last another couple of days, at least, so he sent an attendant named Dharmaja to take Xuanzang back to wait for the Khan to return. Three days later, Xuanzang was given an audience.  The khan was seated in a large yurt.  Xuanzang noted the seeming incongruity between the khan, sitting there in the tent, decorated with golden flowers, with the officials dressed in magnificent brocade garments sitting in two long rows in front of him and the armed guards behind him, compared to the simple felt walls of the tent. A ”yurt” is a common feature of nomadic life on the steppes.  It wasn't exactly a single person operation to haul them around, but they can be taken down and put up with relative ease.  And while yurts could be relatively simple, there are examples of much more elaborate structures.  There is little reason they couldn't be made larger, perhaps with some extra support.  In later centuries, there are examples of giant yurts that seem like real construction projects.  Use of tents, even in a city, where they had permanent palace buildings, was likely a means of retaining the nomadic steppe traditions, even while enjoying the benefits of city life. Whom exactly Xuanzang met with is a matter of debate.  His records seem to indicate that it was Tong Yabghu Qaghan of the Western Gokturk Khaganate, but other sources say that Tong Yabghu Qaghan died in 628, and the earliest Xuanzang could have been meeting with him was 630, two years later, so if that is the case, he must have met with Tong Yabghu's son, Si Yabghu Qaghan.  It is likely that Xuanzang, who was dictating his accounts years after, mentioned the Qaghan and then, when they looked up who it was, they simply made a mistake.  Remember, Xuanzang would have had everything translated through one or two languages.  He did know what he saw, however, and he recounted what he remembered. Tong Yabghu Qaghan oversaw the height of the Gokturk Qaghanate, and appears to have favored the Buddhist religion, though there were many different religions active in their territories at the time.  They oversaw an extremely cosmopolitan empire covering huge swaths of central Eurasia, including the lucrative silk road.  Xuanzang notes that at the court there were individuals from Gaochang and even a messenger from the Han—which is to say the Tang Empire.  One wonders if Xuanzang—or anyone at that time—realized just how tenuous the Khan'sposition was.  After Tong Yabghu's death, the Qaghanate would decline, and less than a decade later it would fall to the Tang dynasty, who took Suyab and made it their western outpost.  In fact, Suyab is thought to have been the birthplace, over a century later, of a young boy who would find a love of poetry.  That boy's name was Li Bai, or Ri Haku, in Japanese. He would become one of the most famous poets in Chinese history, and his poems were even known and studied in Japan.  And it was largely through Japanese study of Li Bai's poems that his works came to the English speaking world: first through Ernest Fenollosa, who had studied in Japan, and then by the celebrated Ezra Pound, who had used Ernest's notes to help with his own translations of the poems. This was, though, as I said, over a century after Xuanzang's journey.  At the time of our story, the Qaghan was throwing a feast, including Xuanzang and all of the foreign envoys.  Xuanzang comments on the food and drink—his hosts provided grape juice in lieu of wine, and cooked a special vegetarian feast just for him, while the other guests ate a feast of meat, such as veal, lamb, fish, and the like.  There was also the music of various regions along the Silk Road, which Xuanzang found to be catchy, but of course not as refined as the music he was used to, of course.  After dinner Xuanzang was asked to expound upon the Darma, largely about the basic principle that you should be kind to one another—I doubt he was getting into the deep mysteries of Buddhist philosophy. Xuanzang stuck around the court for three more days, during which time the Qaghan tried to get him to stay, but Xuanzang insisted that he had to make it to India.  And so the Qaghan relented.  He found men in his army who could translate for Xuanzang along his journey, and had letters of introduction written to at least as far as the state of Kapisa, in modern Afghanistan. And so, armed with the Qaghan's blessing and a fresh translator, Xuanzang struck out again.  They headed westward for over one hundred miles, eventually reaching Bingyul, aka the Thousand Springs.  This is the area where the Qaghan and his court would spend his summers, and the deer in the area were protected under his orders, so that they were not afraid of humans—which sounds similar to the situation with the deer in Nara.  Continuing on another fifty miles or so—the distances are approximate as Xuanzang's primary duty was not exactly to map all of this out—Xuanzang arrived at the city of Taras, in modern Kazakhstan, another place where the cultures of the Silk Road mixed and mingled.  Xuanzang didn't have much to say about Taraz, apparently, though it is one of the oldest cities in Transoxania, founded near the beginning of the Common Era.  A few miles south of there, Xuanzang reportedly found a village of re-settled ethnic Han that had been captured by the Gokturks and settled here.  They had adopted the dress and customs of the Turkic people, but continued to speak a version of Chinese. Southwest of that he reached the City of White Water, likely referring to Aksukent.  This is the same “Aksu” as the city in Xinjiang, both of which mean “White Water” in Turkic, but this one is in the south of Kazakhstan.  Xuanzang found the climate and products an improvement over what he had experienced in Taras.  Beyond that, he next arrived at the city of Gongyu, and then south again to Nujkend, and then traveling westward to the country of Chach, aka Tashkent.  Both Nujkend and Chach were large cities in nations of smaller, mostly autonomous city-states, which made up a lot of the political geography of Transoxania. I would note that Xuanzang's notes here are much more sparse than previously.  This may be because these were outside of the Tarim basin and therefore of less interest to individuals in the Tang empire.  Or perhaps he was just making his way more quickly and not stopping at every kingdom along the way. From Tashkent, he continued southeast to the Ferghana valley—the country of Feihan.  Oddly, this country doesn't appear in Xuanzang's biography, even though the Ferghana Valley seems to have been fairly well known back in the Tang Empire—it was known as the home of some of the best horses, which were one of its first major exports.  In fact, the Han dynasty even mounted a military expedition to travel to Ferghana just to obtain horses.  Xuanzang is oddly silent on this; however, he does talk about the fertile nature of the land.  He mentions that their language here is different from the lands he had been traveling through up to this point, and also points out that the people of the Ferghana valley were also visibly different from others in the area. From the Ferghana valley, Xuanzang headed west for about 300 miles or more to the land of Sutrushana—perhaps referring to the area of Ushrusana, with its capital of Bunjikat.  This country was also largely Sogdian, and described as similar to Tashkent.  From there, he traveled west through a great desert, passing skeletons, which were the only marker of the trail other than a view of the far off mountains.  Finally, they reached Samarkand, known as the country of “Kang” in Chinese, which was also the term used to mark Sogdians who claimed descent from the people of Samarkand. Samarkand is another of the ancient cities of Central Asia, and even today is the third largest city in modern Uzbekistan.  Human activity in the region goes back to the paleolithic era, and the city was probably founded between the 8th and 7th centuries BCE.  Samarkand was conquered by Alexander the Great, and during the Achaemenid Empire it was the capital of Sogdiana.  During Xuanzang's visit, Samarkand was described as an impenetrable fortress with a large population. For all of his travel, Samarkand was the first place Xuanzang notes as specifically not a Buddhist land.  In fact, there were two monasteries, suggesting that there had been Buddhists, but if any monks tried to stay there then the locals would chase them out with fire.  Instead, they worshipped fire—likely meaning Ahura Mazda and Zoroastrianism.  This leads to a story that I have to wonder about, given the reliability of our narrators. It is said that Xuanzang was met by the King with arrogance, but after staying the night Xuanzang was able to tell the King about Buddhism and its merits.  The king was intrigued, and asked to observe the Precepts, and treated Xuanzang with hospitality and respect.  So when two of Xuanzang's attendants went to the monasteries to worship, they were chased out with fire.  When the king heard about this, he had the people arrested and ordered their hands to be cut off.  Xuanzang could not bear to witness such suffering, however, and he intervened to have them spared.  So instead the king had them flogged and banished from the city.  Ever since then, all the people believed in Buddhism. Some parts of this strike true.  It was likely that the king would entertain this strange wanderer who had arrived with letters from the great Qaghan—that may have even explained why Xuanzang had been encouraged to make the dangerous journey to Suyab in the first place, so that he could obtain such permission.  And it would not be strange for the king to listen to his teachings.  If Xuanzang's attendants were attacked, that would have been a huge breach of hospitality, and however the King felt about it, he no doubt had to do something about it.  And so all of that sounds somewhat believable.  Does that mean everyone suddenly converted to Buddhism?  I don't know that I'm quite willing to go that far.  It is also likely that there were Buddhists there already, even if the majority religion was Zoroastrianism. From Samarkand, Xuanzang traveled farther southwest, to the country of Kasanna, which seems to have been the edge of what we might call Sogdiana.   According to his biographers, however, there was a little more to all of this.  Rather, he headed west to Kusanika.  Then he traveled to  Khargan, and further on to the country of Bukhara, and then to Vadi.  All of these were “An” in Chinese, which was the name element used for Sogdians from this region.  He then continued west to the country of Horismika, on the other side of the Amu Darya, aka the Oxus River of Transoxanian fame. From there he traveled further southwest, entering into the mountains.  The path here was often such that they had to travel single-file, and there was no food or water other than what you brought with you.  Eventually they came to a set of doors, known as the Iron Gate.  This was a Turkic fortress.  It was no doubt fortuitous that he had come from his meeting with the Qaghan, and likely had permission to pass through.  From there, they entered the country of Tukhara. As we noted in Episode 119, Tukhara was in the region of Bactria.  It was bordered by the Pamir range in the east, and the Persian empire in the west.  There were also the Great Snow Mountains in the south, likely referencing the Hindu Kush. Tukhara had been conquered by the Gokturks just within the past couple of decades, and Xuanzang notes that the country had been split into largely autonomous city-states as the local royalty had died without an heir many years before.  With the Gokturk conquest, it was now administered by Tardu Shad, the son of Tong Yabghu Qaghan.  “Shad” in this case was a local title. Here, Xuanzang's narrative gets a little dicey, especially between his biography and his records.  The records of the Western Regions denotes various countries in this area.  It is unclear if he traveled to all of them or is just recounting them from records he obtained.  He does give us at least an overview of the people and the region.  I would also note that this is one of the regions he visited, again, on his return trip, and so may have been more familiar with the region than those areas he had passed through from Suyab on down. For one thing, he notes that the language of the region was different from that of the “Suli”, which appears to refer to the Sogdians.  This was the old territory of the Kushan empire, and they largely spoke Bactrian.  Like Sogdian, it was another Eastern Iranian language, and they used an alphabet based largely on Greek, and written horizontally rather than vertically.  They also had their own coins. This region had plenty of Buddhist communities, and Xuanzang describes the cities and how many monasteries they had, though, again, it isn't clear if he actually visited all of them or not.  These are countries that Li Rongji translates as “Tirmidh”, “Sahaaniyan”, “Kharuun”, “Shuumaan”, etc. It does seem that Xuanzang made it to the capital city, the modern city Kunduz, Afghanistan. Xuanzang actually had something specific for the local Gokturk ruler, Tardu Shad.  Tardu Shad's wife was the younger sister of King Qu Wentai of Gaochang, whom we met last episode.  Qu Wentai had provided Xuanzang a letter for his younger sister and her husband.  Unfortunately, Xuanzang arrived to learn that the princess of Gaochang had passed away, and Tardu Shad's health was failing.  It does seem that Tardu Shad was aware of Xuanzang, however—a letter had already come from Qu Wentai to let them know that Xuanzang was on his way.  As I mentioned last episode, letters were an important part of how communities stayed tied together.  Of course, given the perils of the road, one assumes that multiple letters likely had to be sent just in case they didn't make it.  The US Postal Service this was not. Tardu Shad, though not feeling well, granted an interview with Xuanzang.  He suggested that Xuanzang should stick around.  Then, once the Shad had recovered from his illness, he would accompany Xuanzang personally on his trip to India.  Unfortunately, that was not to be.  While Xuanzang was staying there, he was witness to deadly drama.  Tardu Shad was recovering, which was attributed to the recitations by an Indian monk who was also there.  This outcome was not exactly what some in the court had wanted.  One of the Shad's own sons, known as the Tagin prince, plotted with the Shad's current wife, the young Khatun, and she poisoned her husband.  With the Shad dead, the throne might have gone to the son of the Gaochang princess, but he was still too young.  As such, the Tagin Prince was able to usurp the throne himself, and he married his stepmother, the young Khatun.  The funeral services for the late Tardu Shad meant that Xuanzang was obliged to stay at Ghor for over a month. During that time, Xuanzang had a seemingly pleasant interaction with an Indian monk.  And when he finally got ready to go, he asked the new Shad for a guide and horses.  He agreed, but also made the suggestion that Xuanzang should then head to Balkh.  This may have meant a bit of backtracking, but the Shad suggested that it would be worth it, as Balkh had a flourishing Buddhist community. Fortunately, there was a group of Buddhist monks from Balkh who happened to be in Kunduz to express their condolences at the passing of Tardu Shad, and they agreed to accompany Xuanzang back to their hometown, lest he end up getting lost and taking the long way there. The city of Balkh is also known as “Baktra”, as in “Bactria”, another name of this region.  A settlement has been there since at least 500 BCE , and it was already an important city when it was captured by Alexander the Great.  It sits at the confluence of several major trade routes, which no doubt were a big part of its success.  Xuanzang's biography notes that it was a massive city, though it was relatively sparsely populated—probably due to the relatively recent conquest by the Gokturks, which had occurred in the last couple of decades.  That said, there were still thousands of monks residing at a hundred monasteries in and around the city.  They are all characterized as monks of Theravada schools.  Southwest of the city was a monastery known as Navasamgharama, aka Nava Vihara, or “New Monastery”.  Despite its name, the monastery may have actually been much older, going back to the Kushan emperor Kaniska, in the 2nd century CE.  Ruins identified as this “New Monastery” are still visible south of Balkh, today. The monastery is described as being beautifully decorated, and it seems that it had a relic—one of the Buddha's teeth.  There are also various utensils that the Buddha is said to have used, as well.  The objects would be displayed on festival days.  North of the monastery there was a stupa more than 200 feet in height.  South of the monastery was a hermitage.  Each monk who studied there and passed away would have a stupa erected for them, as well.  Xuanzang notes that there were at around 700 memorial stupas, such that they had to be crammed together, base to base. It was here that Xuanzang met a young monk named Prajnaakara, who was already somewhat famous in India, and well-studied.  When questioned about certain aspects of Buddhism, Xuanzang was impressed by the monk's answers, and so stayed there a month studying with the young monk. Eventually, Xuanzang was ready to continue on his journey.  He departed Balkh towards the south, accompanying the teacher Prajnakara, and together they entered the Great Snow Mountains, aka the Hindu Kush.  This path was even more dangerous than the trip through the Tian Shan mountains to Suyab.   They eventually left the territory of Tukhara and arrived at Bamiyan.  Bamiyan was a kingdom in the Hindu Kush, themselves an extension of the Himalayan Mountain range.  It Is largely based around valley, home to the modern city of Bamyan, Afghanistan, which sits along the divide between Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent.  Today it is a major center for individuals of the Hazara ethnic group, one of the main ethnic groups in Afghanistan, which is a multi-ethnic state that includes, today, the Pashtun, Hazara, Tajik, and Uzbek people, along with a number of smaller ethnic groups.  Today they largely reside in the mountainous areas of the Hindu Kush. Bamiyan made an impact on our protagonist.   Their language was slightly different from that in Tukhara, but using the same—or similar enough—writing system.  Buddhism was thriving in the capital, and we are told of a rock statue of the standing Buddha, over a hundred feet in height, along with a copper statue of the standing Buddha nearby.    There was also another reclining Buddha a mile or two down the road.  There were multiple monasteries with thousands of monks, and the ruler of that kingdom received Xuanzang well. Xuanzang wasn't the first monk to travel to Bamiyan from the Middle Kingdom—in this he was, perhaps unwittingly, on the trail of the monk Faxian.  Faxian likely did not see these statues, though, as we believe they were built in the 6th and early 7th century—at least the stone Buddha statues.  They were a famous worship site until February 2001, when the Taliban gave an order to destroy all of the statues in Afghanistan.  Despite this, they were inscribed as UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003. Fortunately, we have images from before their destruction.  These statues were a blend of Greco-Buddhist and Gandharan art styles—appropriate as it stands between the Hellenistic area of Tukhara and the ancient region of Gandhara—including the modern city of Kandahar and into the Indus Valley region of Pakistan. Continuing east through the mountains, Xuanzang eventually came out at the kingdom of Kapisa.  This may have had its capital around modern-day Bagram, north of modern Kabul, but the country seems to have been quite large.  Kapisa over saw some tens of other countries, and it is thought that at one time its influence extended from Bamyan and Kandahar to the area of modern Jalalabad.  Their language was even more different than that of Tukhara, but they were still using the same writing system.  The king of Kapisa is said to have been of Suli ethnicity—which would seem to indicate that he was Sogdian, or at least descended from people of the Transoxanian region.    Xuanzang notes that the ruler, as rough and fiery as he is described—as a true warlord or similar—he nonetheless made a silver image of the Buddha, eighteen feet in height, every year.  He also gave charity to the poor and needy in an assembly that was called every five years.  There were over one hundred monasteries and some 6000 monks, per Xuanzang's recollection, and notably, they were largely following Mahayana teachings. For the most part the monks that Xuanzang had encountered on this journey were Theravada—Xuanzang refers to them as “Hinayana”, referring to the “Lesser Vehicle” in contrast to Xuanzang's own “Mahayana”, or “Greater Vehicle”.  “Theravada” refers to the “way of the elders” and while Mahayana Buddhism largely accepts the sutras of Theravada Buddhism, there are many Mahayana texts that Theravada Buddhists do not believe are canonical.  We discussed this back in Episode 84. There was apparently a story of another individual from the Yellow River being sent as a hostage to Kapisa when it was part of the Kushan Empire, under Kanishka or similar.  Xuanzang recounts various places that the hostage, described as a prince, lived or visited while in the region.  Xuanzang's arrival likely stirred the imagination of people who likely knew that the Tang were out there, but it was such a seemingly impossible distance for most people.  And yet here was someone who had traveled across all of that distance.  One of the monasteries that claimed to have been founded because of that ancient Han prince invited Xuanzang to stay with them.  Although it was a Theravada monastery, Xuanzang took them up on the offer, both because of the connection to someone who may have been his countryman, but also because of his traveling companion, Prajnakara, who was also a Theravada monk, and may not be comfortable staying at a Mahayana monastery. Xuanzang spends a good deal of ink on the stories of how various monasteries and other sites were founded in Kapisa and the surrounding areas.  He must have spent some time there to accumulate all of this information.  It is also one of the places where he seems to have hit at least twice—once on the way to India, and once during his return journey. The King of Kapisa is said to have been a devotee of Mahayana Buddhism.  He invited Xuanzang and Prajnakara to come to a Mahayana monastery to hold a Dharma gathering.  There they met with several leading figures in the monastery, and they discussed different theories.  This gathering lasted five days, and at the end, the king offered Xuanzang and the other monks five bolts of pure brocade and various other gifts.  Soon thereafter, the monk Prajnakara was invited back to Tukhara, and so he and Xuanzang parted ways. And it was about time for Xuanzang to continue onwards as well.  From Kapisa, he would travel across the “Black Range” and into Lampaka.  This may refer to the area of Laghman or Jalalabad.  Today, this is in modern Afghanistan, but for Xuanzang, this would have been the northwestern edge of India.  He was almost there. And so are we, but we'll save his trip into India for next episode. Until then thank you for listening and for all of your support. If you like what we are doing, please tell your friends and feel free to rate us wherever you listen to podcasts.  If you feel the need to do more, and want to help us keep this going, we have information about how you can donate on Patreon or through our KoFi site, ko-fi.com/sengokudaimyo, or find the links over at our main website,  SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on topics from this episode. Also, feel free to reach out to our Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page.  You can also email us at the.sengoku.daimyo@gmail.com.  Thank you, also, to Ellen for their work editing the podcast. And that's all for now.  Thank you again, and I'll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.

