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Last time we spoke about the first Tientsin Incident. In September 1931, as tensions rose between China and Japan, Commander Zhang Xueliang enjoyed an opera in Beiping, unaware of the impending Mukden Incident. With senior commanders absent, Japanese forces quickly gained local support. Chiang Kai-shek ordered non-resistance, fearing conflict would ruin Northeast China. Meanwhile, Japanese officials plotted to install Puyi as a puppet emperor. Covert riots erupted in Tianjin, orchestrated by the Japanese, leaving the city in chaos as Zhang's forces struggled to maintain order against the well-armed attackers. In a tense standoff at Haiguang Temple, the Japanese military issued an ultimatum to Chinese security forces, citing threats to overseas Chinese. Wang Shuchang ordered a strategic withdrawal, but the Japanese escalated with artillery fire. Despite fierce resistance, the plainclothes attackers regrouped, leading to ongoing skirmishes. Amidst the chaos, Puyi was covertly extracted by Japanese forces, paving the way for the establishment of the puppet state of Manchukuo. Ultimately, Japan's aggression continued, deepening tensions in China.   #142 the Jinzhou Operation  Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. When the Mukden Incident occurred, Zhang Xueliang was in Beiping serving in his capacity as the commander of the North China garrison. On the night of September 18, he was at the opera enjoying a performance by the famous singer Mei Lanfang. His deputies were also away from Shenyang: Wan Fulin was in Beiping, and Zhang Zuoxiang was attending his father's funeral in Jinzhou. With the absence of the senior provincial commanders during the Incident, the Japanese quickly gained cooperation from the acting commanders. In Shenyang, Yu Zhishan, the commander of the Eastern Borders Garrison, and in Changchun, acting provincial forces commander Xi Xia, both swiftly aligned themselves with the Japanese. Although the Northeastern Army had approximately 130,000 troops in the region compared to a Japanese force of 40,000 to 50,000, Chiang Kai-shek urgently issued a non-resistance order to the Northeastern troops, which Zhang Xueliang confirmed. It was actually his stance prior to September 18th, as there had been other incidents such as the Wanbaoshan Incident whereupon Zhang Xueliang sent a secret telegram to his subordinates starting on July 6, "If we go to war with Japan at this time, we will surely be defeated. If we lose, Japan will demand that we cede territory and pay compensation, and Northeast China will be ruined. We should avoid conflict as soon as possible and deal with it in the name of justice." A month after this Chiang Kai-Shek sent a telegram to Zhang Xueliang on August 16th "No matter how the Japanese army seeks trouble in Northeast China in the future, we should not resist and avoid conflict. My brother, please do not act out of anger and disregard the country and the nation. I hope you will follow my instructions." As the tensions between China and Japan increased on September 6th Zhang Xueliang sent this telegram to his subordinates "It has been found that the Japanese diplomatic situation is becoming increasingly tense. We must deal with everything and strive for stability. No matter how the Japanese try to cause trouble, we must be tolerant and not resist them to avoid causing trouble. I hope you will send a secret telegram to all your subordinates to pay close attention to this matter." Thus the Manchurian commanders were already well versed in what their stance would be. Chiang Kai-shek's hesitation to engage in combat is understandable; he was concerned about factions opposing him in South China, the potential reformation of the alliance between Feng Yuxiang and Yan Xishan in North China, and the threat posed by the CCP in Jiangxi, leaving him unable to confront another adversary. Zhang Xueliang's situation was also not as advantageous as it might seem. Although he commanded nearly 250,000 men, only 100,000 to 130,000 were stationed in the Northeast, with the remainder in Hebei. Both Chiang Kai-Shek and Zhang Xueliang most likely believed the League of Nations or the Wakatsuki government in Tokyo would restrain the occupiers eventually, so they were biding their time. According to Nelson Johnson, the American Minister in China, Counselor Yano of the Japanese Legation in Beiping had informal discussions with Zhang, suggesting that Jinzhou would inevitably succumb to the Japanese and that “the Tokyo Foreign Office would gain prestige and be better able to shape events to China's advantage if the Chinese avoided a clash by withdrawing voluntarily.” It was also implied that some of Zhang's supporters might be reinstated in official roles in the new government in Shenyang. Johnson concluded, “Chang is believed to have been led to his present decision by these inducements, along with the bitter hostility toward him at Nanking and the lack of support from that quarter.” In essence, Zhang was effectively coerced into non-resistance by both sides. Certainly, in December 1931, with no hope for international intervention and the Nanjing government in turmoil following Chiang Kai-shek's temporary resignation, Zhang's options were severely limited. The Kwantung Army received clear instructions not to move beyond the South Manchurian railway zone, which hindered the plans of Lt. Colonel Ishiwara Kanji, the architect of the Manchurian invasion. After securing the region around the South Manchurian railway, Ishiwara focused his attention on Jinzhou. Following the fall of Mukden, Jinzhou became the administrative headquarters and civil government of Zhang Xueliang, making it a focal point for Chinese forces. Jinzhou is the southernmost part of Liaoning province, directly enroute to Shanhaiguan, the critical pass that separates Manchuria from China proper. It was the furthest point Zhang Xueliang could establish an HQ while still holding foot within Manchuria and thus became the defacto “last stand” or “guanwai” outside the Shanhaiguan pass for Zhang Xueliangs Northeastern army. Japanese sources indicate that Zhang Xueliang began covertly instructing local governments in Manchuria to comply with and pay taxes to Jinzhou. He also dispatched spies to Japanese-occupied territories and was conspiring to assassinate Japanese officials and those opposed to Chiang Kai-shek. Obviously Jinzhou had to be seized to control Liaoning and thus all of Manchuria. The Japanese first tried to bully Jinzhou into submission by bombing it. On October 8th, Ishiwara commanded five captured Chinese aircraft from the 10th Independent Air Squadron, flying from Mukden to conduct a raid on Jinzhou, claiming it was merely a reconnaissance mission. They flew over Jinzhou at approximately 1:40 PM and dropped 75 bombs weighing 25 kg each, targeting the barracks of the 28th Division, government buildings, and Zhang Xueliang's residence. Additionally, they took photographs of the Chinese defensive positions. The attack served two main purposes: to intimidate Zhang Xueliang and to send a message to Tokyo HQ. The bombing of Jinzhou caused an uproar in Tokyo and shocked the League of Nations, which had previously been indifferent to the situation. Consequently, Tokyo HQ felt compelled to retroactively approve the Kwantung attacks while simultaneously demanding an end to further actions. Rumors began to circulate that Ishiwara and his associate Itagaki aimed to establish an independent Manchuria as a base for a coup d'état against the Japanese government, intending to initiate a Showa Restoration. On October 18th, War Minister Minami Jiro sent a telegram to the Kwantung Army, ordering them to halt offensives in Manchuria and dispatched Colonel Imamura Hitoshi to ensure Ishiwara and Itagaki ceased their reckless operations. However, when Hitoshi met with the two men at a restaurant in Mukden, they dismissed him. In reality, Ishiwara and Itagaki's plans were in jeopardy, but in early November, they found a pretext for action after Ma Zhanshan's forces damaged the Nenjiang railway bridge. This hostility provided them with justification to invade Heilongjiang alongside their allies, led by General Zhang Haipeng. Following the occupation of the north, a new opportunity arose in the southwest. The "first Tientsin incident" erupted on November 9th, initiated by Colonel Doihara Kenji with assistance from some Anti-Chiang Kai-shek Chinese. A small contingent launched an attack on the peace preservation corps in Tientsin. Doihara devised this plan with the intention of creating chaos to kidnap the former Manchu emperor Puyi, allowing the Kwantung army to later install him as the ruler of a new Manchurian state. Although Doihara sought reinforcements from Tokyo HQ, his request was denied, prompting him to turn to the Kwantung army for support. They agreed to coordinate an attack on Tientsin but insisted that a pretext be established first. To execute this plan, they would need to capture Jinzhou initially. A second Tientsin incident occurred on November 26th, when Chinese soldiers attacked the Japanese barracks in Tientsin at 8:20 PM, marking another false flag operation orchestrated by Doihara. Upon hearing the news, General Honjo Shigeru chose to support the Tientsin army, which they believed was in peril. The 4th Mixed Brigade and the 2nd Infantry Battalion of the 2nd Division, comprising 10,000 troops, advanced toward 13 armored vehicles stationed along the Peiping-Mukden railway. The Kwantung Army also requested assistance from the Korean Army, and Commander Hayashi organized a mixed brigade to cross the border. Of course in order to provide assistance at Tientsin meant heading through the Shanhaiguan pass and this meant going through Jinzhou. Tokyo General HQ was yet again thrown into consternation by the latest aggravation of the Manchurian crisis. Incensed by the Kwantung Army's “lack of sincerity in submitting to the discipline of Tokyo”. The force got within 30km of Jinzhou when War Minister General Jiro Minami ordered them to immediately withdraw to a line east of the Liao river. Ironically what actually made the Kwantung Army comply was not so much Tokyo's authority but rather the refusal or foot dragging of the Korea Army, who sent a message that they were unwilling to attack Jinzhou. The Kwantung army continued on getting into some skirmishes with Chinese defenders around the Taling River and Takushan as Tokyo HQ sent countless furious messages demanding they withdraw from the Jinzhou area and by the 28th they finally did. Facing the real possibility that the Jinzhou operation might devolve into a fiasco without reinforcements, Ishiwara relented, remarking at the time “Tokyo has collapsed before Jinzhou”. There was another factor at play as well. Some have speculated Ishiwara tossed his hand on the field initiative because he was playing for time, expecting the Japanese government to fall and the substitution of a new team at central army HQ, one perhaps more compliant to the aggressive Kwantung Army.    While the Japanese forces pulled back into the SMR zone, Prime Minister Wakatsuki Reijiro began negotiations with Chiang Kai-Shek's Nanjing government, through the League of Nations, suggesting the Jinzhou area be declared a neutral area. The Chinese initially refused, and while the Kwantung Army declared they would not attack, they still sent aircraft to circle Jinzhou. The Chinese, British, American, and French governments were willing to withdraw their troops from Jinzhou to Shanhaiguan if the Manchurian incident was resolved and Japan committed to not infringing upon the area.    Consequently, Tokyo's headquarters supported this approach and instructed the Kwantung Army to withdraw. Although Zhang Xueliang had assured that his forces would leave Jinzhou by December 7th, this did not occur. As a result, the Japanese began discussions to establish Jinzhou as a neutral zone. The Kwantung army intercepted two Chinese telegrams indicating Zhang Xueliang was strengthening the defenses at Jinzhou and that Nanjing was requesting he not pull his men out. The telegrams were sent to Tokyo HQ who agreed the Chinese were acting in a treacherous manner. The Japanese ambassador then told US Secretary Henry Stimson  “it would be very difficult to withhold the army from advancing again.” Stimson replied “ such actions would convince the American public that Japan's excuse for her incursions, namely that she was combating bandit attacks, was a ruse to destroy the last fragment of Chinese authority in Manchuria. It would be extremely difficult to ask China to withdraw her army from her own territory.” Thus began the Jinzhou Crisis.   On the same day the Japanese ambassador was meeting Stimson in Washington, the Nationalist minister of finance, T.V Soong sent a telegram to Zhang Xueliang advising “any Japanese attack on Jinzhou should be offered utmost resistance.” Also the American Minister in China, Nelson Johnson publicly expressed the view that Zhang Xueliang would resist at Jinzhou if attacked “if only to reassure the students and public in general, some of whom clamor for military action, despite the attitude of his old generals of the Fengtian clique who desire his resignation to enable them to sell out to the Japanese”.   It had become clear to all observers that the Japanese were intent on capturing Jinzhou, whether they were justified to do so or not. Their tactics of intimidation became even bolder as they began dropping air torpedoes on disused sections of railway track on December 10th, disrupting traffic along the Beiping-Shenyang rail route and hinting that the nearby populated areas might be next. Ishiwara's hopes came true on December 13th, whence Prime Minister Wakatsuki resigned on December 11th, having failed to control the Kwantung Army. A new cabinet was formed under Prime Minister Tsuyoshi Inukai, whom resumed negotiations with Nanjing, but then on December 15th, Chiang Kai-Shek resigned as chairman of the Nanjing government, leading Sun Ke to lead a weak interim government. Preoccupied with its own survival, the Nanjing government had no time to deal with the Jinzhou crisis.   Meanwhile War Minister Minami and Chief of staff Kanaya who had tried to moderate the Kwantung Army's aggressive initiatives had been replaced by Araki Sadao, a significantly more aggressive leader who happened to be the leading figure of the Kodoha faction. His counterpart was Prince Kan'in. With these new appointments, the atmosphere in Tokyo general HQ had changed dramatically. The new team elected to change the framing of the situation, they were not performing offensives against Chinese forces, but rather “suppressing bandits”. On December 15th, Tokyo HQ telegraphed Mukden instructing the Kwantung Army to “synchronize an assault on Jinzhou with an attack upon bandits”. Tokyo HQ even agreed to send some reinforcements from Korea and Japan. The 20th IJA division, the 38th mixed brigade of the 19th division crossed the border from Korea and the 8th mixed brigade, 10th division came over from Japan. With this the Kwantung army had been bolstered to around 60,450men.    On December 17th, the Japanese launched attacks on what they referred to as "soldier bandits" in Fak'u and Ch'angtuhsien, which was actually a precursor to their assault on Jinzhou. The following day, December 18th, Japanese aircraft bombed Daonglio, resulting in the deaths of three Chinese civilians and causing widespread panic in the city. The Japanese actions were all the more effective when concentrated with the absolute paralysis that had gripped China. Sun Ke was too preoccupied with the survival of his own government and had neither the time nor resources to spare for Manchuria. In addition, Stimson's strong words in private to the Japanese ambassador belied the State Department's public attitude toward interference in the conflict. On December 21st Hawkling Yen, the Chinese charge in Washington met with Stanley Hornback, the chief of the department of Far Eastern Affairs. Yen told Hornback that a Japanese attack on Jinzhou was imminent and asked the US to “protest in anticipate of it”. Hornbeck refused, stating the State Department was “already publicly on record with regard to the matter”. No other Western power was ready to advocate any strong measures against the Japanese either.   On the 22nd, the Japanese HQ at Shenyang announced they would soon begin an anti-bandit advance west of the Liao River and would remove any who interfered with said operation. They also added that if any Chinese forces at Jinzhou withdrew they would be left unmolested. By December 26th, all preparations for the assault on Jinzhou were finalized. On December 28th, Honjo initiated an "anti-bandit" campaign west of the Liao River. While Honjo publicly claimed they were merely "clearing the country of bandits,”. As the Japanese forces and their collaborationist allies spread across the South Manchurian railway area to eliminate remaining pockets of resistance, the 12th Division, led by Lt. General Jiro Tamon advanced from Mukden toward Jinzhou, supported by numerous bomber squadrons. Japanese intelligence estimated that Zhang Xueliang had 84,000 troops defending the city, along with 58 artillery pieces and two distinct defensive lines. The first line, located 20 miles north of Jinzhou, consisted of trenches designed to impede the Japanese advance at the Taling River Bridge on the Peiping-Mukden Railway. The second line was a series of earthworks and fortifications completely surrounding Jinzhou. The temperature was -30 degrees, and the Imperial Japanese Army troops were dressed in white winter camouflage uniforms. IJA reconnaissance aircraft reported approximately 3,000 Honghuzi were waiting to ambush them in Panshan County. Tamon's forces quickly overcame the alleged Honghuzi in a series of small skirmishes and continued their march toward Goubangzi, 50 km north of Jinzhou. It should be noted, many question whether the Honghuzi were real or simply local Chinese the Japanese coerced into action to justify their advance. By December 31, the Japanese vanguard had reached within 15 km of Jinzhou, along the banks of the Talin River. Tamon paused to allow the rest of the 2nd Division to catch up. Subsequently, Tamon's troops began setting up an intricate system of microphones to broadcast the sounds of the impending battle to Tokyo. This tactic appeared to be an attempt to demoralize the defenders, which proved effective as Zhang Xueliang's forces began to withdraw. On December 30, Zhang Xueliang had issued the order to retreat from Jinzhou. Two days later, the American Minister in China, Nelson Johnson, reported the following scene: “Jinzhou Railway station resembles beehive, every possible car being pressed into service and loaded with troops, animals, baggage, to last inch space.” The last Chinese troop train departed Jingzhou at 11 am on January 1st carrying away the final remnants of Zhang Xueliang's authority in Manchuria. The assault on Jinzhou occurred at a particularly inopportune moment for China. Chiang Kai-shek was temporarily out of office, lacking the full support of the Nanjing government and many generals. It is likely that Chiang Kai-shek understood that Zhang Xueliang's forces in Jinzhou would be significantly outmatched and could be annihilated. His priority was to prevent the situation from escalating into an official war, allowing him to strengthen China's military capabilities for a counteroffensive. Following the fall of Jinzhou, the northern China army retreated south of the Great Wall into Hebei Province. The Japanese then occupied Shanhaiguan, securing complete control over southern Manchuria. Despite the fall of Jinzhou there was still one last holdout in Manchuria. After Ma Zhanshan was driven out of Qiqihar by the Japanese, he led his troops northeast to establish a new HQ in Hailun where he was still technically ruling Heilongjiang province. Ma Zhanshan had gained international recognition as a resistance hero following his ill-fated battle at Qiqihar. The Kwantung Army took note of his fame and adjusted their strategies accordingly. Komai Tokuzo, the head of the Kwantung Board of Control, suggested that bringing Ma Zhanshan into their ranks would provide a significant propaganda advantage. To persuade him to negotiate with the Kwantung Army, they sent a local factory owner, Han Yunje. On December 7th, Colonel Itagaki Seishiro met with Ma Zhanshan in Hailun. Itagaki expressed that the Japanese aimed for two objectives: peace in East Asia and full cooperation between the Chinese and Japanese. He also mentioned that the officers of the Kwantung Army were impressed by Ma's remarkable bravery and were willing to grant him military command over Heilongjiang, provided they reached an agreement. In response, Ma Zhanshan stated that his forces had acted solely in self-defense and that he was bound by the orders of the Nanjing government. Itagaki then suggested Ma Zhanshan might be appointed military commander of the province under the provincial governor in Qiqihar, Zhang Jinghui. To this Ma Zhanshan replied “as Hailun is not very far from Harbin, he could consult with General Zhang Jinghui over the telephone or pay a call on the latter in person, and that a second trip to Hailun by the Japanese representative would not be necessary.” Despite Ma's position, Itagaki felt satisfied with the meeting, believing that Ma Zhanshan might align with them. However, he was constrained by anti-Japanese colleagues like his chief of staff Xie Ke and battalion commander Tang Fengjia. The situation shifted significantly for Ma Zhanshan when Zhang Xueliang withdrew his forces from Jinzhou. On December 7th, Itagaki and Ma met once more, during which Ma expressed his desire to serve as both the military leader and governor of Heilongjiang. Unbeknownst to the Japanese, Ma Zhanshan was secretly in discussions with another resistance leader, General Ding Chao. When Ma Zhanshan initiated his resistance against the Japanese, Ding Chao decided to take similar action in the northern city of Harbin. Harbin serves as the gateway to Northeast China and is the political, economic, and cultural hub of North Manchuria. It functions not only as the center of the Sino-Soviet co-managed Middle East Railway but also as an international marketplace where Chinese and foreigners coexist. The city houses the Special Administrative Region of the Three Eastern Provinces (with Daoli under this region and Daowai belonging to Jilin Province). Following the Mukden Incident, the Japanese army considered attacking Harbin; however, concerns about potential Soviet interference led to the plan being halted by Army Minister Minami Jiro. Harbin had largely remained peaceful, and the Japanese maintained control by appointing the puppet General Xi Qia as the governor of Kirin province. Together with Li Du, Xing Zhangqing, Zhao Yi, and Feng Zhanhai, Ding Chao formed the Kirin self-defense army to thwart the takeover of Harbin and Kirin province. Ma Zhanshan supported Ding Chao, and both generals kept in touch with Zhang Xueliang and Chiang Kai-shek, who could only offer limited support. In November of the same year, the Jilin Provincial Anti-Japanese Government, chaired by Cheng Yun, was established in Bin County. Feng Zhanhai, the head of the guard regiment at the Northeast Frontier Defense Army's deputy commander-in-chief office in Jilin, refused to surrender to the Japanese forces. He rallied over 3,000 members of his regiment to resist the Japanese and rebel forces. They marched from Yongji County in Jilin Province to Shulan County, where they joined forces with the national salvation armies led by Gong Changhai and Yao Bingqian, which were based on green forest armed groups, to create the Jilin Anti-Japanese National Salvation Army, with Feng as the commander. On November 12, the Jilin Provincial Provisional Government was established in Bin County . Feng Zhanhai was appointed as the garrison commander and commander of the 1st Brigade. The units led by Gong and Yao were reorganized into cavalry brigades under Feng's command. This series of anti-Japanese actions significantly boosted the fighting spirit of the people in Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces. To launch an attack on Harbin, the Japanese Kwantung Army first needed to "punish" the anti-Japanese armed forces by force. To eliminate Feng's anti-Japanese forces, the Japanese puppet authorities dispatched Yu Shencheng, the commander of the Jilin "bandit suppression" unit, to lead the puppet army in an offensive aimed at seizing Harbin as a base to control the Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces. Feng Zhanhai's troops strategically abandoned Shulan City to lure the enemy deeper into the area. The puppet army fell into a trap and launched a major assault on Yao Bingqian's brigade stationed in Shuiquliu, which fiercely resisted the attack. On the same day, Gong Changhai's brigade maneuvered around to the rear of the puppet army for a surprise attack, while Yao's brigade counterattacked from the front. The puppet army's Ma Xilin brigade retreated, unable to be halted by the Japanese supervisory team. At this point, Feng Zhanhai led another brigade into the fray, pursuing Ma's brigade. After another seven hours of intense fighting, Shulan was retaken. In this battle, the garrison inflicted nearly 1,000 casualties on Japanese and puppet troops, captured hundreds, and saw many puppet soldiers defect. The battles of Shuiqu and Shulan were thus victorious. On the 16th, Yu Shencheng's puppet forces were defeated by the 25th Brigade of the Northeast Army in Yushu. Due to the precarious situation in Shulan, Feng Zhanhai had no choice but to abandon Shulan City and retreat his troops north of Wuchang. On the 19th, seeking urgently needed funds for his troops, Feng Zhanhai led a battalion from Acheng to Lalinkang, where they were surrounded by a significant number of Japanese and puppet troops. The following day, with the help of reinforcements, they managed to repel the Japanese and puppet forces. However, the troops suffered over 200 casualties and were compelled to leave Lalinkang and return to Acheng. On the 25th, Feng and Li moved their forces to the eastern suburbs of Harbin, with the 22nd, 26th, and 28th Brigades announcing their support in succession.On the morning of the 26th, Feng and Li entered the city from four directions, forcibly disarming five police brigades and seizing more than 3,000 firearms along with a number of heavy weapons. They stationed the 26th and 28th Brigades and one regiment in the Shanghao area, while Feng Zhanhai's four brigades and two detachments were positioned in the Sankeshu and Nangang areas. The 22nd Brigade was assigned to Shuangchengbao, preparing to defend against a Japanese assault.  Meanwhile the Japanese were still trying to win over Ma Zhanshan. This prompted our old friend Doihara to ask Xi Qia to advance his new “Jilin Army” to Harbin and then to Hailun. However in their way was the Jilin Self-Defense force of General Ding Chao and General Li Du had deployed his forces between Xi Qia and Harbin. On the 24th, representatives from Li Du and Ding Chao participated in a meeting with Ma Zhanshan's officers, convincing them to attempt to retake Qiqihar and defend Harbin for the resistance. When Xiqia's "New Jilin Army" finally advanced to Shuangcheng on the 25th, Zhang Xueliang instructed Ma Zhanshan and Ding Chao to abandon negotiations and begin fighting on the morning of the 26th. Kenji Doihara ultimately failed to intimidate the Chinese further, as his ally Xicha's troops encountered stiff resistance from Ding Chao's troops. Later that afternoon, Japanese aircraft dropped leaflets over Harbin, openly demanding that the anti-Japanese forces withdraw from the city immediately. The Japanese Consulate in Harbin also issued a notice to various foreign consulates, stating that the Japanese army would enter Harbin at 3:00 PM on the 28th. As the New Jilin army advanced towards Shuangcheng, this signaled to the Chinese resistance fighters that an attack was imminent. Zhang Xueliang instructed Generals Ma Zhanshan and Ding Chao to halt negotiations and prepare to make a stand. By late January, the Kirin Self-Defense Corps had grown to 30,000 members, organized into six brigades. Ding Chao fortified defensive positions between General Xi Qia's advancing troops and Harbin. Xi Qia was caught off guard by the well-organized resistance forces, resulting in heavy losses for his army, which was unable to break through. In desperation, Xi Qia sought assistance from the Kwantung Army, but they needed a justification to intervene. Once again, Colonel Doihara Kenji orchestrated a false flag operation. He incited a riot in Harbin that resulted in the deaths of one Japanese individual and three Koreans. Using the pretext that Japanese citizens were in danger, the 2nd Division under Lt. General Jiro Tamon began its advance toward Harbin from Jinzhou on the 28th. However, severe winter weather delayed their transportation. To complicate matters further, the Soviets denied Japanese trains access to Harbin via their section of the Chinese Eastern Railway, citing a breach of neutrality. The entire Manchurian incident had escalated tensions between the USSR and Japan. When they invaded Heilongjiang, there were genuine concerns about potential Soviet intervention, especially with their presence in Harbin. However, at the last moment, the Soviets agreed to allow transit on January 30th. Back on the 26, 1932, Feng Zhanhai and Li Du, the commander of the Yilan garrison, entered Harbin. Early on the 27th, Yu Shencheng, the commander of the puppet Jilin "bandit suppression," ordered two brigades to attack the Shanghao, Sankeshu, and Nangang areas. Japanese aircraft bombed the Sankeshu and Nangang regions. The two brigades tasked with defending the area fought valiantly, resulting in intense combat. Soon after, Feng Zhanhai and his reserve team joined the fray, launching a political offensive alongside their fierce attacks. The puppet army struggled to hold its ground and retreated to Lalincang. The defending troops in Shanghao fought tenaciously, inflicting heavy casualties on both Japanese and puppet forces, shooting down one plane, and attempting to persuade puppet army commander Tian Desheng to lead a revolt. By evening, the puppet army had been driven back. On the morning of the 28th, the anti-Japanese forces advanced to the Jile Temple and Confucian Temple, capturing advantageous positions near Xinfatun with artillery support. The cavalry brigade flanked the puppet army and launched a vigorous assault, leading to the collapse and retreat of the puppet forces towards Acheng. Gong Changhai led the cavalry in pursuit for 15 kilometers, capturing a significant number of puppet troops. After two days of fierce fighting on the 27th and 28th, the initial invasion of Harbin by Japanese and puppet troops was successfully repelled. Due to the defeat of Yu Shencheng and other puppet forces, the Japanese Kwantung Army launched a direct assault on Harbin on the morning of the28th, under the pretext of "protecting overseas Chinese." They ordered Hasebe, commander of the 3rd Brigade of the Kwantung Army, to lead the 4th Regiment, an artillery battalion, and two tanks on a train from Changchun to Harbin for combat. On the29th, another combat order was issued: the 2nd Division was to assemble in Changchun and then be transported to Harbin by truck. Part of the 4th Mixed Brigade was also moved from Qiqihar to Anda and Zhaodong by truck to support the 2nd Division from the north of Harbin. The 1st, 3rd, 8th, and 9th Squadrons of the Kwantung Army Flying Team were tasked with covering the assembly, advance, and attack of the 2nd Division. Hasebe's 4th Regiment departed from Changchun by train, but due to extensive damage to the railway caused by the Northeast Army, their train was attacked by the Northeast Army at dawn on the 29th as it reached the Laoshaogou area on the south bank of the Songhua River. The Japanese forces quickly shifted to an offensive strategy and, despite ongoing resistance, managed to reach Shitouchengzi Village north of the Sancha River that night. On the night of January 29, Zhao Yi's brigade received word of the Japanese assault on Harbin and immediately prepared for battle. At dawn on January 30, Brigade Commander Zhao Yi led six battalions in a light advance, launching a surprise attack on Shilipu, where they decisively defeated the puppet army's Liu Baolin Brigade, capturing over 700 soldiers and seizing more than 600 weapons. They then returned to Shuangchengbao to prepare for the annihilation of the advancing Japanese forces. Around 8:00 PM, the 3rd Brigade of the Japanese Army, along with the Changgu Detachment and two military vehicles, arrived at Shuangcheng Station, intending to camp there and attack Harbin the following day. Zhao Yi's troops set up an ambush in the area. As the Japanese forces disembarked and assembled to plan their attack on Harbin, the ambushing troops took advantage of their unpreparedness, launching a surprise attack from three sides. They unleashed heavy firepower, forcing the enemy back onto the platform before engaging in close combat with bayonets and grenades. The Japanese were caught off guard and suffered significant casualties. The next day, the Japanese dispatched reinforcements from Changchun, supported by aircraft, artillery, and tanks, to assault Shuangchengbao. Brigade Zhao found himself trapped in the isolated city, suffering over 600 casualties, including the regiment commander, and was ultimately forced to abandon Shuangchengbao and retreat to Harbin. With Shuangcheng captured, Harbin was left vulnerable. The Self-Defense Army stationed the majority of its troops in the southern, southeastern, and southwestern regions of Harbin, including Guxiangyuetun, Bingyuan Street, Old Harbin City, and Lalatun. On the same day, several commanders convened: Li Du, the garrison commander of Yilan and leader of the 24th Brigade; Feng Zhanhai, commander of the Jilin Provincial Security Army; Xing Zhanqing, commander of the 26th Brigade; Zhao Yi, commander of the 22nd Brigade; Ding Chao, acting commander of the Railway Protection Army and leader of the 28th Brigade; and Wang Zhiyou, director of the Jilin Police Department. They agreed to establish the Jilin Provincial Self-Defense Army, appointing Li Du as commander, Feng Zhanhai as deputy commander, and Wang Zhiyou as the commander-in-chief of the front line. They decided to utilize the 22nd, 24th, 26th, and 28th Brigades for the defense of Harbin, while Feng Zhanhai would lead the 1st Brigade and other units in a flanking maneuver against Jilin and Changchun to thwart the Japanese advance. On February 3, 1932, various units of the Japanese 2nd Division arrived in the Weitanggou River area. Under the command of Duomen, the division initiated an assault on the Self-Defense Army's outposts located outside Harbin. The 3rd Infantry Brigade of the 2nd Division, alongside Yu Shencheng, the commander of the pseudo-Jilin "bandit suppression" forces, led an attack with five brigades as the right flank against Chinese defenders in the Qinjiagang, Nangang, and Shanghao regions. Meanwhile, the 15th Infantry Brigade of the Japanese Army formed the left flank, targeting Guxiangtun via Balibao along the Songhua River. Following the conflict, all outposts of the Self-Defense Army were lost, forcing them to retreat to their primary positions. On the morning of February 4th, the Japanese forces launched a full-scale attack, engaging the Self-Defense Army in battle. By afternoon, the Japanese had positioned themselves on both sides of the railway, south of Guxiang Yuetun, Yongfatun, and Yangmajia. The 3rd Brigade was stationed east of the railway, while the 15th Brigade took position to the west. After a preparatory artillery barrage, the Japanese forces commenced their assault. The Jilin Self-Defense Army defended tenaciously, utilizing fortifications and village structures, and concentrated their artillery fire on the advancing enemy, inflicting significant casualties.   Despite their efforts, the Japanese attack was initially repelled, prompting them to adopt a defensive stance. By 16:00, the area from Yangmajia to Yongfatun had fallen to the Japanese. The Self-Defense Army continued to resist fiercely, but the Japanese intensified their assaults. The left flank launched a vigorous attack on Guxiangtun. The 28th Brigade of the Self-Defense Army, defending this area, utilized civilian structures and walls for their defense. However, brigade commander Wang Ruihua fled under pressure, leading to a loss of command and forcing the troops to abandon their positions and retreat into the city. Simultaneously, the Japanese right flank aggressively targeted the defense of the 26th Brigade of the Self-Defense Army. Despite the desperate efforts of brigade commander Xing Zhanqing and his troops, they were ultimately compelled to retreat to the river dam at Shiliudao Street due to inferior equipment. Around this time, the western and southern defense lines under Wang Zhiyou's command began to fall one after another. In this critical situation, Commander-in-Chief Li Du personally went to the front lines to organize the troops and establish a third defensive line on the city's edge. They fought until nightfall, successfully halting the Japanese advance. At dawn on February 5th the Self-Defense Army initiated a counteroffensive. The artillery first conducted preparatory fire, targeting the positions of the Japanese 3rd Brigade located east of the railway. Following this, the infantry launched their attack. The Japanese troops on the front lines found themselves in a precarious situation. In response, Jiro Tamon, the commander of the 2nd Division, urgently ordered artillery to intercept the Self-Defense Army's counterattack and deployed the tank and reserve units to assist. Four squadrons from the air force took off from a temporary forward airfield in Shuangcheng, alternating between bombing and strafing to support the ground troops. The battle was intensely fierce, resulting in heavy casualties on both sides. Lacking air support and facing significant threats from Japanese aircraft, the Self-Defense Army retreated to the area east of Harbin by the afternoon of the 5th. The Japanese forces then entered Harbin, leading to its immediate capture. On the 6th, the remaining self-defense forces learned of Harbin's fall and decided to abandon their original plan for a surprise attack against the Japanese army. Instead, they returned to Binxian and Fangzheng. During their retreat, they gathered some stragglers who had fled from Harbin and proceeded to Fangzheng County to regroup with Li Du. General Ding Chao's forces were compelled to retreat northeast along the Sungari River, while Japanese aircraft attacked them from above. After a grueling 17-hour battle, Ding Chao's army ultimately faced defeat. Following this loss, Ma Zhanshan made the decision to defect. On February 16, General Honjo held a conference for the Northeast Political Affairs Committee in Mukden, attended by senior Chinese officials of the new regime, including Zhang Jinghui, Ma Zhanshan, Zang Shiyi, Xi Qia, and others. The conference aimed to assign delegates to roles in the soon-to-be-established “Manchukuo.” On February 14, Ma Zhanshan was appointed governor of Heilongjiang province and received gold worth one million dollars. On February 27th, Ding Chao proposed a ceasefire, marking the official end of Chinese resistance in Manchuria. On March 1st, Puyi would be installed as the ruler of the new state of Manchukuo. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. With the fall of Jinzhou, Zhang Xueliang had effectively been kicked out of Manchuria. With the loss of Harbin, came the loss of any significant resistance to the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. Japan had conquered the northeast and now would enthrone the last Emperor of the Qing Dynasty forming the puppet state of Manchukuo. 

Last time we spoke about the Fall of Manila. General LeMay's B-29 bombers wreaked havoc on Japan, targeting key factories at a high cost. On February 19, US Marines landed on Iwo Jima, facing fierce Japanese resistance and heavy casualties. By February 23, after relentless fighting and harsh conditions, they raised the American flag atop Mount Suribachi, marking a hard-won victory. This moment inspired a legacy for the Marine Corps, as battles raged on in the Pacific. Meanwhile troops attacked General Kobayashi's defenses at Mounts Pacawagan and Mataba, struggling to gain ground. Reinforcements arrived, leading to coordinated assaults, but progress was slow. Meanwhile, General Yamashita reorganized his forces in response to increased guerrilla activity. As American divisions advanced, they faced fierce resistance but gradually secured key positions. Guerrilla leader Volckmann disrupted Japanese supply lines, significantly impacting their operations. Amidst the chaos, a daring rescue mission freed over 2,000 internees, though it provoked brutal reprisals against civilians. This episode is the Great Tokyo Air Raid Welcome to the Pacific War Podcast Week by Week, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about world war two? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on world war two and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel you can find a few videos all the way from the Opium Wars of the 1800's until the end of the Pacific War in 1945.  Today we are continuing with the ongoing battle over Iwo Jima. By the end of February, Colonel Liversedge's 28th Marines had successfully secured Mount Suribachi, while the other regiments from the 3rd, 4th, and 5th Marine Divisions advanced toward the O-2 Line, situated beyond Airfield No. 2. This location was where General Kuribayashi maintained his primary defensive positions, which were heavily fortified with caves, tunnels, and traps. On March 1, General Rockey continued his offensive on the left flank as the fresh 28th Marines moved through the weary 27th Marines, led by Colonel Wornham, and launched an assault on Hill 362A and its adjacent positions. The corps' 155mm howitzers and 5th Division artillery commenced firing a preparation at K-minus 45 minutes. One battleship and two cruisers from the gunfire and covering force added their heavy fires from 08:00 to 08:30. Aircraft from the support carrier group delivered strikes throughout the day, but did not participate in preparation for the attack. This proved one of the busiest days for Task Force 54 since D-Day as fire support ships dueled with enemy shore batteries until late afternoon. Shortly after dawn enemy guns in the northern part of the island opened up, and at 07:25 the destroyer Terry took a direct hit by a 6-inch shell, suffering heavy casualties. The battleship Nevada immediately engaged these hostile installations, and after completing their mission in support of the landing force, the cruisers Indianapolis and Pensacola shifted to counter battery fire. At 10:25 the destroyer Colhoun was hit by a major-caliber projectile, and soon after this enemy shells straddled the destroyer Stembel. Counter Battery fire continued throughout the day with the Nevada destroying one casemated gun and starting a fire in another emplacement, while the Pensacola's batteries accounted for a third Japanese gun. Following the robust aerial, naval, and artillery bombardment, Liversedge's forces achieved some initial success, including capturing the hilltop, but were ultimately halted by intense machine-gun fire from Nishi Ridge to the north. However, the 3rd Battalion along the coast managed to advance approximately 350 yards against lighter resistance. In the center, General Erskine also pressed forward beyond Airfield No. 2, with Colonel Withers' 21st Marines advancing north and northeast about 500 yards into the incomplete Airfield No. 3. At the same time, General Cates continued to send his troops into the fray. Colonel Jordan's 24th Marines replaced Colonel Wensinger's exhausted 23rd Marines on the left and fought to dislodge the enemy from Hill 382. They succeeded in advancing about 100 yards along the division's left boundary and 50 yards on the right, establishing a foothold on elevated terrain overlooking Minami village. Further south, Colonel Lanigan committed only his 1st Battalion to eliminate the salient around the Amphitheater and Turkey Knob, but this assault was again met with fierce Japanese gunfire. This relief enabled Erskine to initiate a late two-regiment offensive, with the 21st Marines on the left and Colonel Kenyon's 9th Marines on the right, although this effort did not achieve any significant progress. The following day, the assault persisted, but the 9th Marines made minimal headway against a strong enemy position on the right, while the 21st Marines advanced toward the base of Hill 362B and the southern edge of Airfield No. 3. Concurrently, Liversedge's 28th Marines successfully cleared Hill 362A and moved toward Nishi Ridge, where they repelled a fierce counterattack by 150 Japanese soldiers. Colonel Graham's 26th Marines were once again deployed to fill the gap between the 3rd and 5th Marine Divisions, managing to gain approximately 500 yards to the north. Jordan's 24th Marines finally captured Hill 382 and advanced about 300 yards on the left flank. Meanwhile, Lanigan's 1st Battalion made another unsuccessful attempt to infiltrate and take the high ground north of Turkey Knob. As described by an intelligence officer with the 4th Marine Division “As a result of a close study of the enemy's recent defensive action, aided by observation from OP's and air reconnaissance, the following explanation is suggested of the enemy's defense in this Div's Z of A. The enemy remains below ground in his maze of communicating tunnels throughout our preliminary arty fires. When the fire ceases he pushed OP's out of entrances not demolished by our fires. Then choosing a suitable exit he moves as many men and weapons to the surface as he can, depending on the cover and concealment of that area, often as close as 75 yards from our front. As our troops advance toward this point he delivers all the fire at his disposal, rifle, machine-gun, and mortar. When he has inflicted sufficient casualties to pin down our advance he then withdraws through his underground tunnels most of his forces, possibly leaving a few machine gunners and mortars. Meanwhile our Bn CO has coordinated his direct support weapons and delivers a concentration of rockets, mortars and artillery. Our tanks then push in, supported by infantry. When the hot spot is overrun we find a handful of dead Japs and few if any enemy weapons. While this is happening, the enemy has repeated the process and another sector of our advance is engaged in a vicious fire fight, and the cycle continues.”  Meanwhile the remainder of the 25th Marines managed to advance 300 yards along the coast without facing any opposition. On March 3, the capture of Hill 362A enabled flame-thrower tanks to assist in the advance northward. The 5th Marine Division prepared to press on with its assaults through Nishi Ridge and Hill 362B. The majority of the 28th Marines faced strong resistance as they moved forward over 200 yards. Liversedge's 1st Battalion and Graham's 1st Battalion executed a coordinated attack to take the main enemy positions ahead of them. Meanwhile, the remainder of the 26th Marines surged forward, achieving a gain of over 500 yards, which allowed them to relieve Kenyon's 3rd Battalion and secure the summit of Hill 362B. In the center, the 9th Marines remained in a stalemate, while the 21st Marines launched a vigorous attack to the northeast, successfully capturing the summit of Hill 357 at the eastern edge of the Motoyama Plateau. They then attempted another assault southeast toward Hill 362C, which resulted in a modest gain of about 250 yards. Meanwhile, in the 4th Marine Division's sector, Wensinger's 23rd Marines were deployed in the center, where determined Japanese defenders continued to thwart intense American assaults, despite the partial reduction of the Turkey Knob blockhouse. To the left, the 24th Marines resumed their offensive southeast, advancing up to 350 yards in the center. During the eight days of deadlock and fierce conflict in the Hill 382 and Turkey Knob areas, the weather had been generally favorable. Mild temperatures and fair skies predominated, although early in the morning ground haze combined with smoke to limit observation, and on a few days light showers fell in the afternoon. Night temperatures sometimes went below 60°F, and it was then that tired Marines were grateful for the characteristic subterranean heat of the island that warmed their foxholes. The next day, March 4, dawned gray and sullen, and intermittent showers fell from the overcast skies. Visibility was so limited that all air strikes were canceled and aerial observation seriously curtailed. On the right, Cates' Marines pressed the attack southeast but could only gain 150 yards against the defenders' fierce resistance. To the left, after a failed Japanese infiltration attempt overnight to gather food and water, both the 9th and 21st Marines made no progress with their costly eastward assaults. Finally, supported closely by flame-throwing tanks and combat engineers, Rockey's Marines fought fiercely but achieved only minor advances, prompting Wornham's 27th Marines to be thrown back into the battle to reinforce the two battered assault regiments. March 5 was then dedicated to reorganizing and resupplying the three Marine Divisions in preparation for a renewed effort the next day. Additionally, the reserve 3rd Marines, led by Colonel James Stuart, were sent back to Guam without having landed on Iwo Jima. The three divisions accordingly resumed the offensive on March 6 after a terrific artillery and naval gunfire bombardment. First, on the left, Erskine attacked with his three regiments abreast yet failed to make any significant advance. Then, in the center, the 9th and 21st Marines likewise unsuccessfully attacked towards Hill 362C, though the latter managed to clear the entire Hill 357 area. Lastly, Wensinger's 23rd Marines passed through the 24th on the division left and pressed on forward against heavy opposition, successfully gaining between 150 and 350 yards while Jordan's battalions gained up to 150 yards in their front. Additionally, the 25th Marines mopped up in its area and Cates' Provisional Battalion kept hammering against the Amphitheater-Turkey Knob area. In the knowledge that the battle was swinging irrevocably in favor of the Americans, General Kuribayashi radioed Tokyo: "Our strongpoints might be able to fight delaying actions for several more days. I comfort myself a little seeing my officers and men die without regret after struggling in this inch-by-inch battle against an overwhelming enemy...". The General's predictions were, if anything, on the pessimistic side as his garrison would prolong the battle for another three weeks. Although the fighting was dragging terribly, on this day Brigadier-General Ernest Moore successfully landed on Airfield No. 1 alongside 28 P-51s and 12 P-61s of the 15th Fighter Group to take over control of island air activities. The following day, the Island Commander, Major-General James Chaney, assumed responsibility for base development, air defense, and operation of the airfields. Meanwhile, Schmidt was continuing his coordinated offensive, with the 28th Marines meeting only scattered resistance as it pushed 500 yards north; the 26th Marines overrunning the enemy defenses and gaining about 150 yards before resistance stiffened once again; the 27th Marines attacking on a narrow front but likewise gaining only 150 yards; the 21st Marines achieving tactical surprise to reach Hill 331 and then pushing 250 yards more to Hill 362C, which was ultimately seized as well; the 9th Marines ferociously attacking east but gaining only 200 yards before a rain of fire stopped them; the 23rd Marines recovering from a savage Japanese night counterattack and then pushing around 150 yards against strong resistance; the 24th Marines only progressing over 50 yards as it neutralized a number of enemy defenses; and the 25th Marines and the Provisional Battalion continuing secondary operations against the Amphitheater-Turkey Knob area. On March 8, Rockey pressed on toward the northeast coast, with the 28th Marines advancing against minimal resistance, gaining between 300 and 500 yards along the shoreline. Meanwhile, the 26th Marines faced a complete stalemate against the intricate network of pillboxes and interconnected caves that had once comprised the village of Kita. The 27th Marines managed to advance approximately 150 yards with tank support. In the center, the 21st Marines shifted northeast again, successfully gaining 300 yards through the last organized resistance in the area, while the 9th Marines captured Hill 362C and continued their eastward assault, reaching the edge of the plateau overlooking the beach and initiating a flanking maneuver south of Hill 331. On the right flank, the 23rd and 24th Marines continued their attacks but made little headway against the enemy's formidable defenses. That night, General Senda launched a strong counterattack that caught the Americans off guard. Two of Senda's orderlies would survive and report what occurred during the daring counterattack. Many of his troops believed that Inoue was a superior leader who inspired his men to perform outstanding feats of bravery; others thought he was a maniac. The sight of the Stars and Stripes flying on top of Mount Suribachi had filled him with increasing rage. He is quoted as saying: "We shall destroy their banner, we shall replace it with ours in the name of the great Emperor and the great people of Japan." Inoue was in charge of the Naval Guard Force who manned the shore guns that sank and damaged many of the US warships and landing craft, and was described as a bombastic and temperamental character, a fine swordsman, heavy drinker, and womanizer. His bizarre plan almost beggars belief. The Captain was certain that the airfields would be lightly defended by service troops. He and his men would move southward, destroying B29 bombers as they passed; climb Mount Suribachi and tear down the Stars and Stripes; and replace it with the Rising Sun as an inspiration to all Japanese troops on the island.  However this never came to be. The determined defenders, bolstered by heavy artillery and machine-gun fire, repelled the assault, resulting in approximately 800 Japanese casualties. Under relentless pressure in a shrinking area where most critical terrain features had been seized, the disorganized Japanese forces saw a fleeting opportunity to escape destruction, raid American-controlled airfields, and reclaim Mount Suribachi with this counterattack. However, its failure effectively depleted Senda's remaining strength and chances for continued resistance. The following day, Cates resumed the offensive, with the 23rd Marines making minor gains along their front, while Jordan's 3rd Battalion achieved a notable breakthrough of 300 yards. Furthermore, the Provisional Battalion was disbanded, and Lanigan's 2nd Battalion assumed control of the Amphitheater-Turkey Knob region. In the center, Erskine persisted in his advance toward the sea, with patrols from the 9th and 21st Marines successfully reaching the beach as American forces continued to secure the area. Meanwhile, to the left, Rockey faced significant resistance, with his troops soon coming under intense and precise fire from elevated positions extending southeast from Kitano Point. Consequently, the 26th and 27th Marines remained in a stalemate while the 28th Marines moved forward. On March 10, Liversedge's men advanced approximately 40 yards across extremely challenging terrain and against fierce opposition, while Graham's 2nd Battalion gained an additional 75 yards, with the rest of the 26th and 27th Marines still held in place. Over the past 14 days, Rockey's 5th Marine Division advanced 3,000 yards along the west coast, ultimately pushing Kuribayashi's forces into a final pocket at the northern tip of the island.  In a dispatch to Tokyo on March 10, General Kuribayashi summed up the Japanese situation in this manner: “Although the attacks of the enemy against our Northern districts are continuing day and night, our troops are still fighting bravely and holding their positions thoroughly… 200 or 300 American infantrymen with several tanks attacked "Tenzan" all day. The enemy's bombardments from one battleship (or cruiser), 11 destroyers, and aircraft are very severe, especially the bombing and machine-gun fire against Divisional Headquarters from 30 fighters and bombers are so fierce that I cannot express nor write here.” Not until 15 bloody days later did Marines eliminate the last pocket of organized enemy resistance in the northern end of the island. By D+19 all that remained for the enemy force was to fight and die for the Emperor. This advance came at a significant cost, with Rockey suffering 1,098 men killed and 2,974 wounded during this time. In the center, the 21st Marines reported that all organized resistance in their area had been eliminated, while the 9th Marines moved toward the beach, facing harassment from enemy fire from a resisting pocket on their right. Nevertheless, Erskine's 3rd Marine Division successfully secured the airfield areas and only needed to eliminate this last remaining pocket in their zone. However, personnel losses during this 14-day campaign were substantial, with Erskine losing 831 men killed and 2,241 wounded. Finally, Cates took over from the 24th Marines as he initiated his final offensive eastward. Consequently, the 23rd Marines advanced southeast with minimal resistance, covering approximately 700 yards before stopping at a strategic high ground about 500 yards from the beach, while patrols moved toward the coast near Tachiiwa Point. Simultaneously, Lanigan's 1st and 3rd Battalions pushed 600 yards southeast against stronger opposition and successfully occupied the key terrain southwest of Higashi. Meanwhile, the 2nd Battalion advanced northeast to join them, effectively driving the remaining enemy forces into a small pocket in that area. Over the last 14 days, Cates' 4th Marine Division engaged in relentless assaults, fighting fiercely from Charlie-Dog Ridge past Hill 382, the Amphitheater, Turkey Knob, through Minami, and the formidable defenses northeast of Hill 382, nearly reaching the coast.  The Japanese conducted an astute defense in this sector. General Kuribayashi had planned well, but much credit for execution of the plan in the 4th Marine Division zone must go to General Senda, who commanded the 2nd Mixed Brigade and exercised tactical control during the battle. Enemy weapons and minefields were well placed to take maximum advantage of terrain features, fire control was excellent when judged by Japanese standards, and camouflage discipline outstanding. Machine-gun positions controlled draws, while mortars were disposed to deliver fire on routes of approach, including the crests, forward, and reverse slopes of ridges. The one obvious mistake made by the Japanese in this long, grueling defense to the death was the night counterattack of March 8. This action cost them many lives and gained no advantage. Even this rather hopeless plunge can be somewhat justified, however, when the situation that existed then is seen from the Japanese point of view. By March 8, the enemy was under heavy, constant pressure in an ever-shrinking area where most of the critical terrain features had been captured. He was quickly becoming dispossessed and disorganized, with few courses of action remaining. Because communications were undoubtedly badly disrupted, it is possible that the Japanese facing the 4th Division did not realize just how hopeless his cause appeared and therefore harbored some hope that the counterattack might not be in vain. The cost was significant, with Cates suffering 848 men killed and 2,836 wounded.  While the battle raged on Iwo Jima, General LeMay was also preparing for a major raid on Tokyo, known as Operation Meetinghouse. After a precision strike by 192 B-29 bombers against Musashi on March 4, which resulted in minimal damage due to heavy cloud cover, a decision was made to move away from the 21st Bomber Command's traditional focus on precision bombing. This eighth fiasco at Musashi marked the end of a well-defined phase of 21st Bomber Command's operations. The effort to knock out the Japanese aircraft industry by high-altitude, daylight precision bombing of carefully selected targets had failed. Production of aircraft engines, not grossly off scheduled programs when 21st Bomber Command came to the Marianas, fell off sharply during the last two months of 1944 and production of aircraft declined slightly during the same period. In neither case, however, could the shortages be accounted for by destruction wrought by the B-29's; indeed, the output of Franks at Ota had decreased from 300 a month to 100 before the first air strike. Not one of the nine high-priority targets had been destroyed, although Akashi had been effectively crippled and production had been slowed down at Mitsubishi's engine and assembly plants at Nagoya and at Nakajima-Ota. Musashi had suffered only 4% damage after 835 B-29 sorties had been sent against it; Navy planes had done more harm in a single strike. Probably the indirect effects of the B-29 raids were most important: with the fall of Saipan, Japanese industrialists had begun to lose confidence in their supposed immunity from air attack. Although under governmental pressure for increased production, they began, with the first attacks on Nakajima and Mitsubishi, to hunt for underground or forest cover, and the official directive for dispersal issued in mid-January merely served to quicken a process already well under way. This radical change in manufacturing techniques, never as efficiently conducted as the similar movement in Germany had been, explains in part the slowdown in production in late 1944 and early 1945.  In 22 missions comprising 2,148 sorties, the command dropped 5,398 tons of bombs on Japan targeting the Imperial aircraft industry, but only about half of the bombers hit primary targets. Losses were substantial, largely due to fierce enemy interceptors and the lengthy overwater journey from the Marianas to Japan, which lacked any friendly bases for refueling or repairs. As a result of the high costs associated with unescorted daylight missions, the susceptibility of Japanese cities to incendiary attacks, and the minimal impact of precision bombing with high explosives, General Arnold ultimately opted for a comprehensive incendiary campaign. In preparation for the forthcoming assault on Okinawa, LeMay was tasked with initiating a series of intensive incendiary strikes from low altitudes. This lower bombing altitude would enhance accuracy, increase bomb load, and prolong the lifespan of B-29 engines. Although this approach carried risks, LeMay believed that the intense Japanese anti-aircraft fire was not overly threatening, as only two B-29s had been lost due to flak alone. He also decided to conduct these missions at night, which would decrease the likelihood of heavy cloud cover and strong winds, simplify navigation, and enable the bombers to reach the two new emergency airstrips at Iwo Jima by dawn. The first mission was set to commence immediately, with 334 B-29s from the 73rd, 313th, and 314th Bombardment Wings taking off in the late afternoon of March 9, carrying approximately 2,000 tons of bombs. The target was a rectangular area in northeastern Tokyo known as Zone I, measuring about 4 by 3 miles and encompassing most of Asakusa, Honjo, and Fukagawa Wards. After a turbulent journey, the initial pathfinders successfully identified their targets under favorable weather conditions and marked them shortly after midnight with fires However LeMay's decision came late. With the first mission set for the night of March 9, the field orders were not cut until the 8th. Although operational details would vary significantly from normal practice, there was no time to consult Washington as was so frequently done. Arnold was not even informed of the revolutionary plans until the day before the mission. The decision to attack at night ruled out the command's standard technique of lead-crew bombing. Formation flying at night was not feasible, and with flak rather than enemy fighters the chief danger, a tight formation would be a handicap rather than a source of defensive strength. With planes bombing individually from low altitudes, bomb loads could be sharply increased, to an average of about six tons per plane. Lead squadron B-29s carried 180 x 70-pound M47s, napalm-filled bombs calculated to start "appliance fires," that is, fires requiring attention of motorized fire-fighting equipment. Other planes, bombing on these pathfinders, were loaded with 24 x 500-pound clusters of M69s. Intervalometers were set at 100 feet for the pathfinders, 50 feet for the other planes. The latter setting was supposed to give a minimum density of 25 tons (8333 M69s) per square mile. Late reports indicated widespread fires that forced formations to search extensively for targets, with visibility severely hampered by smoke and bomb runs complicated by turbulence from intense heat waves. During the three-hour assault, a total of 279 B-29 bombers targeted Tokyo, successfully dropping 1,665 short tons of bombs on the primary objective. Additionally, 19 Superfortresses, unable to reach Tokyo, attacked alternative or last-resort targets. The Japanese were taken completely by surprise by this tactical shift, resulting in only moderate resistance; intense anti-aircraft fire destroyed 14 B-29s and damaged another 42, while enemy interceptors had no significant effect. The fires were so intense that they nearly extinguished themselves by mid-morning, only halted by wide gaps like rivers. Subsequent photographs revealed that 15.8 square miles had been devastated, including 18% of the industrial sector, 63% of the commercial area, and the core of the densely populated residential district. Tokyo's highly effective firefighting system was also caught off guard, leading to the destruction of 95 fire engines and the deaths of 125 firefighters, while lightweight buildings were completely consumed along with their contents. Little rubble remained; only a few fire-resistant structures, marked by heat damage, stood in the devastated areas. In total, 267,171 buildings were destroyed, 83,793 people lost their lives, 40,918 were injured, and 1,008,005 were left homeless. Moreover, it took 25 days to recover all the bodies from the debris. Radio Tokyo referred to the raid as “slaughter bombing,” with one broadcast stating that “the sea of flames engulfing the residential and commercial districts of Tokyo was reminiscent of the holocaust of Rome, caused by Emperor Nero.” The attack significantly undermined the morale of Japanese civilians, and along with other firebombing raids in March, it led many to believe that the war situation was worse than their government had acknowledged. In response, the Japanese government implemented a mix of repression, including severe penalties for those accused of disloyalty or spreading rumors, and launched an ineffective propaganda campaign aimed at restoring confidence in the nation's air and civil defense efforts. Meanwhile, LeMay and Arnold viewed the operation as a considerable success. As Tokyo mourned its losses, another 313 B-29s were sent on the afternoon of March 11 to execute a similar strike on Nagoya; however, due to minimal wind to spread the fires from the widely dispersed bombs, the results were less impressive. Nonetheless, only one B-29 was lost during the raid, with another 20 sustaining damage. It became evident, as LeMay had predicted, that the Japanese lacked effective tactics for nighttime interception. Now, attention shifts to Burma to report on the ongoing Chinese-British-Indian offensives. On General Slim's primary front, General Stopford's 33rd Corps continued its vigorous advance toward Mandalay, while General Cowan's 17th Indian Division successfully made its way to the Meiktila area in the Japanese rear. In response, Generals Kimura and Katamura sent several reinforcements to this crucial area, but only the 1st Battalion, 168th Regiment, led by Colonel Yoshida, managed to arrive in time to establish some defenses in the town, quickly transforming buildings in Meiktila into bunkers and strongpoints. On February 28, Cowan dispatched the 63rd Brigade to launch an attack from the west and the 48th Brigade to advance from the north along the Mahlaing-Meiktila road, while the 255th Tank Brigade executed a wide flanking maneuver to approach from the east. As a result, the 63rd Brigade secured Kyaukpyugon and set up a roadblock southwest of Meiktila; the 48th Brigade advanced to a bridge over a chaung approximately a mile from the town; and the 255th Brigade fought its way to Kyigon and Khanda, successfully destroying several bunkers near Point 860. On March 1, following a heavy air and artillery bombardment, Cowan's three brigades began to push into Meiktila despite fierce resistance. The 48th Brigade, bolstered by a tank squadron, advanced down the Mandalay-Meiktila road, quickly clearing Kyigon before entering the town, where they reached within 100 yards of the railroad line before the attack was halted in the late afternoon. To the east, the majority of the 255th Tank Brigade captured Point 860 and began clearing the camouflaged bunkers along the ridgeline, while a combined force of tanks and grenadiers advanced to within 200 yards of the railroad station before being recalled. Meanwhile, the 63rd Brigade, supported by a tank squadron, cleared the village of Kanna and continued past it to secure the railroad line and the main Kyaukpadaung-Meiktila road. The following day, the 17th Indian Division tightened the encirclement around Meiktila, inflicting significant casualties on the outnumbered defenders and destroying numerous enemy bunkers. On March 3, the three brigades commenced the task of eliminating the last remaining Japanese forces in and around Meiktila. They faced intense sniper and machine-gun fire from every building. However, due to the tanks' superior firepower, the Japanese strongholds were systematically taken down one by one. By the end of the day, the town was cleared, with an estimated 2,000 Japanese troops killed, including Colonel Yoshida. Additionally, 47 field pieces and anti-tank guns were captured, and the supply dumps surrounding Meiktila were secured. Cowan now needed to organize the town's defenses, anticipating a swift and fierce Japanese counterattack. Immediately after the town's capture, Kimura ordered the 18th Division to work with the weakened 49th Division to reclaim Meiktila, while Katamura reinforced General Naka with the majority of the 119th and 214th Regiments, a strong artillery unit, and the battered 14th Tank Regiment. Following the capture of Meiktila, Cowan's forces spent the next few days clearing the area of any remaining snipers and stragglers. For the town's defense, Cowan assigned each brigade and the divisional infantry to four sectors, each featuring a heavily fortified redoubt. He also tasked the 99th Brigade with defending Kyigon and Meiktila's airfield. To maintain the initiative for the 17th Division, Cowan aggressively deployed strong mobile columns of tanks, mechanized artillery, and infantry to disrupt the Japanese formations as they approached Meiktila. Consequently, while the 18th and 49th Divisions advanced, Ywadan and Nyaungaing were secured on March 5. In the following days, the main roads leading to Mahlaing, Kyaukpadaung, Pyawbwe, Thazi, and Mandalay were cleared, and the enemy units of the 214th Regiment at Thangongyi and Yego were successfully repelled on March 8. General Naka was now prepared to initiate his primary assault on Meiktila, instructing his units to concentrate their efforts north of the town, while the 214th Regiment made an unsuccessful attempt to move southwest to connect with the 49th Division. In response to these movements, on March 10, Cowan sent a robust tank-infantry force along the Mahlaing road to escort a previously dispatched column back to Meiktila, successfully inflicting significant casualties on the 56th Regiment as the British-Indians secured the Leindaw-Kyanngyagon area. However, the troops faced harassment from artillery fire originating from south of Myindawgan Lake, prompting Cowan to launch another armored sweep on March 14 to eliminate this threat. Although the 55th Regiment managed to capture the hill north of Meiktila after Cowan's tanks and infantry withdrew, the Japanese forces were unable to prevent their return, which resulted in further heavy losses. Concurrently, other tank-infantry units disrupted the advance of the 49th Division, effectively delaying the assembly of Japanese forces to the south and east of Meiktila until March 18. Additionally, a strong raid by the Komatsubara Unit was successfully repelled on March 14. In Stopford's sector, the 19th Division was preparing to launch its final offensive southward toward Mandalay, while the 2nd and 20th Divisions, after fierce fighting to expand their bridgeheads, were advancing east to assault the southern approaches to Mandalay. With close support from artillery and aircraft, General Rees' forces successfully breached the primary defenses of Lieutenant-General Yamamoto Kiyoe's 15th Division, reaching the northern outskirts of Mandalay by March 7. As the assault continued, British-Indian forces were set to enter the city on March 9. However, the determined defenders clung to Mandalay Hill and Fort Dufferin, aiming to extend the conflict and fight to the death. While Mandalay was under siege, the 62nd Brigade stealthily advanced east to Maymyo on March 11, catching the garrison off guard. The next day, Mandalay Hill ultimately fell while Fort Dufferin was being heavily bombarded within the city. By mid-March, the 2nd Division was nearing the capture of Ava, and the 20th Division was steadily advancing east to sever the supply routes from Mandalay to the south. In northern Burma, General Sultan was also pursuing his offensive. After establishing a bridgehead at Myitson, General Festing's 36th British Division faced minimal resistance and successfully took Mongmit on March 9 before continuing southward to Mogok. To the east, the 38th Chinese Division encountered only weak delaying positions as it moved towards Lashio, which was successfully occupied by March 7. At this point, the 56th Division, now independently commanding this area, was gradually retreating towards Hsipaw and Kyaukme. Although General Sun paused his advance until the Generalissimo granted permission to resume the offensive later in the month. Mountbatten feared that if more Chinese troops were withdrawn from Burma it might not be possible to take Rangoon before the monsoon rains began. This was an unpleasant prospect, so Mountbatten went to Chungking on March 8 for two days of conference with the Generalissimo. When the conference of March 9 concluded, the Generalissimo, according to the American minutes, said that he would recapitulate his decision of halting the Chinese advance at Lashio. In so doing, he remarked that the details of withdrawal would be settled later and that no final decisions would be made before General Wedemeyer was able to take part in them. Then he stated that unless there was a simultaneous amphibious attack on Rangoon, operations would stop at Lashio and Mandalay and the Allies would assume the defensive. The Chinese would stop at Lashio, but details of their operations between Lashio and Mandalay would be settled later between the staffs. The misunderstanding became quite apparent in mid-March when General Sultan, under whose command the Chinese were, received conflicting orders. Mountbatten ordered Sultan to move his forces southwestward toward Mandalay, yet the Generalissimo directed that the Chinese divisions stay in the Lashio area. As a compromise and to avoid having the Chinese wait idly around Lashio, Sultan suggested that a smaller task force be directed to proceed south. But the Generalissimo and his American advisers stood firm, lest the shift of troops to China be delayed. This in turn caused the British to believe that if the Chinese were not going to advance they should be withdrawn forthwith and end the burden on the line of communications. The 50th Chinese Division began to push south after securing the Namtu region and by mid-March reached Hsipaw. Meanwhile, in South Burma, the 82nd West African Division had taken Dalet, while the 25th Indian Division engaged in a struggle for control of the Ruywa-Tamandu area. Additionally, the 2nd West African Brigade was advancing inland toward An, posing a significant threat to the Japanese rear areas. Due to the rapid advancement of Slim's offensive, Admiral Mountbatten had to prioritize air supply for the 14th Army. This situation soon compelled General Christison to send the 25th Indian Division back to India, as his logistical support was becoming increasingly strained. Capturing Tamandu and establishing a Forward Maintenance Area there became essential. After successfully clearing Dokekan, the 74th Indian Brigade crossed the Me Chaung on March 4 to circumvent the main enemy defenses. The British-Indians pressed on, launching attacks on Tamandu in the following days, but the determined defenders put up strong resistance. Eventually, General Miyazaki withdrew most of the 111th Regiment and ordered it to attack the 2nd West African Brigade from the rear, which was finally contained by March 17. With the 25th Division scheduled to withdraw to Akyab by the end of the month, the 74th was reassigned to the 82nd West African Division and launched a final assault on Tamandu on March 11, successfully capturing the abandoned objective. The British-Indians then began to advance towards Kolan, reaching the vicinity of the town by mid-March. Simultaneously, the 154th Regiment counterattacked the West Africans at Dalet, successfully halting the enemy's advance beyond the river. Meanwhile, the 4th Indian Brigade landed at Mae near Letpan on March 13 from Ramree Island and established a roadblock to prevent enemy escape. In response, the 121st Regiment sent several companies to conduct a delaying action aimed at slowing the enemy's southward advance. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. The battle for Iwo Jima intensified as the Marines advanced against fortified Japanese positions, facing heavy resistance and suffering significant casualties while capturing key terrain over several weeks of fierce combat. Meanwhile General LeMay shifted from precision bombing to incendiary raids on Tokyo, resulting in significant destruction and civilian casualties, while Japanese morale plummeted amid military setbacks.  