And Alexander wept, seeing as he had no more worlds to conquer. That’s a quote from Hans Gruber in Die Hard, which is a very convoluted paraphrase from Plutarch’s essay collection Moralia. There’s plenty of truth in that unattributed quote from Mr. Gruber. Alexander the Great’s death at 323 BC in Babylon marked the end of the most consequential military campaign in antiquity. He left behind an empire that stretched from Greece to India, planted the seeds of the Silk Road, and made Greek an international language across Eurasia, all in 13 short years. He became and remained the biggest celebrity in the ancient world, probably only replaced by Jesus a few centuries into the Christian era. But what if he had not died as a young man? What if he had lived years or decades more? How much more influence could he have had? We have clues about Alexander’s plans for the future – and they come from Greek chroniclers Diodorus and Arrian, writing centuries after his death. They include conquering the Mediterranean coast all the way to the Pillars of Hercules (Rock of Gibraltar), building a tomb for his father Philp that would be as large as the Great Pyramid of Giza, and transplanting populations from Greece to Persia and vice versa to unite his domains through intermarriage.To explore this hypothetical scenario is Anthony Everitt, author of “Alexander the Great: His Life and Mysterious Death.” We look at the life of the most influential person in the ancient world, and explore the ramifications of his life having even more influence.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On today's Strategy Series program, sponsored by General Atomic Aeronautical Systems, Dr. Evelyn Farkas, a former Pentagon Europe and Russia chief during the Obama administration who is now the executive director of McCain Institute at Arizona State University, and Dr. Eugene Rumer, a former national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia on the National Intelligence Council who is now the director of the Russia and Eurasia program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, join Defense & Aerospace Report Editor Vago Muradian to discuss President Trump's drive to end the Ukraine war including voting against a UN resolution blaming the war on Russia; how the betrayal of Ukraine and shakedown of Kyiv for its natural resources is resonating worldwide; how smaller nations can stand up to Russia and China without US help; worries across Asia as nations worry Trump's “grand bargain” with China will jeopardize their security; takeaways from the HFX Taipei forum 20-21 Feb. in the Taiwanese capital; how Putin's “win” in Ukraine change the Russian leader's popularity at home; and an update on the war.