Last time we spoke about how Zhang Xueliang lost Manchuria. In September 1931, the Mukden Incident ignited conflict in Manchuria as Japan executed a false flag attack, prompting a swift assault on Peitaying Barracks. Zhang Xueliang, urged by Chiang Kai-shek, chose not to resist, fearing a full-scale war. The Japanese invasion revealed deep political divisions in Manchuria, with some officials defecting, others sabotaging, and a few fighting back. Amidst chaos, Zhang sought to unify his forces, but rivalries and external threats complicated his efforts, setting the stage for prolonged conflict. In post-1929 Manchuria, nationalist activists joined the KMT, including Yan Baohang and his friends, who attended a 1931 conference in Nanjing. They aimed to resist Japanese influence while navigating local elite tensions and economic struggles. As Zhang Xueliang rose to power, he sought reform but faced distrust and challenges, including high military spending and a devastating depression. By 1931, Japanese aggression loomed, culminating in a coup that threatened the fragile nationalist aspirations in the region.   #139 Gokokujo and Collaborators  Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. The Japanese Imperial General Headquarters had hoped to localize the Mukden Incident and communicated their orders to Kwantung Command. However as we had seen, the Kwantung Command in chief General Shigeru Honjo, had his wrist twisted somewhat by certain culprits in the form of Ishiwara Kanji and Itageki Seishiro. Honjo thus ordered the forces to proceed with expanding operations along the South Manchuria Railway zone. On September the 19th, the 29th infantry regiment stormed Mukden, easily overwhelming the Chinese forces within the inner walled city. Simultaneously the 2nd battalion occupied Pei Ta Ying, where they were met with some fierce resistance before storming Tung Ta Ying. Afterwards the 2nd Division drove out the remaining Chinese resistance from the eastern area of Mukden. Meanwhile the 1st Battalion fought Chinese forces at Kuan Cheng Tze near Changchun. By this point Honjo's request for assistance from the Korea Army was confirmed. General Senjuro Hayashi ordered the 20th infantry division to divide itself, forming the 39th mixed brigade who marched into Manchuria, without any authorization from Tokyo nor the Emperor to do so. By the end of the 19th, the Japanese had seized Liaoyang, Shenyang, Yingkou, Dandong, Fushun, Changchun and Jilin.  On the 20th, Wan Shu Cheng, the commander of the Chinese 2nd army ordered a withdrawal of the 44th and 643rd regiments stationed at Taching to head for Tiantsin. On the 21st the Japanese took Jilin city, by the 23rd they captured Jiaohe and Dunhua, both within Jilin. On the 26th, the Governor of Jilin, Zhang Zuoxiang who was not there at the time, was overthrown by a newly formed provisional provincial government with Xi Xia as its chairman. By October 1st Zhang Haiping would surrender the area of Taonan, later in October Ji Xing surrendered the Yanbian Korean Autonomous prefecture area and on the 17th Yu Zhishan surrendered Eastern Liaoning. General HQ in Tokyo were flabbergasted at the news all of this was being done without their orders, in fact in most cases it was directly against their orders. The civilian government of Japan was in absolute disarray over what was an act of Gekokujo. Gekokujo directly translated meaning "the low overcomes the high",was when someone of a lesser position in the military or politics overthrew someone in a higher position to seize power. The term goes all the way back to the Sui Dynasty of China, for Japan during the Kamakura period, but its most prominently known for being used during the Sengoku period. It was through the chaotic political climate of the Sengoku period that Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi rose to power. During the Showa period, Gekokujo would occur often. Those of the Kodoha faction used it as a means to an end during the 1920s and 1930s, assassinating political opponents as they tried to press for a Showa restoration. Back to Manchuria, as Gokokujo ran rampant, with reports coming in after each quick victory and city taken by Japanese forces, Tokyo General HQ felt utterly powerless to stop it. There is also another facet to this, the role of Emperor Hirohito. Many of you might only have a vague idea of how much “actual power” Emperor Hirohito had during the Showa Era. The Meiji Constitution of Japan going back to 1889 remained in force until 1947. It was enacted after the Meiji restoration in 1868 and provided a form of mixed constitutional and absolute monarchy. Thus in theory the Emperor governed the empire upon the advice of his ministers. In practice this meant while the Emperor was head of state, it was still the Prime Minister who was actually heading the government. Now this was all fine and dandy, however the constitution also stated the Emperor had direct control over the military. Imagine this scenario, you work for a company and take orders from the boss of the company. The father of the boss used to run the company and is seen as the face of it, but retired long ago and has no real authority. So you do the orders your boss gives you, but what about if that father figure suddenly shows up and gives orders? Many in the company would go ahead and do what the father says, feeling this obligatory need to. Now in the case of Showa Era Japan, the entire population of Japan saw the Emperor as a divine being, maybe you can call him the spiritual leader of Japan. He wasn't expected to intervene in political or military matters, but if he did, you but your ass people would follow his orders. Now since the Japanese navy and army knew the Emperor could directly control them, they actually used this as a tool. On many occasions in order to secure further funding or specific policy adjustment, military leaders would appeal to the Emperor or do things in the name of the Emperor, completely superseding the civilian government. Basically the military used the Meiji Constitution to earn a large degree of autonomy, case and point being the Mukden Incident. As long as they made it seem like they were doing everything they believed the Emperor wanted them to do, they believed they could get away with it. If the Civilian government came after them for their actions, they could appeal to the emperor, but how did Hirohito feel about all this? Rumors had emerged even before the Mukden Incident, to which Hirohito demanded the army be reigned in. Attempts were made, but the Mukden Incident went off on September 18th. The next day the imperial palace were given a report and Hirohito was advised by chief aide de camp Nara Takeji “this incident would not spread and if the Emperor was to convene an imperial conference to take control of the situation, the virtue of his majesty might be soiled if the decisions of such a conference should prove impossible to implement”.  As the Mukden incident was getting worse, the Kwantung officers began to demand reinforcements be sent from the Korea army. The current Wakatsuki cabinet met on the issue and decided the Mukden incident had to remain an incident, they needed to avoid a declaration of war. The official orders were for no reinforcements of the Korea army to mobilize, however the field commander took it upon his own authority and mobilized them. The army chief of staff Kanaya reported to Hirohito the Korea army was marching into Manchuria against orders. At 31 years of age Hirohito now had an excellent opportunity to back the current cabinet, to control the military and stop the incident from getting worse. At this time the military was greatly divided on the issue, politically still weak compared to what they would become in a few years, if Hirohito wanted to rule as a constitutional monarch instead of an autocratic monarch, well this was his chance. Hirohito said to Kanaya at 4:20pm on September 22nd “although this time it couldn't be helped, [the army] had to be more careful in the future”. Thus Hirohito accepted the situation as fait accompli, he was not seriously opposed to seeing his army expand his empire. If it involved a brief usurpation of his authority so bit, as long as the operation was successful.    It actually a lot more complicated, but to general sum it up, Emperor Hirohito cared about only one thing, the Kokutai. The Kokutai was the national essence of Japan. It was all aspects of Japanese polity, derived from history, tradition and customs all focused around the cult of the Emperor. The government run by politicians was secondary, at any given time the kokutai was the belief the Emperor could come in and directly rule. If you are confused, dont worry, its confusing. The Meiji constitution was extremely ambiguous. It dictated a form of constitutional monarchy with the kokutai sovereign emperor and the “seitai” that being the actual government. Basically on paper the government runs things, but the feeling of the Japanese people was that the wishes of the emperor should be followed. Thus the kokutai was like an extra-judicial structure built into the constitution without real legal framework, its a nightmare I know.    Emperor Hirohito was indoctrinated from a young age that the most important aspect of his reign was to defend the Kokutai. This is actually why Hirohito took so long to finally intervene during WW2 and call for Japan's surrender. I have taken far too long going down the rabbit hole of Showa Era Japan and Hirohito, if you are interested on the subject, over only my Youtube Membership or Patreon I did a two part exclusive podcast specifically on Hirohito's responsibility for the war.  The weeks following the Mukden Incident were marked by wide scale cooperation between the local Chinese leaders and Japanese invaders. In many places there was of course valiant resistance by Chinese forces, but it was not centrally coordinated and honestly amounted to little. The Kwantung army despite being vastly outnumbered was highly trained and highly mechanized in comparison to the Chinese. The Kwantung army had very few troops to conquer over 350,000 square miles, populated by over 30 million Chinese. Prior to 1931 the Kwantung Army numbered under 10,000, by late 1931 this would increase to 65,000 and by 1933 140,000. Yet during the initial invasion the army's behavior was heavily affected by the actions of the Chinese, or in many cases their inability to act. The only way Japan was going to do what they wanted to do was to encourage co-optation amongst the Chinese elites of Manchuria, typically at the provincial and local levels. This meant showering them with extravagant new positions in the new regime, promoting a policy of nonresistance and targeting prominent members of Zhang Xueliang's regime who were expected to oppose Kwantung rule.  When the Mukden Incident broke out, Zhang Xueliang was in Beiping acting in his new capacity as the North China Garrison commander. On the night of September 18th, Zhang Xuliang was enjoying an opera performance by the famous singer Mei Lanfang. His deputies also all happened to be away from Shenyang. Wan Fulin was in Beiping and Zhang Zuoxiang was attending his fathers funeral in Jinzhou. Within their absence the most senior provincial commanders were quickly pounced upon by Kwantung operatives who secured their cooperation. Within Shenyang the Eastern Borders Garrison commander Yu Zhishan and Xi Xia the acting provincial forces commander of Changchun both immediately defected to the Japanese. Although the Northeastern Army had roughly 130,000 troops within Manchuria, compared to the Kwantung and Korea army troops who together were roughly 50,000, Chiang Kai-Shek hastily issued a nonresistance order that was confirmed by Zhang Xueliang. The troops were to not fight back and instead await a negotiated settlement. While they waited, the Japanese secured high level provincial elite cooperation within a few weeks time. On November 10th, Zhang Zuolin's former civil affairs minister, Yuan Jinkai was made chairman of the committee in charge of Japanese controlled Liaoning. On December 16th, the formerly existing post of governor was re-established and a previous holder of this post under Zhang Xueliang, Zang Shiyi was appointed. Thus Yuan Jinkai's post as chairman was redundant. Meanwhile Xi Xia was made governor of Jilin.  Some of you might be wondering, why in the hell would Chiang Kai-Shek relay orders to not resist an invasion? Let us not forget the timeline here, during this exact time period, Feng Yuxiang and Yan Xishan formed an alliance in North China against the NRA; the Soviet of Jiangxi was running rampant and in the south the Old Guangxi clique was running amok. Even though Zhang Xueliang had 250,000 men on paper, only 100-130,000 of them were in Manchuria while the rest were scattered around Hebei. Chiang Kai-Shek had an expert understanding of the Japanese numbers, their training and equipment. To put it frankly, if the quote en quote “incident” escalated into a full-scale war, China would most likely lose. There was also another aspect to this, the role of the League of Nations and the current Wakatsuki government in Tokyo. Either of these bodies could potentially restrain what appeared to be renegade Japanese forces on the asia mainland.  Going a bit forward in time, the last redoubt during the invasion would be at Jinzhou where Zhang Xueliang would establish his HQ. When it was about to finally fall, Zhang Xueliang ultimately decided to withdraw his forces from Manchuria. According to the US minister to CHina, Nelson Johnson, Counselor Yano of the Japanese legation tam at Beiping had conducted informal discussions with the Young Marshal, in which he stated Jinzhou would inevitably fall to the Japanese and quote “the Tokyo Foreign Office would gain prestige and be better able to shape events to the advantage of China if the Chinese avoid[ed] a clash by withdrawing voluntarily.” He also advised Zhang Xueliang, that some of his followers might be reappointed to official positions within the newly emerging government in Shenyang. Nelson tells us “Chang is believed to have been led to his present decision by these inducements, along with the bitter hostility toward him at Nanking and the lack of support from that quarter.” Thus Zhang Xueliang was being blackmailed by both sides into nonresistance. By late December of 1931 it also seemed certain international intervention was not going to happen and Chiang Kai-Shek's resignation over Nanjing did not provide the Young Marshal with many options.  Now what about the Japanese government during all of this. When the Mukden Incident boke out, the government in Tokyo, headed by premier Wakatsuki Reijiro were appalled to hear the news of what was essentially a mutiny. The Kwantung officers disagreed with Tokyo's policies and kept Tokyo's consul in Shenyang under lock and key during the night of September 18th. If there had been more significant resistance to the invasion, Tokyo probably would have ordered the Kwantung army to withdraw. Without the co-optation of many Chinese elites, the Kwantung Army would have most likely not succeeded in taking all of Manchuria. The co-optation policy the Japanese took was also very much not an ad hoc measure. There had been elements within the IJA who had been working overtime to persuade cooperation with local power holders as part of their strategy. The Kwantung officers who launched the Mukden Incident, mostly working under Ishiwara and Itegaki had initially aimed to enact a simply military occupation in which “local Chinese officials would be granted a considerable degree of autonomy in exchange for their cooperation.” However, Tokyo HQ outright rejected annexation out of fear of Soviet reprisals and this led the mutiny leaders to  “the subterfuge of Manchurian independence.” The improvised nature of the original plan led to arguments between the different sections of those Japanese forces in Manchuria. Historian Akira Iriye noted “What emerges . . . is an almost total absence of ideology as a driving force behind military action.” While this sounds clearly dysfunctional, it actually aided the occupiers, because many areas of life in Manchuria were not immediately affected by the occupation and thus were more likely to cooperate.  The actual coordination of the occupation was placed in the hands of the Kwantung Army Special Affairs Unit “Tokumubu”, operating via the General Affairs Board of the Council of State under Komai Tokuzo. Komai Tokuzo had been born near Kyoto and from an early age was consumed with a desire to see China. He was trained as an agriculturalist, before he joined the SMR and worked for a company during the reign of Zhang Zuolin. He became acquainted with the Old Tiger and debated with him and other prominent leaders on questions such as Mongol land rights and the Guo Songling rebellion. During this time he befriended Yu Chonghan and Zhang Jinghui. After the Mukden Incident, he was appointed as a financial adviser to the Kwantung Army, a very senior post with direct access to Honjo Shigeru, the commander of the Northeast. As Akira Iriye also notes “in fact, [Komai] was a top-level adviser to the army on politics and economics in Manchuria.”Komai would become responsible for the strategies of co-opting local elite, and thus was essential to the power structure of the Kwantung Army going forward.  The Japanese utilized a lethal combination of violence and persuasion to take over. Many power brokers refused to cooperate and were forced into exile in North China. However, plenty of collaborators were found to quickly set up structures and controls within the new regime. The bulk of the Japanese forces moved into the principal cities of the SMR region first. Robert E Lewis, the adviser to the foreign affairs ministry in Nanjing sent a telegram declaring the Japanese had sent a large number of troops into Manchuria just prior to the 18th of September “On Friday night September eighteenth the Japanese Army sent from Korea into Manchuria through Antung seven army railway trains fully loaded with soldiers. On Saturday night September ninteenth [sic] Japanese army sent four additional trains loaded with soldiers in to [sic] Manchuria at the same point . . . Japanese occupied every Chinese public office in Antung excepting the customs house which has Europeans in it, also placed guard over Chinese customs superintendent to prevent his free action. [The Japanese] arrested superintendent of schools and forbad [sic] teaching of Dr Sun Yatsen's principles. Japanese army occupied Kirin seventy nine miles east of the south Manchuria railway zone on September ninteenth [sic] they seized and held the telegraph office telephone office wireless station provincial arsenal waterworks plant Bank of China Kirin Provincial Bank police headquarters and subdivisions Kuo Ming Tang [sic] Party headquarters and all other public offices. Search and seizure was conducted of non-military population. Troops and military cadets were disarmed when captured and the arms and munitions of the Chinese arsenal were removed by Japanese including modern rifles field guns heavy guns military motor trucks.”. The capture of Shenyang only took a single day. The Japanese military, their Chinese military collaborators and the local media all coordinated efforts to persuade the people to continue life as normal. Many businesses closed down temporarily within the first few days, worried about a breakdown of the social order or Japanese attacks. But a week after the initial occupation, reports came to the Chambers of Agriculture and Commerce in Shenyang that businesses were all operating normally again, public order was restored. On the second day of the occupation the Kwantung installed Colonel Doihara Kenji as the new mayor of Shenyang, yes that psychopath a mayor. However by October 20th, the mayorship would be handed over to Zhao Xinbo, who by that point became a legal adviser to the Kwantung Army.  The capture of Changchun took a bit longer than Shenyang. On September 23rd the Japanese demanded of the Jilin based forces their surrender. Their acting commander Xi Xia agreed to the demands so that in his words “the province fortunately to escape the horrors of war.” However there were some troops looking to resist. In some ensuing clashes, 200 Chinese soldiers and around 10 civilians were killed in combat. An eye witness reported “At 4 P.M. on the 23rd, the Japanese army made strong use of their armaments, causing Xi Xia concern. So that afternoon, he met [Japanese] commander Tamon, and said that the present situation was serious[;] . . . only he himself could take responsibility for removing the Jilin army's weapons . . . As a result, at 2 P.M. [the next day], they handed over 1,200 rifles, 11 machine-guns and 6 mortars.” Afterwards the city police were given permission to maintain public order, though they clearly were working under the Japanese. On September 24th, Xi Xia announced to the provincial assembly that the Chamber of Commerce of the old government was dissolved and that he would be leading the new Jilin governor's office. He also added that there would be no maintenance committees and that he would exercise complete control. Of course that was bullshit, he was nothing more than a Japanese puppet taking direct orders from Kwantung officers. Despite all of this, Jilin would not be fully dominated, for several months, northern Jilin was in control of rebel forces, based out of Bin county.  The Japanese occupation led to the removal of the Northeastern Governmental Affairs Council, the structure Zhang Xueliang used to nominally control the region. The Japanese did not seek to create a new cross-provincial authority until it seemed there existed popular demand for an independent state. While in the interim, the policy was to establish provincial authorities headed by prominent Chinese figures, secretly under Japanese control. Within Fengtian, the authority was originally only there to maintain public order, but by December it was declared to be a full provincial government. Within Jilin, Xi Xia declared an independent provincial government from the very start. Within the special Zone, Zhang Jinghui declared autonomy, but still stayed in contact with Zhang Xueliang for several months, fence sitting as it were.  At the provincial level, Zhang Xueliang had never really controlled Manchuria, it was honestly in the hands of his subordinates, many of whom already had close ties to the Japanese. For example, Yu Chonghan, a former foreign minister under Zhang Zuolin had for many years received a regular retainer as an “adviser” to the Japanese. He was retired in Liaoyuan when the Mukden Incident occurred and by November was persuaded to return to Shenyang to form a pro-Japanese statement. As far as Yu Chonghan was concerned “Zhang Xueliang squandered the regional assets on expanding their armies in a futile quest for national supremacy through military conquest”. The Japanese also made it apparent to various interest groups that cooperation with them would be advantageous. Take for example the imperial restorationists, yes they still existed. One was Zheng Xiaoxu, who would become the first Manchukuo prime minister. People such as him were persuaded by the prospect of restoring the Qing Dynasty, as batshit crazy as that sounds. There was also White Russians in Harbin persuaded they would be protected from KMT hooligans who had been assaulting them as of late.  In general a huge motivation for regional military leaders to collaborate was to minimize the effect that the Japanese occupation would impose on their spheres of influence. I mean lets be honest, if your choice was to collaborate and maintain some autonomy over your own little slice of Manchuria, or go into exile in North China, what would you choose? Many who opted to collaborate retained the same roles they had before the Mukden Incident. Zhang Shiyi who was acting governor of Liaoning prior became governor of Fengtian province. Zhang Jinghui was the commander of the Harbin Special Zone and this went unchanged. Xi Xia was deputy governor of Jilin, and since his superior Zhang Zuoxiang was exiled to Jinzhou, he simply succeeded his post. Through the initial cooperation, southern manchuria was taken over without wide-scale bloodshed, though there was of course some savage bombing of certain cities.  On September 24th, a Liaoning public order maintenance committee was set up and a Jilin provincial government followed on the 26th. Liaoning did not have a provincial government spring up immediately because the prominent elites such as Yuan Jinkai and Zang Shiyi at first had some qualms about turning against Zhang Xueliang. They of course believed it was possible Zhang Xueling could rally the Northeastern Army and recapture the occupied areas. Yet they chose immediately to maintain public order in a quasi neutral stance. To coordinate all of the newly formed collaborative bodies, the Kwantung Army set up a Control Bureau “Tochibu” with Komai Tokuzo in charge. He was given sole control over it  “so that if it were successful, then it would be the Kwantung Army's success, but if by some chance it should fail, then Komai alone could take the responsibility.” By far and large the Japanese wanted a cross-provincial administrative structure to appear organically created by the Manchurian lites. Therefore during the initial phase of the occupation the Japanese exercised control through the medium of public order maintenance committees, which had long been tradition in Manchuria to form organizations to deal with local social issues such as policing, fire fighting and so forth. Yuan Jinkai, the former chief secretary for military and civil affairs and governor of Fengtian, was now appointed by the Kwantung Army to lead their newly established public order maintenance committee. The committee's stated purpose was "to uphold local order and ensure that finance and businesses operate normally, as well as to establish police and militia forces responsible for maintaining public order." Additionally, other prominent local figures were recruited to various similar committees, including a Liaoning United People's Provisional Committee and a Northeastern Gentry and People's Committee for Discussing Solutions to the Current Situation. On September 28, both the Liaoning Committee and Xi Xia's Jilin administration issued a "declaration of independence" and created new government departments staffed by Chinese officials. It quickly became evident to the Japanese that Yuan Jinkai was not suited for the role of chairman. A contemporary Japanese commentator remarked that “his attitude appeared half-formed and confusing to those outside the provincial capital.” Specifically, Yuan was still reluctant to officially establish a Liaoning provincial government. Consequently, the Kwantung Army turned to the other remaining member of the triad of elders from Zhang Zuolin's administration, Yu Chonghan. From the early days following the Manchurian Incident, there had been indications that Yu was “moving toward participation.” Yu had a long history of collaboration with the Japanese, dating back to the Russo-Japanese War, during which he served as a spy for them. He would have been an obvious choice for the council from the outset if not for his recovery from a serious illness at his home in Liaoyuan. As it became apparent that local leaders had lost faith in Yuan Jinkai's judgment, consultations were held among the provincial heads, who recommended that Yu Chonghan be brought out of retirement to join the committee, provided his health permitted. On November 1, Morita Fukumatsu from the Fengtian Japanese Residents' Association visited Yu's home to assess his health. After Morita briefed Yu on the Committee's situation, they discussed a policy aimed at unifying the Northeast and the adoption of the Kingly Way (Wangdao) as a guiding principle for the new state. Yu agreed to come out of retirement, and on November 3, he traveled to Shenyang for a meeting with Honjo. During this meeting, Yu presented eight points he believed would foster a “paradise” of Sino-Japanese cooperation, which included reforms in local policing, tax and salary systems, and a commitment to non militarism. Subsequently, Yu was appointed head of the committee, with Yuan reporting to him. By the end of 1931, committee members who had previously hesitated to declare an autonomous government due to concerns that Zhang Xueliang might launch an attack to reclaim the Northeast were convinced to support the idea of separating from Nanjing's authority. Well Zhang Xueliang would try to face the Japanese with his northeastern Army. It would not only be him, other figures would emerge to lead resistance efforts against the Japanese, trying to claw back Manchuria from the Empire of the Rising Sun.  I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. Yes thus far the episodes have been awfully heavy on the politics, schemes and dynamics of how Manchuria was invaded. Some of you must be clamoring for the battles, and for the next few episodes that's exactly what we will jump into. For the fight for Manchuria has only just begun.

Last time we spoke about the Ishiwara Kanji. Born in 1889 in Japan, Kanji Ishiwara was the son of a policeman from a samurai lineage. He entered military training at 13, rising through the ranks to become a Major and a respected lecturer. His unconventional views on military strategy and history led him to predict a prolonged conflict with the United States. Deeply influenced by Nichiren Buddhism, he envisioned Japan as a moral leader destined to guide Asia, advocating for reform in China while grappling with his nation's imperial ambitions. In 1928, ishiwara fell ill with influenza, leading to a six-month hospitalization. During recovery, he joined an elite study group discussing war theories. His lectures on total war gained fame, culminating in a presentation to Kwantung officers. Amid rising tensions in Japan, he advocated for control over Manchuria, believing Japan had a moral duty to stabilize China. His theories on warfare, including the devastating potential of airpower, foreshadowed the horrors of future conflicts, influencing Japan's military strategies.   #137 Ishiwara Kanji Part 2: The Mukden Incident Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War.   For the next two and a half years, Ishiwara and Itagaki collaborated with other members of the Kwantung Army to address what they perceived as the Manchurian issue. By the mid-1930s, the belief that Manchuria needed to be forcibly seized had become the prevailing opinion among the Kwantung Army. Ishiwara was convinced that Japan could no longer remain passive in Manchuria, as each passing day meant Japan was gradually losing its rights and interests in the region to China, risking expulsion. Abandoning Manchuria would be a national catastrophe, resulting in the loss of a crucial buffer state, valuable resources, and land for Japan's growing population to settle. In essence, Manchuria was vital for Japan's survival and growth. Ishiwara would often say “manchuria provides Japan with breathing space” where have we heard that type of talk before?. To the military heads in Tokyo Ishikawa would often assert Manchuria had to be seized via force, because of the soviet threat of the USSR and communism as a whole “In view of the traditional russian policy in that area, once the soviets advanced into manchuria, it would become a base for the communization of asia. Not only would the internal stability of manchuria become impossible to maintain, but Japan would be unable to maintain its own national defense, and China's defenses, too, would become imperialized". The Army Headquarters in Tokyo also recognized that Manchuria was a crucial defensive line against the USSR. However, unlike the Kwantung Army, which aimed to control all of Manchuria, the leaders in Tokyo focused on incorporating southern Manchuria through the South Manchurian Railway and did not pursue any territory north of it. Ishiwara, on the other hand, believed that the only way for Japan to prevent the USSR from exerting pressure on southern Manchuria was to occupy northern Manchuria and extend even further north toward the Amur River. This would allow Japan to control the mountain ranges that bordered the western and eastern frontiers of northern Manchuria. Once Japan controlled northern Manchuria, Ishiwara stated in 1931 “With the solution of our defense problems in the north, we would then be free to plan an advance in any direction: to China proper, for example, or even to Southeast Asia”. Ishiwara advanced his ideas significantly after Japan's conquest of Manchuria, recognizing the necessity of effectively administering and pacifying its diverse populations. He posited that the stability of Manchuria could be achieved through the unique skills and contributions of the various ethnic groups residing there. For instance, he believed that the Chinese would excel in developing small businesses, while the Koreans would apply their expertise in paddy farming. These racial dynamics, according to Ishiwara, would play a crucial role in the development of Manchukuo and the broader vision of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. However, it was clear that, above all, Manchuria was intended to serve Japan's interests, many of which were exploitative and economically driven. By early 1930, Ishiwara and his colleague Itagaki devised a military strategy reminiscent of the tactics employed during the Russo-Japanese War, specifically a surprise night attack. Their plan involved the Kwantung Army launching an assault on the Liaoning region, targeting key Chinese garrisons. This operation required meticulous planning, as the Kwantung Army was significantly outnumbered by the forces commanded by Zhang Xueliang. In the vicinity of Mukden alone, Zhang commanded approximately 20,000 well-equipped troops, supported by aircraft and tanks. Across Manchuria, he could mobilize around 250,000 soldiers in the event of conflict. In stark contrast, the Kwantung Army could only field about 10,000 personnel, primarily composed of garrison units stationed along the railway. They lacked substantial air support and mechanized units, and their overall equipment was inadequate. To address this stark imbalance in military strength, Ishiwara emphasized the importance of intelligence and rigorous training. He aimed to refine specific assault techniques, enabling Japanese forces to execute rapid and concentrated attacks that would overwhelm their Chinese adversaries. The overarching strategy was notably straightforward: it hinged on delivering a decisive blow to the heart of Zhang Xueliang's military stronghold at the Peitaying barracks in Mukden. Ishiwara believed that if this critical target fell, it would shatter the enemy's morale, providing the Kwantung Army with the necessary military and psychological momentum to dominate the surrounding regions. However, he acknowledged that if the Soviet Union intervened, the entire plan could unravel catastrophically. One important variable Ishiwara highlighted was the necessity to pull off the operation before any attempt to restructure the domestic order in Japan occurred. Ishiwara knew his arguments and those of his colleagues would influence the heads in Tokyo, and they had to act before they did. However the heads at Tokyo and the Kwantung army held very different perspectives on when to act. In June of 1931 the Central army HQ stated in its General Outline of a solution to the Manchurian problem “we must defer the question of military action for a whole year. During this time the foreign ministry would attempt to dampen anti japanese activities in manchuria through negotiations with the government of Nanking. In the meantime the government would launch an information campaign to try and drive acquiescence at home and aboard for military action ” Ishiwara, as you can imagine, was deeply frustrated by the prospect of delaying action for another year. He argued passionately that the current international landscape necessitated an immediate strike. At that time, the Soviet Union was still in the midst of its ambitious five-year plan, which limited its capacity for intervention. Meanwhile, the United States, Britain, and France were grappling with their own financial crises, rendering them unable to mount significant resistance in the Far East. Most notably, the Nationalist regime in China was preoccupied with its unification efforts south of the Great Wall, but this situation was expected to shift soon. Ishiwara believed that if they postponed their plans for a year, the geopolitical environment would deteriorate further, making decisive action imperative. For Ishiwara, the moment to act was now or never. In July 1931, Ishiwara and Itagaki orchestrated a crucial reconnaissance mission aimed at familiarizing the newest Kwantung officers with the northern regions of Manchuria. To disguise their true intentions, they informed high command that the mission was a survey focused on the Soviet Union. However, the real objective was to assess the strength and influence of Chinese power in northern Manchuria. During their return journey, the team received alarming news about the disappearance of Captain Nakamura Shintaro, a Kwantung staff officer. Upon reaching Port Arthur, they learned that rumors were circulating that Captain Nakamura had been killed by Chinese soldiers under what were described as “mysterious circumstances.” In the preceding months, Manchuria had witnessed a surge in violent riots, murders, work strikes, and various other incidents, all contributing to a climate of unrest. The Nakamura affair intensified these existing tensions. In response, both the Chinese and Japanese foreign ministries attempted to negotiate a resolution to the crisis. However, figures at the central army headquarters, such as Nagata Tetsuzan, who sympathized with the urgency felt by their Kwantung counterparts, felt compelled to support them. The situation was rapidly escalating, and the stakes were growing ever higher. For Ishiwara the issue was clear as he wrote “the Nakamura incident adds just one more issue to the others. What the army should do now is to ignore the foreign ministry and solve the problem by taking matters into its own hands”. And that's exactly what he did. The Kwantung officers moved their troops beyond the railway zone, where they had been confined, and without waiting for Itagaki's approval—who was in Japan at the time—they began preparations to send an armored train along with a mixed regiment of infantry and artillery to Mukden. Their goal was to enlist the help of the Chinese military in investigating Nakamura's disappearance. Upon learning of this, Tokyo sent a telegram instructing them to halt their departure from the railway and to refrain from using the Nakamura incident as a pretext for employing force to address the Manchurian issue. For Ishiwara this was the last straw. On August 20th he sent a message to Nagata condemning the current diplomatic situation and that negotiations were an utter waste of time. “There is no way to settle the matter except by placing it in the hands of the army. If central hq finds it so difficult to trust its field personnel then it had better replace them with representatives more suitable to the conditions it imagines to exist in Manchuria”. Ishiwara doubled down and pushed for a plot to provoke military conflict outside of Mukden. As he wrote in almost a messianic Nichiren conviction ‘I will be the pillar of Japan; I will be the eyes of Japan; I will be the great vessel of Japan” . “Gekokujo / ruling from below” is a Japanese historical term referring to when subordinates defy or manipulate their superiors. Ishiwara and his like minded close colleagues were about to perform Gekokujo. Ishiwara ordered the dispatch of an armored train carrying a mixed regiment of infantry and artillery to compel the Chinese military authorities in Mukden to assist in the investigation of Nakamura's disappearance. However, central headquarters halted the train's departure at the last moment, sending a telegram from Tokyo that specifically instructed the Kwantung Army not to use the Nakamura incident to pressure a resolution to the Manchurian issue.  In addition to the Nakamura situation, another issue was brewing. Colonel Dohihara Kenji was involved in a plot to enlist Warlord Yan Xishan to attack Zhang Xueliang. This scheme was attracting unwanted attention and undermining the effectiveness of the Nakamura incident, prompting Ishiwara to swiftly suppress the plans. Rumors began to circulate in Tokyo that the Kwantung Army was preparing to retaliate against the Chinese due to the Nakamura situation. In response, War Minister General Minami dispatched Major General Yoshiji Tatekawa to Mukden to caution the Kwantung officers against any such actions. Ishiwara was informed of Tatekawa's arrival and sent urgent telegrams to his followers, warning, “Plot exposed. Act before Tatekawa's arrival.” Consequently, the launch date was moved from September 28th to the 18th. Itagaki personally intercepted Tatekawa's train, inviting him for tea and sake, and arranged for him to spend the night with a geisha on the evening of the 18th. On September 18th of 1931, 1st Lt Suemori Kawamoto of the independent Garrison Unit of the 29th infantry regiment planted bombs along the tracks near Liutiaokou. At 10:20pm they exploded doing only minor damage to 1.5 meters of track on one site. The damage was so minor a train actually passed over the tracks without difficulty 10 minutes later. Ishiwara, Itagaki and their followers quickly announced the explosion to be a Chinese atrocity and mobilized the Kwantung Army. Itagaki ordered the Independent Garrison Force and 29th infantry regiment to storm the Peitaying Barracks. Battalion commander Shimamoto was awakened by the orders via telephone and quickly dispatched the 1st (Ono) and 4th (Takahashi) companies from Mukden; the 2nd (kawakami) company at Fushun to advance to Liutiaokou. At 10:40pm the 29th regiment commander Hirata got a call from Shimamoto who ordered him to get his regiment into emergency formation and to storm the Peiyating barracks.  Two secretly hidden 24cm artillery pieces began to bombard the Peitaying barracks as 500 Japanese stormed the 7000 strong Chinese garrison. Despite being outnumbered 14 to 1, the Japanese destroyed Zhang Xueliangs small air force, routed the Chinese and occupied the Peiyating Barracks by 11pm, all at the cost of 500 Chinese lives and allegedly only 2 Japanese lives. A major reason the Japanese had ease was because Zhang Xueliang ordered his men to store away their weapons and not put up a fight if the Japanese invaded. Zhang Xueliang and Chiang Kai-shek both in Beijing at the time knew they could not initiate an offensive war against such a strong foreign country. They were hoping the League of Nations would intervene as pertaining to the Kellogg Briand Pact of 1928. But later on Chiang Kai-Shek would find America too wrapped up in its depression at home, Britain indifferent and other nations without enough reason to risk anything in the far east. An hour after the attack, Ishiwara began pressing General Shigeru Honjo, the newly appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Kwantung Army, to send reinforcements to capture all of Mukden. Initially, Honjo hesitated, but Ishiwara convinced him that there was significant provocation from the enemy, prompting Honjo to order additional units into combat to secure the entire city. Historians have since struggled to determine whether Honjo was aware of the invasion plan; it seems likely he had some knowledge, but not the full details, which made him cautious in his actions over the following weeks. In the days that followed, Honjo attempted to confine the incident, but Ishiwara and Itagaki continuously urged all forces to adhere to the secret plan they had trained for. The speed and decisiveness of their actions overwhelmed the Chinese forces and left Honjo unable to change the course of events. Famously when one colleague asked Itagaki what to do in response to cease and desist orders from Honjo, Itagaki responded “Never mind Honjo, it's Ishiwara's war”. Official orders from Tokyo came on the next day, specifically opposing the expansion of hostilities, but Ishiwara and Itagaki had come too far to stop now. They began persuading Honjo to telegram the General Staff to ask for reinforcements and freedom of action “to pursue actively the security and order of all of Manchuria”. Ishiwara and Itagaki clearly aimed to expand their offensive through official channels first, but they also circumvented these channels. One cunning tactic they used was to incite chaos among civilians in Manchurian cities, thereby heightening the demand for improved security for Japanese residents. This strategy would enable the Kwantung Army troops to move beyond their established boundaries. Shortly after what is now known as the "Mukden Incident," military agents were sent to Kirin to stir unrest in the city. Reports of disturbances from Kirin began flooding into the Kwantung Army headquarters, with Ishiwara urging Honjo to send forces to Kirin to safeguard Japanese residents. He also pushed for reinforcements from the Korean Army, but Honjo was reluctant to take that step. It seems Ishiwara feared missing a golden opportunity and chose another course of action. On the night of the 20th, he gathered together a bunch of younger Kwantung officers such as Itagaki's assistant, Captain Katakura Tadashi and told them “I can't do anything more to budge the commander and so i'm giving up my responsibilities for the direction of operations. Katakura, you take over”. Well it seems this little ploy had the intended effect as all the young officers immediately began pressuring Honjo to support Ishiwara's demands to advance to Kirin, many of them threatening to resign. After several hours of the officers nagging, Honjo related and authorized the despatch of troops.  The operation against Kirin was executed with remarkable speed. Ishiwara ordered the majority of the 2nd Division, led by General Tamon Jiro, to swiftly travel to Kirin by train. They entered the city without firing a single shot and compelled the local Chinese commander to declare the province's independence from Zhang Xueliang's regime. Within hours, the Korean army responded to an aid request from the Kwantung Army staff sent on September 21st and began advancing into Manchuria. In just 48 hours, the Japanese military had taken control of Kirin, which was outside the Kwantung operational zone, and the Korean army was invading Manchuria without Tokyo's approval, effectively undermining military discipline. Chief of Staff Kanaya Hanzo had issued specific orders to restrict the Kwantung Army's operations and granted field commanders discretionary authority for certain emergency situations, typically of a local nature. However, the Kirin expedition did not fit within these parameters. Encouraged by their success, Ishiwara and Itagaki pushed for an advance on Harbin. As noted in the previous episode, the strategy for taking Manchuria relied on speed and precision. The Kwantung Army had limited forces compared to the immediate Chinese troops in Manchuria, yet they were constrained by directives from Tokyo HQ that prohibited the movement of Kwantung troops beyond the South Manchuria Railway, where they had previously confined their actions. Ishiwara attempted to frame the situation politically, arguing that Japan should support Manchurian independence and sent this proposal directly to Tokyo central HQ. However, on October 3rd, Tokyo HQ firmly rejected the idea of expanding hostilities. Faced with this outright refusal from Tokyo HQ, the Kwantung radicals believed their only option was to create further chaos to compel a response. Ishiwara took the lead once more, aiming to unsettle Tokyo HQ. On October 8th, he donned military pilot gear and infiltrated one of five Chinese aircraft seized at Mukden airfield. He personally led a raid, although later in life, during the Tokyo War Crimes Trials, he would claim that the flight was intended solely for reconnaissance of enemy activities at Chinchou. He argued that it was only at the last moment that intelligence revealed anti-aircraft guns had been installed at Chinchou, prompting the Kwantung Army Commander to authorize their neutralization if fired upon. Ishiwara maintained that he and the four accompanying aircraft were fired upon, leading them to drop approximately 75 bombs on Chinchou. This series of events was quite dramatic, and contemporary accounts suggest it was a premeditated effort to provoke Tokyo. The raid on Chinchou certainly alarmed Tokyo, leading the staff there to worry that the West would start condemning them. Tokyo's high command found themselves in a difficult position. They felt compelled to publicly support the Kwantung Army by retroactively approving the chaotic attacks, but internally, they were furious. Major Endo Saburo from the intelligence division was dispatched to Manchuria to investigate the situation. When he asked Ishiwara about the events, Ishiwara claimed he acted on the principle of field initiative, which was why he hadn't informed Tokyo beforehand. Saburo also noted that Ishiwara's tone suggested that he and the intelligence division should stay out of the matter. Additionally, Saburo learned that there were whispers in Manchuria indicating that if Tokyo's high command did not align with them, the Kwantung Army was ready to act independently. It appeared that the radical officers of the Kwantung Army were even willing to defy the Imperial Japanese Army command to achieve their goals. Ishiwara went as far as to send this telegram to Tokyo “For the sake of the nation we are doing our very best in Manchuria, but if the Japanese government constantly interferes we cannot complete our great work. Then the Kwantung army will have to come to the point where we will have to break the glorious history of the imperial army and separate ourselves from the empire” If you found this situation quite surprising, there was also a rumor that Ishiwara and Itagaki planned to use an independent Manchuria as a base for a coup d'état against the Japanese government. Their goal was to overthrow the capitalists oppressing the people and establish a national socialist regime centered around the emperor. For those familiar with the history of political assassinations in 1930s Japan, this rumor hints at events that would unfold in 1936. It remains unclear whether Ishiwara and Itagaki genuinely intended to pursue this plan, but they certainly spread the word. On October 18th, War Minister Minami Jiro sent a telegram to the Kwantung Army, instructing them to stop any discussions about making Manchuria independent or attempting to seize control of it. Additionally, they dispatched Colonel Imamura Hitoshi from the operations section to Manchuria to reason with Ishiwara and Itagaki. They all met at a restaurant in Mukden where Imamura began by explaining the purpose of his mission, but before he could even really begin, Ishiwara blurted out “whats the matter? Doesn't central headquarters have any backbone?” A great way to start a meeting to be sure. Imamura tried to explain the situation, but Ishiwara said “if we follow the spineless Tokyo approach we'll never settle the Manchurian problem”. Imamura replied “we can't accomplish anything by following the arbitrary decision of field elements, which may create a crisis that will shake the whole army. In such a problem it is essential for the whole nation to be unified”. To this Ishiwara apparently said really loudly in the restaurant that he was sleepy, rolled over on the tatami and closed his eyes. Imamura furious haha, get up quickly after denouncing his so called hosts for conducting official IJA business at a restaurant and left. The next day they all met again, where Ishiwara and Itagaki kept speaking about the necessity to create an independent state, since there was no hope of the Chinese reforming Manchuria. After Imamura left that meeting, Ishiwara said to Itagaki “Imamura is a fine fellow, but he doesn't understand China”. Despite the chaos and turmoil, the Kwantung Army had been held back from launching any sustained military operations throughout October. As expected, Ishiwara continued to argue for an advance into northern Manchuria. In early November, he found another opportunity when he claimed that more railways had been destroyed. Allegedly, hostile Chinese forces had blown up the rail bridges over the Nonni River, south of Tsitsihar. When Japanese engineering units arrived to repair the damaged tracks, they came under fire from Chinese troops. To the high-ranking officials in Tokyo, this appeared to be a legitimate reason to take defensive action. Additionally, Kwantung intelligence reports were reaching Tokyo, suggesting that Chinese forces in northern Manchuria were planning a southward offensive. Ishiwara had also provided exaggerated reports to the Japanese public, manipulating media narratives to pressure Tokyo into supporting an advance into northern Manchuria. Tokyo approved a defensive operation, restricted in time and scope, aimed at protecting Japanese positions at the Nonni River bridges. Kwantung Army forces began moving north and soon engaged in intense fighting around the railway area of Tahsing. Ishiwara personally led troops during this engagement, marking the only time in his military career that he did so. General Honjo, rightly concerned that the Kwantung forces were becoming uncontrollable, sent a cable on November 5th announcing that under the “rinsan inmei / provisional mandate,” the general staff would assume direct command authority in Manchuria. Unsurprisingly, Ishiwara and his like-minded colleagues in the Kwantung Army were furious. Honjo followed this up by stating he would resign if they did not comply, but Ishiwara brushed off the provisional mandate stating “that the directive from the chief of staff is just a personal, not an imperial order. No matter how many we get of those we shouldn't' care. We'll just go ahead with our plans”. On november 17, the Kwantung army began advancing upon the city of Tsitsihar seizing it 2 days later.  Confronted with yet another dire situation, the IJA high command permitted the Kwantung Army to advance toward Tsitsihar. However, international outcry soon erupted, compelling them to order the evacuation of the city. Ishiwara sparked a significant debate among the staff, arguing that the evacuation was unacceptable given the sacrifices already made by the troops. Nevertheless, Honjo remained resolute. A few days later, Chinese forces began to gather at Chinchou, and tensions escalated with skirmishes occurring between Japanese and Chinese troops in Tientsin. In response, Ishiwara urgently called for Honjo to initiate an offensive at Chinchou as a way to better position their forces closer to Tientsin in case they faced overwhelming opposition. To support this advance, they also requested assistance from the Korean army. Once again, the burden fell to Tokyo. The high command in Tokyo ordered an immediate halt to the offensive and a withdrawal east of the Liao River. The Kwantung Army hesitated, not solely due to the order but also because the Korean army refused to join the offensive against Chinchou, which was crucial for their success. Ishiwara found himself in a predicament; without reinforcements, the entire offensive could fail. Then, on December 11th, a significant change occurred when Premier Wakatsuki was ousted. War Minister Minami and Chief of Staff Kanaya, who had attempted to moderate the Kwantung Army's aggressiveness, were replaced by Araki Sadao, a leader of the Kodoha faction known for its aggressive stance. To provide some context, the Japanese military was divided into factions, similar to warlord cliques, vying to influence the future operations of the IJA and, to some extent, the IJN. Two primary factions shaped the military landscape in the 1930s: the Kodoha and the Toseiha (Control Faction). The Kodoha was not an organized political party nor did it hold an official position within the IJA, but it wielded considerable influence. Its members were typically younger officers, particularly from the Kwantung Army. General Sadao Araki was a founding member of the Kodoha, which was heavily influenced by Bushido, Fascism, and the Kokutai ideology. They aimed to restore Japan to its perceived former glory, viewing liberal democracy as a detrimental force. They blamed the capitalists, industrialists, and elites—politicians, bureaucrats, and Zaibatsu leaders—for the nation's decline. Their goal was to see the Emperor reclaim full power in what they termed a "Showa Restoration." The Kodoha's primary adversary, as perceived by much of the Japanese military at the time, was the USSR and communism in general. Consequently, they supported the Hokushin-ron (Northern Strike Policy), which was Japan's theoretical plan to invade the USSR. While I don't want to delve too deeply into the details, it's important to note that the Kodoha was counterbalanced by the more moderate Toseiha faction, led by Hideki Tojo. The Toseiha opposed the Kodoha on several fronts, notably their desire to avoid a violent revolution to restore imperial dominance. Although they shared many principles with the Kodoha, the Toseiha rejected the Hokushin-ron strategy in favor of the Nanshin-ron (Southern Strike) strategy, which aimed at expanding into Southeast Asia and the resource-rich Dutch East Indies. The Toseiha faction also maintained better relations with the IJN. To contextualize this narrative within the political landscape, these two factions began to fiercely compete for dominance starting in 1931. With the influence of Araki Sadao and support from Prince Kan'in, a Kodoha sympathizer, significant changes occurred in Tokyo's command. Suddenly, offensive operations against Chinese forces in Manchuria were rebranded as “bandit suppression” campaigns. The Kwantung Army, fully backed by Tokyo, swiftly pursued all military objectives established by Ishiwara and Itagaki since September. Chinchou and Shanhaikwan were captured in early January 1932, followed by Tsitsihar in February. By spring 1932, Ishiwara urged the staff to complete the full occupation of Manchuria, both north and south. In April of that year, he presented the “Manshu haiti heiryaku,” or the program for the pacification of Manchuria. This new plan called for the seizure of Hailar in the north because “it was pivotal to the defense against the USSR”. It also called for seizing Jehol province because “it was an important condition to the independence of Manchuria”. By the end of the year Hailar was taken and in 1933 the Kwantung army was marching upon Jehol. It is clear that Ishiwara played a crucial role in the conquest of Manchuria. The Kwantung Army and the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) had various strategies available to address the Manchurian issue, but Ishiwara focused primarily on achieving complete control over the region for its resources, strategic advantages, and to establish a continental base for a potential war against the United States. For Ishiwara, securing all of Manchuria was essential in preparation for the Final War. While it's likely that conflict between Japan and China would have occurred in Manchuria without Ishiwara's influence, it's uncertain whether Japan would have outright taken the province. Ishiwara dedicated years to planning and pushing boundaries, but when the operation commenced, it became evident that he and his associates lacked a definitive timeline for conquest and had several missing contingency plans. Despite the chaotic circumstances, the conquest of Manchuria proved to be a remarkable success. So much so, Ishiwara said to a friend of his, Satomi Kishio in 1932 “Even if Japan has to face the entire world, she can't be beaten”. Ironically as many of you know, Japan's actions in Manchuria cost her greatly. Japan was now hated by the Chinese, well much more so. The west condemned Japan's actions, alongside the USSR. As my professor first taught me in a class about the Pacific War when I was a wee lad in his early 20's “It all was about Manchuria, everything started with Manchuria, and it ended with Manchuria in 1945”. The Manchuria incident set Japan on an unavoidable path toward the China War, which ultimately led to conflict with the West. It became a self-fulfilling prophecy. This situation also raises questions about military discipline. Many cite the concept of Gekokujo as a reason why individuals like Ishiwara and Itagaki were able to act as they did. These militaristic junior officers seemingly ran rampant, engaging in rebellious actions that defied their superiors, which forced those higher up to become complicit. While Gekokujo certainly played a role, especially in Ishiwara's case, it does not negate the fact that there was a significant level of indiscipline within the Japanese army. Ishiwara was undoubtedly aware of the potential consequences of his actions. A prime example is Colonel Komoto Daisaku, who had previously seen his career ruined after being exiled due to the Huanggutun incident. However, Ishiwara's focus extended beyond Manchuria; he was closely monitoring the political landscape in Tokyo. He recognized that the 1931 cabinet was unstable and that certain high-ranking officials, like Araki Sadao, were rapidly advancing in their careers and sympathized with his agenda. Ishiwara was betting that supporters from factions like Kodoha would gain the necessary power to further his cause. His gamble paid off handsomely, as all the key players in the Manchurian affair were rewarded for their efforts. Ishiwara received the Order of the Golden Kite, 3rd class, and returned to Japan as a celebrated hero, captivating younger officers in the Imperial Japanese Army. Ironically, the indiscipline he had nurtured within the army would later come back to haunt him as he climbed the ranks and became part of the Tokyo staff. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. As Ron Burgundy once said “Boy, that escalated quickly... I mean, that really got out of hand fast.” While perhaps Ishiwara did not plan for an all out war to break out against China, he certainly was the culprit to it happening. There was no going back, 15 years of blood, sweat and tears would be shed.