Interview recorded - 21st of February, 2025On this episode of the WTFinance podcast I had the pleasure of welcoming back Glenn Diesen. Glenn is a professor at the University of South-Eastern Norway & geopolitical commentator.During our conversation we spoke further about the current geopolitical landscape, US & Russia to negotiate peace, disaster of Biden tenure, Russian threat for Europe, Ukrainian tragedy, China & US conflict, the end of US hegemon and more. I hope you enjoy!0:00 - Introduction2:18 - Geopolitical landscape5:04 - US & Russia to negotiate peace?9:59 - Graveyard of empires13:22 - Biden tenure14:42 - European security issue18:07 - Russia threat for Europe?22:12 - Ukraine tragedy25:52 - Monroe doctrine?28:17 - China & US conflict?33:47 - Does China want to be a hegemon?37:02 - One message to takeaway?Professor Diesen is an academic, author, editor, and political commentator. His research focus is primarily on Russian foreign policy and the geoeconomics of Greater Eurasia and the emerging strategic partnership between Russia and China. Diesen's latest books are The Ukraine War & the Eurasian World Order (2024); Russophobia: Propaganda in International Politics (2022), Europe as the Western Peninsula of Greater Eurasia: Geoeconomic Regions in a Multipolar World (2021); Russian Conservatism: Managing Change under Permanent Revolution (2021); Great Power Politics in the Fourth Industrial Rivalry: The Geoeconomics of Technological Sovereignty (2021); The Return of Eurasia (2021); Russia in a Changing World (2020); The Decay of Western Civilisation and Resurgence of Russia: Between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft (2018); Russia's Geoeconomic Strategy for a Greater Eurasia (2017); and EU and NATO relations with Russia: After the collapse of the Soviet Union (2015).Glenn Diesen: X: https://twitter.com/Glenn_DiesenSubstack: https://glenndiesen.substack.com/YouTube:  @GDiesen1 WTFinance -Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/wtfinancee/Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/67rpmjG92PNBW0doLyPvfniTunes - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wtfinance/id1554934665?uo=4Twitter - https://twitter.com/AnthonyFatseas

Timothy Ash, who has been professional economist for more than 30 years, with two thirds of that in the banking industry. Timothy's specialism is emerging European economics, and he writes and blogs extensively on economic challenges for leading publications such as the Kyiv Post, Atlantic Council, the Financial Times, and the United Business Journal. He is also an Associate Fellow in the Russia and Eurasia programme at Chatham House and has advised various governments on Ukraine-Russia policy and specifically on the impact of sanctions.----------SILICON CURTAIN LIVE EVENTS - FUNDRAISER CAMPAIGN 10 Events in 10 months - Advocacy for a Ukrainian victory with Silicon Curtainhttps://buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain/extrasOur first live events this year in Lviv and Kyiv were a huge success. Now we need to maintain this momentum, and change the tide towards a Ukrainian victory. The Silicon Curtain Roadshow is an ambitious campaign to run 10 events in 10 months (at a minimum). We may add more venues to the program, depending on the success of the fundraising campaign. https://buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain/extrasWe need to scale up our support for Ukraine, and these events are designed to have a major impact. Your support in making it happen is greatly appreciated. All events will be recorded professionally and published for free on the Silicon Curtain channel. Where possible, we will also live-stream events.https://buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain/extras----------LINKS:https://twitter.com/tasheconhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/timothy-ash-83a87158/https://www.chathamhouse.org/about-us/our-people/timothy-ashhttps://cepa.org/author/timothy-ash/----------ARTICLES:https://timothyash.substack.com/ https://kyivindependent.com/author/timothy-ash/----------SUPPORT THE CHANNEL:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtainhttps://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtain----------TRUSTED CHARITIES ON THE GROUND:Save Ukrainehttps://www.saveukraineua.org/Superhumans - Hospital for war traumashttps://superhumans.com/en/UNBROKEN - Treatment. Prosthesis. Rehabilitation for Ukrainians in Ukrainehttps://unbroken.org.ua/Come Back Alivehttps://savelife.in.ua/en/Chefs For Ukraine - World Central Kitchenhttps://wck.org/relief/activation-chefs-for-ukraineUNITED24 - An initiative of President Zelenskyyhttps://u24.gov.ua/Serhiy Prytula Charity Foundationhttps://prytulafoundation.org----------PLATFORMS:Twitter: https://twitter.com/CurtainSiliconInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/siliconcurtain/Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/4thRZj6NO7y93zG11JMtqmLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finkjonathan/Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtain----------Welcome to the Silicon Curtain podcast. Please like and subscribe if you like the content we produce. It will really help to increase the popularity of our content in YouTube's algorithm. Our material is now being made available on popular podcasting platforms as well, such as Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

In Saudi Arabia, U.S. officials met with Russian counterparts to discuss ending the war in Ukraine. Missing from these talks were Ukrainian and European representatives. Geoff Bennett analyzed the notable absences with Andrea Kendall-Taylor, a former senior intelligence officer focused on Russia and Eurasia, and Paul Saunders, executive director of the Center for the National Interest. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders

In Saudi Arabia, U.S. officials met with Russian counterparts to discuss ending the war in Ukraine. Missing from these talks were Ukrainian and European representatives. Geoff Bennett analyzed the notable absences with Andrea Kendall-Taylor, a former senior intelligence officer focused on Russia and Eurasia, and Paul Saunders, executive director of the Center for the National Interest. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders

This episode we kick off a series of episodes following the famous monk Xuanzang, aka the Tripitaka Master of the Law, Sanzang Fashi.  Known in Japanese as Genjo, and founder of the Faxiang school of Yogacara Buddhism, also known as the Hosso school, it was brought back to the archipelago by students who studied with the master at his temple north of the Tang capital of Chang'an.  He was particularly famous for his travels across the Silk Road to India and back--a trip that would last 16 years and result in him bringing back numerous copies of sutras from the land of the Buddha, kicking off a massive translation work.  It also would see his recollections recorded as the Record of the Western Regions, which, along with his biography based on the stories he told those working with him, give us some of the best contemporary information of the various places along the Silk Road in the 7th century. Part 1 focuses on Xuanzang's journey out of the Tang empire, braving the desert, and somehow, against the odds, making it to the country of Gaochang. For more, check out the blogpost page:  https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-120 Rough Transcript: Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.  My name is Joshua, and this is Episode 120:  Journey to the West, Part 1 The monks from far off Yamato were enthralled.  They had journeyed across the waves on a foreign vessel, traversed a greater distance than they probably thought possible growing up in the archipelago, and had finally arrived at the capital of the Great Tang Empire, Chang'an.  They had then been sent north, to a temple where they met others from Yamato. They had come to study the Law, the Dharma, with some of the most famous teachers of the Tang dynasty, and there were few more famous than the Tripitaka Master Genjou himself.   Everyone in the monastery knew his story—he had traveled all the way to India, the birthplace of the Buddha, and returned with copies of the sutras in Sanskrit, which he and the other monks were translating. In between sessions of meditation, sutra readings, and various lectures, the students would gather round the feet of the master as he recounted his journeys.  The stories themselves were fantastic stories, telling of far off cities and people.  There were stories of bandits, and meetings with kings.  The students must have thought about how it mirrored what they, themselves, had gone through—their own Journey to the West. Last episode we talked about Tukara and what that mysterious placename might mean—and where it could be referring to.  For that we traveled all the way to the end of the Silk Road.  In this episode and continuing into the next, we are going to travel that same road with a different perspective, as we take a look at one of the most famous travelers of the Silk Road:  the monk Xuanzang, or Genjou in Japanese.  And as I hinted at in the introduction, if you're at all familiar with the famous Journey to the West, well, this and the following episodes will explore the actual history behind that story, and how intertwined it is with the history of the archipelago. For those who don't know, Xuanzang was a monk, born Chen Hui near present-day Luoyang in Henan.  He is known by many names, but one of his most famous comes from the title “Sanzang Fashi”, aka “Tripitaka Master of the Law”, from which we get the simplified name in some English sources of just “Tripitaka”.  Sanzang, or “Tripitaka”, literally translates to “Three baskets” or “Three storehouses”, referring to the Buddhist canon.  It is quite fitting, given Xuanzang's incredibly famous Journey to the Western Regions and, eventually, to India, where he journeyed to obtain the most accurate version of the Buddhist scriptures to ensure that they had the most accurate versions.  On his journey, Xuanzang apparently took detailed records of the trip, and his   “Records of the Western Regions”  provides a lot of what we know of the towns and cultures that existed there back in the 7th century – even if not all of it was experienced firsthand and  may have come through translators and second or third-hand sources. In addition, Xuanzang's biography and travelogue add a lot more information to his journey, even if they weren't necessarily written by him, but instead by his fellow monks based on his recitations to them  combined with various records that they had access to at the time.  As such, it isn't always the most reliable, but it is still highly detailed and informative.  Xuanzang would return to China and teach for many years, translating the works that he had brought back, and founding a new school of Yogachara Buddhism, known as Faxiang in Chinese, but “Hossou” in Japan.  The Hossou school was particularly popular in the 8th and 9th centuries, having been transmitted by Yamato students who had actually studied at the feet of the venerable teacher.  These included the monk Doushou, who travelled over to the continent in 653.  In 658, there are two others who came over, named Chitatsu and Chiitsu. They had travelled to the Tang court in the 7th month of that year, where they are said to have received instruction from none other than Xuanzang himself.  If this indeed was in 658, it would have been only 6 years before Xuanzang's death. Their journey had almost not happened.  The year previous, in 657, envoys were sent to Silla to ask that state to escort Chitatsu to the Tang court, along with Hashibito no Muraji no Mimumaya and Yozami no Muraji no Wakugo, but Silla refused.  They must have relented, however, as they apparently were escorting at least the monks a year or so later. Chitatsu and Chiitsu would eventually return to Yamato, as would Doushou.  Doushou is also said to have been introduced to a student of the second patriarch of the Chan, or Zen school as well.  He would return to teach at Gango-ji, the later incarnation of Asukadera, spreading the Hossou teachings from master Xuanzang. In fact, Xuanzang's impact would be felt across Asia, and much of the Buddhist world.  He would continue to be known in Japan and in the area of China, Korea, and beyond.  Japanese translations of his journeys were made between the 8th and 10th centuries from texts that had come from Xuanzang's own monastery. Nine centuries after his death, during the Ming Dynasty, Xuanzang would be further immortalized in a wildly popular novel:  Journey to the West.  The “Journey to the West” is an incredibly fantastical retelling of Xuanzang's story.  In it, Xuanzang is sent on his task by none other than the Buddha himself, who also provides three flawed traveling companions.  There is  Zhu Bajie, aka “Piggy”—a half human half pig who is known for his gluttony and lust.  Then there is Sha Wujing, aka “Sandy”—a man with a red beard and blue skin who lived in a river of quicksand.  Despite a rather frightful backstory, he was often the straight man in the story.  And then there is the famous Sun Wukong, aka “Monkey”, the most famous of the three and often more famous than Xuanzang himself.  In fact, one of the most famous English versions of the story is just called “Monkey”, an abridged telling of the story in English by Arthur Waley in 1942. “Journey to the West” is perhaps the most popular novel in all of Asia.  It has spawned countless retellings, including numerous movies and tv series.  The character of “Monkey” has further spun off into all sorts of media.  Of course, his addition was all part of the novel, but nonetheless, that novel had an historical basis, which is where we really want to explore.  Because for all of the magic and fantasy of the Ming novel, the real story is almost as fascinating without it. We are told that Xuanzang was born as Chen Hui—or possibly Chen Yi—on the 6th of April in 602 CE in Chenliu, near present-day Luoyang.  Growing up, he was fascinated by religious books.  He joined the Jingtu monastery and at the age of thirteen he was ordained as a novice monk.  However, he lived in rather “interesting times”, and as the Sui dynasty fell, he fled the chaos to Chengdu, in Sichuan, where he was fully ordained by the age of 20. Xuanzang was inspired reading about the 4th century monk Faxian, whom we mentioned back in Episode 84.  Faxian had visited India and brought back many of the earliest scriptures to be widely translated into Chinese.    However, Xuanzang was concerned, as Faxian had been, that the knowledge of the Chinese Buddhist establishment was still incomplete.  There were still works that they knew about but didn't have, and there were competing Buddhist theories in different translations of the texts.  He thought that if he could go find untranslated versions of the texts then he could resolve some of the issues and further build out the corpus of Buddhist knowledge. Around the age 25 or 27, he began his journey.  The exact date is either 627 or 629, based on the version that one reads.  That has some importance for the events that his story tells, as some of the individuals whom he is said to have met are said to have died by 627 CE, meaning that either the dates of the journey are wrong or the dates we have in other sources are wrong.  As you can imagine, that's rather important for an accurate history, but not so much for our purposes, as I think that we can still trust the broad brush strokes which paint an image of what the Silk Road was like at the time. For context, back in Yamato, this was around the time that Kashikiya Hime—aka Suiko Tenno—passed away, and Prince Tamura was placed on the throne, passing over Prince Yamashiro no Oe, the son of the late Crown Prince, Umayado, aka Shotoku Taishi.  Whoever was on the throne, Soga no Emishi was actually running things, and the Soga family were heavily involved in the establishment of Buddhism in the archipelago.  This is relatively around the time of Episode 103. When Xuanzang took off to the West, his intentions may have been pure, but truth be told, he was breaking the law.  Tang Taizong had come to power in 626, and the routes along the Tarim Basin were under the control of the Gokturks, whom the Tang were fighting with.  As such, travel to the Western Regions was strictly controlled.  Xuanzang and several companions had all petitioned Emperor Taizong for permission to leave, but the Emperor never replied. So Xuanzang did not have permission to leave—but he decided to head out, anyway.  His companions, however, lost their nerve, and so he set out alone. Of course, he didn't simply set off for the West.  At first he went city to city, staying at local Buddhist monasteries and sharing his teachings.  To all intents and purposes, this probably seemed like normal behavior for a monk, traveling from monastery to monastery, but it was actually taking him towards the western border. And it was going well until he reached Liangzhou—known today as Wuwei.  Li Daliang, governor of Liangzhou, enforced the prohibition that "common" people were not permitted to go to the regions of the western tribes.  Word had spread about Xuanzang, and when the governor caught wind of what was going on, he called Xuanzang into an audience to find out what he was planning to do.  Xuanzang was honest and told him he was going to the West to search for the Dharma, but the governor ordered him to return to Chang'an instead. Fortunately, there was a Buddhist teacher, Huiwei, who heard about all of this this and decided to help Xuanzang.  He had two of his own disciples escort Xuanzang to the west.  Since the governor had told him not to go, this was illegal, and so they traveled by night and hid during the day until they reached Guazhou. In Guazhou, the governor, Dugu Da, was quite pleased to meet with Xuanzang, and either hadn't heard about the order for him to return to Chang'an or didn't care.  From there, Xuanzang's path was largely obstructed by the deep and fast-flowing Hulu river.  They would have to travel to its upper reaches, where they could go through Yumenguan--Yumen Pass--which was the only safe way to cross, making it a key to the Western regions. Beyond Yumenguan there were five watchtowers, roughly 30 miles apart.  These watchtowers likely had means to signal back and forth, thus keeping an eye on the people coming and going from Yumen Pass.  Beyond that was the desert of Yiwu, also known as Hami. Xuanzang was not only worried about what this meant, his horse died, leaving him on foot.  He contemplated this in silence for a month.  Before he continued, though, a warrant arrived for his arrest.  They inquired with a local prefect, who happened to be a pious Buddhist.  He showed it to Xuanzang, and then ended up tearing up the document, and urged Xuanzang to leave as quickly as possible. Yumenguan lies roughly 80-90 kilometers—roughly 50 miles or so—from the town of Dunhuang, the last major outpost before leaving for the Western Regions.  Dunhuang had a thriving Buddhist community, and the paintings in the Mogao caves are absolutely stunning, even today—one of the most well-preserved of such collections, spanning the 4th to the 14th century.  However, at this point, Xuanzang was a wanted man, and stopping in at Dunhuang might very well have curtailed his journey before it had even begun.  Instead, he would likely need to find a way to sneak across the border without alerting anyone and then, somehow, sneak past five watchtowers, each 30 miles or so apart, with no water except what he could carry or steal at each point. At this point, one of Xuanzang's escorts had traveled on to Dunhuang, and only one remained, but Xuanzang wasn't sure his remaining companion was up to the strain of the journey, and he dismissed him, deciding to travel on alone.  He bought a horse, and he fortunately found a guide--a "Hu" person named "Shi Pantuo".  "Hu" is a generic term often translated simply as "foreigner" or "barbarian" from the western lands, and the name "Shi" referred to Sogdians from Tashkent.  The Sogdians were a people of Persian descent living in central Eurasia, between the Syr Darya and Amu Darya rivers.  That latter was also known as the Oxus river, hence another name for the region: Transoxiana.  Sogdiana appears as early as the 6th century BCE as a member of the Achaemenid Empire, and the region was annexed by Alexander the Great in 328 BCE.  It continued to change hands under a succession of empires. The Sogdian city-states themselves were centered around the city of Samarkand, and while they did not build an empire themselves, the Sogdians nonetheless had a huge impact on cultures in both the east and the west.  Sogdians became famous as traders along the silk roads, and they built tight knit communities in multiple cities along the route.  Families kept in touch over long distances, setting up vast trading networks.  In fact, there were even Sogdian communities living in Chang'an and elsewhere in the Tang Empire.  The Sogdian An Lushan would eventually rise through the ranks of the Tang dynasty court—but that was almost a century after Xuanzang's travels. There are many material items that the Sogdians helped move across the silk road, but perhaps one of the most striking things were a style of patterned textiles.  Sassanid Persia was known for its silk textiles, often woven in images surrounded by a border of pearl-shapes:  Small circles in a circular pattern around a central figure, often duplicated due to the way the fabrics were woven.  This pearl-roundel pattern was especially taken up by the Sogdians, and their fashion sense made it popular across Eurasia.  Large pearl roundel designs were used on caftans, popular throughout the Gokturk qaghanate, and the Tang court would eventually pick up the fashion of these foreigners—generally classified as “hu” by those in Chang'an.  With a round neck, closing at the side, this western-style caftan-like garment eventually found its way into Japan as the people of the Japanese archipelago adopted Tang dynasty clothing and fashion.  In fact, Japan boasts one of the most impressive collections of silk road artifacts at the Shosoin repository of Todaiji temple in Nara, and it includes clothing and fabric that show the influence of Sogdian and Turkic merchants.  The Shosoin collection contains multiple examples of those pearl roundel patterns, for example, and you can even buy reproductions of the design today in Nara and elsewhere.  The garments themselves would continue to influence the fashion of the court, indeed giving rise to some of the most popular court garments of the Nara period, and the design continued to evolve through the Heian period until it was almost unrecognizable from its origins. Sogdians were so influential that their language—an Eastern Iranian language known simply as “Sogdian”—was the lingua franca, or the common tongue, through most of the Silk Road.  If you knew Sogdian, you could probably find a way to communicate with most of the people along way.  Today, Sogdian is extinct, with the possible exception of a single language that evolved from a Sogdian dialect. Sogdians are often known in Sinitic sources by their names—by the time of the Tang dynasty, it was common practice to give foreigners, whose names didn't always translate well into Chinese dialects, a family name based on their origin.  For the Sogdians, who were quite well known and numerous, they weren't just classified with a single name, but rather they were divided up by seven names based on where they were from.  So the name “Shi”, for instance, indicated that someone was from the area of Tashkent, while the name “An” referred to a Sogdian who was descended from people from the Bukhara, and so on.  This was a practice that went at least as far back as the Han dynasty. So, returning to the story, Xuanzang's new Sogdian guide's name is given as “Shi Pantuo”.  