Sumario: 00:00:00 Introducción.00:05:37 Noticias.00:29:10 El juego de la semana: Paranormasight: The seven mysteries of Honjo (PC, Nintendo Switch, iOS y Android).00:56:05 De píxel a píxel: Disasterpeace (parte 2).01:19:10 Bonus Track:…

TEETH UPDATE! For the teeth enthusiasts and teeth curious, we unveil a brand new chapter in the PushingUpRoses Teeth Saga ™. Roses discovered a detective game that Matt's been telling her about since day one and Matt played some demos!Then, we dig deep into a world of horror, mystery, intrigue, and Japanese folklore in the Japanese ADV game Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo. We have A LOT to say about this one, folks. So much in fact, that we skip our ranking segment this ep. Sorry everyone, but this game left us feeling inspired, frustrated, enamored, curious, and ready to pontificate like mad.Follow us on Instagram @SaveYourGamePodcastEmail Us! mattandroses@gmail.comBowl of Lentils - The Origins of Visual Novels: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wOtv-J7tOIThe Seven Wonders of Honjo: https://hyakumonogatari.com/2012/01/02/the-seven-wonders-of-honjo/Games Mentioned: Rise of the Golden Idol Loco Motive Proverbs The Haunting of Joni Evers The Suicide of Rachel Foster The Fading of Nicole Wilson What Remains of Edith Finch The Vanishing of Ethan Carter Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector Disco Elysium Cabernet Fields of Mistria Hatoful Boyfriend Huniepop Danganronpa Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Mystery House Deja Vu Final Fantasy Paranormansight: The 13 Ghosts of Florida State University (Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo)

Time for some Halloween games! Doug checked out the visual novel Paranormasight to see if this is the one that can get him more interested in visual novels. Is this a perfect spooky game for Halloween season? Support us on Ko-fi: ⁠⁠⁠https://ko-fi.com/workforcegaming

Last time we spoke about the first Zhili-Fengtian War. The Anhui-Zhili War of 1920 saw the defeat of the Anhui clique by the Zhili and Fengtian cliques, reshaping territorial control. Despite their victory, stability remained nowhere to be seen in North China. Factionalism persisted, with alliances shifting and power struggles intensifying. Zhang Zuolin of the Fengtian clique emerged a significant player with Japanese backing while Wu Peifu of the Zhili clique earned fame as a military genius. Soon a rivalry emerged between the two leading figures while they also tried to unify China. Meanwhile, in South China, Dr. Sun Yat-Sen's plans for a Northern Expedition faced challenges amidst internal dissent and external pressures. In the end Zhang Zuolin formed a grand coalition to defeat Wu Peifu and it backfired spectacularly. Wu Peifu won the first Zhili-Fengtian War and now it would be him in the driver's seat in Beijing.   #104 the First Jiangsu-Zhejiang War Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. Wu Peifu, who had been born of poor parents in 1874 and had earned the lowest degree in the traditional Qing examination system, decided he would seek out a military career in the Beiyang Army. By 1905 he became a junior officer to Cao Kun's 3rd Division. Wu Peifu had a traditional confucian upbringing, he remained loyal to Cao Kun because of that special confucian bond between mentor and student. He remained loyal despite Cao Kun's numerous failings, even when he threw his lot in with Zhang Zuolin to save his own ass at Wu Peifu's expense. The Zhili victory during the first Zhili-Fengtian war emboldened Cao Kun's ambitions, he soon unleashed his henchmen all over Zhili province snatching up major positions. Cao Kun began a campaign of bribery and intimidation, something very reminiscent of the late Yuan Shikai. After his victory, Wu Peifu returned to Henan province, sending the newly appointed inspector general of the army, Feng Yuxiang to Beijing. Those in Henan strongly petitioned against Feng Yuxiangs transfers as he had gained an excellent reputation as the civil administrator in Henan. Where Wu Peifu went it seemed banditry and extortion flourished. Yet Wu Peifu needed Feng Yuxiang to be in Beijing so he could re-establish his authority in his home base. As we had seen in the last episode, the Zhili Clique was not sturdy. Unlike the Fengtian and Anhui, the Zhili clique was made up of a lot of riff raff, who only joined forces as a means to an end, notably to get rid of their enemies. Feng Yuxiang concentrated his army at Nanyuan, due south of the capital. He went to work, checking fingernails, training his men in the good word of the lord, his men being a single division and 3 mixed brigades now. Feng Yuxiang had come a long way, now probably the most powerful warlord in Zhili province, and he made sure to establish good relations with Cao Kun and his brother Wang Huaiqing the commander of the Beijing police. In June of 1923 Feng Yuxiang and Wang Huaiqing would jointly present their resignations to President Li Yuanhong, stating unless their men were paid, they could no longer be responsible for maintaining order in the capital. Yes the finances of China were in a terrible state. Chinese diplomats were struggling abroad to find foreign banks to loan money, and even they were not getting paid and were resigning en masse. Wu Peifu likewise was not receiving a cent from the central government. After several days of standoff, Li Yuanhong fled Beijing on June 13th, taking the presidential seals with him, issuing orders countersigned by only a single cabinet minister who backed him, the minister of agriculture, and Yunnan general Li Kenyuan. It seems for Li Kenyuan it was a bad call, for Cao Kun forced him out of office within a few months. Cao Kun then bribed his way into office by October 10th. It was an infamous bribery story. Apparently Cao Kun bribed assembly members with 5000 silver dollars each. This act was so egregious, it basically pissed off everyone. The hate tossed Cao Kun's way would help bolster Dr Sun Yat-Sen's continuing efforts in south china, basically saving his career. Cao Kun began his presidency proclaiming a constitution incorporating ideas of a federalist government and then promoted Feng Yuxiang and other notable generals to the rank of Marshal. While Cao Kun began consolidating his control in Zhili, a humiliated Zhang Zuolin would lick his tiger wounds and rebuild in the northeast.  After rallying his troops back together once back in Manchuria, Zhang Zuolin quickly declared his 3 provinces in Manchuria were independent of China. The Beijing government under Cao Kun had immediately gone to work trying to coerce defections amongst the Fengtian generals. Cao Kun tossed extravagant positions, such as governorships to them, but only one notable General, Kao Shihpin took the bribe and rebelled against Zhang Zuolin. Zhang Zuolin's loyal subordinate, great friend to the show, the dogmeat general Zhang Zongchang, easily defeated the defector. Now that Manchuria was independent, Zhang Zuolin firmly repressed any efforts of his provincial assemblies to create civil governments independent of his military control. Thus governmental positions in Manchuria remained in the hands of loyal Fengtian Clique members. Because Zhang Zuolin was now very hostile to all in the Zhili clique, relations with Dr Sun Yat-Sen improved. Thus Zhang Zuolin began propagating the language of national unification, anti-imperialism etc etc. Economically Zhang Zuolin began developing railway lines and built a new port at Hulutao, both of which were competing with the Japanese owned South Manchurian Railway company and port at Dairen. Zhang Zuolin knew full well most of China regarding him as a Japanese puppet. The Japanese however completely failed him in the first-zhili fengtian war, thus he was trying to sport some backbone against them.  Zhang Zuolin and his top commanders took their loss in 1922 to heart. He began a large-scale reorganization of his military. In 1922 his forces had been organized into 5 Divisions, of which the 16th and 28th disintegrated. The 27th and 29th along with a new reorganized 1st were retained at the divisional level, while the rest of the troops formed into the 1st to 27th Mixed Brigades and 1st to 5th Cavalry Brigades. He standardized the units, 150 men formed a company, 3 companies a battalion, 3 battalions a regiment, 3 regiments a brigade at 4000 men strong. He reshuffled commanders and began promoting officers with professional education and less so the banditry opium smoking types he typically preferred in the past. He really made an effort to purchase new weaponry and expanded the output of the Mukden arsenal.  During the warlord Era, modern weaponry was expensive to come by, those like the banditry that made up the Fengtian clique used what they got their hands on. The Hanyang 88 based off the German Gewehr 1888 had been the standard Qing rifle and was widely available. There was also a smaller quantity of Type 1 rifles, a Chinese knockoff of the Mauser Model 1907. Given Manchuria's proximity to Russia and Japan, rifles that found their way into Fengtian hands included the Russian Mosin-Nagant 1891, Japanese Murata's and Arisakas of 1897 and 1905. These were not ideal, pretty outdated, but in general most of the Chinese warlord armies were branding antiquated rifles. In 1922 the Mukden Arsenal was capable of producing just a small amount of ammunition. Zhang Zuolin had always relied on piecemeal packages given to him, at first from Yuan Shikai, then Duan Qirui and the Japanese on and off. Most of the supplies he got were japanese made. He also managed to seize a lot from the Anhui clique during their war in 1920. Something of great value he often seized were cars, by 1926 there were only something like 8000 cars in all of China, it was a very hot commodity. French Renault FT tanks had been deployed to Vladivostok for the allied intervention and siberian campaign, many were sold to him after 1919. Zhang Zuolin would poor 17 million yuan into expanding the Mukden Arsenal after his loss in 1922, he hired numerous foreign advisors to overlook the process. The Mukden Arsenal ballooned to an operating budget of a million yuan, employing nearly 30,00 workers, including foreign specialists. Fengtian would become China's largest arms importer, purchasing from Germany, Italy, France and of course the majority came from Japan. Type 3 Heavy machine guns from Japan flooded in and 14 Renaults from France. The Fengtian began utilizing mines, barbed wire, armored trains, particularly Zhang Zongchang and tanks when possible. Zhang Zongchang  purchased 4 new gunboats who became the nucleus of a naval force in the Gulf of Chihli and began developing an air force. By 1923 he purchased 40 French Breguet aircraft that would be operated by 20 foreign pilots. He also looked to the future, at his son Zhang Xueliang. By 1923 his army was nearly 200,000 strong, certainly formidable, but ridden with issues. A year of intense training had greatly improved the Fengtian forces, but Zhang Zuolin was behind those like Dr Sun Yat-Sen, Wu Peifu and even Feng Yuxiang in trying to infuse within the training some sort of ideology. Zhang Zongchang rose to further prominence during this time period. He had of course gained a lot of respect from Zhang Zuolin after quelling Kao Shihpin. He began amassing a great fortune through extortion, violence and opium dealing. Zhang Zuolin was still receiving assistance from the Japanese, despite not exactly aligning with their wishes. For Zhang Zuolin, tossing away some autonomy was merely a tactical move for his drive to conquer China. Thus it was a means to an end. For the Japanese, they sought an absolute hegemony over Manchuria. In August of 1923, Zhang Zuolin turned to Major General Honjo Shigeru, his Japanese advisor for Japanese arms in anticipation of another war against the Zhili clique. Honjo responded by denying him the request and criticized the Fengtian army's level of training and readiness. Then he basically went on to say that Japan would continue to support, as long as he did not invade China proper, “the Empire always demands that you exercise circumspection so that order may be maintained in the Eastern Provinces”. Regardless of the Japanese position on the issue, Zhang Zuolin had taken enormous lengths to reorganize and retrain his army. Simply put, he had grown too strong for the Zhili clique to leave him alone.  Yet the tiger of Manchuria was not the only problem facing the Zhili clique, there was also Dr Sun Yat-Sen's coalition in the south. Then a minor incident, a train robbery in Shandong occurred in april of 1923. Several foreigners were kidnapped and ransomed. Alongside this the feeling in the air was that a war was about to break out at any moment. The foreigners wanted a stable China, the people of China wanted an end to the wars. Thus the foreign diplomats and Chinese officials began demanding the Zhili and Fengtian cliques sign a peace treaty before another war broke out. A peace agreement was reached in June of 1923, what that piece of paper actually meant, who knows.  In the meantime, the Zhili clique began focusing on the remnants of the Anhui clique over in Fujian and Zhejiang province. In march of 1923, Zhili clique member Sun Chuanfang was appointed military governor of Fujian. Sun Chuanfang was the former protege of the previous military governor of Hubei, Wang Chanyuan and he much like Feng Yuxiang was becoming a rising stay. Sun Chuanfang was being bolstered heavily by Cao Kun. Sun Chuanfang drove the Anhui clique's military governor Wang Yungchuan out of Fuzhou and by early 1924, Fujian province was more or less firmly Zhili dominated. Wu Peifu intended to use Fujian as a springboard to conquer Guangdong. Meanwhile the remaining Anhui warlord, Lu Yungxiang of Zhejiang was obviously panicking. Lu Yungxiang held control over Zhejiang and thus also Shanghai, including her arsenal and extensive revenues from foreign trade, the opium trade and had access to foreign markets. Fearing the Zhili would crush him at any moment, he jumped into bed with Zhang Zuolin and Dr Sun Yat-Sen directly after the Anhui cliques defeat back in 1920. Basically to garner their support and that of foreigners, Lu Yungxiang publicly opposed Cao Kun when he bribed his way into the presidency.  On November 10th of 1923, the police chief of Shanghai, Zhili clique member Xu Guoliang was assassinated. It has been alleged Xu Guoliang was killed by henchmen of Lu Yungxiang. A battle emerged between Lu Yungxiang and the military governor of Jiangsu, Qi Xieyuan over appointing a new successor. You might be asking, “why would two people be fighting over this issue, isn't Shanghai under the jurisdiction of Jiangsu?” Yeah funny thing about that, the city was at the time being administered by Lu Yungxiang as part of Zhejiang. While historically Shanghai had typically been part of Jiangsu province, after the first Zhili-Fengtian War, Lu Yungxiang seized control over the city and it basically became his economic lifeline. Both men fought and nearly began a war, but to preserve the peace they began negotiating and signing minor treaties. Both men agreed not to take allies to fight another and not to allow other warlords armies to pass through each other's provinces, nor augment their current armies. Despite everything it was clear to Lu Yungxiang that Zhejiang was next on the chopping block for the Zhili clique, thus in order to protect himself he hired the Anhui clique Generals Zang Zhiping, the commander of the Fujian 2nd Division and Yang Huazhao the commander of the Fujian 3rd Division, together they were roughly 6000 men strong. Obviously their recruitment violated the peace treaty, and alongside this, Lu Yungxiang gave refuge to many Anhui troops fleeing Fujian. This handed the Zhili clique justification to provoke a war. Meanwhile Qi Xieyuan had expanded his military strength in preparation for seizing Shanghai. He began recruiting troops in Yanzhou and Jining. Initially within Jiangsu Qi Xieyuan had 5 Divisions and 6 Brigades, roughly 43,000 men. Qi Xieyuan also had the support of Naval commander Du Xigui who led 20 warships with some marines. Qi Xieyuan also had a minor airforce sporting some Vime bombers purchased from the UK.  As for Zhejiang, Lu Yungxiang reorganized the two Fujian divisions he recruited into a supplementary Brigade and the 24th Mixed Brigade. These added to his divisions and Brigades brought his manpower to nearly 70,000. Lu Yungxiang also had the support of a Shanghai based fleet led by Anhui clique commander Lin Jianzhang and a small airforce sporting French BR14 fighter bombers. Now Qi Xieyuan knew he had no chance in hell of capturing Zhejiang and Shanghai with his forces alone, so he cried to Wu Peifu. Wu Peifu was of course looking down the barrel of a much larger war with Zhang Zuolin, and he had plans to garner Anhui clique support to his side in the future war. In the meantime he asked Qi Xieyuan to lay low and not do anything rash. So Qi Xieyuan did the very opposite. Qi Xieyuan held a secret military meeting in Nanjing, announcing to other warlords from Henan, Anhui and Hubei that he was going to invade Zhejiang. They all wanted a piece of the pie so the game was on.Qi Xieyuan appointed himself commander in chief and created 3 route armies to attack Zhejiang and Shanghai. The first route army was commanded by Gong Bangduo who would mainly be attacking Shanghai, the second route army was led by Chen Tiaoyuan who would mainly defend Yixing and the third route army was led by Wang Pu who would mainly attack Guangde of Zhejiang. In addition to all of this, Sun Chuanfang with support from Cai Chengxun the governor of Jiangxi organized a Fujian-Jiangxi alliance at Jianou. He too would attack Zhejiang, but his ambitions were much larger than just helping Qi Xieyuan.  The Anhui clique warlords knew that if Zhejiang and Shanghai fell to the Zhili the Anhui clique was all but done for. Thus many of them such as Xu Shuzheng, Wu Guangxin, Ma Liang and Qu Tongfeng began recruiting to fight for Zhejiang. Lu Yungxiang welcomed their help and asked them to send word to the Fengtian clique for additional aid. Dr Sun Yat-Sen also said if war broke out between Jiangsu and Zhejiang he would try to send forces of his Northern Expedition army.   By August of 1924, Sun Chuanfang had moved his troops directly over to the Fujian-Zhejiang border. At 10am on September 3rd of 1924 the first shot of the Jiangsu-Zhejiang war rang around Yixing of Jiangsu province. The Jiangsu forces originally sought to capture Changxing in Zhejiang in one lighting attack, but they found extremely strong resistance. Zhejiang artillery in the mountains surrounded Changxing, roughly 30 miles from Yixing kept them at bay, causing an immediate stalemate. By 11am the fighting made its way along the Shanghai-Nanjing railway. By 10am the next day the Jiangsu forces at Huangdu began firing at Zhejiang fortifications, but the Zhejiang defenders did not fire back. Lured in by the idea the fortifications might be unguarded, Jiangsu forces came over only to be gunned down by machine guns and artillery, killing possibly hundreds. The Zhejiang fighters stormed out of the fortifications to pursue the enemy and by 5pm captured Anting in the process.  Now on the political side of things, because Qi Xieyuan launched the first punch, Lu Yungxiang proclaimed he was only defending his territory. Qi Xieyuan in the meantime proclaimed he was working under Cao Kun, thus Lu Yungxiang began tossing accusations at Cao Kun about his bribery scandal, calling him a treacherous dog, you know normal stuff. Now all this Cao Kun talk, prompted Cao Kun to issue officials orders on September 4th to attack Zhejiang. I wont be getting into here, but this sparked the second Zhili-Fengtian war essentially. So while we focus on this smaller war in a bigger war, don't forget about the bigger war. Now by September the 5th the Jiangsu-Zhejiang war saw battles going on in 5 directions: Yixing, Shanghai, Nanjing, Jiading, Liuhe and Qingpu. Within the Yixing battles, the Jiangsu forces were initially blocked, facing Zhejiang counterattacks, roughly 10 miles from Yixing. The Jiangsu forces were battered, 3 battalions defected on the 6th. On the 7th, the Zhejiang forces entered Shushan, prompting Qi Xieyuan to mobilize the Anhui 5th Mixed brigade to reinforce the area, finally halting the Zhejiang advance. Another stalemate emerged, now between Shushan and Yixing. Over at the Shanghai-Nanjing railway line area, after two quiet days, on the night of the 6th the two armies clashed around Anting. Both sides were evenly matched forming a quick stalemate. In the Jiading area on the night of the 3rd the Jiangsu stormed the west gate of Jiading, the defenders were barely holding on. Lu Yungxiang deployed Yang Huazhao's army who made it over on the 5th. Both sides fought fiercely for days. Over in the Liuhe direction, during the afternoon of the 4th the Jiangsu forces advanced, but the Zhejiang artillery kept them at bay. By 5pm however the Zhejiang defenders were overwhelmed allowing the Jiangsu forces to seize Liuhe as the defenders fled to Luodian. At 3am on the 5th the Jiangsu forces continued their advance, only to see the Zhejiang forces circle back and recapture Liuhe. The Jiangsu forces tossed numerous counterattacks, but were repelled and forced to pull back to their start lines. Over in the Qingpu area on the 5th the Jiangsu divided themselves in two groups departing Anting. One group attack Si Port, only 6 miles away from Anting, the other group attacked Baihe due southwest. By 3pm on the 6th both sides were fighting  around Kongzhai, just 10 miles north of Qingpu. The Zhejiang managed to halt the Jiangsu. Thus after a few days, across all the battle areas, pretty much no one was making significant progress. Just as it looked like the stalemate would not break, on the 8th the Sun Chuanfang's Jiangsu-Fujian attacked. They quickly occupied Xianxia, Jiangshan and Quzhou by the 18th. Lu Yungxiang saw the enemy closing in on Shanghai and panicked. He knew combined these forces could launch two pronged attacks and overwhelm him. Thus Lu Yungxiang sacrifice Zhejiang as a whole and withdrew to Shanghai with his most elite forces. Now leaderless the rest of the Zhejiang army was simply blown away by the Jiangsu-Fujian forces. They quickly seized Jiaxing, Changxing and other cities. The Jiangsu navy began bombarding coastal and riverside towns as the airforce bombed them as well. Facing a three dimensional war, the Zhejiang forces crumbled and by the end of September Zhejiang defense ceased. The Fujian-Jiangsu armies rushed to Shanghai, occupying Jinshanwei, Songjiang, Qingpu and Longhua by October 13th. At that point Lu Yungxiang realized they could not hope to hold Shanghai, so he alongside other warlords fled into the Shanghai international Concession. The rest of the Zhejiang forces fell to Xu Shuzheng who was placed under house arrest. Thus Qi Xieyuan and Sun Chuanfang were victorious. The war between Jiangsu and Zhejiang lasted roughly 40 days. It was a tremendous disaster for the common people who resided in both provinces who were displaced. The Jiangsu provincial peasants association relayed a message after the war to the state council stating "In the war between Jiangsu and Zhejiang, the army passed by, the villages and towns were ruins, the people were migrating, and they were unemployed. The rich were poor, and the poor were dead. No one knows how many people died in the war zones around Jiangnan and Yixing, This is especially true in Kunshan, Jiading, Taicang, Songjiang, Qingpu and other counties.” The Jiading, Qingpu, Songjiang and Taicang associations added this to the state council "The war broke out in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and the two provinces were severely affected. In Jiangsu, the four counties of Jiading, Qingpu, Songjiang, and Taicang were the most severely affected, entire towns were destroyed, robbed, or displaced, and the situation was inexplicable... In short, the businesses stopped and the farmers fled. In the past sixty years, their vitality has been exhausted." The Liuhe War Disaster Relief association wrote this report to the Ministry of Internal affairs "The Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces used the Liuhe River as the battlefield, and the stalemate lasted for forty days and nights. People's lives and property were destroyed by artillery fire, and they were repeatedly raped and plundered. The navy also fired long-distance artillery fire from time to time. Therefore, many houses were burned and bombed, such as schools, temples, shops, churches, charity halls, hospitals, and long-distance buses, which were all destroyed by the soldiers... A total of 154 houses in the city were destroyed by artillery fire. Of the 1,529 houses, about 3,300 were damaged by shells, and the total damage was estimated to be over 770,000 yuan. The merchants and civilians in the houses were not affected by this war disaster. For this reason, the residents were exiled and their houses were no longer available, and they were unable to resume operations. The situation was so miserable that it was difficult for them to do so."  Both sides' casualty figures ranged in the thousands to tens of thousands. Official reports stated 30,000 total casualties for the war, with hundreds dying each day of it. However the greatest harm fell upon civilians. Young recruits, often having not been paid for long periods of time, resorting to looting and robbing. Civilians panicked and fled their homes. Women were pressed into service as cooks and in brothels, known sometimes as public wives. Civilians were forced to work for the soldiers, performing things like transporting ammunition, digging trenches and such. They were beaten with gun handles if they did not comply, those who ran were whipping, many were shot. Gang rape was an epidemic, there was a tragic story of an 8 year old girl and a 78 year old women were were gang raped to death by 13 soldiers near Fangtai while they were out picking cotton. Waves of refugees roamed the region, Japanese survey's indicated the Shanghai international concession ballooned with 500,000 refugees. When Lu Yungxiang fled for Shanghai, his Zhejiang army simply looted the province.  Economic losses were insanely high. These losses came from warlords extorting or expropriating to meet military demands. It was estimated that the military expenditure of both sides was 60-70 million yuan. Neither provincial taxes could support such numbers so the warlords forced banks and governments to allocate things like treasury exchange coupons. Sun Chuanfang extorted 800,000 yuan from the Huangzhou banks and would later extort another 1 million yuan from the Shanghai business community. Soldiers burned, killed and looted as was the norm of warlord China. As you can imagine the government bond price plummeted from all of this, banks foreclosed, financial ruin ensued. The entire financial industry of Jiangsu and Zhejiang went on strike because of the war and all of this of course impacted China's overall economy.  Now as I alluded to, the Jiangsu-Zhejiang war was not only a war fought over two provinces in southeast China, but rather a contest between the entire Zhili clique against an emerging anti-Zhili coalition. It was also another disastrous blow to the already dramatically weakened Anhui clique, who pretty much would never recover. From this point forward the Anhui clique would not wield much presence politically or militarily. Although the war was clearly limited in scope to the southeast corner of China, it had an enormous impact across the nation. At the time the Zhili clique was in firm control over Beijing and was vigorously trying to unify China by force, threatening all the other cliques' warlords. Lu Yungxiang desperately looked for anyone to help him out, even turning to Cao Kun and Wu Peifu, asking them to restrain Qi Xieyuang. Of course neither Zhili leader headed this as they very much wanted Zhejiang to fall into their pocket, but they had no idea what a powder keg Zhejiang would turn out to be.  I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. The First Jiangsu-Zhejiang War was but a mere cog in a larger war that was unfolding across China. The Warlord Era was simply one battle to the next, as the warlords fought to unify China in their own special image. The common people are always the ones to pay the price.   