The name "Pantuo", which would have likely been pronounced more like "b'uan d'a" at the time, is likely a version of the name "Vandak", which was indeed a very common Sogdian name meaning something like “servant” and was often used to indicate things like religious devotion, which could be related to his status as a devout Buddhist, though it also might just be coincidental.  Xuanzang was so happy with his guide's offer to help, that he bought him clothes and a horse for his troubles. And so they headed out towards Yumenguan, the Jade Pass or Jade Gate, so called because of the caravans of jade that would head out from the Middle Country ever since the Han dynasty.  In fact, the Jade Gate was originally established as part of the western end of the Han dynasty “Great Wall”.  This was not necessarily the famous Ming Dynasty wall that most people are familiar with, but the Han Dynasty wall would have been impressively high enough, with regular patrols and beacon towers.  So if you tried going over the wall, someone was likely to see you and give chase.  There is also the issue that if you had any amount of supplies you have to bring those as well—this isn't just hopping a fence.  The wall was augmented by natural features—mountains and deep and fast-flowing rivers, for example, which made walls unnecessary.  And then there was also the fact that in many places, it was just open wilderness, which was its own kind of barrier.  Trying to go off the beaten path meant wandering through uncharted territory, which someone like Xuanzang was probably not prepared to do.  It isn't like he had GPS and Google Maps to help him find his way, and if you got lost in the desert, then who knows what might happen to you. By the way, this was true even in relatively settled places, like the Japanese archipelago, up until modern times.  While there were some areas where it was relatively flat, and you could navigate by certain landmarks, if you left the roads and trails you might easily find yourself lost without access to food or shelter.  Maps were not exactly accurate.  The safest way to travel was to stick to the more well-traveled routes. Unfortunately, that meant going through the Yumen Gate itself.  There was a garrison where the road left the territory of the Tang Empire , and that garrison would be responsible for checking the papers of anyone coming into or leaving the empire.  Xuanzang, of course, didn't have the proper papers, since he didn't have permission to be there.  Fortunately, he had a guide, who seemed to know the area, and that would allow him to bypass the official checkpoint, which Xuanzang recalls seeing off in the distance.  Together, Xuanzang and Vandak snuck past the Yumen gate, and traveled several miles up the river.  There, they found a spot where the river was only about 10 feet across, near a grove of trees, and so they chopped down a few of them and made an impromptu bridge for them and their horses to cross. From that point on, until they reached Yiwu, they would have to get past the watchtowers.  Not only were these watchtowers garrisoned with men of the Tang army, but they were also the only place to get fresh water.  The travelers would need to sneak in at night to steal water from the watchtowers without getting caught. The farther they traveled, the more Vandak seemed to be getting cold feet.  Normally, this wouldn't have been an issue had they been normal travelers, but in trying to avoid the watchtowers they were making themselves into fugitives.  If they were caught they could both be killed.  He protested several times that they should just go back, and at one point Xuanzang seemed worried that Vandak was contemplating how much easier this would be for him if he just killed the old monk.  Finally, Xuanzang told Vandak that he should leave, and solemnly swore that if he was caught he wouldn't rat out Vandak for his help.  Vandak, who had been worried about just such a scenario, nonetheless took Xuanzang's word and the two parted ways. From that point on, Xuanzang recounted that the trail through the desert was marked by nothing but skeletons and horse droppings.  He thought at one point he saw an army in the desert, but it turned out to be a mirage.  Finally, he saw one of the watchtowers he had been warned about.  Not wanting to get caught, he lay down in a ditch and hid there until the sun went down. Under cover of darkness, he approached the tower, where he saw water.  He went to have a drink, and maybe wash his hands, but as he was getting out his water bag to refill it and arrow whizzed through the air and he almost took an arrow to the knee.  Knowing the jig was up, he shouted out: "I'm a monk from the capital!  Don't shoot!" He led his horse to the tower, where they opened the door and saw he really was a monk.  They woke up the captain, who had a lamp lit so he could see whom it was they had apprehended.  Right away it was clear that this traveler wasn't from around those parts—not that anyone really was, it seems. The Captain had heard of Xuanzang, but the report that had been sent said Xuanzang had gone back to Chang'an.  Xuanzang, for his part, showed a copy of the petition he had sent to the Emperor--one that he hadn't actually heard back from.  He then told the captain what he planned to do.  The captain was moved, and decided to look the other way.  He gave him a place to stay for the night and then showed him the way to the fourth watchtower, where the captain's brother was in charge, and would give him shelter. Sure enough, Xuanzang made it to the fourth watchtower, but he wasn't sure if he could entirely trust the captain, so again he tried to just secretly steal the water, but again he was caught.  Fortunately, the captain there was also sympathetic.  He let Xuanzang stay and then actually told him how to get around the fifth watchtower, since the captain there might not be as lenient.  He also told Xuanzang about an inconspicuous oasis where he could get water for himself and his horse. Reinvigorated, Xuanzang had another challenge to face.  Beyond the watchtowers was a long stretch of desert.  It was a journey of several hundred miles, and it started poorly.  First off, he missed the oasis that the captain of the fourth watchtower had indicated he could use without anyone firing arrows at him.  Then, he dropped his water bag, such that he was left with nothing.  He thought of turning back, but he continued, chanting mantras to himself.   He was dehydrated and exhausted, but he continued onward.  Some days into his journey, his horse suddenly changed course of its own accord.  Despite his efforts, it kept going, eventually coming to a pasture of grass around a pond of clean, sweet water.  That ended up saving him, and he rested there for a day, before traveling on.  Two days later, he arrived at Yiwu, aka Hami.  He had made it.  He was free. Or at least, he was until he returned to the Tang empire.  After all, Xuanzang did plan to come back, and when he did, he would have to face the music.  That was a problem for future Xuanzang.  Of course, he was also a lone traveler.  He might be free, but he was far from safe.  He was now entering the Western regions, and he would need to be on the lookout. The people of Hami, also known as Yiwu, were known to the Han dynasty as members of the Xiao Yuezhi—the kingdom or coalition that once controlled much of the northern edge of the Tarim basin.  They had been displaced by the Xiongnu, and the area would go back and forth between different hegemons, so that by the time of the Sui and early Tang dynasties they were under the sway of the Gokturks.  Still, as close as it was to the Tang borders, they no doubt had contact, and indeed, Xuanzang was given lodging at a monastery with three other monks who were “Chinese”, for whatever that meant at the time. If you've heard of Hami today you may know it for something that it was famous for even back in the 7th century:  their famous melons.  You can sometimes find Hami melons in stores to this day. Regarding the melons and other such fruits and vegetables—the area of Hami is a fairly arid land.  Hami does get some water from the Tianshan mountains, but in order to have enough for agriculture they instituted a system that is still found today in Hami, Turpan, and other parts of the world, including arid parts of northwest India and Pakistan through the middle east to north Africa.  It is called a Karez, or in Persian it is called a Qanat, and it is thought to have originated in ancient Persia around the first millennium BCE and spread out through the various trade routes. The idea is to basically create underground aqueducts to take water from one place to another.  This would keep them out of the heat and dry air above ground to allow them to continue to flow without losing too much to evaporation.  To do that, however, required manually digging tunnels for the water.  This would be done by sinking wells at regular intervals and connecting the wells to each other with tunnels.  But it wasn't enough for the tunnels to be connected, they had to also slope slightly downwards, but not too much.  You want enough flow to keep the water clear, but if it flows too quickly or creates waves, the water might erode the underground channels in ways that could cause problems, such as a collapse.  All in all, they are pretty amazing feats of engineering and they can carry water a great distance.  Many are under 5 km, but some are around 70 km long. These karez would have been the lifelines of many towns, creating a reliable oasis in the desert.  Rivers were great, but the flow could vary from floods to a mere trickle, and the karez system provided relatively constant flow.  This allowed for agriculture even in the dry areas of the Western Regions, which helped facilitate the various kingdoms that grew up in this otherwise inhospitable region. While eating his melons in Hami and chatting it up with his fellow eastern priests, Yiwu was visited by an envoy from the neighboring kingdom of Gaochang.  Now Hami, or Yiwu, sits at the eastern edge of the Turpan-Hami basin, aka the Turfan depression, a large desert, much of which is actually so low that it is below sea level.  In fact, the basin includes the lowest exposed point in the area of modern China at Ayding Lake, which is 158 meters below sea level.  From Yiwu to Gaochang, you would follow the edge of the mountains west, to an area near a small break in the mountain range.  Follow that break northwest, and you would find yourself at the city of Urumqi, the current capital of the Xinjiang Autonomous Region in modern China. Xinjiang covers much of the area known in ancient times as the “Western Regions” that remains within the modern political boundaries of the PRC. The envoy from Gaochang heard about Xuanzang, and reported back to his lord, King Qu Wentai, who immediately sent a retinue out to escort the Buddhist monk across the desert to his city.  They included multiple horses for Xuanzang, so he could change at regular intervals.  His own horse was left behind, to be brought along later.   After six days on the road, they came to the city of Paili, and since the sun had already set, Xuanzang asked to stop for the night, but the escorts urged him on to the Royal City, which was not much farther on. And so he arrived around midnight, which means he likely couldn't immediately take in the size of the city.  Gaochang was an immense walled city, and even today, ruined as it is, the site of it is quite formidable, and it is so well preserved it is considered a UNESCO world heritage site.  Perhaps since wood was relatively scarce, this is why so much of the construction was made of brick and earthworks.  Fortunately, this means that many of the walls remain, even today—eroded and crumbling, but still towering over those who come to see them.  In places they have also been rebuilt or reinforced.  And in a few, very rare instances, you can still see some of the traces of paint that would have once been so prevalent throughout a city like this.  At this time in history, Gaochang, also known as Karakhoja, was under the command of the Qu family.  The population was largely Han Chinese, and it had often been overseen or at least influenced by kingdoms in the Yellow River basin.  But it was also the home of Turks, Sogdian merchants, local Turfanians, and more.  It was even called “Chinatown” by the Sogdians, and yet attempts to further sinicize the region had provoked a coup only a couple of decades earlier.  Even though he showed up in the middle of the night, Xuanzang is said to have been welcomed by the ruler of Gaochang, Qu Wentai, as he entered the city.  Perhaps this is why the escorts had been pushing so hard—the King himself was awake and waiting for Xuanzang to make an appearance.  The King and his attendants came out with candles in their hands, and they were ushered behind curtains in a multi-storey pavilion.  The king apparently grilled him through the night, asking about his journey until it was almost daybreak, at which point Xuanzang requested rest.  He was finally shown to a bedroom that had been prepared for him and allowed to sleep. The next day king assembled the leading monks of his kingdom before his guest.  These included the monks Tuan Fashi and Wang Fashi.  Tuan Fashi had studied in Chang'an for many years, and he knew his Buddhist scholarship. And Wang Fashi was a superintendent, and it was his duty to look after Xuanzang and butter him up with the hope that he might stay and provide the king with the prestige of having such an esteemed monk.  They put him up at a monastery next to the royal palace—the “daochang”, aka “dojo” in Japanese, which would be a whole different diversion. Ding Wang suggested that this might be the same as the Chongfu Monastery mentioned in a colophon on a 7th century copy of the Sutra of Perfection of Wisdom for Benevolent Kings. It was found by a German expedition at a site in the Turfan basin in the early 20th century, and now sits in the possession of Shitenno-ji, in Osaka—rather appropriate given that Shitenno-ji was around at the same time all of this was happening.  The colophon is attributed to a “Xuanjue”, and a “Xuanjue” from Gaochang, in the Turpan basin, was associated with helping Xuanzang in his later years.  Perhaps this Xuanjue first met Xuanzang during this first trip to Gaochang. Qu Wentai tried his best to dissuade Xuanzang from continuing on.  This may be simple platitudes from his biographers, but it also may have been genuine.  Having a learned foreign monk from the Tang dynasty staying at the palace monastery would likely have added to Qu Wentai's prestige by association, and it would have potentially brought more individuals to the city of Gaochang. Speaking of which, all of this first part of the journey—up to Gaochang—comes primarily from Xuanzang's biography by the monk Huili.  Xuanzang's own “Records of the Western Regions” didn't include much on it, probably because by the time that he returned to the Tang empire, Tang Taizong had annexed Yiwu and Gaochang, so all those were now considered part of the empire, rather than foreign regions to the West. After staying a month at Gaochang, Xuanzang decided it was time to continue his journey.  Disappointed though Qu Wentai may have been that his guest would be leaving, he nonetheless outfitted him handsomely.  He provided goods, including coins, as well as 24 letters to the 24 countries that he would pass along the road, adding a roll of silk to each as a sign that they came from the King of Gaochang.  He also gave him food, a small retinue, and horses to help carry everything.  Letters of introduction would have been important across the Silk Road.  There was, after all, no way to contact someone ahead of time, unless you sent runners. Merchant communities, in particular, would often be connected across long distances through regular caravans, which carried letters to their relatives, facilitating communication across vast distances.  Merchants who were bringing in a caravan of goods would know that there was a friendly community waiting to help them when they arrived, and would likely even have an idea of what was happening and what to bring. For someone traveling alone, however, having a letter of introduction would have been important, as they didn't necessarily have access to those communities by themselves.  The letters would provide introduction and let people know who you were and may even ask for assistance on your behalf.  It may seem a small thing, but it was the kind of gesture that was likely a great help to a traveler like Xuanzang.  Remember, he was not on an official mission from the Tang court—almost expressly the opposite, as he had not been given permission to leave.  So he wouldn't have had anything identifying him, and after Gaochang he likely couldn't count on being able to communicate with his native tongue. And so he was sent on his way.  As he left the city of Gaochang, the king and others accompanied Xuanzang about 10 li, or about 3 or 4 miles, outside of the city.  As they watched him head off, who could have known if he would complete his quest?  Or would he just end up another ghost in the desert? Next episode, we'll pick up Xuanzang's story as he strikes out for Agni and beyond.  Until then thank you for listening and for all of your support. If you like what we are doing, please tell your friends and feel free to rate us wherever you listen to podcasts.  If you feel the need to do more, and want to help us keep this going, we have information about how you can donate on Patreon or through our KoFi site, ko-fi.com/sengokudaimyo, or find the links over at our main website,  SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on topics from this episode. Also, feel free to reach out to our Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page.  You can also email us at the.sengoku.daimyo@gmail.com.  Thank you, also, to Ellen for their work editing the podcast. And that's all for now.  Thank you again, and I'll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.

Known as the barbarians of the north, the Scythians were expert horsemen that roamed the great steppe of Eurasia more than 2,000 years ago. But how much do we know about them?In today's episode of The Ancients, Tristan Hughes is joined by Dr Owen Rees to explore this infamous nomadic culture who wore trousers, wielded bows and arrows and boasted Amazon-like warrior women who may even have fought in battle. Along the way Owen explains the fascinating story of the Scythian settlement of Bilsk - a great hulking Iron-Age mega-town fortified with miles and miles of winding walls on the edge of the Great Steppe in southern Ukraine.Presented by Tristan Hughes. Audio editor is Aidan Lonergan, the producer is Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.All music courtesy of Epidemic SoundsThe Ancients is a History Hit podcast.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on

It was a day of major diplomacy and policy statements from the Trump administration about the war in Ukraine. Amna Nawaz has two perspectives on the developments from Evelyn Farkas, executive director of the McCain Institute and the former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Eurasia, and John Mearsheimer, author of "The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities." PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders

PREPARING FOR TALKS WITH THE KREMLIN:  7/8: Stalin's War: A New History of World War II, Sean McMeekin, with Kevin Stillwell as narrator. Published by Basic Books.  Audible Audiobook – Unabridged https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/392db86e-7d65-4c5d-b2a9-b781d5ee7250?shareToken=99d9180db57c2304848bc11f23ff97dc 1944-45 MARKET GARDEN https://www.amazon.com/Stalins-War-New-History-World/dp/B08XW52WNY/ref=sr_1_1?crid=15RCHF0X357CE&keywords=mcmeekin+stalins+war&qid=1644188471&s=books&sprefix=mcmeekin+stalins+war%2Cstripbooks%2C67&sr=1-1 World War II:  Hitler was not in power when the conflict erupted in Asia—and he was certainly dead before it ended. His armies did not fight in multiple theaters, his empire did not span the Eurasian continent, and he did not inherit any of the spoils of war. That central role belonged to Joseph Stalin. The Second World War was not Hitler's war; it was Stalin's war: Drawing on ambitious new research in Soviet, European, and US archives, Stalin's War revolutionizes our understanding of this global conflict by moving its epicenter to the east. Hitler's genocidal ambition may have helped unleash Armageddon, but as McMeekin shows, the war which emerged in Europe in September 1939 was the one Stalin wanted, not Hitler. So, too, did the Pacific war of 1941–1945 fulfill Stalin's goal of unleashing a devastating war of attrition between Japan and the “Anglo-Saxon” capitalist powers he viewed as his ultimate adversary.   McMeekin also reveals the extent to which Soviet Communism was rescued by the US and Britain's self-defeating strategic moves, beginning with Lend-Lease aid, as American and British supply boards agreed almost blindly to every Soviet demand. Stalin's war machine, McMeekin shows, was substantially reliant on American materiél from warplanes, tanks, trucks, jeeps, motorcycles, fuel, ammunition, and explosives, to industrial inputs and technology transfer, to the foodstuffs which fed the Red Army.   This unreciprocated American generosity gave Stalin's armies the mobile striking power to conquer most of Eurasia, from Berlin to Beijing, for Communism.   A groundbreaking reassessment of the Second World War, Stalin's War is essential reading for anyone looking to understand the current world ordeR. 1935