The most enthralling conversation I've ever had with anyone on cancer. It's with Charlie Swanton who is a senior group leader at the Francis Crick Institute, the Royal Society Napier Professor in Cancer and medical oncologist at University College London, co-director of Cancer Research UK.Video snippet from our conversation. Full videos of all Ground Truths podcasts can be seen on YouTube here. The audios are also available on Apple and Spotify.Transcript with audio links and many external linksEric Topol (00:07):Well, hello, this is Eric Topol with Ground Truths, and I am really fortunate today to connect us with Charlie Swanton, who is if not the most prolific researcher in the space of oncology and medicine, and he's right up there. Charlie is a physician scientist who is an oncologist at Francis Crick and he heads up the lung cancer area there. So Charlie, welcome.Charles Swanton (00:40):Thank you, Eric. Nice to meet you.Learning from a FailureEric Topol (00:43):Well, it really is a treat because I've been reading your papers and they're diverse. They're not just on cancer. Could be connecting things like air pollution, it could be Covid, it could be AI, all sorts of things. And it's really quite extraordinary. So I thought I'd start out with a really interesting short paper you wrote towards the end of last year to give a sense about you. It was called Turning a failing PhD around. And that's good because it's kind of historical anchoring. Before we get into some of your latest contributions, maybe can you tell us about that story about what you went through with your PhD?Charles Swanton (01:26):Yeah, well thank you, Eric. I got into research quite early. I did what you in the US would call the MD PhD program. So in my twenties I started a PhD in a molecular biology lab at what was then called the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, which was the sort of the mecca for DNA tumor viruses, if you like. It was really the place to go if you wanted to study how DNA tumor viruses worked, and many of the components of the cell cycle were discovered there in the 80s and 90s. Of course, Paul Nurse was the director of the institute at the time who discovered cdc2, the archetypal regulator of the cell cycle that led to his Nobel Prize. So it was a very exciting place to work, but my PhD wasn't going terribly well. And sort of 18, 19 months into my PhD, I was summoned for my midterm reports and it was not materializing rapidly enough.(02:25):And I sat down with my graduate student supervisors who were very kind, very generous, but basically said, Charlie, this isn't going well, is it? You've got two choices. You can either go back to medical school or change PhD projects. What do you want to do? And I said, well, I can't go back to medical school because I'm now two years behind. So instead I think what I'll do is I'll change PhD projects. And they asked me what I'd like to do. And back then we didn't know how p21, the CDK inhibitor bound to cyclin D, and I said, that's what I want to understand how these proteins interact biochemically. And they said, how are you going to do that? And I said, I'm not too sure, but maybe we'll try yeast two-hybrid screen and a mutagenesis screen. And that didn't work either. And in the end, something remarkable happened.(03:14):My PhD boss, Nic Jones, who's a great guy, still is, retired though now, but a phenomenal scientist. He put me in touch with a colleague who actually works next door to me now at the Francis Crick Institute called Neil McDonald, a structural biologist. And they had just solved, well, the community had just solved the structure. Pavletich just solved the structure of cyclin A CDK2. And so, Neil could show me this beautiful image of the crystal structure in 3D of cyclin A, and we could mirror cyclin D onto it and find the surface residue. So I spent the whole of my summer holiday mutating every surface exposed acid on cyclin D to an alanine until I found one that failed to interact with p21, but could still bind the CDK. And that little breakthrough, very little breakthrough led to this discovery that I had where the viral cyclins encoded by Kaposi sarcoma herpes virus, very similar to cyclin D, except in this one region that I had found interactive with a CDK inhibitor protein p21.(04:17):And so, I asked my boss, what do you think about the possibility this cyclin could have evolved from cyclin D but now mutated its surface residues in a specific area so that it can't be inhibited by any of the control proteins in the mammalian cell cycle? He said, it's a great idea, Charlie, give it a shot. And it worked. And then six months later, we got a Nature paper. And that for me was like, I cannot tell you how exciting, not the Nature paper so much as the discovery that you were the first person in the world to ever see this beautiful aspect of evolutionary biology at play and how this cyclin had adapted to just drive the cell cycle without being inhibited. For me, just, I mean, it was like a dream come true, and I never experienced anything like it before, and I guess it's sizes the equivalent to me of a class A drug. You get such a buzz out of it and over the years you sort of long for that to happen again. And occasionally it does, and it's just a wonderful profession.Eric Topol (05:20):Well, I thought that it was such a great story because here you were about to fail. I mean literally fail, and you really were able to turn it around and it should give hope to everybody working in science out there that they could just be right around the corner from a significant discovery.Charles Swanton (05:36):I think what doesn't break you makes you stronger. You just got to plow on if you love it enough, you'll find a way forward eventually, I hope.Tracing the Evolution of Cancer (TRACERx)Eric Topol (05:44):Yeah, no question about that. Now, some of your recent contributions, I mean, it's just amazing to me. I just try to keep up with the literature just keeping up with you.Charles Swanton (05:58):Eric, it's sweet of you. The first thing to say is it's not just me. This is a big community of lung cancer researchers we have thanks to Cancer Research UK funded around TRACERx and the lung cancer center. Every one of my papers has three corresponding authors, multiple co-first authors that all contribute in this multidisciplinary team to the sort of series of small incremental discoveries. And it's absolutely not just me. I've got an amazing team of scientists who I work with and learn from, so it's sweet to give me the credit.Eric Topol (06:30):I think what you're saying is really important. It is a team, but I think what I see through it all is that you're an inspiration to the team. You pull people together from all over the world on these projects and it's pretty extraordinary, so that's what I would say.Charles Swanton (06:49):The lung community, Eric, the lung cancer community is just unbelievably conducive to collaboration and advancing understanding of the disease together. It's just such a privilege to be working in this field. I know that sounds terribly corny, but it is true. I don't think I recall a single email to anybody where I've asked if we can collaborate where they've said, no, everybody wants to help. Everybody wants to work together on this challenge. It's just such an amazing field to be working in.Eric Topol (07:19):Yeah. Well I was going to ask you about that. And of course you could have restricted your efforts or focused on different cancers. What made you land in lung cancer? Not that that's only part of what you're working on, but that being the main thing, what drew you to that area?Charles Swanton (07:39):So I think the answer to your question is back in 2008 when I was looking for a niche, back then it was lung cancer was just on the brink of becoming an exciting place to work, but back then nobody wanted to work in that field. So there was a chair position in thoracic oncology and precision medicine open at University College London Hospital that had been open, as I understand it for two years. And I don't think anybody had applied. So I applied and because I was the only one, I got it and the rest is history.(08:16):And of course that was right at the time when the IPASS draft from Tony Mok was published and was just a bit after when the poster child of EGFR TKIs and EGFR mutant lung cancer had finally proven that if you segregate that population of patients with EGFR activating mutation, they do incredibly well on an EGFR inhibitor. And that was sort of the solid tumor poster child along with Herceptin of precision medicine, I think. And you saw the data at ASCO this week of Lorlatinib in re-arranged lung cancer. Patients are living way beyond five years now, and people are actually talking about this disease being more like CML. I mean, it's extraordinary the progress that's been made in the last two decades in my short career.Eric Topol (09:02):Actually, I do want to have you put that in perspective because it's really important what you just mentioned. I was going to ask you about this ASCO study with the AKT subgroup. So the cancer landscape of the lung has changed so much from what used to be a disease of cigarette smoking to now one of, I guess adenocarcinoma, non-small cell carcinoma, not related to cigarettes. We're going to talk about air pollution in a minute. This group that had, as you say, 60 month, five year plus survival versus what the standard therapy was a year plus is so extraordinary. But is that just a small subgroup within small cell lung cancer?Charles Swanton (09:48):Yes, it is, unfortunately. It's just a small subgroup. In our practice, probably less than 1% of all presentations often in never smokers, often in female, never smokers. So it is still in the UK at least a minority subset of adenocarcinomas, but it's still, as you rightly say, a minority of patients that we can make a big difference to with a drug that's pretty well tolerated, crosses the blood-brain barrier and prevents central nervous system relapse and progression. It really is an extraordinary breakthrough, I think. But that said, we're also seeing advances in smoking associated lung cancer with a high mutational burden with checkpoint inhibitor therapy, particularly in the neoadjuvant setting now prior to surgery. That's really, really impressive indeed. And adjuvant checkpoint inhibitor therapies as well as in the metastatic setting are absolutely improving survival times and outcomes now in a way that we couldn't have dreamt of 15 years ago. We've got much more than just platinum-based chemo is basically the bottom line now.Revving Up ImmunotherapyEric Topol (10:56):Right, right. Well that actually gets a natural question about immunotherapy also is one of the moving parts actually just amazing to me how that's really, it's almost like we're just scratching the surface of immunotherapy now with checkpoint inhibitors because the more we get the immune system revved up, the more we're seeing results, whether it's with vaccines or CAR-T, I mean it seems like we're just at the early stages of getting the immune system where it needs to be to tackle the cancer. What's your thought about that?Charles Swanton (11:32):I think you're absolutely right. We are, we're at the beginning of a very long journey thanks to Jim Allison and Honjo. We've got CTLA4 and PD-1/PDL-1 axis to target that's made a dramatic difference across multiple solid tumor types including melanoma and lung cancer. But undoubtedly, there are other targets we've seen LAG-3 and melanoma and then we're seeing new ways, as you rightly put it to mobilize the immune system to target cancers. And that can be done through vaccine based approaches where you stimulate the immune system against the patient's specific mutations in their cancer or adoptive T-cell therapies where you take the T-cells out of the tumor, you prime them against the mutations found in the tumor, you expand them and then give them back to the patient. And colleagues in the US, Steve Rosenberg and John Haanen in the Netherlands have done a remarkable job there in the context of melanoma, we're not a million miles away from European approvals and academic initiated manufacturing of T-cells for patients in national health systems like in the Netherlands.(12:50):John Haanen's work is remarkable in that regard. And then there are really spectacular ways of altering T-cells to be able to either migrate to the tumor or to target specific tumor antigens. You mentioned CAR-T cell therapies in the context of acute leukemia, really extraordinary developments there. And myeloma and diffuse large B-cell lymphoma as well as even in solid tumors are showing efficacy. And I really am very excited about the future of what we call biological therapies, be it vaccines, an antibody drug conjugates and T-cell therapies. I think cancer is a constantly adapting evolutionary force to be reckoned with what better system to combat it than our evolving immune system. It strikes me as being a future solution to many of these refractory cancers we still find difficult to treat.Eric Topol (13:48):Yeah, your point is an interesting parallel how the SARS-CoV-2 virus is constantly mutating and becoming more evasive as is the tumor in a person and the fact that we can try to amp up the immune system with these various means that you just were reviewing. You mentioned the other category that's very hot right now, which is the antibody drug conjugates. Could you explain a bit about how they work and why you think this is an important part of the future for cancer?Antibody-Drug ConjugatesCharles Swanton (14:26):That's a great question. So one of the challenges with chemotherapy, as you know, is the normal tissue toxicity. So for instance, neutropenia, hair loss, bowel dysfunction, diarrhea, epithelial damage, essentially as you know, cytotoxics affect rapidly dividing tissues, so bone marrow, epithelial tissues. And because until relatively recently we had no way of targeting chemotherapy patients experienced side effects associated with them. So over the last decade or so, pioneers in this field have brought together this idea of biological therapies linked with chemotherapy through a biological linker. And so one poster chart of that would be the drug T-DXd, which is essentially Herceptin linked to a chemotherapy drug. And this is just the most extraordinary drug that obviously binds the HER2 receptor, but brings the chemotherapy and proximity of the tumor. The idea being the more drug you can get into the tumor and the less you're releasing into normal tissue, the more on tumor cytotoxicity you'll have and the less off tumor on target normal tissue side effects you'll have. And to a large extent, that's being shown to be the case. That doesn't mean they're completely toxicity free, they're not. And one of the side effects associated with these drugs is pneumonitis.(16:03):But that said, the efficacy is simply extraordinary. And for example, we're having to rewrite the rule books if you like, I think. I mean I'm not a breast cancer physician, I used to be a long time ago, but back in the past in the early 2000s, there was HER2 positive breast cancer and that's it. Now they're talking about HER2 low, HER2 ultra-low, all of which seem to in their own way be sensitive to T-DXd, albeit to a lower extent than HER2 positive disease. But the point is that there doesn't seem to be HER2 completely zero tumor group in breast cancer. And even the HER2-0 seem to benefit from T-DXd to an extent. And the question is why? And I think what people are thinking now is it's a combination of very low cell service expression of HER2 that's undetectable by conventional methods like immunohistochemistry, but also something exquisitely specific about the way in which HER2 is mobilized on the membrane and taken back into the cell. That seems to be specific to the breast cancer cell but not normal tissue. So in other words, the antibody drug conjugate binds the tumor cell, it's thought the whole receptor's internalized into the endosome, and that's where the toxicity then happens. And it's something to do with the endosomal trafficking with the low level expression and internalization of the receptor. That may well be the reason why these HER2 low tumors are so sensitive to this beautiful technology.Eric Topol (17:38):Now I mean it is an amazing technology in all these years where we just were basically indiscriminately trying to kill cells and hoping that the cancer would succumb. And now you're finding whether you want to call it a carry or vector or Trojan horse, whatever you want to call it, but do you see that analogy of the HER2 receptor that's going to be seen across the board in other cancers?Charles Swanton (18:02):That's the big question, Eric. I think, and have we just lucked out with T-DXd, will we find other T-DXd like ADCs targeting other proteins? I mean there are a lot of ADCs being developed against a lot of different cell surface proteins, and I think the jury's still out. I'm confident we will, but we have to bear in mind that biology is a fickle friend and there may be something here related to the internalization of the receptor in breast cancer that makes this disease so exquisitely sensitive. So I think we just don't know yet. I'm reasonably confident that we will find other targets that are as profoundly sensitive as HER2 positive breast cancer, but time will tell.Cancer, A Systemic DiseaseEric Topol (18:49):Right. Now along these lines, well the recent paper that you had in Cell, called embracing cancer complexity, which we've talking about a bit, in fact it's kind of those two words go together awfully well, but hallmarks of systemic disease, this was a masterful review, as you say with the team that you led. But can you tell us about what's your main perspective about this systemic disease? I mean obviously there's been the cancer is like cardiovascular and cancers like this or that, but here you really brought it together with systemic illness. What can you say about that?Charles Swanton (19:42):Well, thanks for the question first of all, Eric. So a lot of this comes from some of my medical experience of treating cancer and thinking to myself over the years, molecular biology has had a major footprint on advances in treating the disease undoubtedly. But there are still aspects of medicine where molecular biology has had very little impact, and often that is in areas of suffering in patients with advanced disease and cancer related to things like cancer cachexia, thrombophilia. What is the reason why patients die blood clots? What is the reason patients die of cancer at all? Even a simple question like that, we don't always know the answer to, on death certificates, we write metastatic disease as a cause of cancer death, but we have patients who die with often limited disease burden and no obvious proximal cause of death sometimes. And that's very perplexing, and we need to understand that process better.(20:41):And we need to understand aspects like cancer pain, for example, circadian rhythms affect biological sensitivity of cancer cells to drugs and what have you. Thinking about cancer rather than just sort of a single group of chaotically proliferating cells to a vision of cancer interacting both locally within a microenvironment but more distantly across organs and how organs communicate with the cancer through neuronal networks, for example, I think is going to be the next big challenge by setting the field over the next decade or two. And I think then thinking about more broadly what I mean by embracing complexity, I think some of that relates to the limitations of the model systems we use, trying to understand inter-organ crosstalk, some of the things you cover in your beautiful Twitter reviews. (←Ground Truths link) I remember recently you highlighted four publications that looked at central nervous system, immune cell crosstalk or central nervous system microbiome crosstalk. It's this sort of long range interaction between organs, between the central nervous system and the immune system and the cancer that I'm hugely interested in because I really think there are vital clues there that will unlock new targets that will enable us to control cancers more effectively if we just understood these complex networks better and had more sophisticated animal model systems to be able to interpret these interactions.Eric Topol (22:11):No, it's so important what you're bringing out, the mysteries that still we have to deal with cancer, why patients have all these issues or dying without really knowing what's happened no less, as you say, these new connects that are being discovered at a remarkable pace, as you mentioned, that ground truths. And also, for example, when I spoke with Michelle Monje, she's amazing on the cancer, where hijacking the brain cells and just pretty extraordinary things. Now that gets me to another line of work of yours. I mean there are many, but the issue of evolution of the tumor, and if you could put that in context, a hot area that's helping us elucidate these mechanisms is known as spatial omics or spatial biology. This whole idea of being able to get the spatial temporal progression through single cell sequencing and single cell nuclei, all the single cell omics. So if you could kind of take us through what have we learned with this technique and spatial omics that now has changed or illuminated our understanding of how cancer evolves?Charles Swanton (23:37):Yeah, great question. Well, I mean I think it helps us sort of rewind a bit and think about evolution in general. Genetic selection brought about by diverse environments and environmental pressures that force evolution, genetic evolution, and speciation down certain evolutionary roots. And I think one can think about cancers in a similar way. They start from a single cell and we can trace the evolutionary paths of cancers by single cell analysis as well as bulk sequencing of spatially separated tumor regions to be able to reconstruct their subclones. And that's taught us to some extent, what are the early events in tumor evolution? What are the biological mechanisms driving branched evolution? How does genome instability begin in tumors? And we found through TRACERx work, whole genome doubling is a major route through to driving chromosome instability along with mutagenic enzymes like APOBEC that drive both mutations and chromosomal instability.(24:44):And then that leads to a sort of adaptive radiation in a sense, not dissimilar to I guess the Cambrian explosion of evolutionary opportunity upon which natural selection can act. And that's when you start to see the hallmarks of immune evasion like loss of HLA, the immune recognition molecules that bind the neoantigens or even loss of the neoantigens altogether or mutation of beta 2 microglobulin that allow the tumor cells to now evolve below the radar, so to speak. But you allude to the sort of spatial technologies that allow us to start to interpret the microenvironments as well. And that then tells us what the evolutionary pressures are upon the tumor. And we're learning from those spatial technologies that these environments are incredibly diverse, actually interestingly seem to be converging on one important aspect I'd like to talk to you a little bit more about, which is the myeloid axis, which is these neutrophils, macrophages, et cetera, that seem to be associated with poor outcome and that will perhaps talk about pollution in a minute.(25:51):But I think they're creating a sort of chronic inflammatory response that allows these early nascent tumor cells to start to initiate into frankly tumor invasive cells and start to grow. And so, what we're seeing from these spatial technologies in lung cancer is that T-cells, predatory T-cells, force tumors to lose their HLA molecules and what have you to evade the immune system. But for reasons we don't understand, high neutrophil infiltration seems to be associated with poor outcome, poor metastasis free survival. And actually, those same neutrophils we've recently found actually even tracked to the metastasis sites of metastasis. So it's almost like this sort of symbiosis between the myeloid cells and the tumor cells in their biology and growth and progression of the tumor cells.Eric Topol (26:46):Yeah, I mean this white cell story, this seems to be getting legs and is relatively new, was this cracked because of the ability to do this type of work to in the past everything was, oh, it's cancer's heterogeneous and now we're getting pinpoint definition of what's going on.Charles Swanton (27:04):I think it's certainly contributed, but it's like everything in science, Eric, when you look back, there's evidence in the literature for pretty much everything we've ever discovered. You just need to put the pieces together. And I mean one example would be the neutrophil lymphocyte ratio in the blood as a hallmark of outcome in cancers and to checkpoint inhibitor blockade, maybe this begins to explain it, high neutrophils, immune suppressive environment, high neutrophils, high macrophages, high immune suppression, less benefit from checkpoint inhibitor therapy, whereas you want lymphocyte. So I think there are biomedical medical insights that help inform the biology we do in the lab that have been known for decades or more. And certainly the myeloid M2 axis in macrophages and what have you was known about way before these spatial technologies really came to fruition, I think.The Impact of Air PollutionEric Topol (28:01):Yeah. Well you touched on this about air pollution and that's another dimension of the work that you and your team have done. As you well know, there was a recent global burden of disease paper in the Lancet, which has now said that air pollution with particulate matter 2.5 less is the leading cause of the burden of disease in the world now.Charles Swanton (28:32):What did you think of that, Eric?Eric Topol (28:34):I mean, I was blown away. Totally blown away. And this is an era you've really worked on. So can you put it in perspective?Charles Swanton (28:42):Yeah. So we got into this because patients of mine, and many of my colleagues would ask the same question, I've never smoked doctor, I'm healthy. I'm in my mid 50s though they're often female and I've got lung cancer. Why is that doctor? I've had a good diet, I exercise, et cetera. And we didn't really have a very good answer for that, and I don't want to pretend for a minute we solved the whole problem. I think hopefully we've contributed to a little bit of understanding of why this may happen. But that aside, we knew that there were risk factors associated with lung cancer that included air pollution, radon exposure, of course, germline genetics, we mustn't forget very important germline variation. And I think there is evidence that all of them are associated with lung cancer risk in different ways. But we wanted to look at air pollution, particularly because there was an awful lot of evidence, several meta-analysis of over half a million individuals showing very convincingly with highly significant results that increasing PM 2.5 micron particulate levels were associated with increased risk of lung cancer.(29:59):To put that into perspective, where you are on the west coast of the US, it's relatively unpolluted. You would be talking about maybe five micrograms per meter cubed of PM2.5 in a place like San Diego or Western California, assuming there aren't any forest fires of course. And we estimate that that would translate to about, we think it's about one extra case of never smoking lung cancer per hundred thousand of the population per year per one microgram per meter cube rise in the pollution levels. So if you go to Beijing for example, on a bad day, the air pollution levels could be upwards of a hundred micrograms per meter cubed because there are so many coal fired power stations in China partly. And there I think the risk is considerably higher. And that's certainly what we've seen in the meta-analyses in our limited and relatively crude epidemiological analyses to be the case.(30:59):So I think the association was pretty certain, we were very confident from people's prior publications  this was important. But of course, association is not causation. So we took a number of animal models and showed that you could promote lung cancer formation in four different oncogene driven lung cancer models. And then the question is how, does air pollution stimulate mutations, which is what I initially thought it would do or something else. It turns out we don't see a significant increase in exogenous like C to A carcinogenic mutations. So that made us put our thinking caps on. And I said to you earlier, often all these discoveries have been made before. Well, Berenblum in 1947, first postulated that actually tumors are initiated through a two-step process, which we now know involves a sort of pre initiated cell with a mutation in that in itself is not sufficient to cause cancer.(31:58):But on top of that you need an inflammatory stimulus. So the question was then, well, okay, is inflammation working here? And we found that there was an interleukin-1 beta axis. And what happens is that the macrophages come into the lung on pollution exposure, engulf phagocytose the air pollutants, and we think what's happening is the air pollutants are puncturing membranes in the lung. That's what we think is happening. And interleukin-1 beta preformed IL-1 beta is being released into the extracellular matrix and then stimulating pre-initiated cells stem cells like the AT2 cells with an activating EGFR mutation to form a tumor. But the EGFR mutation alone is not sufficient to form tumors. It's only when you have the interleukin-1 beta and the activated mutation that a tumor can start.(32:49):And we found that if we sequence normal lung tissue in a healthy adult 60-year-old adult, we will find about half of biopsies will have an activating KRAS mutation in normal tissue, and about 15% will have an activating mutation in EGFR in histologically normal tissue with nerve and of cancer. In fact, my friend and colleague who's a co-author on the paper, James DeGregori, who you should speak to in Colorado, fascinating evolutionary cancer biologists estimates that in a healthy 60-year-old, there are a hundred billion cells in your body that harbor an oncogenic mutation. So that tells you that at the cellular level, cancer is an incredibly rare event and almost never happens. I mean, our lifetime risk of cancer is perhaps one in two. You covered that beautiful pancreas paper recently where they estimated that there may be 80 to 100 KRAS mutations in a normal adult pancreas, and yet our lifetime risk of pancreas cancer is one in 70. So this tells you that oncogenic mutations are rarely sufficient to drive cancer, so something else must be happening. And in the context of air pollution associated lung cancer, we think that's inflammation driven by these white cells, these myeloid cells, the macrophages.Cancer BiomarkersEric Topol (34:06):No, it makes a lot of sense. And this, you mentioned the pancreas paper and also what's going in the lung, and it seems like we have this burden of all you need is a tipping point and air pollution seems to qualify, and you seem to be really in the process of icing the mechanism. And like I would've thought it was just mutagenic and it's not so simple, right? But that gets me to this is such an important aspect of cancer, the fact that we harbor these kind of preconditions. And would you think that cancer takes decades to actually manifest most cancers, or do we really have an opportunity here to be able to track whether it's through blood or other biomarkers? Another area you've worked on a lot whereby let's say you could define people at risk for polygenic risk scores or various cancers or genome sequencing for predisposition genes, whatever, and you could monitor in the future over the course of those high-risk people, whether they were starting to manifest microscopic malignancy. Do you have any thoughts about how long it takes for the average person to actually manifest a typical cancer?Charles Swanton (35:28):That's a cracking question, and the answer is we've got some clues in various cancers. Peter Campbell would be a good person to speak to. He estimates that some of the earliest steps in renal cancer can occur in adolescence. We've had patients who gave up smoking 30 or so years ago where we can still see the clonal smoking mutations in the trunk of the tumor's evolutionary tree. So the initial footprints of the cancer are made 30 years before the cancer presents. That driver mutation itself may also be a KRAS mutation in a smoking cigarette context, G12C mutation. And those mutations can precede the diagnosis of the disease by decades. So the earliest steps in cancer evolution can occur, we think can precede diagnoses by a long time. So to your point, your question which is, is there an opportunity to intervene? I'm hugely optimistic about this actually, this idea of molecular cancer prevention.An Anti-Inflammatory Drug Reduces Fatal Cancer and Lung Cancer(36:41):How can we use data coming out of various studies in the pancreas, mesothelioma, lung, et cetera to understand the inflammatory responses? I don't think we can do very much about the mutations. The mutations unfortunately are a natural consequence of aging. You and I just sitting here talking for an hour will have accumulated multiple mutations in our bodies over that period, I'm afraid and there's no escaping it. And right now there's not much we can do to eradicate those mutant clones. So if we take that as almost an intractable problem, measuring them is hard enough, eradicating them is even harder. And then we go back to Berenblum in 1947 who said, you need an inflammatory stimulus. Well, could we do something about the inflammation and dampen down the inflammation? And of course, this is why we got so excited about IL-1 beta because of the CANTOS trial, which you may remember in 2017 from Ridker and colleagues showed that anti IL-1 beta used as a mechanism of preventing cardiovascular events was associated with a really impressive dose dependent reduction in new lung cancer primaries.(37:49):Really a beautiful example of cancer prevention in action. And that data weren't just a coincidence. The FDA mandated Novartis to collect the solid tumor data and the P-values are 0.001. I mean it's very highly significant dose dependent reduction in lung cancer incidents associated with anti IL-1 beta. So I think that's really the first clue in my mind that something can be done about this problem. And actually they had five years of follow-up, Eric. So that's something about that intervening period where you can treat and then over time see a reduction in new lung cancers forming. So I definitely think there's a window of opportunity here.Eric Topol (38:31):Well, what you're bringing up is fascinating here because this trial, which was a cardiology trial to try to reduce heart attacks, finds a reduction in cancer, and it's been lost. It's been buried. I mean, no one's using this therapy to prevent cancer between ratcheting up the immune system or decreasing inflammation. We have opportunities that we're not even attempting. Are there any trials that are trying to do this sort of thing?Charles Swanton (39:02):So this is the fundamental problem. Nobody wants to invest in prevention because essentially you are dealing with well individuals. It's like the vaccine challenge all over again. And the problem is you never know who you are benefiting. There's no economic model for it. So pharma just won't touch prevention with a barge pole right now. And that's the problem. There's no economic model for it. And yet the community, all my academic colleagues are crying out saying, this has got to be possible. This has got to be possible. So CRUK are putting together a group of like-minded individuals to see if we can do something here and we're gradually making progress, but it is tough.Eric Topol (39:43):And it's interesting that you bring that up because for GRAIL, one of the multicenter cancer early detection companies, they raised billions of dollars. And in fact, their largest trial is ongoing in the UK, but they haven't really focused on high-risk people. They just took anybody over age 50 or that sort of thing. But that's the only foray to try to reboot how we or make an early microscopic diagnosis of cancer and track people differently. And there's an opportunity there. You've written quite a bit on you and colleagues of the blood markers being able to find a cancer where well before, in fact, I was going to ask you about that is, do you think there's people that are not just having all these mutations every minute, every hour, but that are starting to have the early seeds of cancer, but because their immune system then subsequently kicks in that they basically kind of quash it for that period of time?Charles Swanton (40:47):Yeah, I do think that, I mean, the very fact that we see these sort of footprints in the tumor genome of immune evasion tells you that the immune system's having a very profound predatory effect on evolving tumors. So I do think it's very likely that there are tumors occurring that are suppressed by the immune system. There is a clear signature, a signal of negative selection in tumors where clones have been purified during their evolution by the immune system. So I think there's pretty strong evidence for that now. Obviously, it's very difficult to prove something existed when it doesn't now exist, but there absolutely is evidence for that. I think it raises the interesting question of immune system recognizes mutations and our bodies are replete with mutations as we were just discussing. Why is it that we're not just a sort of epithelial lining of autoimmunity with T-cells and immune cells everywhere? And I think what the clever thing about the immune system is it's evolved to target antigens only when they get above a certain burden. Otherwise, I think our epithelial lining, our skin, our guts, all of our tissues will be just full of T-cells eating away our normal clones.(42:09):These have to get to a certain size for antigen to be presented at a certain level for the immune system to recognize it. And it's only then that you get the immune predation occurring.Forever Chemicals and Microplastics Eric Topol (42:20):Yeah, well, I mean this is opportunities galore here. I also wanted to extend the air pollution story a bit. Obviously, we talked about particulate matter and there's ozone and nitric NO2, and there's all sorts of other air pollutants, but then there's also in the air and water these forever chemicals PFAS for abbreviation, and they seem to be incriminated like air pollution. Can you comment about that?Charles Swanton (42:55):Well, I can comment only insofar as to say I'm worried about the situation. Indeed, I'm worried about microplastics actually, and you actually cover that story as well in the New England Journal, the association of microplastics with plaque rupture and atheroma. And indeed, just as in parenthesis, I wanted to just quickly say we currently think the same mechanisms that are driving lung cancer are probably responsible for atheroma and possibly even neurodegenerative disease. And essentially it all comes down to the macrophages and the microglia becoming clogged up with these pollutants or environmental particulars and releasing chronic inflammatory mediators that ultimately lead to disease. And IL-1 beta being one of those in atheroma and probably IL-6 and TNF in neurodegenerative disease and what have you. But I think this issue that you rightly bring up of what is in our environment and how does it cause pathology is really something that epidemiologists have spent a lot of time focusing on.(43:56):But actually in terms of trying to move from association to causation, we've been, I would argue a little bit slow biologically in trying to understand these issues. And I think that is a concern. I mean, to give you an example, Allan Balmain, who works at UCSF quite close to you, published a paper in 2020 showing that 17 out of 20 environmental carcinogens IARC carcinogens class one carcinogens cause tumors in rodent models without driving mutations. So if you take that to a logical conclusion, in my mind, what worries me is that many of the sort of carcinogen assays are based on driving mutagenesis genome instability. But if many carcinogen aren't driving DNA mutagenesis but are still driving cancer, how are they doing it? And do we actually have the right assays to interpret safety of new chemical matter that's being introduced into our environment, these long-lived particles that we're breathing in plastics, pollutants, you name it, until we have the right biological assays, deeming something to be safe I think is tricky.Eric Topol (45:11):Absolutely. And I share your concerns on the nanoplastic microplastic story, as you well know, not only have they been seen in arteries that are inflamed and in blood clots and in various tissues, have they been seen so far or even looked for within tumor tissue?Charles Swanton (45:33):Good question. I'm not sure they have. I need to check. What I can tell you is we've been doing some experiments in the lab with fluorescent microplastics, 2.5 micron microplastics given inhaled microplastics. We find them in every mouse organ a week after. And these pollutants even get through into the brain through the olfactory bulb we think.Charles Swanton (45:57):Permeate every tissue, Eric.Eric Topol (45:59):Yeah, no, this is scary because here we are, we have these potentially ingenious ways to prevent cancer in the future, but we're chasing our tails by not doing anything to deal with our environment.Charles Swanton (46:11):I think that's right. I totally agree. Yeah.Eric Topol (46:15):So I mean, I can talk to you for the rest of the day, but I do want to end up with a topic that we have mutual interest in, which is AI. And also along with that, when you mentioned about aging, I'd like to get your views on these two, how do you see AI fitting into the future of cancer? And then the more general topic is, can we actually at some point modulate the biologic aging process with or without help with from AI? So those are two very dense questions, but maybe you can take us through them.Charles Swanton (46:57):How long have we got?Eric Topol (46:59):Just however long you have.A.I. and CancerCharles Swanton (47:02):AI and cancer. Well, AI and medicine actually in general, whether it's biomedical research or medical care, has just infinite potential. And I'm very, very excited about it. I think what excites me about AI is it's almost the infinite possibilities to work across scale. Some of the challenges we raised in the Cell review that you mentioned, tackling, embracing complexity are perfectly suited for an AI problem. Nonlinear data working, for instance in our fields with CT imaging, MRI imaging, clinical outcome data, blood parameters, genomics, transcriptomes and proteomes and trying to relate this all into something that's understandable that relates to risk of disease or potential identification of a new drug target, for example. There are numerous publications that you and others have covered that allude to the incredible possibilities there that are leading to, for instance, the new identification of drug targets. I mean, Eli Van Allen's published some beautiful work here and in the context of prostate cancer with MDM4 and FGF receptor molecules being intimately related to disease biology.(48:18):But then it's not just that, not just drug target identification, it's also going all the way through to the clinic through drug discovery. It's how you get these small molecules to interact with oncogenic proteins and to inhibit them. And there are some really spectacular developments going on in, for instance, time resolved cryo-electron microscopy, where in combination with modeling and quantum computing and what have you, you can start to find pockets emerging in mutant proteins, but not the wild type ones that are druggable. And then you can use sort of synthetic AI driven libraries to find small molecules that will be predicted to bind these transiently emerging pockets. So it's almost like AI is primed to help at every stage in scientific investigation from the bench all the way through to the bedside. And there are examples all the way through there in the literature that you and others have covered in the last few years. So I could not be more excited about that.Eric Topol (49:29):I couldn't agree with you more. And I think when we get to multimodal AI at the individual level across all their risks for conditions in their future, I hope someday will fulfill that fantasy of primary prevention. And that is getting me to this point that I touched on because I do think they interact to some degree AI and then will we ever be able to have an impact on aging? Most people conflate this because what we've been talking about throughout the hour has been age-related diseases, that is cancer, for example, and cardiovascular and neurodegenerative, which is different than changing aging per se, body wide aging. Do you think we'll ever changed body wide aging?Charles Swanton (50:18):Wow, what a question. Well, if you'd asked me 10 years ago, 15 years ago, do you think we'll ever cure melanoma in my lifetime, I'd have said definitely not. And now look where we are. Half of patients with melanoma, advanced melanoma, even with brain metastasis curd with combination checkpoint therapy. So I never say never in biology anymore. It always comes back to bite you and prove you wrong. So I think it's perfectly possible.Charles Swanton (50:49):We have ways to slow down the aging process. I guess the question is what will be the consequences of that?Eric Topol (50:55):That's what I was going to ask you, because all these things like epigenetic reprogramming and senolytic drugs, and they seem to at least pose some risk for cancer.Charles Swanton (51:09):That's the problem. This is an evolutionary phenomenon. It's a sort of biological response to the onslaught of these malignant cells that are potentially occurring every day in our normal tissue. And so, by tackling one problem, do we create another? And I think that's going to be the big challenge over the next 50 years.Eric Topol (51:31):Yeah, and I think your point about the multi-decade challenge, because if you can promote healthy aging without any risk of cancer, that would be great. But if the tradeoff is close, it's not going to be very favorable. That seems to be the main liability of modulation aging through many of the, there's many shots on goal here, of course, as you well know. But they do seem to pose that risk in general.Charles Swanton (51:58):I think that's right. I think the other thing is, I still find, I don't know if you agree with me, but it is an immense conundrum. What is the underlying molecular basis for somatic aging, for aging of normal tissues? And it may be multifactorial, it may not be just one answer to that question. And different tissues may age in different ways. I don't know. It's a fascinating area of biology, but I think it really needs to be studied more because as you say, it underpins all of these diseases we've been talking about today, cardiovascular, neurodegeneration, cancer, you name it. We absolutely have to understand this. And actually, the more I work in cancer, the more I feel like actually what I'm working on is aging.(52:48):And this is something that James DeGregori and I have discussed a lot. There's an observation that in medicine around patients with alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency who are at higher risk of lung cancer, but they're also at high risk of COPD, and we know the associations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease with lung cancer risk. And one of the theories that James had, and I think this is a beautiful idea, actually, is as our tissues age, and COPD is a reflection of aging, to some extent gone wrong. And as our tissues age, they become less good at controlling the expansion of these premalignant clones, harboring, harboring oncogenic mutations in normal tissue. And as those premalignant clones expand, the substrate for evolution also expands. So there's more likely to be a second and third hit genetically. So it may be by disrupting the extracellular matrices through inflammation that triggers COPD through alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency or smoking, et cetera, you are less effectively controlling these emergent clones that just expand with age, which I think is a fascinating idea actually.Eric Topol (54:01):It really is. Well, I want to tell you, Charlie, this has been the most fascinating, exhilarating discussion I've ever had on cancer. I mean, really, I am indebted to you because not just all the work you've done, but your ability to really express it, articulate it in a way that hopefully everyone can understand who's listening or reading the transcript. So we'll keep following what you're doing because you're doing a lot of stuff. I can't thank you enough for joining me today, and you've given me lots of things to think about. I hope the people that are listening or reading feel the same way. I mean, this has been so mind bending in many respects. We're indebted to you.Charles Swanton (54:49):Well, we all love reading your Twitter feeds. Keep them coming. It helps us keep a broader view of medicine and biological research, not just cancer, which is why I love it so much.******************************************The Ground Truths newsletters and podcasts are all free, open-access, without ads.Please share this post/podcast with your friends and network if you found it informativeVoluntary paid subscriptions all go to support Scripps Research. Many thanks for that—they greatly helped fund our summer internship programs for 2023 and 2024.Thanks to my producer Jessica Nguyen and Sinjun Balabanoff tor audio and video support at Scripps Research.Note: you can select preferences to receive emails about newsletters, podcasts, or all I don't want to bother you with an email for content that you're not interested in. Get full access to Ground Truths at erictopol.substack.com/subscribe

There are two groups of people who agree that the year really ends in April: finance nerds, and gaming award show nerds. No points for guessing which the Indieventure crew belong to as we deep dive into our impressions on awards season now that 2023 is officially done and dusted with the conclusion of the BAFTA Game Awards! Expect some spirited discussions of the indie greats of last year including Viewfinder, Venba, Chants of Sennaar, Tchia, Jusant, Goodbye Volcano High, and many many more, as well as the obligatory sidetracks into Baldur's Gate 3 chat and of course, Dave the Diver. But that's not all! We three are never ones to allow some remote authority to dictate our discussions, which is why each of us has brought along a game that we'd like to belatedly add to our own 2023 GOTY list! It's an eclectic bunch, as Liam submits Trepang2 — a retro FPS published last summer by Team 17 that the other two somehow never even heard of, let alone expected Liam to pick for this. Rachel goes rogue by choosing Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo, a game commissioned and published by Square Enix (and therefore about as indie as Dave the Diver) but which strangely released with so little marketing that we've decided it falls within our remit of informing you about great games you might otherwise miss. Rebecca has finally played The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood, and fully agrees with Rachel's assessment back in December that it belongs on our 2023 GOTY list, tardily elevating it to a respectable second podium behind our jointly-agreed-upon favourite, Dredge. We end, as always, with our hyperfixations! Rachel recently saw actual play troupe Dimension 20 live in London, and thinks that to be honest this might be her thing for a good long while. Liam has got back into Fallout 4 — not because of the TV show and actively in spite of the dodgy new-gen upgrade, but just because he felt like it, which is a very Liam way of going about things. Finally, Rebecca is back on the Rusty Lake train, thanks in part to our recent episode on single-sitting indie games leading to her getting her whole family hooked on the series. Our music was written and performed by Ollie Newbury! Find him on Instagram at @newbsmusic.

”About ‘An-Atman,’ Non-Self,” by Grand Master Atsushi Honjo, from the “Montreal World Convention” issue of the Rosicrucian Digest. In this podcast, Atsushi Honjo discusses from the Rosicrucian viewpoint the Buddhist principle of an-atman, which is a theory that denies the existence of self. Running Time: 13:56 Podcast Copyright © 2024 Rosicrucian Order, AMORC. All Rights Reserved. https://1b42c19cdededc568f7a-da3de02c40b8b01b9925237888827896.ssl.cf5.rackcdn.com/About_An-Atman_Non-Self_v2.mp3

De cozinha afetiva à creepy pastas, de escritores premiados à vampiros bem escritos, da liberdade para se fazer tudo ao encantamento pela limitação. 2023 foi mesmo um ano de jogos fenomenais e é a hora de organizá-los de forma arbitrária em nossos Top 10! Tabela com os Jogos do Ano do Jogabilidade Animações do Peppino em Pizza Tower 00:05:20 - Labyrinth of Galleria: The Moon Society 00:15:22 - Blasphemous 2 00:19:07 - Pizza Tower 00:31:10 - Gravity Circuit 00:39:30 - Final Fantasy XVI 00:47:51 - Lords of the Fallen 00:51:50 - Hi-Fi Rush 01:01:38 - Star Wars Jedi: Survivor 01:10:44 - Spoiler de Jedi Survivor 01:13:58 - System Shock Remake 01:18:20 - Spoiler de System Shock Remake 01:22:05 - Lunacid 01:29:25 - Lies of P 01:38:41 - Chants of Sennaar 01:45:42 - 9 Years of Shadow 01:54:11 - Venba 01:59:44 - Spoiler de Venba 02:05:02 - MyHouse.wad 02:12:45 - Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo 02:26:21 - Resident Evil 4 02:34:54 - Sea of Stars 02:45:06 - Spoiler de Sea of Stars 02:49:23 - Super Mario Bros. Wonder 02:56:32 - Remnant 2 03:07:24 - Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon 03:23:57 - Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom 03:46:44 - Baldur's Gate 3 04:15:28 - Alan Wake 2 04:25:36 - Recapitulação dos Top 10 Individuais 04:27:19 - Montando o Top 10 do Jogabilidade 04:52:22 - Top 10 da Comunidade Contribua | Twitter | YouTube | Twitch | Contato

Action Button's Tim Rogers and Necrosoft's Brandon Sheffield share thoughts about every game they played that was released in 2023. Hosted by Tim Rogers and Brandon Sheffield. Edited by Esper Quinn, original music by Kurt Feldman. Games of 2023 Discussed: Little Goody Two Shoes (04:48) Lies of P (08:55) Thirsty Suitors (13:28) (Note: this segment contains light spoilers) Blasphemous 2 (18:05) The Last Faith (20:07) Metroid Prime: Remastered (24:47) Star Ocean: The Second Story R (27:05) Fire Emblem: Engage (34:20) Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp (39:15) Persona 5: Tactica (42:06) Star Wars: Jedi - Survivor (47:25) Hogwarts Legacy (50:09) System Shock (54:24) Insert Credit Quick Break: GLYDR now on Kickstarter (57:21) One more thing about Hogwarts Legacy (59:00) Dead Space (01:01:03) Dave the Diver (01:03:12) Immortals of Aveum (01:04:34) Remnant II (01:05:57) Pizza Tower (01:10:31) Wanted: Dead (01:12:39) Fading Afternoon (01:23:19) Sea of Stars (01:24:13) Assassin's Creed: Mirage (01:32:32) Eternights (01:33:16) Diablo IV (01:37:45) Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath - Vengance of the Slayer (01:42:31) Honkai: Star Rail (01:44:14) Vernal Edge (01:49:51) Pikmin 4 (01:53:15) Endless Dungeon (01:54:03) Merge & Blade (01:54:58) Lords of the Fallen (01:56:33) Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III (02:00:35) Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader (02:01:51) Hyper Gunsport (02:02:47) Chants of Sennaar (02:04:00) Jusant (02:04:30) Hitman: World of Assassination Freelancer Mode (02:04:48) Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo (02:05:02) Discuss this episode in the Insert Credit Forums A SMALL SELECTION OF THINGS REFERENCED: Dalek Craig Kurt Feldman Sonic Superstars Hi-Fi Rush Frank Cifaldi Magic Knight Rayearth Clamp Sailor Moon Slayers VA-11 HALL-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action Legend of Mana Moon: Remix RPG Adventure Pinocchio (2002) Pinocchio (2019) Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (2022) Pinocchio (1940) Dark Souls Bloodborne Annapurna Interactive Night in the Woods Blasphemous Elden Ring Resident Evil 4 Remake Metroid Prime Remastered - DF Tech Review Halo: Combat Evolved Star Ocean series Final Fantasy VII Suikoden Kingdom Hearts series Ryū ga Gotoku / Like a Dragon / Yakuza series Kabukichō Kamurochō Fire Emblem series N-Gage Shoto Todoroki Newton's cradle Famicom Wars series TearRing Saga series Persona series Valkyria Chronicles series Mario + Rabbids series Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars X-COM series J.K. Rowling Castlevania: Symphony of the Night Metal Gear Solid Star Wars: Jedi - Fallen Order Titanfall series Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Forspoken System Shock Quake Quake II Turok Dead Space Disney•Pixar Cars 2 WB Games | Avalanche Avalanche Studios AB Remnant: From the Ashes series Quantum Theory Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Warhammer: The End Times - Vermintide Wario Land series Void Stranger A tweet from the Wanted: Dead twitter account Pulp Fiction (1994) Earth Defense Force series Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker Final Fantasy XVI Devil May Cry 5 Ninja Gaiden Black The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa Jordan Peterson The Messenger Chrono Trigger Dragon Quest V Octopath Traveler Final Fantasy VI Anearth Fantasy Stories: The First Volume Linda³ Assassin's Creed series The Witcher series Metaphor: ReFantazio Diablo series Babylon's Fall Ralph Ineson Soul Calibur series TEKKEN 8 - “Story So Far” with Brian Cox Dusk Jeremy Renner Genshin Impact Granblue Fantasy: Relink Wonder Boy Monster World IV Velldeselba Senki: Tsubasa no Kunshō Guardian Heroes Skyblazer Starfield Pikmin series One of these Fextralife Iron Pineapple Free content plan Effortlessly metal Life Is Strange series The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective 428: Shibuya Scramble Zero Escape series Danganronpa series 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim World of Horror Recommendations: Brandon: Wishlist Demonschool on Steam Tim: Post in the Goblin Bunker insert credit thread every 2PM EST on Thursdays to possibly get mentioned on accident in the show This week's Insert Credit Show is brought to you by GLYDR now on Kickstarter, and patrons like you. Thank you. Subscribe: RSS, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and more!

Action Button's Tim Rogers and Necrosoft's Brandon Sheffield share thoughts about every game they played that was released in 2023. Hosted by Tim Rogers and Brandon Sheffield. Edited by Esper Quinn, original music by Kurt Feldman. Games of 2023 Discussed: Little Goody Two Shoes (04:48) Lies of P (08:55) Thirsty Suitors (13:28) (Note: this segment contains light spoilers) Blasphemous 2 (18:05) The Last Faith (20:07) Metroid Prime: Remastered (24:47) Star Ocean: The Second Story R (27:05) Fire Emblem: Engage (34:20) Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp (39:15) Persona 5: Tactica (42:06) Star Wars: Jedi - Survivor (47:25) Hogwarts Legacy (50:09) System Shock (54:24) Insert Credit Quick Break: GLYDR now on Kickstarter (57:21) One more thing about Hogwarts Legacy (59:00) Dead Space (01:01:03) Dave the Diver (01:03:12) Immortals of Aveum (01:04:34) Remnant II (01:05:57) Pizza Tower (01:10:31) Wanted: Dead (01:12:39) Fading Afternoon (01:23:19) Sea of Stars (01:24:13) Assassin's Creed: Mirage (01:32:32) Eternights (01:33:16) Diablo IV (01:37:45) Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath - Vengance of the Slayer (01:42:31) Honkai: Star Rail (01:44:14) Vernal Edge (01:49:51) Pikmin 4 (01:53:15) Endless Dungeon (01:54:03) Merge & Blade (01:54:58) Lords of the Fallen (01:56:33) Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III (02:00:35) Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader (02:01:51) Hyper Gunsport (02:02:47) Chants of Sennaar (02:04:00) Jusant (02:04:30) Hitman: World of Assassination Freelancer Mode (02:04:48) Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo (02:05:02) Discuss this episode in the Insert Credit Forums A SMALL SELECTION OF THINGS REFERENCED: Dalek Craig Kurt Feldman Sonic Superstars Hi-Fi Rush Frank Cifaldi Magic Knight Rayearth Clamp Sailor Moon Slayers VA-11 HALL-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action Legend of Mana Moon: Remix RPG Adventure Pinocchio (2002) Pinocchio (2019) Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (2022) Pinocchio (1940) Dark Souls Bloodborne Annapurna Interactive Night in the Woods Blasphemous Elden Ring Resident Evil 4 Remake Metroid Prime Remastered - DF Tech Review Halo: Combat Evolved Star Ocean series Final Fantasy VII Suikoden Kingdom Hearts series Ryū ga Gotoku / Like a Dragon / Yakuza series Kabukichō Kamurochō Fire Emblem series N-Gage Shoto Todoroki Newton's cradle Famicom Wars series TearRing Saga series Persona series Valkyria Chronicles series Mario + Rabbids series Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars X-COM series J.K. Rowling Castlevania: Symphony of the Night Metal Gear Solid Star Wars: Jedi - Fallen Order Titanfall series Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Forspoken System Shock Quake Quake II Turok Dead Space Disney•Pixar Cars 2 WB Games | Avalanche Avalanche Studios AB Remnant: From the Ashes series Quantum Theory Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Warhammer: The End Times - Vermintide Wario Land series Void Stranger A tweet from the Wanted: Dead twitter account Pulp Fiction (1994) Earth Defense Force series Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker Final Fantasy XVI Devil May Cry 5 Ninja Gaiden Black The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa Jordan Peterson The Messenger Chrono Trigger Dragon Quest V Octopath Traveler Final Fantasy VI Anearth Fantasy Stories: The First Volume Linda³ Assassin's Creed series The Witcher series Metaphor: ReFantazio Diablo series Babylon's Fall Ralph Ineson Soul Calibur series TEKKEN 8 - “Story So Far” with Brian Cox Dusk Jeremy Renner Genshin Impact Granblue Fantasy: Relink Wonder Boy Monster World IV Velldeselba Senki: Tsubasa no Kunshō Guardian Heroes Skyblazer Starfield Pikmin series One of these Fextralife Iron Pineapple Free content plan Effortlessly metal Life Is Strange series The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective 428: Shibuya Scramble Zero Escape series Danganronpa series 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim World of Horror Recommendations: Brandon: Wishlist Demonschool on Steam Tim: Post in the Goblin Bunker insert credit thread every 2PM EST on Thursdays to possibly get mentioned on accident in the show This week's Insert Credit Show is brought to you by GLYDR now on Kickstarter, and patrons like you. Thank you. Subscribe: RSS, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and more!

Wir stürzen uns heute wieder in das Genre der Visual Novels und besprechen, das zu Unrecht in 2023 völlig untergegangene, Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo.Der Titel geizt nicht mit frische Ideen und bringt eine wundervolle Optik im 360° "Streetview" Look auf den Tisch, doch kann der Ausflug in das Tokyo der 80er Jahre mit all seinen Geistergeschichten auch Inhaltlich überzeugen?Dieser Frage gehen wir heute mit dem grandiosen Simon aka Der Tomaten Toaster auf den Grund welcher nicht nur experte für Visual Novels ist sondern bald auch seine eigene auf Steam veröffentlichen wird.Packt euch Simons Visual Novel ANAMNESIA auf Steam auf die Wishlist!Du willst mehr von den Jungs? Kein Problem! Unterstütze uns doch gern auf STEADY und sicher dir exklusive Podcasts, oder komm gerne auf unserem DISCORD vorbei!Hier gehts zum Merch Shop!Hier gehts zur Homepage!Benny auf Twitter!Benny auf Instagram!Benny auf Twitch!Bennys weitere Podcasts: The Space Behind The Screen, GAIN Insight!Björn auf Twitter!Björn auf YouTube!Björn auf Twitch!Ink Ribbon Radio auf Twitter!Ink Ribbon Radio auf Instagram!

BGMania B-Sides #2 of BGMania: A Video Game Music Podcast. Today on the show, Bedroth from RPGera dives into his favorite soundtrack to release in 2023 from Square Enix and Hidenori Iwasaki... Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo! Email the show at bgmaniapodcast@gmail.com with requests for upcoming episodes, questions, feedback, comments, concerns, or whatever you want! Special thanks to our Executive Producers: Jexak & Xancu. EPISODE PLAYLIST AND CREDITS Main Theme from Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo [Hidenori Iwasaki, 2023] The Storyteller from Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo [Hidenori Iwasaki, 2023] Seven Mysteries from Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo [Hidenori Iwasaki, 2023] Curse Echoes from Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo [Hidenori Iwasaki, 2023] Laid Back from Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo [Hidenori Iwasaki, 2023] Somber Sky from Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo [Hidenori Iwasaki, 2023] Mocking Bop from Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo [Hidenori Iwasaki, 2023] Psychic Girl from Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo [Hidenori Iwasaki, 2023] Downtown Dwellers from Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo [Hidenori Iwasaki, 2023] I'll be Close By from Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo [Hidenori Iwasaki, 2023] SUPPORT US Patreon: https://patreon.com/rpgera CONTACT US Website: https://rpgera.com Discord: https://discord.gg/cC73Heu Twitch: https://twitch.tv/therpgera Twitter: https://twitter.com/OriginalLDG Instagram: https://instagram.com/bryan.ldg/ Facebook: https://facebook.com/leveldowngaming RPGERA PODCAST NETWORK Very Good Music: A VGM Podcast The Movie Bar --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bgmania/message

Dear Listeners, have you ever struggled to see something out of the corner of your eye? Has a local legend ever stuck in your mind, not for its content but for its puzzling omissions? Have you looked behind your screen at the figure flitting away from the light? Never fear - many listeners have reported to us that they suffer from a lack of normasight, so today we're giving you twice what you need to make up for that deficit: A full Paranormasight episode!This month, Sara and Runa hunt through dark city streets and over the ghosts of ancient waterways while discussing Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo (2023). The game begins as many ghost stories do, with a pair of young adults wandering through the site of a local legend just before midnight. Ah, before that though, the game begins with a Storyteller helpfully introducing us to the concepts of Color Television and Telephone booths! An incredibly helpful moment, especially as the storyteller instructs us on how to use the options menu which, against your expectations, turns out to be an absolutely necessary step to continue the game's narrative. Back in this empty playground, a young working professional man, one Shogo, talks to his friend and perhaps budding crush Yoko about a strange ritual mentioned in a magazine recently - the Rite of Resurrection. Is there truly magic which could resurrect the dead? And if so, then why is Yoko so insistent upon searching through the sites of local ghost stories and discussing their origins? As it happens, these nine ghost stories (The Seven Mysteries subtitle is an intentional misnomer) hold the key to the forbidden spell to revive dead souls... and soon after midnight, Shogo becomes obsessed with obtaining this power, even if it means killing the others around the city in pursuit of it. Paranormasight combines some of our favorite visual novel tropes with some excellent character writing and solid aesthetic style to deliver a very competent and effective horror thriller, ghost story, and puzzle box narrative. We avoid major spoilers beyond a certain point in our episode, in order to preserve some of this mystery and to encourage our listeners to play as well, so don't worry if you haven't played the game just yet!At the time this episode comes out, we'll be just a couple days away from 2024!  Happy New Year, and thank you for supporting Say it in Red through these past twelve months. We've got a lot of exciting things in store for 2024, and you can find our schedule for upcoming releases up at patreon.com/sayitinred. As always, if you like the show please consider giving us a rating and writing a review on your podcast platform of choice, and thank you again for your support!Content Warnings for this episode include:Regular discussions of death by drowning, mentions of suicide, and some body horror.

It's time to decide our Game of the Year for 2023. Games discussed: Cocoon, Spider-Man 2, Super Mario Wonder, Viewfinder, Pikmin 4, Street Fighter 6, HiFi Rush, Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name, Baldur's Gate 3, Alan Wake 2, Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo, Jusant, Tchia, Cyberpunk 2077, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Armored Core 6, Exoprimal.   Contact tcgs.co Contact form Discord Twitter Instagram Facebook Follow @davidturners @CaptainToss @matmurray @jcafarley Watch Twitch YouTube Listen Spotify Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Pocket Casts Overcast acast Stitcher Credits Music by Nick Parton Art by Dave Chong

Kirk, Jason, and Maddy determine who won last week's award predictions before jumping into a jam-packed episode full of hot news and video games. They talk about The Game Awards, the GTA VI reveal, and the cancellation of E3, then talk about games like Avatar, Fortnite, and God of War Ragnarok's new Valhalla DLC, plus much more.One More Thing:Kirk: GPT4Maddy: Amsterdam (2022)Jason: Eiyuden ChroniclesLINKS:Featuring excerpts from “Love is a Long Road” by Tom Petty from Full Moon Fever, 1989, and the A Highland Song soundtrack, composed by Laurence ChapmanGames Discussed: Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo, A Highland Song, Lil' Gator Game, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, Fortnite (Lego Fortnite, Rocket Racing, Fortnite Festival/Main Stage), God of War Ragnarok: ValhallaJason's GTA VI article: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-27/gta-6-release-date-rockstar-cleans-up-image-after-employee-backlashSupport Triple Click: http://maximumfun.org/joinBuy Triple Click Merch: https://maxfunstore.com/search?q=triple+click&options%5Bprefix%5D=lastJoin the Triple Click Discord: http://discord.gg/tripleclickpodTriple Click Ethics Policy: https://maximumfun.org/triple-click-ethics-policy/

Con la llegada de noviembre repasamos lo que ha dado de sí la spooky season 2023. Hablamos de: En la boca del miedo, El Niño y la Garza, La Caída de la Casa Usher, Our Flag Means Death, La Cosa, Void Stranger, Slay the Princess, Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo, Solar Ash, Amnesia: The Bunker, The Quarry y Alan Wake 2. Suenan: LCD Soundsystem: 45:33 (Pt. 2) Kessler: Lunar

On this stacked episode of Frame Trap Brad, Blood, Damiani, and Huber are joined by special guest Dustin Furman of Last Stand Media. Games on the docket include Assassin's Creed Mirage, Lords of the Fallen, EA Sports WRC, and more! (00:00) - Opening (05:44) - Assassin's Creed Mirage (34:20) - Lords of the Fallen (53:06) - Lies of P (1:11:22) - EA Sports WRC (1:25:31) - Sort it Out! (1:40:06) - Keep it Up! (1:50:42) - Forza Motorsport (2:07:59) - Blasphemous 2 (2:18:34) - Paranormasight: The Seven Mysterious of Honjo (2:29:50) - Final Fantasy XIV Patch 6.5 (2:45:14) - Question 1 (2:52:34) - Question 2 (2:58:52) - Question 3 Thank you to these wonderful "Shout-Out!" tier patrons: Jabbawabs Elthanas Greg “TheDarkKnight” Kettering Miguel Special mention to our Everything Producer: Jabbawabs

This week on All N: a Nintendo podcast! ♠️

Tyler, Mox, Austin, and Aaron try not to fall victim to the curse of 2023's Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo!!

Randy hunts pixels in Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo, then wonders if he's too powerful of a gamer for New Super Lucky's Tale. Meanwhile, D.J. gives Fade to Black a second look after 30 years. Episode Timeline (0:00) - Intro/The World of Gaming! (18:10) - Fade to Black (36:29) - New Super Lucky's Tale (47:12) - Paranormasight (1:06:04) - Outro

Would you believe it; James is back, and all four hosts are on the show at the same time!    This week: all the news from Nintendo Indie World, and PlayStation doing more acquiring while PS5 continues to sell rather well. There's rumours about Hi-Rush's sales figures, and a potential “mystery sequel” that would take 10 years to make, and Nintendo is making an example out of Bowser. Also: Minecraft Legends, Advance Wars, PARANORMASIGHT, podcast transfers, rage quitting, things that should come back into fashion, and more! Games discussed: Minecraft Legends, Everspace 2, Boomerang Fu, Storyteller, Rocket League, PARANORMASIGHT: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo, Beyond a Steel Sky, Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp.   Contact tcgs.co Contact form Discord Twitter Instagram Facebook Follow @davidturners @CaptainToss @matmurray @jcafarley Watch Twitch YouTube Listen Spotify Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Pocket Casts Overcast acast Stitcher Credits Music by Nick Parton Art by Dave Chong

I avsnitt 130 bjuder vi på recensioner av två högaktuella filmer: nostalgifesten Tetris och senaste body horror/science fiction-mackan signerad Brandon Cronenberg. Vi diskuterar även spoilerkänslighet, apropå säsongsstarten av Succession.  På spelfronten radar Tommy upp två tidiga GOTY-kandidater i form av Lovecraft-influerade fiskespelet DREDGE och mysteriet PARANORMASIGHT: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo, medan Niklas ger sina avslutande tankar om Resident Evil 4-remaken.  0:32:15 Spelsegmentet 1:06:10 Filmsegmentet Spel som nämns: The Shore, Moonshine Inc., Resident Evil 3, Resident Evil 4, Dredge, PARANORMASIGHT: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo Serier som nämns: Succession Filmer som nämns: Tetris, Infinity Pool

David and Paige share their experience with Atelier Ryza 3 and the surprise release of a visual novel from Square Enix, Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo

En este episodio de Los Time Pilots… El martes nos levantamos temprano para ver los 10 minutos de gameplay de The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom dónde el mismísimo Eiji Aonuma mostró algunas de las nuevas dinámicas de gameplay del juego, además anunciaron un Switch OLED, un Pro Controller y un travel case edición especial.  Además, seguimos platicando del remake de Resident Evil 4, la beta de Diablo IV, Asher nos recomienda Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo y algunas noticias relevantes de GDC 2023. Por último, vimos John Wick 4: Baba Yaga y fuimos a la premiere de AIR: La historia detrás del logo. Apóyanos en Patreon: www.patreon.com/lostimepilots Únete a nuestro Discord: https://discord.gg/xgTz742 Visita La Pilot Shop: http://shop.lostimepilots.com/ Síguenos en: TWITTER https://twitter.com/lostimepilots INSTAGRAM https://www.instagram.com/lostimepilots/ FACEBOOK https://www.facebook.com/lostimepilots TIKTOK https://www.tiktok.com/@timepilots

This week we're joined by Iain Lee! While the news is light on action, there's a lively chat on new PS+ game Tchia, Iain's played a bunch of old Xbox games, and Mat has final thoughts on PARANORMASIGHT. Also: Xbox launching a mobile store, the Wii U and 3DS eShops closing, AI for NPCs, E3 rip (again), Sonic Origins Plus, and a Super Mario Bros. soap. Games discussed: Tchia, PARANORMASIGHT: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo, Halo Wars, Sea of Thieves, Civilization 6, Vampire Survivors.   Contact tcgs.co Contact form Discord Twitter Instagram Facebook Follow @davidturners @CaptainToss @matmurray @jcafarley Watch Twitch YouTube Listen Spotify Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Pocket Casts Overcast acast Stitcher Credits Music by Nick Parton Art by Dave Chong

المشاركين في الحلقة: – سعيد الشامسي – محمد البطاطي – محمد الشامسي   فقرات الحلقة: – PARANORMASIGHT: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo ! 00:27:50 – Axiom Verge 2 00:45:05 – Neon White  00:56:00 –  Q&A: 01:07:40

Quedan siete meses para la spooky season pero nada para el tren del terror en Mojoverso. Hablamos de: Resident Evil 4, Paranormasight: The Seven Misteries of Honjo, Broken Age, Prey, Fuga: Melodies of Steel, Exoprimal, Resident Evil 3, Shadow and Bone, John Wick 4, Indiana Jones, The Last of Us, Guilty Gear: Strive y The Host. Suenan: LCD Soundsystem: 45:33 (Pt. 2) Rina Sawayama: STFU!

Cette semaine, on commence par une déambulation assez terrifiante dans un quartier de Tokyo avec le «visual novel» Paranormasight : The Seven Mysteries of Honjo. Une histoire de malédiction et de fantôme qui réussit à glacer le sang grâce à une mise en scène originale. On continue avec Wo Long : Fallen Dynasties, du célèbre studio Team Ninja, et son système de combat impitoyable et parfois jouissif. Malheureusement, le premier contact peut être douloureux et la narration peine à captiver. On termine avec le jeu de rythme spin rhythm XD qui réussit à nous embarquer dans ses morceaux de musique électro grâce à ses mécaniques de jeu fascinantes.Jérémie Kletzkine, dans sa chronique jeux de société, fait un détour rétro et nous parle de Belfort.Chapitres :0:00 Intro4:53 Les news25:27 Le com des coms34:40 Paranormasight1:09:40 La chronique Jeux de société1:13:54 Wo Long1:44:45 La minute culturelle1:49:25 Spin Rhythm XD2:13:04 Et quand vous ne jouez pas, vous faites quoi ?Retrouvez toutes les chroniques de jérémie dans le podcast dédié Silence on Joue ! La chronique jeux de société (Lien RSS).Pour commenter cette émission, donner votre avis ou simplement discuter avec notre communauté, connectez-vous au serveur Discord de Silence on joue!Retrouvez Silence on Joue sur Twitch : https://www.twitch.tv/silenceonjoueSoutenez Silence on joue en vous abonnant à Libération avec notre offre spéciale à 5€ par mois : https://offre.liberation.fr/soj/Silence on joue ! c'est l'émission hebdo de jeux vidéo de Libération. Avec Erwan Cario et ses chroniqueurs Patrick Hellio et Corentin Benoit-Gonin.CRÉDITSSilence on joue ! est un podcast de Libération animé par Erwan Cario. Cet épisode a été enregistré le 23 mars 2023 sur Discord. Réalisation : Erwan Cario. Générique : Marc Quatrociocchi. Hébergé par Acast. Visitez acast.com/privacy pour plus d'informations.

Nuevo programa en el que charlamos sobre lo que nos ha parecido la Beta de Diablo IV, y luego os reseñamos una buena ristra de juegos: Figment 2: Creed Valley, Redemption Reapers, The Crown of Wu, Paranormasight: The Seven Mysterioes of Honjo, Tchia, Mato Anomalies, y Destiny 2 Eclipse. Esperamos que os mole. Recuerda apoyarnos en ivoox AQUÍ: https://www.ivoox.com/ajx-apoyar_i1_support_126134_1.html Escucha el episodio completo en la app de iVoox, o descubre todo el catálogo de iVoox Originals

Lavocado Nocą #73 Podcast o grach z sercem. Odcinek, w którym rozmawiamy o Alan Wake 2, Forspoken, zapowiedziach Level-5, Crash Team Rumble, Persona 5: Phantom X i Lego 2K Drive. W dziale recenzji Resident Evil 4 Remake, oraz Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo. Nagrywali Marcin "Sakora" Tomkowiak i Arkadiusz „Cascad” Ogończyk

This week: PARANORMASIGHT: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo, Exoprimal, Resident Evil 4 and more. Also: Destiny players paying tribute to Lance Reddick; Let Me Solo Her; is the Series X worth getting in 2023? Stopping long-term habits, games that deserve a deep dive, save scumming, and living in a world with no Nintendo. Games discussed: PARANORMASIGHT: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo, Walkabout Mini Golf, Exoprimal beta, Metroid Prime, Resident Evil 4 Demo, Animal Crossing New Horizons, PowerWash Sim.   Contact tcgs.co Contact form Discord Twitter Instagram Facebook Follow @davidturners @CaptainToss @matmurray @jcafarley Watch Twitch YouTube Listen Spotify Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Pocket Casts Overcast acast Stitcher Credits Music by Nick Parton Art by Dave Chong

¿Te gusta Reload? Apóyanos en Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/anaitreload) para acceder a contenidos exclusivos, recibir los episodios dos días antes y hacer posible que sigamos adelante

¿Te gusta Reload? Apóyanos en Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/anaitreload) para acceder a contenidos exclusivos, recibir los episodios dos días antes y hacer posible que sigamos adelante

¿Te gusta Reload? Apóyanos en Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/anaitreload) para acceder a contenidos exclusivos, recibir los episodios dos días antes y hacer posible que sigamos adelante

La PS5 Pro y la PS5 con lector de discos externo para antes de lo que se esperaba, o eso dice este filtrador habitual que siempre acierta y que nos genera esta vez buen debate y posibilidades, fechas, precios, mejoras... Además, analizamos Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon, junto al también cuco y artesano Figment 2: Creed Valley, o la que muchos están considerando una verdadera sorpresa en las visual novels, Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo. Por otra parte, también, repasamos la última hora e impresiones de Dead Island 2, la demo de Resident Evil 4, cuándo se venderán los mandos Sense de PlayStation VR2 por separado, y un nuevo concepto que empezamos a ver como patrón en demasiadas reviews y consideraciones: el Plus-Japón. Leemos comentarios, nos echamos unas risas, Jabote de vuelta regañando a Manu... En fin, esperamos que os guste el programa, lo paséis bien con nosotros, y, como siempre, ¡os leemos en comentarios de ivoox! 🎮 ¡Apoya Reconectados y participa en todos los sorteos! 🎮 ✅ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/reconectados 🖥 ¡Sigue nuestro canal de Twitch! 🖥 ✅ Suscríbete a Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/reconectados 💰 ¡Únete a nuestro grupo de Telegram de ofertas! 💰 ✅ Canal de ofertas: https://t.me/ofertasvideojuegosreco 🎙️ ¡Escucha Reconectados cada semana: Jueves 18:00! 🎙️ Ivoox: https://www.ivoox.com/podcast-reconectados-videojuegos_sq_f1467878_1.html Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0TzgUfUZppavUlKeRreIXL iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/es/podcast/reconectados-videojuegos/id1304330116 📱 ¡Síguenos en redes sociales! 📱 Twitter: @ReconectadosPod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ReconectadosPodcast/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reconectadospod/ Jabote: @Jabote22 Manu: @ManuGmn

The latest Mario Kart 8 Deluxe update reveals five new characters are coming to the game, and Patrick and Mark wonder if it's possible for Dr. Goomba Tower to be one of them? Plus, Mark stumps for Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo, Patrick finally gets his Animal Crossing island back, and more. The guys also talk about: Tetris 99 Metroid Fusion Fire Emblem Engage Pikmin Bloom Call of Duty LEGO Mario Ghost Trick Phantom Detective Super Mario Bros. Movie SUPPORT US ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/nintendocartridgesociety FRIEND US ON SWITCH Patrick: SW-1401-2882-4137 Mark: SW-8112-0583-0050

Vous savez quoi? Ben a eu l'occasion de prendre une machette en main et partir découper du zombie en avance dans Dead Island 2, et c'est une preview dégoulinante de sang et d'entrailles qu'on vous propose dans ce nouvel épisode de La Belle et le Gamer! On a également exploré la beta fermée de The Finals, le premier jeu d'Embark Studio, vétérans de Battlefield, et on peut vous dire que ça bouge pas mal! Et pour les amateurs de paranormal au calme, Aza vous présente Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo, un visual novel aussi flippant qu'inventif. L'actu n'est pas en reste, avec enfin une date de sortie pour Starfield, un report potentiel de Suicide Squad, et un nouveau Budokai Tenkaichi qui pointe le bout de son nez pour les amateurs de Dragon Ball Z. Bonne écoute! La Belle et le Gamer ne serait pas là sans le soutien de sa communauté sur Patreon, et pour vous aussi nous soutenir, ça se passe par ici. Pour retrouver la communauté de La Belle et le Gamer et nous soutenir, tous les liens utiles se trouvent à l'adresse suivante, y compris l'invitation pour rejoindre notre serveur Discord, et notre chaîne Twitch: https://linktr.ee/LBELG.   