PREPARING FOR TALKS WITH THE KREMLIN:  8/8: Stalin's War: A New History of World War II, Sean McMeekin, with Kevin Stillwell as narrator. Published by Basic Books.  Audible Audiobook – Unabridged https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/392db86e-7d65-4c5d-b2a9-b781d5ee7250?shareToken=99d9180db57c2304848bc11f23ff97dc 1944-45 MARKET GARDEN https://www.amazon.com/Stalins-War-New-History-World/dp/B08XW52WNY/ref=sr_1_1?crid=15RCHF0X357CE&keywords=mcmeekin+stalins+war&qid=1644188471&s=books&sprefix=mcmeekin+stalins+war%2Cstripbooks%2C67&sr=1-1 World War II:  Hitler was not in power when the conflict erupted in Asia—and he was certainly dead before it ended. His armies did not fight in multiple theaters, his empire did not span the Eurasian continent, and he did not inherit any of the spoils of war. That central role belonged to Joseph Stalin. The Second World War was not Hitler's war; it was Stalin's war: Drawing on ambitious new research in Soviet, European, and US archives, Stalin's War revolutionizes our understanding of this global conflict by moving its epicenter to the east. Hitler's genocidal ambition may have helped unleash Armageddon, but as McMeekin shows, the war which emerged in Europe in September 1939 was the one Stalin wanted, not Hitler. So, too, did the Pacific war of 1941–1945 fulfill Stalin's goal of unleashing a devastating war of attrition between Japan and the “Anglo-Saxon” capitalist powers he viewed as his ultimate adversary.   McMeekin also reveals the extent to which Soviet Communism was rescued by the US and Britain's self-defeating strategic moves, beginning with Lend-Lease aid, as American and British supply boards agreed almost blindly to every Soviet demand. Stalin's war machine, McMeekin shows, was substantially reliant on American materiél from warplanes, tanks, trucks, jeeps, motorcycles, fuel, ammunition, and explosives, to industrial inputs and technology transfer, to the foodstuffs which fed the Red Army.   This unreciprocated American generosity gave Stalin's armies the mobile striking power to conquer most of Eurasia, from Berlin to Beijing, for Communism.   A groundbreaking reassessment of the Second World War, Stalin's War is essential reading for anyone looking to understand the current world ordeR.

PREPARING FOR TALKS WITH THE KREMLIN:  1/8: Stalin's War: A New History of World War II, Sean McMeekin, with Kevin Stillwell as narrator. Published by Basic Books.  Audible Audiobook – Unabridged https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/392db86e-7d65-4c5d-b2a9-b781d5ee7250?shareToken=99d9180db57c2304848bc11f23ff97dc 1944-45 MARKET GARDEN https://www.amazon.com/Stalins-War-New-History-World/dp/B08XW52WNY/ref=sr_1_1?crid=15RCHF0X357CE&keywords=mcmeekin+stalins+war&qid=1644188471&s=books&sprefix=mcmeekin+stalins+war%2Cstripbooks%2C67&sr=1-1 World War II:  Hitler was not in power when the conflict erupted in Asia—and he was certainly dead before it ended. His armies did not fight in multiple theaters, his empire did not span the Eurasian continent, and he did not inherit any of the spoils of war. That central role belonged to Joseph Stalin. The Second World War was not Hitler's war; it was Stalin's war: Drawing on ambitious new research in Soviet, European, and US archives, Stalin's War revolutionizes our understanding of this global conflict by moving its epicenter to the east. Hitler's genocidal ambition may have helped unleash Armageddon, but as McMeekin shows, the war which emerged in Europe in September 1939 was the one Stalin wanted, not Hitler. So, too, did the Pacific war of 1941–1945 fulfill Stalin's goal of unleashing a devastating war of attrition between Japan and the “Anglo-Saxon” capitalist powers he viewed as his ultimate adversary.   McMeekin also reveals the extent to which Soviet Communism was rescued by the US and Britain's self-defeating strategic moves, beginning with Lend-Lease aid, as American and British supply boards agreed almost blindly to every Soviet demand. Stalin's war machine, McMeekin shows, was substantially reliant on American materiél from warplanes, tanks, trucks, jeeps, motorcycles, fuel, ammunition, and explosives, to industrial inputs and technology transfer, to the foodstuffs which fed the Red Army.   This unreciprocated American generosity gave Stalin's armies the mobile striking power to conquer most of Eurasia, from Berlin to Beijing, for Communism.   A groundbreaking reassessment of the Second World War, Stalin's War is essential reading for anyone looking to understand the current world ordeR. 1921

PREPARING FOR TALKS WITH THE KREMLIN:  2/8: Stalin's War: A New History of World War II, Sean McMeekin, with Kevin Stillwell as narrator. Published by Basic Books.  Audible Audiobook – Unabridged https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/392db86e-7d65-4c5d-b2a9-b781d5ee7250?shareToken=99d9180db57c2304848bc11f23ff97dc 1944-45 MARKET GARDEN https://www.amazon.com/Stalins-War-New-History-World/dp/B08XW52WNY/ref=sr_1_1?crid=15RCHF0X357CE&keywords=mcmeekin+stalins+war&qid=1644188471&s=books&sprefix=mcmeekin+stalins+war%2Cstripbooks%2C67&sr=1-1 World War II:  Hitler was not in power when the conflict erupted in Asia—and he was certainly dead before it ended. His armies did not fight in multiple theaters, his empire did not span the Eurasian continent, and he did not inherit any of the spoils of war. That central role belonged to Joseph Stalin. The Second World War was not Hitler's war; it was Stalin's war: Drawing on ambitious new research in Soviet, European, and US archives, Stalin's War revolutionizes our understanding of this global conflict by moving its epicenter to the east. Hitler's genocidal ambition may have helped unleash Armageddon, but as McMeekin shows, the war which emerged in Europe in September 1939 was the one Stalin wanted, not Hitler. So, too, did the Pacific war of 1941–1945 fulfill Stalin's goal of unleashing a devastating war of attrition between Japan and the “Anglo-Saxon” capitalist powers he viewed as his ultimate adversary.   McMeekin also reveals the extent to which Soviet Communism was rescued by the US and Britain's self-defeating strategic moves, beginning with Lend-Lease aid, as American and British supply boards agreed almost blindly to every Soviet demand. Stalin's war machine, McMeekin shows, was substantially reliant on American materiél from warplanes, tanks, trucks, jeeps, motorcycles, fuel, ammunition, and explosives, to industrial inputs and technology transfer, to the foodstuffs which fed the Red Army.   This unreciprocated American generosity gave Stalin's armies the mobile striking power to conquer most of Eurasia, from Berlin to Beijing, for Communism.   A groundbreaking reassessment of the Second World War, Stalin's War is essential reading for anyone looking to understand the current world ordeR. 1928

PREPARING FOR TALKS WITH THE KREMLIN:  3/8: Stalin's War: A New History of World War II, Sean McMeekin, with Kevin Stillwell as narrator. Published by Basic Books.  Audible Audiobook – Unabridged https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/392db86e-7d65-4c5d-b2a9-b781d5ee7250?shareToken=99d9180db57c2304848bc11f23ff97dc 1944-45 MARKET GARDEN https://www.amazon.com/Stalins-War-New-History-World/dp/B08XW52WNY/ref=sr_1_1?crid=15RCHF0X357CE&keywords=mcmeekin+stalins+war&qid=1644188471&s=books&sprefix=mcmeekin+stalins+war%2Cstripbooks%2C67&sr=1-1 World War II:  Hitler was not in power when the conflict erupted in Asia—and he was certainly dead before it ended. His armies did not fight in multiple theaters, his empire did not span the Eurasian continent, and he did not inherit any of the spoils of war. That central role belonged to Joseph Stalin. The Second World War was not Hitler's war; it was Stalin's war: Drawing on ambitious new research in Soviet, European, and US archives, Stalin's War revolutionizes our understanding of this global conflict by moving its epicenter to the east. Hitler's genocidal ambition may have helped unleash Armageddon, but as McMeekin shows, the war which emerged in Europe in September 1939 was the one Stalin wanted, not Hitler. So, too, did the Pacific war of 1941–1945 fulfill Stalin's goal of unleashing a devastating war of attrition between Japan and the “Anglo-Saxon” capitalist powers he viewed as his ultimate adversary.   McMeekin also reveals the extent to which Soviet Communism was rescued by the US and Britain's self-defeating strategic moves, beginning with Lend-Lease aid, as American and British supply boards agreed almost blindly to every Soviet demand. Stalin's war machine, McMeekin shows, was substantially reliant on American materiél from warplanes, tanks, trucks, jeeps, motorcycles, fuel, ammunition, and explosives, to industrial inputs and technology transfer, to the foodstuffs which fed the Red Army.   This unreciprocated American generosity gave Stalin's armies the mobile striking power to conquer most of Eurasia, from Berlin to Beijing, for Communism.   A groundbreaking reassessment of the Second World War, Stalin's War is essential reading for anyone looking to understand the current world ordeR. 1929