Wo Long-Long, what's my name? Seeing as Coleman has been left to his own to talk about Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, we're having our good friend Ed on this show to gush even more over Like a Dragon: Ishin Time Stamps 00:00:00 Start 00:00:09 Intro 00:00:43 Second Intro 00:03:20 Like a Dragon: Ishin 00:16:24 Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty 00:29:18 Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo 00:33:34 Dead by Daylight movie in the works 00:34:39 Starfield delayed to September 00:37:21 Hogwarts Legacy delayed for last-gen consoles 00:40:34 Lince Works are closing down 00:42:29 New Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi game confirmed 00:45:08 Discord comes to PlayStation 5 00:48:53 Paradox Announcement Show 2023 00:51:24 Sony continues to argue against Microsoft/Activision 00:58:57 Check out our merch at TeePublic.com/stores/BRB 00:59:20 Tabletop Tuesday at Loading Stoke Newington 01:04:20 I HAVE A QUESTION… 01:09:11 Outro Thanks for listening to another episode of BRB UK. Here's where you can download this episode's MP3 and subscribe via Apple Podcasts, RSS, Spotify, YouTube or anywhere else that podcasts are available Please find us on Discord, Twitter, Facebook and BigRedBarrel.com

✩ Audio Version ✩ ► https://superderekrpgs.com/hitpoint/ SOCIAL LINKS --------------------------------------------------- ✩ Derek ✩ ►Twitter: https://twitter.com/SuperDerekRPGs ►Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/SuperDerekRPGs ►Discord: https://discord.me/superderek✩ Baku ✩ ►Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/BakusanJRPG ►Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/BakusanJRPG►Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/weebsauce ►Discord: https://discord.me/ABCUPCOMING RELEASES --------------------------------------------------- ►Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse Remaster 03/09/2023https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8K_4hgSHqI ►Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo 03/09/2023https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZLDg5n0vT4 ►Mato Anomalies 03/10/2023https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RyJ_uRCqLw GAME ANNOUNCEMENTS --------------------------------------------------- ►Trinity Trigger 04/25/2023https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLscJJo1gCE►Vernal Edge 03/14/2023https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIHVGxdLXjE ►AKIBA'S TRIP: Undead & Undressed Director's Cut Summer 2023https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBmeD1LnDXU ►Crymachina Fall 2023https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeUqt9RE0CM EXTERNAL LINKS --------------------------------------------------- ►Diofield Chronicle March Updatehttps://twitter.com/DiofieldGame/status/1630243883815690241 ►Pokemon Scarlet and Violet: Treasure of Area Zero DLChttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiYSuUoI-dY ►Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtreehttps://twitter.com/ELDENRING/status/1630478058103734274 ►Square Enix: Notification of Changes in the Representative Director ofthe Companyhttps://www.hd.square-enix.com/eng/news/pdf/web_Notification%20of%20Changes%20in%20the%20Representative%20Director%20of%20the%20Company%20and%20a%20Consolidated%20Subsidiary.pdf ►Skill Up's interview with Naoki Yoshidahttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZTNoV2Iey0 ►Gamer's interview with Yoshihiro Kondo https://www.gamer.ne.jp/news/202303040001/ ►Capcom Spotlight 03/09/2023https://twitter.com/CapcomUSA_/status/1631464405971144705 ►Persona 5 Royal cat and dog accessories on Pawsonifyhttps://www.pawsonify.com/collections/persona-5-royal ►Legend of Mana -The Teardrop Crystal- Serafina Pop Up Parade figurehttps://www.goodsmileus.com/product/pop-up-parade-seraphina-10237 ►Legend of Mana -The Teardrop Crystal- Shiloh Pop Up Parade figurehttps://www.goodsmileus.com/product/pop-up-parade-shiloh-10238 TIMESTAMPS--------------------------------------------------- Welcome Back to Hit Point! 0:00:00 Welcome Back to Hit Point! 0:01:14 Intro 0:02:36 Baku what where you up to? 0:04:54 Derek what where you up to? Last Week's Comments: 0:08:56 Comment 1: Starting with the worst game in a series doesn't make sense... 0:11:39 Comment 2: Just got email from Playasia saying pixel remaster not getting ps4 physical release 0:14:05 Comment 3: “Legend of Super Derek: Trails through March” 0:15:45 Voice Mail: Have you ever tried to play a game on a schedule? Updates & DLC Round-Up 0:22:17 The DioField Chronicle Free DLC 0:23:59 Pokemon Scarlet/Violet Expension 0:26:43 Elden Ring Expension Upcoming Releases This Week 0:28:22 Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse 0:33:48 Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries Of Honjo 0:37:58 Mato Anomalies New Game Announced: 0:42:06 Trinity Trigger 0:47:16 Vernal Edge 0:52:39 AKIBA'S TRIP: Undead ＆ Undressed 0:56:42 CRYMACHINAIndustry News: 1:00:26 Luminous Productions will merge wholly into Square Enix Corporation 1:08:26 JRPG 1:36:32 Square Enix president Yosuke Matsuda to be replaced (pending) 1:44:48 Falcom President about Ys V 1:49:53 SEGA Spotlight Merch News: 2:02:28 Persona 5 Pet Merch 2:06:02 Legend of Mana PoP Up Parde FigureResponding to Super Chats & Outro 2:13:06 Super Chat 1: I appreciated that intro a lot. 2:13:56 Super Chat 2: Is game x a JRPG or western RPG 2:19:41 Super Chat 3: Chrono Break when? 2:23:11 Super Chat 4: Brain replacement fund initiated 2:23:25 Super Chat 5: Bakus Tissue fund 2:23:43 Super Chat 6: Square Enix doesn't want the FF franchise to held for the strict fan expectation 2:26:25 Super Chat 7: I would you both a copy if Capcom pulls that out of there hat. 2:29:23 Super Chat 8: Gradia got the HD treatment but why not Breat of Fire 2:32:55 Super Chat 9: Do it! Blue hair is the best! 1:50:21 Outro

¡Hola, cafeteros! Los compañeros Guille y Dani repasan las novedades del mes de marzo y los indies que han estado presentes en el Nintendo Direct. Sección de juegos digitales: - Meg's Monster (2/3) - Pronty (7/3) - ONI: Road to be the Mightiest oni (9/3) - Ib: Remake (9/3) - PARANORMASIGHT: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo (9/3) - Remnant: From the Ashes (21/3) - Have a Nice Death (22/3) - Rakuen (23/3) - Mr. Saitou (23/3) - Storyteller (23/3) Sección de juegos físicos: - The Procession to Calvary (3/3) - Front Mission 1st (30/1) - Ankora Lost Days & Deiland Pocket Planet (31/3) - Labyrinth Of Zangetsu (31/3) - Loop8: Summer of Gods (31/3) - Vathirian Arc: Hero School Story 2 (31/3) Sección de noticias: - ONI: Road to be the Mightiest Oni llega en físico el 24 de abril por parte de Meridiem Games - Unsouled llega en físico el 26 de mayo por parte de Selecta Play - Moonscars llega en físico el 26 de mayo por parte de Meridiem Games - Anunciada la campaña Kickstarter de Sword of the Necromancer: Resurrection 🤝 APÓYANOS por lo que cuesta un café en https://uncafeconnintendo.wordpress.com/apoyanos/ 🗣 Para estar informado del programa síguenos en nuestra cuenta de Twitter @cafeconnintendo 👥 Únete también a nuestra comunidad en Telegram https://t.me/uncafeconnintendo

Extracorporeal Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (ECPR) with Dr. Lakshmi RamanObjectives:By the end of listening to this episode, learners should be able to:Define ECPR.Understand the rationale for ECPR in cardiopulmonary arrest in children.Recognize aspects of high-quality ECPR.Understand the patient selection, context and setting that is most appropriate for pediatric ECPR.Recognize when it is appropriate to activate the ECPR team after pediatric cardiac arrest.Understand the rationale of choosing the location of cannulation (i.e., peripheral vs. central).About our guest: Dr. Lakshmi Raman is a Professor of Pediatrics at UT Southwestern and a pediatric intensivist at Children's Medical Center Dallas. She serves as the Medical Director of the Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) program at CMC. She is active in ELSO and serves as the Chair of Publications. She also co-authored the 2021 ELSO Pediatric ECPR guidelines.References:Guerguerian, Anne-Marie; Sano, Minako; Todd, Mark; Honjo, Osami; Alexander, Peta; Raman, Lakshmi. Pediatric Extracorporeal Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation ELSO Guidelines. ASAIO Journal: March 2021 - Volume 67 - Issue 3 - p 229-237doi: 10.1097/MAT.0000000000001345 How to support PedsCrit:Please rate and review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!Donations are appreciated @PedsCrit on Venmo , you can also support us by becoming a patron on Patreon. 100% of funds go to supporting the show.Thank you for listening to this episode of PedsCrit. Please remember that all content during this episode is intended for educational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be used as medical advice. The views expressed during this episode by hosts and our guests are their own and do not reflect the official position of their institutions. If you have any comments, suggestions, or feedback-you can email us at pedscritpodcast@gmail.com. Check out http://www.pedscrit.com for detailed show notes. And visit @critpeds on twitter and @pedscrit on instagram for real time show updates.Support the show

This is Yoshio Honjo's second time to be the finalist in the Archibald prize. This time, he depicted Yumi Stynes who shares the same Japanese heritage, as a female samurai.  - オーストラリアで最も権威ある肖像画のコンクール、アーチボルド賞で、2度目となるファイナリスト入りを果たした本庄義男さん。被写体となったのはオーストラリアで活躍するパーソナリティー、日系オーストラリア人2世のユミ・スタインさんです。　

En este primer episodio charlaremos con el doctor Delvys Rodríguez Abreu, Jefe del Servicio de Oncología del Hospital Insular de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. El Dr. Delvys Rodríguez nos contará su participación en numerosos ensayos clínicos con nuevas terapias del cáncer que le han hecho adquirir una gran reputación a nivel internacional, publicando en revistas tan prestigiosas como el “New England Journal of Medicina” o “Lancet”. Hablaremos de sus inicios, de su infancia en Cuba, sus estudios de Medicina y su formación y pasión por la Oncologia. Adentrándonos en el ámbito médico, nos hablará acerca de los avances importantes que han tenido lugar en los últimos años en el tratamiento del cáncer, tales como las terapias dirigidas y la inmunoterapia. Esta Charla nos muestra a un profesional brillante, pero a la vez humilde y enormemente comprometido con la investigación y el estudio de la oncología en beneficio de sus pacientes. El Dr. Delvys Rodríguez nos transmite, de manera muy cercana, algunas de sus experiencias y enseñanzas aprendidas respecto al trato con pacientes con cáncer, lo cual le ha servido para mejorar a nivel profesional y personal. 1:22. Infancia en San Juan de Las Lleras, Cuba, y el despertar de mi interés por la Medicina y la Oncologia 8:50. Estudios médicos en Santa Clara, La Habana, Instituto de Oncología de la Habana 9:55 Ampliación de estudios en Bellinzona, Suiza; Franco Cavalli 15:20 Instituto Catalán de Oncología, Rosell; Servicio de Oncología del Hospital Insular de Gran Canaria, Adolfo Murias. 18:30 Oncología y definición del cáncer 23:10 Avances en los tratamientos del cáncer: secuenciación genética y terapias dirigidas 29:10 La revolución de la inmunoterapia en el cáncer: CTLA-4, PD1, Allison, Honjo, Rosenberg 35:55 Ensayos clínicos. Melanoma y cáncer de pulmón. 41:00 Historia del paciente de La Palma 44:15 Biopsia liquida, screening, diagnostico y chequeo preventivo de cáncer 52:10. CAR-T / anticuerpos conjugados 56:10 Experiencias personales de trabajar con enfermos con cáncer. 1:00:30 Curación espontanea de melanoma metastasico en paciente en Cuba 1:02:50 La muerte cercana e inevitable. “Tenía que haber dedicado mas tiempo a mí y menos al trabajo” 1:06:47 Mi libro preferido, un país para visitar y persona que me gustaría conocer

Koumare Ishi is one of the nanafushigi or seven mysterious occurrences from my area. The belief is that a rock is born from the side of the mountain, and when it falls the head abbot of the nearby temple, Daitoku, dies. It's been going on for hundreds of years, and even today there is a perfectly round stone poking halfway from the mountain. Below are some of the past koumare ishi. They are used as the gravestones for past head abbots at the temple. Below is a photo of the river today. You can see the next koumare ishi poking out from the side of the cliff. You can also find me on: Twitter: https://twitter.com/UncannyJapan Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/uncannyjapan/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thersamatsuura Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/uncannyjapan/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqAtoUS51HDi2d96_aLv95w Website: https://www.uncannyjapan.com/ Notes: Intro/Outro by Julyan Ray Matsuura. Here and here. And here. Transcript: Nanafushigi: Seven Strange Occurrences Nana fushigi （七不思議）. It could be translated as Seven Mysterious Things or Seven Strange Occurrences. Remember I introduced the Nanafushigi of Honjo back in episode 35? One of the seven was about a giant hairy foot stomping through a roof and demanding to be washed. Then in episode 36 I talked about there were Seven Weird Happenings in my area, too, Enshu no Nanafushigi. And I introduced the Yonaki Ishi, the Rock That Cries at Night. If you haven’t listened to those, no worries, you can listen to this one first, then go back and check those two out. All the nanafushigi episodes are stand alone. So you won’t be lost. Well, in today’s show we’re going to learn about the second weird happening in my prefecture, in a small town called Makinohara. Koumareishi （子生まれ石）. I’m having trouble translating this. You kind of need to hear the story to understand what it means. For now just know that ko （子）means child. Umare （生まれ）means to be born. And ishi （石）is rock. So stay tuned after the intro to hear this really freaky occurrence that’s been going on for hundreds of years. Intro: Koumare Ishi: The Child-Birthing Rock Let me set the scene, the very moment that the mysterious koumareishi/child-birthing rock nanafushigi was (pun intended) born. Roughly 200 years ago at the Daitoku Temple, the head abbot or oshou （和尚）, was on his deathbed surrounded by his followers and devoted townspeople. With his last words, he made a prediction: It went something like this. “When I die, a stone will be born from the cliff that runs alongside the river behind the temple. After the stone falls, fetch it, and treat it as you would me. The oshou then passed away peacefully. After his death, his followers trekked out behind the temple and scoured the banks of the river until, lo and behold, they found it. There sitting in the shallow river was a perfectly smooth roundish stone. And it was a big one, too, weighing 75 kilos or 165 pounds. So the monks tied back their sleeves and hauled it the 800 kilometers, about half a mile, back to the temple, where they decided to use it for a gravestone. And, of course, they treated it kindly and as respectfully as they would have their dear deceased oshou himself. There’s more. From that day onward, every time the temple’s head abbott dies, one of these strange stones is born (air quotes) from the side of the mountain. It then falls into the river where it’s collected by the monks. To date there are 28 stones, all gathered the Daitoku Temple where they act as headstones for all the past head abbots. Now a little about the shape of the rocks. Some places I read that they are perfectly round while in others it was written that they were eyebrow shaped, or gourd-shaped. Which are two different things entirely. I wanted to make a trip to the temple and river anyway to get this cool binaural background sound for you and take some photos and videos for my patrons, but I also wanted to get to the bottom of exactly what shape these strange stones are. Are the perfect spheres? Or are they gourd-shaped. So I did that and can tell you the short answer is both. The long answer is, all the rocks at the temple, the ones that are being used as gravestones are gourd or better peanut-shaped. While when you go to the actual river kind of littered around the area are these round stones. The one that is currently being born from the side of the mountain looks to be round, too. But that’s hard to judge, because of the angle. Because if you look at a gourd or peanut head on, it looks round. Anyway, like I said, there are 28 rocks at the moment and they’re all slightly different in size and shape. I’ll put a photo up on the Uncanny Japan website if you want to see exactly what they look like. But something interesting about their sizes. The belief is that if the oshou was strong and wise and well respected the mountain gave birth to a great big stone. If, on the other hand, the head monk was weak and not well like, the rock is smallish. So these things don’t just pop out overnight. It takes awhile for them to appear and slowly make there way out of the mountain to plop into the water. When the people in town see the beginning of a rock being formed they know that the current oshou is approaching the end of his life. So I wonder how the abbot feels about that. Maybe he doesn’t want to go just yet. Story 1: Well, that exact thing happened. Many, many years ago, one of the abbots saw that a new rock was being born and thought to himself not so fast. He snuck over and pulled the stone from the earth, carried it to a faraway mountain, and threw it away. There problem solved. Not so fast. The next day when he went to look, the rock had returned to its original place. He died when the mountain decided it was time. Let me share another story that quite disturbs me. Story 2: Many, many years ago, there was an oshou who suddenly fell ill. He was around fifty years old, much too young to die. However, he had a very serious disease and grew so sick that he could go any day. All the townspeople and all his followers came to sit around his bedside and pray and wish for his recovery. He was an extremely popular and well loved monk. It was during one of these sessions that the youngest monk got the idea. Ha! If I run down to the riverside I can see if a rock is being born. That will let us know how close our beloved oshou is to dying. So the young man hurried over and found that indeed there was a stone on the verge of falling from the mountain side. Oh, no! He raced back to the temple to tell what he found.. “Dear Osho!” He said. “I went down to the river to look and I found that there is a stone just about to be born.” The very sick osho opened his eyes and smiled at the young monk. “Is that so? Well, how about I give it to you?” “Eh?!” the young monk said and made a strange face. After that, day by day, the oshou got better and better. Until he was strong, ruddy, and full of life again. However, at the same time, the young monk began to feel sick. He got progressively worse and it wasn’t long before he was bedridden himself. He got progressively worse until he was the one who was bedridden. In two month’s time, the oshou was reading the sutras for the young monk at his funeral. At that exact moment a rock he had seen with his own eyes earlier plummeted to the earth, splashing in the river. It was a small one though. Because the young monk was so young and unlearned, not yet wise, his rock, or his gravestone actually, reflected that. Visiting Daitoku Temple and Koumare Ishi River: So that is another of the my prefectures nanafushigi. I mentioned I made a trip to both the river and the temple. At the river I took photos of the newest stone making its way from the side of the mountain. Strolled around for a while. Then we made our way to the temple, saw the gravestones, and I remembered I needed to get an omamori, or amulet, for a friend, so I found the side building of the temple that sold them and while I was talking to the woman who sold them, this old monk, I don’t know, late 70s, early 80s, comes tottering down the hall. He’s really adorable, wearing a mask, has a neat cane. And he’s really excited to see me asking where I was from and that he really liked my camera. We talked for a bit while he was putting on his shoes to go somewhere. It wasn’t until I got home that I put two and two together. That stone I saw at the river was his stone. And it was like more than halfway poking out. And oshou I met was such an incredibly kind and gregarious guy. I’m guessing the woman who sold me the amulet was his daughter or daughter-in-law, and as I was leaving her son came out, so I kind of met the oshou’s grandson, too. It’s just a rock and a legend, but I got a weird sad feeling inside when I made that realization. But like I said it’s only half way out now and it could have taken fifteen, twenty years to get that far. So, Okay, that’s all for today, nanafushigi, seven mysterious occurrences or something like that. Please go back and listen to episodes 35 and 36 if you want to hear other nanafushigi and if you would like to see some photos of the river where the current stone is sticking out and the gravestones of past head monks they’re up on the Uncanny Japan site. Thank you so much for hanging out with me today, everyone stay safe and I’ll talk to you again in two weeks.

This week Sensei Jay joins us to dig into the mystery of when and how the most famous blade by the most famous blade maker came up missing. We had fun. If you like this episode let us know on twitter, facebook or even our web page.

50 kids in Canada are waitlisted for a new heart each year. Of those, 30-35 will get one, while others must keep waiting, some for years. But SickKids surgeon Dr. Osami Honjo thinks he has a solution. A way to expand the donor pool by keeping hearts beating outside the body. He calls it the Heart in a Box.

Esta noche en Crónicas de San Borondón cerramos 2019 hablando del linaje de sanadores de Los Quintana, en Gran Canaria, con Juan Carlos Saavedra . Iremos en busca de las espadas sagradas de Japón con David Heylen y de los secretos megalíticos de Irlanda junto a Gustavo Sánchez. Además, con Alirio Segovia Silva conocerás las claves astrológicas del 2020.

Show notes: In the show, The BioBusters professors, Dr. A and Dr. C, discuss the science behind the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The BioBusters Docs discuss checkpoint control in immune responses, as well as activating and inhibitory receptors on T cells. The Docs discuss the various FDA approved checkpoint inhibitor drugs and the cancers they treat. Keep the discussion and comments going on the iTunes review section, or feel free to e-mail the podcast with future show ideas and thoughts on the current show. Music by Bahaa Naamani Email us at thebiobusters@gmail.com   References: Freeman, G.J., Long, A.J., Iwai, Y., Bourque, K., Chernova, T., Nishimura, H., Fitz, L.J., Malenkovich, N., Okazaki, T., Byrne, M.C., Horton, H.F., Fouser, L., Carter, L., Ling, V., Bowman, M.R., Carreno, B.M., Collins, M., Wood, C.R. & Honjo, T. (2000). Engagement of the PD-1 immunoinhibitory receptor by a novel B7 family member leads to negative regulation of lymphocyte activation. J Exp Med, 192(7), 1027–1034. Hodi, F.S., Mihm, M.C., Soiffer, R.J., Haluska, F.G., Butler, M., Seiden, M.V., Davis, T., Henry-Spires, R., MacRae, S., Willman, A., Padera, R., Jaklitsch, M.T., Shankar, S., Chen, T.C., Korman, A., Allison, J.P. & Dranoff, G. (2003). Biologic activity of cytotoxic T lymphocyte-associated antigen 4 antibody blockade in previously vaccinated metastatic melanoma and ovarian carcinoma patients. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 100(8), 4712-4717 https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2018/press-release/ https://blog.dana-farber.org/insight/2015/09/what-is-a-checkpoint-inhibitor/ https://www.cancer.org/treatment/treatments-and-side-effects/treatment-types/immunotherapy/immune-checkpoint-inhibitors.html https://www.science.org.au/curious/people-medicine/releasing-immune-systems-brakes-fight-cancer https://www.wired.com/story/cancer-immunotherapy-has-arrived-but-not-for-everyone/ https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181009102517.htm

The Immune team explains the science behind the 2018 Nobel Prizes awarded to Allison and Honjo: checkpoint immunotherapy. Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Stephanie Langel, and Cynthia Leifer Subscribe (free): iTunes, Google Podcasts. RSS, email Become a patron of Immune! Links for this episode 2018 Nobel Prize in Medicine 2018 Nobel Prize in Medicine (pdf) What's in a name?(Can Res Inst) Checkpoint inhibitor failures(Nature) Image credit Time stamps by Jolene. Thanks! Weekly Science Picks Steph- Immunobites Cindy- List of immunology Nobels Vincent- Prof. Barker's Immunology lectures Music by Steve Neal. Immune logo image by Blausen Medical. Send your immunology questions and comments to immune@microbe.tv

Amaia Lujambio é investigadora da Icahn School of Medicine do Hospital Monte Sinai de Nova Iorque e especialista en cancro de fígado. Con ela debullamos o Nobel de medicina 2018 a Allison e Honjo polos seus traballos na inmunoterapia do cancro.

Iniciamos tempada desde o "Open Science Cambre" onde coñecemos que é o biohacking con Cristina Hernández do BIFI de Zaragoza. Tamén conversamos con José Viñas (profesor do IES David Buján de Cambre), Hugo (director da "Open Science Cambre"), María Luque (participante na feira, instituto Kursaal de Algeciras) e Cristina Pavisic (Instituto de Instrución Superior Galileo Galilei de Jesi-Italia). Amaia Lujambio é investigadora do Hospital Monte Sinai de Nova Iorque e especialista en cancro de fígado. Con ela debullamos o nobel de medicina 2018 a Allison e Honjo polos seus traballos na inmunoterapia do cancro. Coñecemos o encontro da AMIT (Asociación de Mujeres Investigadoras y Tecnólogas) da man de Joana Magalhaes e Ana Jesús López (presidenta de AMIT-Galicia). Co noso estreleiro Martin Pawley presentamos a VI Edición da Noite Eferevescente que habemos celebrar en Guitiriz.

Amaia Lujambio é investigadora da Icahn School of Medicine do Hospital Monte Sinai de Nova Iorque e especialista en cancro de fígado. Con ela debullamos o Nobel de medicina 2018 a Allison e Honjo polos seus traballos na inmunoterapia do cancro.

Iniciamos tempada desde o "Open Science Cambre" onde coñecemos que é o biohacking con Cristina Hernández do BIFI de Zaragoza. Tamén conversamos con José Viñas (profesor do IES David Buján de Cambre), Hugo (director da "Open Science Cambre"), María Luque (participante na feira, instituto Kursaal de Algeciras) e Cristina Pavisic (Instituto de Instrución Superior Galileo Galilei de Jesi-Italia). Amaia Lujambio é investigadora do Hospital Monte Sinai de Nova Iorque e especialista en cancro de fígado. Con ela debullamos o nobel de medicina 2018 a Allison e Honjo polos seus traballos na inmunoterapia do cancro. Coñecemos o encontro da AMIT (Asociación de Mujeres Investigadoras y Tecnólogas) da man de Joana Magalhaes e Ana Jesús López (presidenta de AMIT-Galicia). Co noso estreleiro Martin Pawley presentamos a VI Edición da Noite Eferevescente que habemos celebrar en Guitiriz.

“The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institute has today decided to award the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, jointly to James P. Allison and Tasuku Honjo for their discovery of cancer therapy by inhibition of negative immune regulation.”Thomas Perlmann, secretary of the Nobel Assembly shortly after 5:30 this morning Eastern time.“James P. Allison was born in Alice, in Texas, in the United States. He performed his prize-winning studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. He is now active at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Tasuku Honjo was born in Kyoto, in Japan. He performed his prize-winning studies at Kyoto University, where he is still active.”Karolinska Institute immunologist Klas Kärre, a member of the Nobel Committee, explained the significance of the work of the new Nobel laureates:“Allison's and Honjo's discoveries have added a new pillar in cancer therapy. It represents a completely new principle, because unlike the previous strategies it is not based on targeting the cancer cells, but rather the brakes, the checkpoints, of the host immune system. The seminal discoveries by the two laureates constitute a paradigmatic shift and a landmark in the fight against cancer.”For an in-depth listen about the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, look for the Scientific American Science Talk podcast later today.—Steve Mirsky[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]

Descarga este episodio QUÉ HACER SI TU CUENTA DE FACEBOOK SE VIO AFECTADA. Si tuviste que logearte de Nuevo en tu cuenta de Facebook, puede que estés entre los más de 50 millones de usuarios que sufrieron otro hackeo a la red social. Los usuarios a los que Facbook cerró su sesión en sus cuentas pueden volver a iniciar con sus contraseñas habituales pero Facebook sugiere que cierre la sesión de su cuenta, como un paso "de precaución". Los expertos dicen que es una buena idea restablecer todas sus contraseñas para las aplicaciones que estaban vinculadas al inicio de sesión de Facebook de todos modos. EXPANSION EN LA HAYA LE DAN LA DERECHA A CHILE. La Corte Internacional de Justicia (CIJ), con sede en La Haya, ha fallado este lunes a favor de Chile en la demanda interpuesta por Bolivia en busca de lograr una salida al mar. El presidente del tribunal, el somalí Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf, ha anunciado que Santiago no tiene la obligación de negociar con La Paz un acceso soberano al océano Pacífico. Los jueces, por 12 votos a favor y 3 en contra, han fallado que Santiago “no está jurídicamente obligado a hacerlo, porque ninguno de los acuerdos o tratados firmados por ambos países a lo largo de los años así lo indica; tampoco lo indican otras resoluciones internacionales”, según ha dicho Yusuf. Bolivia y Paraguay son los únicos países de América Latina sin salida al mar. EL PAIS NAFTA AHORA ES USMCA. Estados Unidos, Canadá y México llegaron a un acuerdo de último minuto sobre un acuerdo comercial revisado que podría remplazar el NAFTA por sus siglas en inglés y ahora pasa a llamarse USMCA. El presidente Donald Trump y sus contrapartes de México y Canadá esperan firmar el acuerdo a finales de noviembre. EL ECONOMISTA | CNN GANA LA LUCHA CONTRA EL CÁNCER. La Asamblea Nobel del Instituto Karolinska de Estocolmo ha distinguido con el Premio Nobel de Medicina a los investigadores James P. Allison y Tasuku Honjo. El galardón se debe a sus investigaciones sobre la inmunoterapia contra el cáncer. En concreto, Allison (1948) -de nacionalidad estadounidense- y Honjo (1942) -japonés- descubrieron cómo 'liberar' dos frenos del sistema inmunitario que, en la práctica, servían de ayuda para la expansión del cáncer. EL MUNDO CUOTA DE MUJERES EN EL DIRECTORIO California se convirtió en el primer estado de los EE. UU. En exigir a las empresas que incluyan mujeres en sus juntas directivas después de que el gobernador del estado firmara un proyecto de ley. La medida requiere al menos una directora en la junta de cada corporación pública con sede en California a fines del próximo año. La multa por incumplir esta ley puede llegar a los 100,000 USD. TELEGRAPH SIGUE SUSPENDIDO Paolo Guerrero seguirá suspendido hasta el 2019. El Tribunal Federal Suizo negó el recurso que presentó el jugador de la selección peruana que pretendía suspender provisionalmente la sanción de 14 meses impuesta por el TAS, informó Associated Press. El capitán de la selección peruana, de seguir la sanción, no solo no podrá debutar con su nuevo equipo hasta abril próximo, sino que tampoco tiene el permiso para entrenar con sus compañeros en el Centro de Treinamentos do Parque Gigante, explica el medio brasileño "Globo". FUTBOL PERUANO NETFLIX NOS PERMITIRÁ ELEGIR EL FINAL DE LAS HISTORIAS. Netflix quiere que estos finales interactivos, donde buena parte recaerá en las decisiones del espectador, se trasladen de manera efectiva a su plataforma de contenido en streaming. Según informa Bloomberg, la plataforma de contenido en streaming planea ampliar la experiencia a más títulos, que llegarán antes de que finalice el año. Entre las series que llegarán antes de final de año con este tipo de desenlaces se encuentra la popular Black Mirror, cuya quinta temporada llegará el próximo mes de diciembre y que se presenta, por su temática, como ideal para experimentar con el proyecto. FAYER WAYER LESLIE GRACE, LA NUEVA BOMBA DE LA MÚSICA URBANA. "Duro y Suave" la rompió y sonó en todos lados. Leslie Grace ahora presenta "Díganle", con Becky G y CNCO. El tema es una nueva versión en la que los chicos se suman a las dos cantantes para llevar la canción a otro nivel. El remix pasó los 82 millones de reproducciones en poco más de un mes. YOUTUBE Facebook Google+ Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp

“The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institute has today decided to award the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, jointly to James P. Allison and Tasuku Honjo for their discovery of cancer therapy by inhibition of negative immune regulation.”Thomas Perlmann, secretary of the Nobel Assembly shortly after 5:30 this morning Eastern time.“James P. Allison was born in Alice, in Texas, in the United States. He performed his prize-winning studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. He is now active at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Tasuku Honjo was born in Kyoto, in Japan. He performed his prize-winning studies at Kyoto University, where he is still active.”Karolinska Institute immunologist Klas Kärre, a member of the Nobel Committee, explained the significance of the work of the new Nobel laureates:“Allison's and Honjo's discoveries have added a new pillar in cancer therapy. It represents a completely new principle, because unlike the previous strategies it is not based on targeting the cancer cells, but rather the brakes, the checkpoints, of the host immune system. The seminal discoveries by the two laureates constitute a paradigmatic shift and a landmark in the fight against cancer.”For an in-depth listen about the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, look for the Scientific American Science Talk podcast later today.—Steve Mirsky[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]

Support our show 参观 IVF 实验室的经历和「生孩子」这件事的文献综述/调研报告，科学家用科学武装自己。 Outline IVF Lab Retrieval ICSI, intracytoplasmic sperm injection Assistant Hatch Vitrification TESE, testicular sperm extraction 纺垂体的形状影响卵子质量[1] Biological/Foster/Lab Parents 都伟大 生孩子可能一个时间分配的问题 百岁人生 女性最佳生育年龄 中文搜出来是 23-30 岁 英文搜出来是 20-35 岁 技术 检测卵子质量 生殖细胞再生技术 冷冻卵子 目前结论：胚胎成活率跟卵子质量相关性较强[2] 缓解手段 生产阶段：be treated like a person 回家阶段：心理干预、示弱、改变 Links In vitro fertilization (IVF) 百岁人生 What’s the best age to have a baby Pregnancy at 20 30 40 花田FM 声东击西 Byte Coffee References H. Tomari, K. Honjo, K. Kunitake, N. Aramaki, S. Kuhara, N. Hidaka, K. Nishimura, Y. Nagata, and T. Horiuchi, “Meiotic spindle size is a strong indicator of human oocyte quality,” Reproductive Medicine and Biology 17, 268-274 (2018). L. Z. Yanez, J. Han, B. B. Behr, R. A. R. Pera, and D. B. Camarillo, “Human oocyte developmental potential is predicted by mechanical properties within hours after fertilization,” Nature Communications 7(2016). Host MilkShake羊 Sound Editor Kalaokay Contact 网站：http://Byte.Coffee/ 邮箱：hi@Byte.Coffee 新浪微博/Twitter/Instagram：@ByteCoffee Slack 听众群 Support Byte.Coffee

Ito En sells over $4 Billion USD of tea annually in Japan. In North America Ito En hits $300 million. In this classic international brand building story, Yosuke Honjo, CEO and President of Ito En North America, describes how his company pushed by a shrinking population and growing competition domestically, “Must go out from Japan and find a new market internationally.” His plan includes continually fighting a dual battle with the beverage Goliaths, Coca-Cola and Pepsi. He not only must carve out space with retailers for his tea, but also respond to merger questions from these competitors, “We always say no”. Then beyond building a market, sits the major complexity of selling FDA regulated food products - that are made in Japan, China and Taiwan - into the US. Yosuke Honjo is a graduate of the USC IBEAR MBA program. Interview by Dick Drobnick, Director of the USC IBEAR MBA Program.

Ainu: The Indigenous People of Northern Japan Atsushi Honjo, FRC Grand Master of the Japanese Grand Lodge In this podcast, which is a reading of his presentation at the AMORC World Convention in San Jose, Grand Master Atsushi Honjo introduces us to the Ainu worldview, with its striking relationship to the environment, to the Divine, and to all creatures. Running Time: 24:56 | 59.9 MB Podcast Copyright © 2016 Rosicrucian Order, AMORC. All Rights Reserved. Posted by Rosicrucian Park @ 03/07/2016

Ainu: The Indigenous People of Northern Japan Atsushi Honjo, FRC Grand Master of the Japanese Grand Lodge In this podcast, which is a reading of his presentation at the AMORC World Convention in San Jose, Grand Master Atsushi Honjo introduces us to the Ainu worldview, with its striking relationship to the environment, to the Divine, […]

Susan Shaheen is co-Director of the Transportation Sustainability Research Center and Lecturer at UC Berkeley. She discusses the revolution underway in transportation choices which she believes will be driven by smart phones.TranscriptSpeaker 1: Spectrum's next [inaudible]. [00:00:30] Welcome to spectrum the science and technology show on k a l x Berkeley, a biweekly 30 minute program bringing you interviews featuring bay area scientists and technologists as well as a calendar of local events and news. Speaker 2: Good afternoon. My name is Brad Swift. I'm the host of today's show. Our guest today is Susan Shaheen, co-director of the Transportation Sustainability Research Center at UC Berkeley. Susan also lectures [00:01:00] at UC Berkeley. Susan's Shaheen received her master's degree from the University of Rochester and her phd in ecology from UC Davis. She joins us to talk about the work she's been doing at the center as well as the centers. Broader scope. Susan Shaheen. Thanks for coming on spectrum. My pleasure. I wanted to get your perspective, a historic perspective on transportation and when you look back, what do you see as the profound changes that [00:01:30] have happened over a period of time that you're comfortable with reflecting on Speaker 3: [inaudible]? So I think transportation and the environment were significant, particularly in the state of California in the mid 1950s where relationships between exhaust emissions and smog and other types of air pollutants came together. And we started to garner a lot more understanding about that. And so in terms of [00:02:00] my personal interests, that was a really significant moment in time for the nation, but in particular for California, which, which led the way and that garnered a lot of interest and vehicle technologies and strategies for addressing transportation emissions. Speaker 2: And is that really what started the sustainability movement within transportation Speaker 3: in terms of transportation? Sustainability in those terms I think are more modern day than the mid [00:02:30] 1950s when we started to become really cognizant of smog and emissions, particularly in the La Basin area. There was a, the Brundtland Commission came about and in 1987 they produced a document called our common future and that really focused on sustainability. And that's when we started to hear more about the three pillars of sustainability. So economics, equity and the environment. And around that late 1980s early 1990s period, I believe that's really [00:03:00] when a lot of the discussion about transportation sustainability came about, but we had already been looking at vehicle technologies, fuels strategies for demand management, like carpooling long before then. But I think in terms of there being more of a movement or a focus on sustainability and transportation, that probably came about more in the late 1980s and early 1990s before I came on the scene. Speaker 3: How did the Transportation Sustainability Research Center get started? [00:03:30] So the uh, Transportation Sustainability Research Center at the University of California Berkeley as part of the Institute of Transportation Studies. It came about five years ago. It was founded as the brainchild of Professor Norgaard and Professor Sam or Matt Nat. And they thought it was really important time for us to put together a center that focused on vehicles, fuels as well as demand management strategies that could [00:04:00] employ electronic and wireless communication systems. So that's how we got our start in the center. How do you choose your projects? Well, we always choose our projects based on someone's interest within a center. So some, some great form of passion associated with it. And we find that sometimes the scale of the project needs to be very, very large. So if there's an opportunity for a large grant and it fits [00:04:30] with our mission and mandate for instance, goods movement, we have a project that's by point $5 million to implement a smart parking, uh, management system for long haul truckers on the I five. Speaker 3: And that requires a lot of money and a lot of technology and a lot of getting out there and getting your hands dirty and implementing things. And it takes scale and money and time to build something like that. And so that's our largest project overall and it really warrants that kind [00:05:00] of financial base, but we can also do things for 50 to $75,000 that are highly impactful. We've received awards for research on car sharing, things that I think may have cost $55,000 in terms of grant monies to produce. But the work itself was impactful enough that it made a difference and was really powerful to people in the field and to decision makers and gave them the data that they needed. So a lot of it just has to do with our passion and [00:05:30] if there's a grant opportunity that fits really well with our interests, we go for it and we don't necessarily say, okay, a small grant isn't going to do what we needed to do because we know about it than that, we know that sometimes you need small grants to do really impactful things and sometimes you need massive grants to do really impactful things. Speaker 3: It just depends on what we're trying to do. But in my research I've found over time that I don't need is larger grant anymore to do as [00:06:00] impactful and innovative research as I used to have to. And that's because there's so many innovative entrepreneurial companies out there doing this that I don't have to go and build the thing anymore and create the service and imagine the service because there's entrepreneurs everyday contacting us saying, would you partner with us and help us to study and understand what we've built? And we're delighted because that means we can do so much more research when we don't actually [00:06:30] have to go out and build it. But if we need to go out and build it, we will do that. Speaker 2: It does the center deal at all with larger forms of transportation trucks. You mentioned trucks that you were involved with that do you get into shipping overseas, shipping trains, things like that because California has such a, a destination for so much material from Asia products? Speaker 3: That's a great question. We have a great deal of interest in all forms of goods movement at present. Our focus is primarily [00:07:00] trying to get our hands around and our understanding of origin and destination patterns and the long distance trucking industry. And I believe that you know, more and more will venture into freight to rail and also deal more with the ports. But it's a different area of research. It's not as well understood. It's an unregulated industry in many ways. And so getting data is a major issue and really understanding that data and working [00:07:30] with it is I think a notable contribution that we're trying to make with respect to just even understanding what's going on on the [inaudible]. So I think it's going to be a big area and continuing area of research at TSTC. I think there's so many opportunities for us to make freight and goods movement more sustainable, but it's not the easiest area to study or to get into and we're really trying to build up this understanding and then go from there. Speaker 1: [00:08:00] This is spectrum on k a Alex Berkeley. We're talking with Susan Shaheen about transportation, sustainability. Speaker 2: What are the strengths and weaknesses of the free market and government approaches to having an impact on transportation? [inaudible] Speaker 3: [00:08:30] no, I think government can play a tremendous role in making sure that we continue to have public transportation and we continue to have safe roads and bridges and that's a really significant role and they can also play a notable role in terms of public policy with respect to incentivizing different types of behavior if it's through road pricing strategies, so to s mode shift, get people think about taking a different mode at a different time, incentivizing people to [00:09:00] buy alternative fuel vehicles, giving them access to the Hov lanes or the high occupancy vehicle lanes. I also feel that the government can play a tremendous role in terms of providing third parties with access to data about transit services. And what we've started to see is a lot of new companies and new opportunities providing people with access to information that really wasn't there before. So I think the government can play a role in really [00:09:30] encouraging and facilitating openness and sharing and a really different way of experiencing transportation than we ever have before. Speaker 3: And I think industry has a tremendous role to play as well. Why not allow them to be as innovative as possible and create new opportunities and new modes if some of the things I study include car sharing, which is short term access to vehicles, and we've started to see lots of investment and interest in the idea of peer-to-peer car sharing or personal [00:10:00] vehicle sharing services where people could actually put their own vehicle into a shared use setting and we could see car sharing go outside of dense urban areas where traditionally lives into suburban areas and there's ideas for scooter sharing services. Public bike sharing is just growing and leaps and bounds around the world. It's about to double in size in terms of the number of programs just in the year 2012 in the United States. So [00:10:30] there's so many opportunities for creating new industries and new jobs and new transportation choices. Speaker 3: And I think the government has a tremendous role in that and creating and encouraging and inspiring these partnerships with individuals who have innovative ideas. I think we're really entering into a new era of mobility, which is very exciting. And then you have to tread the line between interfering with the market, choosing winners and losers gets run out [inaudible] [inaudible] [00:11:00] and not over-regulated. So there's a balance there. Right. And I think that's where research is really critical is to understand, you know, when you incentivize, what is the impact of that incentivization, you know, is it working, is it not working? Do you need to do more, do you need to do less? And that's where I think a lot of our work can come in to help provide policymakers and decision makers with more informed understanding about what, what is actually happening in the system. And we're really [00:11:30] moving into an era of massive databases and opportunities to look at real time data and in a way that we never could before because of the availability of electronic and wireless communication systems, the ubiquity of cell phones and smart phone technology and sensor technologies and the cost of these things are dropping. Speaker 3: So again, I believe we're really entering into a new era and mobility and transportation and it's just gonna require sort of a new way of thinking about openness and sharing. And there are [00:12:00] going to be some, some struggles in this, but I think there's more opportunities than there are barriers. And is the center very focused on having an impact in policy? We're very focused on that. So we truly want to make a difference and we want to do real world research and get out and be involved in demonstration projects and pilot projects and any type of endeavor. You know, we just received a grant from the University of California Transportation Center here at Berkeley [00:12:30] to look at personal vehicle sharing services. So we're not actually going out and implementing it or designing it or doing any of that, which we often do, but we're actually just working with companies throughout North America to see what they're doing and to help them actually understand through our data collection processes and analyses, what is this doing and what kind of impact is it having and what role might policy makers play to encourage more of this and what would work best overall [00:13:00] in terms of growing this opportunity? Speaker 3: If people really like it, I'm a big fan of diversity and choice and all of my research. If it deals with fuels or if it deals with giving people an opportunity to see, you know, when is the next bus coming or on a mobile app in a, where can I find the bike sharing vehicle? I am really, really a big fan of giving people choices and information because I think that's critical to giving people an [00:13:30] opportunity to, to experience transportation in a new way. But I think for a long time people haven't felt that there's a lot of choices and once they invest in a private vehicle, they viewed that a lot of those, you know, transportation costs are sunk and so there's really minor expenses associated with that, but that's actually really not the truth. But you know that fixed cost really does change people's relationship with other transportation modes. [00:14:00] The more we can give people choices and have him think about transportation costs is variable. We can see a really different attitude towards taking different modes at different points in time, including getting lots of physical exercise. Speaker 1: And this is the public affairs show spectrum on KALX Berkeley. We're talking with Susan Shaheen about transportation sustainability. [00:14:30] Next we talk about bike sharing and car sharing, the bike sharing during Speaker 3: project. Can you talk a little bit about that? You were mentioning that it's going to double. Yeah, so public bike sharing as a form of public transportation, it's gone through actually several evolutions. The first generation of it started in 19 five and Amsterdam and it was a system called provosts or white bikes, which you might've heard of. They deployed, 50 of them, put them around the community and [00:15:00] they promptly disappeared. And so then we've seen different evolutions of the bike sharing concept into the 1980s where we moved into a more technology based approach where you had a coined deposit system so you couldn't just take it for free. Shortly after that we saw movement into what we call the third generation, which is more IT-based, which requires sort of the identity of somebody to be linked to that bike. And what we found is that the more advanced technology use, the more reliable [00:15:30] these systems become and the more they can be integrated into people's Daily community, which is pretty significant. Speaker 3: Now, bikes are being used not just for recreational purposes, but to complete a first mile or last mile or a many mile trip that is actually part of a person's daily life. And these concepts have just taken hold. And I started to monitor this about seven or eight years ago and cataloged more and more of these bike sharing systems. They leave [00:16:00] has over 20,000 bikes in Paris. Honjo, which we've studied is in China. 60,000 bikes will, Han has over 70,000 bikes and it's public bike sharing system. New York City is sent to launch sometime late this summer or fall with 7,000 bikes leading up to 10,000 bikes. They're not taking a cent of public money to deploy the system. They have a title sponsorship with City Group, so [00:16:30] things are really changing in terms of transportation and mobility. How do they deal with the safety side of it all? All these people jumping on bikes without helmets probably. Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. On the safety side, it's actually quite interesting is the majority of programs do not require people to wear helmets, so the majority of people actually don't wear helmets and using these systems and I think liability issues associated with public bike sharing are going [00:17:00] to be become more prominent and more important, particularly as they scale in size and they become larger. We do think or hypothesize that as these systems proliferate and people become more aware of them, there will be safety benefits as well because drivers will be more aware that, okay, those are capital bikeshare bikes riding down the street. I need to be conscious and aware of them because there's a lot more bikers on on the road, but the issue of density and more and more of these bicycles hitting [00:17:30] the road is an issue and I think a lot of municipalities are working more and more to build supportive infrastructure. Speaker 3: New York City's an example of that. So these programs often go hand in hand with cycling infrastructure. But you do raise a good question associated with the helmets and there are some happening. San Vol is a company in British Columbia that's developed a dispensing system that actually cleans the helmet. So that could be a creative strategy. [00:18:00] A lot of the bike sharing programs actually offer helmets or give them out with a membership, but we think that a lot of times what happens is somebody who doesn't necessarily plan to take that bike and then realizes, wow, I want to take that bike. They're conveniently located like street furniture throughout the city. I'm just going to jump on it and go from point to point. And so the helmet is a difficult thing to plan for if that's how you use it. Carpools, car sharing. Can you talk about that a bit? Speaker 3: [00:18:30] Yeah, so I've been studying shared use vehicle systems since the mid 1990s I did my doctorate on car sharing. That again is the idea of short term vehicle access where you don't actually need to own a vehicle but you have access to a whole fleet of vehicles and you use them by the hour and we've seen over time tremendous growth in the number of operators throughout North America. We've seen a membership continually grow as we've been tracking it. We also see [00:19:00] some very interesting behavioral effects in response to what we call traditional or neighborhood car sharing where many times people who join these systems actually end up either foregoing or selling a vehicle after they start using the system because they realize they don't need a car and they can trade off this fixed vehicle asset for variable costs and take public transportation, more ride share, Carpool more bike more a, we're also seeing [00:19:30] a really neat concept which is called one way car sharing traditional car sharing works and that you go into an out of the same location similar to a rental car system and many of us in the shared use space of thought, if we were able to provide a one way service similar to public bike sharing where you start off one place and you leave the bike in another place or a vehicle in another place, this might attract a whole different usage pattern and what would this do? Speaker 3: [00:20:00] So several companies are getting started in this Daimler's cargo system, which uses a little smart vehicle launched in Austin. They're now in Washington, D c they're in Portland, they're in San Diego and this system is doing quite well. It requires a lot of public infrastructure because the vehicles have to be parked throughout the business areas or a neighborhood areas, but people actually instead of accessing the vehicle [00:20:30] by the hour, they're now actually accessing it by the minute and taking it one from one location to the next. BMW launched its program called drive. Now in the bay area, the first in the United States, it had only been operating in Germany prior to that. So lots of change and evolution in this shared you space coupled with public bike sharing, lots of innovation and ride sharing movements towards Uber taxi services and dynamic ride [00:21:00] sharing services have vago launched this spring and is providing dynamic ride sharing services. Speaker 3: So I think what we're going to start to see is the bundling of these concepts and technologies and hopefully linkages to smart card technology like your clipper card and it would give you access to any one of the car sharing programs or the public bike sharing program is planned for San Francisco. I think, you know, with time we're gonna see a lot more smart apps that tell us [00:21:30] what our choices are. If it'd be a taxi or a car sharing vehicle or a carpooling vehicle. And I think it's all going to be integrated. And I think the big mobility device is going to become our phone through these smart apps. So a lot is happening and there's a lot to be watching. We're actually keeping pretty busy these days. In terms of our projects in the shared use space, we, we just uh, got great news, uh, the end of last week that we were funded to actually evaluate cargos, pure electric [00:22:00] vehicle based one way, car sharing service in San Diego. Speaker 3: And we have another grant to look at the integration of electric vehicle bikes and to see car shares fleet in San Francisco. So it's going to be a service of both car sharing and Evy bike sharing, all combined into one service. So there's going to be a lot going on and a lot to watch in this space. And I, I do think the bay area is a critical location to see what's happening. What do you think is the best way [00:22:30] for individuals to find out about all of these options that are starting to happen? Is there someone who's consolidating these kinds of things on a website that they could go to or how do you search? I think you know for the bay area in particular, I think MTC, the metropolitan transportation commission has a really good five one one.org site that can provide you with a lot of information on your choices. Also, as of MTA has apps that you can download like the SF park site, so I think just go into your public transportation [00:23:00] operators websites like Bart, but also again, the regional transportation agencies are doing a really good job of getting information out there. Susan, Shane, thanks very much for coming on spectrum. You're welcome. It was great to meet you. Speaker 1: [inaudible] [00:23:30] regular feature of spectrum is to mention a few of the science and technology events happening locally over the next two weeks. Rick Karnofsky joins me with the calendar this month. Speaker 4: Leonardo art science evening rendezvous or laser is on Wednesday, October 10th at Stanford Universities. [00:24:00] Jordan Hall Building Four 20 Room 41 talk. Start at seven with Andrew Todd Hunter discussing bridging the fuzzy techie divide, the senior reflection capstone in biology. Terry barely years subsequent. Talk on where at the beginning meets the end. It's about making technologies vulnerabilities visible and illustrating how easily modern inventions can become footnotes to a bygone era. [00:24:30] Mark Jacobson then discusses a plan to power the world with a wind, water, and sun. He focuses on three of the most significant problems facing the world today. Global warming, air pollution, and energy insecurity. Tonight ends with composer Sheryl Leonard's music from high latitudes, making music out of sounds, objects and experiences from the polar regions. To Register, visit www.leonardo.info the [00:25:00] northern California Science Writers Association and Swissnex our host, Tina taught by why are dotcoms Kevin Polson on cybercrime an inside view.Speaker 4: He will talk about Max Butler, one of the highest value cybercriminals ever brought down by the FBI and Secret Service Butler, a hacker establish a worldwide operation from his safe house in a high rise apartment building in San Francisco's tenderloin. Butler eventually dominated a global black market in stolen credit card numbers, [00:25:30] supplying a far flung counterfeiting operation. Polson first described this in a wired article and then in his book published last year, kingpin, how one hacker took over the billion dollar cyber crime underground. The talk is on Thursday, October 11th doors at six 30 talk at seven reception with appetizers from seven 45 until nine 30 it's at Swissnex seven three zero Montgomery Street in San Francisco. Visit Swissnex, San Francisco. Dot. O R, g, [00:26:00] the San Francisco Opera, and the California Academy of Science Present Moby Dick, a whale of a tale in celebration of the musical conversion of Herman Melville's. Classic novel scientists will discuss Melville's famous dedication to the 19th century scientific accuracy in his writings. Speaker 4: There'll also be biologists who will present on modern day whale science and conservation practices. The event is at the California Academy of Sciences. 55 music concourse drive in San Francisco's [00:26:30] Golden Gate Park on Tuesday, October sixteenth@sevenpmitistendollarsforyourmembersandtwelvedollarsforthegeneralpublicvisitwww.cal academy.org now, here's Rick Karnofsky with two news stories to stellar mass. Black holes have been discovered in globular cluster m 22 located at 10,000 light years away by a team of international researchers who published their findings in nature on October 4th using the Carl g [00:27:00] jetski very large array in New Mexico. They found two black holes and argue that there may be as many as five to a hundred in the classroom. This runs contrary to earlier theories that suggested only a single black hole of that size could survive in a popular cluster. They are the first stellar mass black holes found in a globular cluster in the Milky Way and the first observed via radio waves that of course, I mean Arthur j straighter of Michigan State University and the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics was quoted [00:27:30] by scientific American saying that because they were seen by radio, they have to not just be in binary's, but they have to be in binaries that are close enough that mass transfer is actually taking place. Speaker 4: In an article published in the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in September, Yale researchers showed that academic research faculty have a gender bias in favor of male students. The team performed a randomized double blind study in which university scientists were given applications purportedly from [00:28:00] students applying for a lab manager position. The content of the applications were all identical, but sometimes a male name was attached and sometimes a female name was attached. Female applicants were rated lower than men on the measured scales of competence, higher ability mentoring and we're giving lower salary offers. The mean salary offered by male scientist for male students was $30,520 for the female students. It was $27,111 female scientists recommended lower salaries for both [00:28:30] genders, but had an even greater bias against female students who received an average offer of 25,000 compared to the average offer of $29,333 per milestone. Speaker 2: [inaudible]. The music heard during the show is from an album by Lascano David entitled Folk Acoustic made available by a creative Commons [00:29:00] license 3.0 [inaudible] Speaker 1: [inaudible]. Thank you for listening to spectrum. If you have comments about the show, please send them to us. Email address is spectrum [inaudible] at yahoo.com [inaudible]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Susan Shaheen is co-Director of the Transportation Sustainability Research Center and Lecturer at UC Berkeley. She discusses the revolution underway in transportation choices which she believes will be driven by smart phones.TranscriptSpeaker 1: Spectrum's next [inaudible]. [00:00:30] Welcome to spectrum the science and technology show on k a l x Berkeley, a biweekly 30 minute program bringing you interviews featuring bay area scientists and technologists as well as a calendar of local events and news. Speaker 2: Good afternoon. My name is Brad Swift. I'm the host of today's show. Our guest today is Susan Shaheen, co-director of the Transportation Sustainability Research Center at UC Berkeley. Susan also lectures [00:01:00] at UC Berkeley. Susan's Shaheen received her master's degree from the University of Rochester and her phd in ecology from UC Davis. She joins us to talk about the work she's been doing at the center as well as the centers. Broader scope. Susan Shaheen. Thanks for coming on spectrum. My pleasure. I wanted to get your perspective, a historic perspective on transportation and when you look back, what do you see as the profound changes that [00:01:30] have happened over a period of time that you're comfortable with reflecting on Speaker 3: [inaudible]? So I think transportation and the environment were significant, particularly in the state of California in the mid 1950s where relationships between exhaust emissions and smog and other types of air pollutants came together. And we started to garner a lot more understanding about that. And so in terms of [00:02:00] my personal interests, that was a really significant moment in time for the nation, but in particular for California, which, which led the way and that garnered a lot of interest and vehicle technologies and strategies for addressing transportation emissions. Speaker 2: And is that really what started the sustainability movement within transportation Speaker 3: in terms of transportation? Sustainability in those terms I think are more modern day than the mid [00:02:30] 1950s when we started to become really cognizant of smog and emissions, particularly in the La Basin area. There was a, the Brundtland Commission came about and in 1987 they produced a document called our common future and that really focused on sustainability. And that's when we started to hear more about the three pillars of sustainability. So economics, equity and the environment. And around that late 1980s early 1990s period, I believe that's really [00:03:00] when a lot of the discussion about transportation sustainability came about, but we had already been looking at vehicle technologies, fuels strategies for demand management, like carpooling long before then. But I think in terms of there being more of a movement or a focus on sustainability and transportation, that probably came about more in the late 1980s and early 1990s before I came on the scene. Speaker 3: How did the Transportation Sustainability Research Center get started? [00:03:30] So the uh, Transportation Sustainability Research Center at the University of California Berkeley as part of the Institute of Transportation Studies. It came about five years ago. It was founded as the brainchild of Professor Norgaard and Professor Sam or Matt Nat. And they thought it was really important time for us to put together a center that focused on vehicles, fuels as well as demand management strategies that could [00:04:00] employ electronic and wireless communication systems. So that's how we got our start in the center. How do you choose your projects? Well, we always choose our projects based on someone's interest within a center. So some, some great form of passion associated with it. And we find that sometimes the scale of the project needs to be very, very large. So if there's an opportunity for a large grant and it fits [00:04:30] with our mission and mandate for instance, goods movement, we have a project that's by point $5 million to implement a smart parking, uh, management system for long haul truckers on the I five. Speaker 3: And that requires a lot of money and a lot of technology and a lot of getting out there and getting your hands dirty and implementing things. And it takes scale and money and time to build something like that. And so that's our largest project overall and it really warrants that kind [00:05:00] of financial base, but we can also do things for 50 to $75,000 that are highly impactful. We've received awards for research on car sharing, things that I think may have cost $55,000 in terms of grant monies to produce. But the work itself was impactful enough that it made a difference and was really powerful to people in the field and to decision makers and gave them the data that they needed. So a lot of it just has to do with our passion and [00:05:30] if there's a grant opportunity that fits really well with our interests, we go for it and we don't necessarily say, okay, a small grant isn't going to do what we needed to do because we know about it than that, we know that sometimes you need small grants to do really impactful things and sometimes you need massive grants to do really impactful things. Speaker 3: It just depends on what we're trying to do. But in my research I've found over time that I don't need is larger grant anymore to do as [00:06:00] impactful and innovative research as I used to have to. And that's because there's so many innovative entrepreneurial companies out there doing this that I don't have to go and build the thing anymore and create the service and imagine the service because there's entrepreneurs everyday contacting us saying, would you partner with us and help us to study and understand what we've built? And we're delighted because that means we can do so much more research when we don't actually [00:06:30] have to go out and build it. But if we need to go out and build it, we will do that. Speaker 2: It does the center deal at all with larger forms of transportation trucks. You mentioned trucks that you were involved with that do you get into shipping overseas, shipping trains, things like that because California has such a, a destination for so much material from Asia products? Speaker 3: That's a great question. We have a great deal of interest in all forms of goods movement at present. Our focus is primarily [00:07:00] trying to get our hands around and our understanding of origin and destination patterns and the long distance trucking industry. And I believe that you know, more and more will venture into freight to rail and also deal more with the ports. But it's a different area of research. It's not as well understood. It's an unregulated industry in many ways. And so getting data is a major issue and really understanding that data and working [00:07:30] with it is I think a notable contribution that we're trying to make with respect to just even understanding what's going on on the [inaudible]. So I think it's going to be a big area and continuing area of research at TSTC. I think there's so many opportunities for us to make freight and goods movement more sustainable, but it's not the easiest area to study or to get into and we're really trying to build up this understanding and then go from there. Speaker 1: [00:08:00] This is spectrum on k a Alex Berkeley. We're talking with Susan Shaheen about transportation, sustainability. Speaker 2: What are the strengths and weaknesses of the free market and government approaches to having an impact on transportation? [inaudible] Speaker 3: [00:08:30] no, I think government can play a tremendous role in making sure that we continue to have public transportation and we continue to have safe roads and bridges and that's a really significant role and they can also play a notable role in terms of public policy with respect to incentivizing different types of behavior if it's through road pricing strategies, so to s mode shift, get people think about taking a different mode at a different time, incentivizing people to [00:09:00] buy alternative fuel vehicles, giving them access to the Hov lanes or the high occupancy vehicle lanes. I also feel that the government can play a tremendous role in terms of providing third parties with access to data about transit services. And what we've started to see is a lot of new companies and new opportunities providing people with access to information that really wasn't there before. So I think the government can play a role in really [00:09:30] encouraging and facilitating openness and sharing and a really different way of experiencing transportation than we ever have before. Speaker 3: And I think industry has a tremendous role to play as well. Why not allow them to be as innovative as possible and create new opportunities and new modes if some of the things I study include car sharing, which is short term access to vehicles, and we've started to see lots of investment and interest in the idea of peer-to-peer car sharing or personal [00:10:00] vehicle sharing services where people could actually put their own vehicle into a shared use setting and we could see car sharing go outside of dense urban areas where traditionally lives into suburban areas and there's ideas for scooter sharing services. Public bike sharing is just growing and leaps and bounds around the world. It's about to double in size in terms of the number of programs just in the year 2012 in the United States. So [00:10:30] there's so many opportunities for creating new industries and new jobs and new transportation choices. Speaker 3: And I think the government has a tremendous role in that and creating and encouraging and inspiring these partnerships with individuals who have innovative ideas. I think we're really entering into a new era of mobility, which is very exciting. And then you have to tread the line between interfering with the market, choosing winners and losers gets run out [inaudible] [inaudible] [00:11:00] and not over-regulated. So there's a balance there. Right. And I think that's where research is really critical is to understand, you know, when you incentivize, what is the impact of that incentivization, you know, is it working, is it not working? Do you need to do more, do you need to do less? And that's where I think a lot of our work can come in to help provide policymakers and decision makers with more informed understanding about what, what is actually happening in the system. And we're really [00:11:30] moving into an era of massive databases and opportunities to look at real time data and in a way that we never could before because of the availability of electronic and wireless communication systems, the ubiquity of cell phones and smart phone technology and sensor technologies and the cost of these things are dropping. Speaker 3: So again, I believe we're really entering into a new era and mobility and transportation and it's just gonna require sort of a new way of thinking about openness and sharing. And there are [00:12:00] going to be some, some struggles in this, but I think there's more opportunities than there are barriers. And is the center very focused on having an impact in policy? We're very focused on that. So we truly want to make a difference and we want to do real world research and get out and be involved in demonstration projects and pilot projects and any type of endeavor. You know, we just received a grant from the University of California Transportation Center here at Berkeley [00:12:30] to look at personal vehicle sharing services. So we're not actually going out and implementing it or designing it or doing any of that, which we often do, but we're actually just working with companies throughout North America to see what they're doing and to help them actually understand through our data collection processes and analyses, what is this doing and what kind of impact is it having and what role might policy makers play to encourage more of this and what would work best overall [00:13:00] in terms of growing this opportunity? Speaker 3: If people really like it, I'm a big fan of diversity and choice and all of my research. If it deals with fuels or if it deals with giving people an opportunity to see, you know, when is the next bus coming or on a mobile app in a, where can I find the bike sharing vehicle? I am really, really a big fan of giving people choices and information because I think that's critical to giving people an [00:13:30] opportunity to, to experience transportation in a new way. But I think for a long time people haven't felt that there's a lot of choices and once they invest in a private vehicle, they viewed that a lot of those, you know, transportation costs are sunk and so there's really minor expenses associated with that, but that's actually really not the truth. But you know that fixed cost really does change people's relationship with other transportation modes. [00:14:00] The more we can give people choices and have him think about transportation costs is variable. We can see a really different attitude towards taking different modes at different points in time, including getting lots of physical exercise. Speaker 1: And this is the public affairs show spectrum on KALX Berkeley. We're talking with Susan Shaheen about transportation sustainability. [00:14:30] Next we talk about bike sharing and car sharing, the bike sharing during Speaker 3: project. Can you talk a little bit about that? You were mentioning that it's going to double. Yeah, so public bike sharing as a form of public transportation, it's gone through actually several evolutions. The first generation of it started in 19 five and Amsterdam and it was a system called provosts or white bikes, which you might've heard of. They deployed, 50 of them, put them around the community and [00:15:00] they promptly disappeared. And so then we've seen different evolutions of the bike sharing concept into the 1980s where we moved into a more technology based approach where you had a coined deposit system so you couldn't just take it for free. Shortly after that we saw movement into what we call the third generation, which is more IT-based, which requires sort of the identity of somebody to be linked to that bike. And what we found is that the more advanced technology use, the more reliable [00:15:30] these systems become and the more they can be integrated into people's Daily community, which is pretty significant. Speaker 3: Now, bikes are being used not just for recreational purposes, but to complete a first mile or last mile or a many mile trip that is actually part of a person's daily life. And these concepts have just taken hold. And I started to monitor this about seven or eight years ago and cataloged more and more of these bike sharing systems. They leave [00:16:00] has over 20,000 bikes in Paris. Honjo, which we've studied is in China. 60,000 bikes will, Han has over 70,000 bikes and it's public bike sharing system. New York City is sent to launch sometime late this summer or fall with 7,000 bikes leading up to 10,000 bikes. They're not taking a cent of public money to deploy the system. They have a title sponsorship with City Group, so [00:16:30] things are really changing in terms of transportation and mobility. How do they deal with the safety side of it all? All these people jumping on bikes without helmets probably. Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. On the safety side, it's actually quite interesting is the majority of programs do not require people to wear helmets, so the majority of people actually don't wear helmets and using these systems and I think liability issues associated with public bike sharing are going [00:17:00] to be become more prominent and more important, particularly as they scale in size and they become larger. We do think or hypothesize that as these systems proliferate and people become more aware of them, there will be safety benefits as well because drivers will be more aware that, okay, those are capital bikeshare bikes riding down the street. I need to be conscious and aware of them because there's a lot more bikers on on the road, but the issue of density and more and more of these bicycles hitting [00:17:30] the road is an issue and I think a lot of municipalities are working more and more to build supportive infrastructure. Speaker 3: New York City's an example of that. So these programs often go hand in hand with cycling infrastructure. But you do raise a good question associated with the helmets and there are some happening. San Vol is a company in British Columbia that's developed a dispensing system that actually cleans the helmet. So that could be a creative strategy. [00:18:00] A lot of the bike sharing programs actually offer helmets or give them out with a membership, but we think that a lot of times what happens is somebody who doesn't necessarily plan to take that bike and then realizes, wow, I want to take that bike. They're conveniently located like street furniture throughout the city. I'm just going to jump on it and go from point to point. And so the helmet is a difficult thing to plan for if that's how you use it. Carpools, car sharing. Can you talk about that a bit? Speaker 3: [00:18:30] Yeah, so I've been studying shared use vehicle systems since the mid 1990s I did my doctorate on car sharing. That again is the idea of short term vehicle access where you don't actually need to own a vehicle but you have access to a whole fleet of vehicles and you use them by the hour and we've seen over time tremendous growth in the number of operators throughout North America. We've seen a membership continually grow as we've been tracking it. We also see [00:19:00] some very interesting behavioral effects in response to what we call traditional or neighborhood car sharing where many times people who join these systems actually end up either foregoing or selling a vehicle after they start using the system because they realize they don't need a car and they can trade off this fixed vehicle asset for variable costs and take public transportation, more ride share, Carpool more bike more a, we're also seeing [00:19:30] a really neat concept which is called one way car sharing traditional car sharing works and that you go into an out of the same location similar to a rental car system and many of us in the shared use space of thought, if we were able to provide a one way service similar to public bike sharing where you start off one place and you leave the bike in another place or a vehicle in another place, this might attract a whole different usage pattern and what would this do? Speaker 3: [00:20:00] So several companies are getting started in this Daimler's cargo system, which uses a little smart vehicle launched in Austin. They're now in Washington, D c they're in Portland, they're in San Diego and this system is doing quite well. It requires a lot of public infrastructure because the vehicles have to be parked throughout the business areas or a neighborhood areas, but people actually instead of accessing the vehicle [00:20:30] by the hour, they're now actually accessing it by the minute and taking it one from one location to the next. BMW launched its program called drive. Now in the bay area, the first in the United States, it had only been operating in Germany prior to that. So lots of change and evolution in this shared you space coupled with public bike sharing, lots of innovation and ride sharing movements towards Uber taxi services and dynamic ride [00:21:00] sharing services have vago launched this spring and is providing dynamic ride sharing services. Speaker 3: So I think what we're going to start to see is the bundling of these concepts and technologies and hopefully linkages to smart card technology like your clipper card and it would give you access to any one of the car sharing programs or the public bike sharing program is planned for San Francisco. I think, you know, with time we're gonna see a lot more smart apps that tell us [00:21:30] what our choices are. If it'd be a taxi or a car sharing vehicle or a carpooling vehicle. And I think it's all going to be integrated. And I think the big mobility device is going to become our phone through these smart apps. So a lot is happening and there's a lot to be watching. We're actually keeping pretty busy these days. In terms of our projects in the shared use space, we, we just uh, got great news, uh, the end of last week that we were funded to actually evaluate cargos, pure electric [00:22:00] vehicle based one way, car sharing service in San Diego. Speaker 3: And we have another grant to look at the integration of electric vehicle bikes and to see car shares fleet in San Francisco. So it's going to be a service of both car sharing and Evy bike sharing, all combined into one service. So there's going to be a lot going on and a lot to watch in this space. And I, I do think the bay area is a critical location to see what's happening. What do you think is the best way [00:22:30] for individuals to find out about all of these options that are starting to happen? Is there someone who's consolidating these kinds of things on a website that they could go to or how do you search? I think you know for the bay area in particular, I think MTC, the metropolitan transportation commission has a really good five one one.org site that can provide you with a lot of information on your choices. Also, as of MTA has apps that you can download like the SF park site, so I think just go into your public transportation [00:23:00] operators websites like Bart, but also again, the regional transportation agencies are doing a really good job of getting information out there. Susan, Shane, thanks very much for coming on spectrum. You're welcome. It was great to meet you. Speaker 1: [inaudible] [00:23:30] regular feature of spectrum is to mention a few of the science and technology events happening locally over the next two weeks. Rick Karnofsky joins me with the calendar this month. Speaker 4: Leonardo art science evening rendezvous or laser is on Wednesday, October 10th at Stanford Universities. [00:24:00] Jordan Hall Building Four 20 Room 41 talk. Start at seven with Andrew Todd Hunter discussing bridging the fuzzy techie divide, the senior reflection capstone in biology. Terry barely years subsequent. Talk on where at the beginning meets the end. It's about making technologies vulnerabilities visible and illustrating how easily modern inventions can become footnotes to a bygone era. [00:24:30] Mark Jacobson then discusses a plan to power the world with a wind, water, and sun. He focuses on three of the most significant problems facing the world today. Global warming, air pollution, and energy insecurity. Tonight ends with composer Sheryl Leonard's music from high latitudes, making music out of sounds, objects and experiences from the polar regions. To Register, visit www.leonardo.info the [00:25:00] northern California Science Writers Association and Swissnex our host, Tina taught by why are dotcoms Kevin Polson on cybercrime an inside view.Speaker 4: He will talk about Max Butler, one of the highest value cybercriminals ever brought down by the FBI and Secret Service Butler, a hacker establish a worldwide operation from his safe house in a high rise apartment building in San Francisco's tenderloin. Butler eventually dominated a global black market in stolen credit card numbers, [00:25:30] supplying a far flung counterfeiting operation. Polson first described this in a wired article and then in his book published last year, kingpin, how one hacker took over the billion dollar cyber crime underground. The talk is on Thursday, October 11th doors at six 30 talk at seven reception with appetizers from seven 45 until nine 30 it's at Swissnex seven three zero Montgomery Street in San Francisco. Visit Swissnex, San Francisco. Dot. O R, g, [00:26:00] the San Francisco Opera, and the California Academy of Science Present Moby Dick, a whale of a tale in celebration of the musical conversion of Herman Melville's. Classic novel scientists will discuss Melville's famous dedication to the 19th century scientific accuracy in his writings. Speaker 4: There'll also be biologists who will present on modern day whale science and conservation practices. The event is at the California Academy of Sciences. 55 music concourse drive in San Francisco's [00:26:30] Golden Gate Park on Tuesday, October sixteenth@sevenpmitistendollarsforyourmembersandtwelvedollarsforthegeneralpublicvisitwww.cal academy.org now, here's Rick Karnofsky with two news stories to stellar mass. Black holes have been discovered in globular cluster m 22 located at 10,000 light years away by a team of international researchers who published their findings in nature on October 4th using the Carl g [00:27:00] jetski very large array in New Mexico. They found two black holes and argue that there may be as many as five to a hundred in the classroom. This runs contrary to earlier theories that suggested only a single black hole of that size could survive in a popular cluster. They are the first stellar mass black holes found in a globular cluster in the Milky Way and the first observed via radio waves that of course, I mean Arthur j straighter of Michigan State University and the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics was quoted [00:27:30] by scientific American saying that because they were seen by radio, they have to not just be in binary's, but they have to be in binaries that are close enough that mass transfer is actually taking place. Speaker 4: In an article published in the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in September, Yale researchers showed that academic research faculty have a gender bias in favor of male students. The team performed a randomized double blind study in which university scientists were given applications purportedly from [00:28:00] students applying for a lab manager position. The content of the applications were all identical, but sometimes a male name was attached and sometimes a female name was attached. Female applicants were rated lower than men on the measured scales of competence, higher ability mentoring and we're giving lower salary offers. The mean salary offered by male scientist for male students was $30,520 for the female students. It was $27,111 female scientists recommended lower salaries for both [00:28:30] genders, but had an even greater bias against female students who received an average offer of 25,000 compared to the average offer of $29,333 per milestone. Speaker 2: [inaudible]. The music heard during the show is from an album by Lascano David entitled Folk Acoustic made available by a creative Commons [00:29:00] license 3.0 [inaudible] Speaker 1: [inaudible]. Thank you for listening to spectrum. If you have comments about the show, please send them to us. Email address is spectrum [inaudible] at yahoo.com [inaudible]. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This podcast presents the discourse given by Grand Master Atsushi Honjo, of the Japanese Grand Lodge, at the Berlin World Convention. The discourse is entitled “The Rosicrucian Teachings and Zen.” Running Time: 35:35 | 33 MB Podcast Copyright © 2008 Rosicrucian Order, AMORC. All Rights Reserved. Posted by Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum @ 9/01/2008

This podcast presents the discourse given by Grand Master Atsushi Honjo, of the Japanese Grand Lodge, at the Berlin World Convention. The discourse is entitled “The Rosicrucian Teachings and Zen.” Running Time: 35:35 | 33 MB Podcast Copyright © 2008 Rosicrucian Order, AMORC. All Rights Reserved. Posted by Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum @ 9/01/2008

For this week's show we travel back to Tokyo to visit one of the more odd tourist attractions you could find (and for Tokyo that is saying a lot!). The Honjo Disaster Prevention Centre is a great place to spend an afternoon. You will get to experience a Earthquake Simulation, Hurricane Simulation, practice putting out fires and more and the best part is that it is all free! Also on this week's show we take a quick look at a new podcast called Jedutainment featuring Japanese languauge instruction set to a trip-hop beat. Finally on this week's music for airport lounges feature we have a song featured by Japanese band EEE. More info on EEE can be found on the podsafe music network. We hope you enjoy this month's travel podcast! The Travel in 10 Travel Podcast is one of the most subscribed travel shows on both itunes and the zune marketplace. Listen on your ipod or zune or watch on the new ipod touch or apple TV.