PREPARING FOR TALKS WITH THE KREMLIN:  4/8: Stalin's War: A New History of World War II, Sean McMeekin, with Kevin Stillwell as narrator. Published by Basic Books.  Audible Audiobook – Unabridged https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/392db86e-7d65-4c5d-b2a9-b781d5ee7250?shareToken=99d9180db57c2304848bc11f23ff97dc 1944-45 MARKET GARDEN https://www.amazon.com/Stalins-War-New-History-World/dp/B08XW52WNY/ref=sr_1_1?crid=15RCHF0X357CE&keywords=mcmeekin+stalins+war&qid=1644188471&s=books&sprefix=mcmeekin+stalins+war%2Cstripbooks%2C67&sr=1-1 World War II:  Hitler was not in power when the conflict erupted in Asia—and he was certainly dead before it ended. His armies did not fight in multiple theaters, his empire did not span the Eurasian continent, and he did not inherit any of the spoils of war. That central role belonged to Joseph Stalin. The Second World War was not Hitler's war; it was Stalin's war: Drawing on ambitious new research in Soviet, European, and US archives, Stalin's War revolutionizes our understanding of this global conflict by moving its epicenter to the east. Hitler's genocidal ambition may have helped unleash Armageddon, but as McMeekin shows, the war which emerged in Europe in September 1939 was the one Stalin wanted, not Hitler. So, too, did the Pacific war of 1941–1945 fulfill Stalin's goal of unleashing a devastating war of attrition between Japan and the “Anglo-Saxon” capitalist powers he viewed as his ultimate adversary.   McMeekin also reveals the extent to which Soviet Communism was rescued by the US and Britain's self-defeating strategic moves, beginning with Lend-Lease aid, as American and British supply boards agreed almost blindly to every Soviet demand. Stalin's war machine, McMeekin shows, was substantially reliant on American materiél from warplanes, tanks, trucks, jeeps, motorcycles, fuel, ammunition, and explosives, to industrial inputs and technology transfer, to the foodstuffs which fed the Red Army.   This unreciprocated American generosity gave Stalin's armies the mobile striking power to conquer most of Eurasia, from Berlin to Beijing, for Communism.   A groundbreaking reassessment of the Second World War, Stalin's War is essential reading for anyone looking to understand the current world ordeR. 1933

PREPARING FOR TALKS WITH THE KREMLIN:  5/8: Stalin's War: A New History of World War II, Sean McMeekin, with Kevin Stillwell as narrator. Published by Basic Books.  Audible Audiobook – Unabridged https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/392db86e-7d65-4c5d-b2a9-b781d5ee7250?shareToken=99d9180db57c2304848bc11f23ff97dc 1944-45 MARKET GARDEN https://www.amazon.com/Stalins-War-New-History-World/dp/B08XW52WNY/ref=sr_1_1?crid=15RCHF0X357CE&keywords=mcmeekin+stalins+war&qid=1644188471&s=books&sprefix=mcmeekin+stalins+war%2Cstripbooks%2C67&sr=1-1 World War II:  Hitler was not in power when the conflict erupted in Asia—and he was certainly dead before it ended. His armies did not fight in multiple theaters, his empire did not span the Eurasian continent, and he did not inherit any of the spoils of war. That central role belonged to Joseph Stalin. The Second World War was not Hitler's war; it was Stalin's war: Drawing on ambitious new research in Soviet, European, and US archives, Stalin's War revolutionizes our understanding of this global conflict by moving its epicenter to the east. Hitler's genocidal ambition may have helped unleash Armageddon, but as McMeekin shows, the war which emerged in Europe in September 1939 was the one Stalin wanted, not Hitler. So, too, did the Pacific war of 1941–1945 fulfill Stalin's goal of unleashing a devastating war of attrition between Japan and the “Anglo-Saxon” capitalist powers he viewed as his ultimate adversary.   McMeekin also reveals the extent to which Soviet Communism was rescued by the US and Britain's self-defeating strategic moves, beginning with Lend-Lease aid, as American and British supply boards agreed almost blindly to every Soviet demand. Stalin's war machine, McMeekin shows, was substantially reliant on American materiél from warplanes, tanks, trucks, jeeps, motorcycles, fuel, ammunition, and explosives, to industrial inputs and technology transfer, to the foodstuffs which fed the Red Army.   This unreciprocated American generosity gave Stalin's armies the mobile striking power to conquer most of Eurasia, from Berlin to Beijing, for Communism.   A groundbreaking reassessment of the Second World War, Stalin's War is essential reading for anyone looking to understand the current world ordeR.

PREPARING FOR TALKS WITH THE KREMLIN:  6/8: Stalin's War: A New History of World War II, Sean McMeekin, with Kevin Stillwell as narrator. Published by Basic Books.  Audible Audiobook – Unabridged https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/392db86e-7d65-4c5d-b2a9-b781d5ee7250?shareToken=99d9180db57c2304848bc11f23ff97dc 1944-45 MARKET GARDEN https://www.amazon.com/Stalins-War-New-History-World/dp/B08XW52WNY/ref=sr_1_1?crid=15RCHF0X357CE&keywords=mcmeekin+stalins+war&qid=1644188471&s=books&sprefix=mcmeekin+stalins+war%2Cstripbooks%2C67&sr=1-1 World War II:  Hitler was not in power when the conflict erupted in Asia—and he was certainly dead before it ended. His armies did not fight in multiple theaters, his empire did not span the Eurasian continent, and he did not inherit any of the spoils of war. That central role belonged to Joseph Stalin. The Second World War was not Hitler's war; it was Stalin's war: Drawing on ambitious new research in Soviet, European, and US archives, Stalin's War revolutionizes our understanding of this global conflict by moving its epicenter to the east. Hitler's genocidal ambition may have helped unleash Armageddon, but as McMeekin shows, the war which emerged in Europe in September 1939 was the one Stalin wanted, not Hitler. So, too, did the Pacific war of 1941–1945 fulfill Stalin's goal of unleashing a devastating war of attrition between Japan and the “Anglo-Saxon” capitalist powers he viewed as his ultimate adversary.   McMeekin also reveals the extent to which Soviet Communism was rescued by the US and Britain's self-defeating strategic moves, beginning with Lend-Lease aid, as American and British supply boards agreed almost blindly to every Soviet demand. Stalin's war machine, McMeekin shows, was substantially reliant on American materiél from warplanes, tanks, trucks, jeeps, motorcycles, fuel, ammunition, and explosives, to industrial inputs and technology transfer, to the foodstuffs which fed the Red Army.   This unreciprocated American generosity gave Stalin's armies the mobile striking power to conquer most of Eurasia, from Berlin to Beijing, for Communism.   A groundbreaking reassessment of the Second World War, Stalin's War is essential reading for anyone looking to understand the current world ordeR. 1934

Jacob welcomes the always insightful and provocative Jacek Bartosiak of Strategy&Future onto the show to discuss the Russia-Ukraine war and the evolution of the multipolar geopolitical system. Jacek makes his case that a systemic, global war has already begun – and warns the U.S. what will happen if it indulges in hubris and pushes too hard on President Trump's “America First” rhetoric.--Timestamps:(00:00) - Intro(02:01) - Ukraine Updates - Will Russia negotiate?(11:09) - Will Russia negotiate? (19:00) - The Geopolitical Landscape: Turkey and Germany's Role(28:06) - The U.S. and China's influence in Eurasia(33:36) - The future of Transatlantic relations(39:35) - The future of Europe's role in global politics(44:51) - Peace > War--Referenced in the Show:--Jacob Shapiro Site: jacobshapiro.comJacob Twitter: x.com/JacobShapCI Site: cognitive.investmentsSubscribe to the Newsletter: bit.ly/weekly-sitrep--The Jacob Shapiro Show is produced and edited by Audiographies LLC. More information at audiographies.com --Jacob Shapiro is a speaker, consultant, author, and researcher covering global politics and affairs, economics, markets, technology, history, and culture. He speaks to audiences of all sizes around the world, helps global multinationals make strategic decisions about political risks and opportunities, and works directly with investors to grow and protect their assets in today's volatile global environment. His insights help audiences across industries like finance, agriculture, and energy make sense of the world.Cognitive Investments is an investment advisory firm, founded in 2019 that provides clients with a nuanced array of financial planning, investment advisory and wealth management services. We aim to grow both our clients' material wealth (i.e. their existing financial assets) and their human wealth (i.e. their ability to make good strategic decisions for their business, family, and career).--This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podtrac - https://analytics.podtrac.com/privacy-policy-gdrp

And now for something completely different…Razib Khan, beyond being a fine friend of pod, is an excellent genetic historian. He's written a fascinating article about how Europe once had a burgeoning civilization…thousands of years before history as we know it began. We just haven't understood much about a once thriving continent because these societies were largely wiped out by the people who became “Europeans”. These revelations turn a lot of conventional historical wisdom about ancient history on its head. Quoting Razib: Neolithic Europe was one of Eurasia's most advanced regions 5,000 years ago, nearly on par with the Near East, matching India and surpassing China in material terms. In some domains, like gold-work, Europe was the pioneer. We may have forgotten this Europe, but it was hardly a backwater. It was a central engine of world civilization 5,000 years ago.Through the magic of modern technology, we're getting new insights into this lost world. With increasing clarity, we're also seeing just how brutal human life was in pre modernity. It's not sports or media exactly, but I just had to discuss this all with Razib. I believe it's important information and I can't stop thinking about it. Topics include: * Where everybody came from* How nobody is really from anywhereThanks for reading House of Strauss! This post is public so feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.houseofstrauss.com/subscribe