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Naděje na stabilizaci situace na Blízkém východě přinesly pokles cen ropy i zemního plynu. Podle energetického analytika Jiřího Gavora však trhy stále nevěří, že je krize zažehnána. „Situace zdaleka není dořešena. Naděje je, ale konflikt může vypuknout znovu,“ říká. Jak moc ovlivňuje energetický trh dění na Blízkém východě a co by znamenal návrat íránské ropy na světové trhy?

Last time we spoke about the battle of Shanggao. From late March to early April 1940, Japanese forces attacked Shanggao in Jiangxi with a multi‑pronged offensive. Chinese commanders used elastic defense and coordinated counter-moves, trading space for time through layered positions until the Japanese advanced into prepared strongpoints. As the 34th Division moved toward the town, assaults repeatedly hit ridges and bridge lines held by the 74th Corps. Heavy air strikes caused chaos, but timely flank redeployments prevented a decisive breakthrough. During the crisis around March 21–24, Chinese units maneuvered an encirclement and executed a controlled breakout at the critical moment. After intense fighting and bombing, the Japanese were routed and fell back to their original positions. The wider war did not change, yet Shanggao proved that disciplined Chinese planning could reverse Japanese offensives against superior initiative and numbers.   #207 Battle of Zhongtiao Mountain 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. By the spring of 1941, the War of Resistance against Japan had been grinding for nearly four years, and the map of China looked increasingly like a wound. Japan controlled the coastal cities, the major river valleys, and most of the productive lowland plains of the north and east. The Nationalist government had retreated far inland to Chongqing, governing a rump state of mountainous hinterland, foreign sympathies, and diminishing resources. The war had long since ceased to look like a conventional conflict between organized fronts and had settled into something grimmer and more ambiguous — a slow war of attrition fought in the mud and rocks of the Chinese interior, punctuated by Japanese offensives designed not to end the war but to compress it, to squeeze the Nationalists tighter with each season until surrender became a rational calculation rather than a humiliation. Japan had tried other methods first. In the late 1930s, Tokyo made serious overtures to Chiang Kai-shek's government, proposing a negotiated settlement that would see China aligned with Japan and the puppet Wang Jingwei government elevated as the vehicle for that arrangement. Chiang refused. He had gambled, and would continue to gamble, that the war in Europe would eventually draw in the Western powers, that American patience with Japanese aggression would run out, and that time was ultimately on China's side. The strategy required suffering in the present to buy survival in the future. Germany's invasion of Poland in September 1939 and the subsequent expansion of war across Europe only reinforced Japan's desire to accelerate its operations in China before the international situation made them impossible. By 1940, Japan signaled it intended to resolve the "China Incident" — the bureaucratic euphemism it used to avoid officially acknowledging that it was fighting a full-scale war — once and for all. The question was where. The front was hundreds of miles long. The Japanese army in China was stretched thin despite its nominal strength. Spectacular victories in the lowlands had failed to produce the political capitulation Tokyo expected. And in the mountains of Shanxi Province, a particular irritant had been festering for three years — one that the Japanese could neither ignore nor seem to dislodge. The Zhongtiao Mountains rise along the southern edge of Shanxi Province, running roughly east to west for some two hundred miles, forming a natural wall between the loess plateaus of Shanxi and the plains of northern Henan below. The range is not dramatic by Chinese standards — it is not the soaring, cloud-piercing landscape of Sichuan or Yunnan — but it is rugged, deeply ridged, and extraordinarily difficult to move through quickly. For a defending army with knowledge of the terrain, the Zhongtiao range was close to ideal. For an attacker, especially one dependent on mechanized firepower and coordinated logistics, it was a nightmare. Chinese forces had occupied the Zhongtiao Mountains since 1938, following the fall of Taiyuan and the retreat of Nationalist forces from the broader Shanxi campaign. At a moment when much of northern China was collapsing around them, the garrison there dug in and refused to move. Over the following three years, the Japanese Army mounted thirteen separate offensives against the Zhongtiao position. All thirteen failed. The mountains held. Chinese soldiers would later call it the "Eastern Maginot Line," a nickname that was simultaneously a boast and, in retrospect, a warning — the original Maginot Line, after all, had also been considered impregnable until the enemy simply went around it. But the strategic importance of Zhongtiao went beyond prestige. The mountains commanded the northern approach to the Yellow River crossings — the great geographic boundary that separated Japanese-controlled northern China from the Nationalist-held central and western regions. From their positions in the mountains, Chinese troops could threaten Japanese supply lines, protect their own river logistics, and maintain at least a symbolic presence north of the Yellow River. As long as the Zhongtiao garrison held, Japan could not claim complete control of northern China. It was also a potential launching point for a Chinese counteroffensive, should one ever become possible. The Japanese understood this perfectly. By 1940, eliminating the Zhongtiao position had become not merely desirable but strategically necessary. The First War Zone command responsible for the Zhongtiao garrison was, at least on paper, an imposing force. Between 170,000 and 180,000 men were deployed across the mountain range and its approaches, drawn from multiple armies and organized into several large groupings. The 5th Army Group under Zeng Wanzhong held the central area. The 14th Army Group under Liu Maoen operated in the eastern sector. The 4th Army Group, known as the "Iron Pillar of Zhongtiao" for its tenacious defense of the position over three years, was stationed as the backbone of the force. Individual armies were spread across specific nodes: Pei Changhui's 9th Army at Jiyuan in northern Henan; Zhao Shiling's 43rd Army at Yuanqu at the southernmost tip of Shanxi; Tang Huaiyuan's 3rd Army and Kong Lingxun's 80th Army in the Wenxi and Xiaxian areas; Wu Shimin's 98th Army at Dongfeng Town; Wu Tinglin's 15th Army near Gaoping. The man responsible for holding all of this together was Wei Lihuang, a gifted commander and one of Chiang Kai-shek's most capable generals. Wei had organized the Zhongtiao defense from the beginning, and his strategic instincts were widely respected. He was, by most accounts, the indispensable figure in the garrison's survival. The problem was that Wei had made powerful enemies. His refusal to participate in anti-Communist friction operations — at a time when the Nationalist government was increasingly focused on neutralizing the Communists even at the cost of Japanese resistance — had alienated him from a circle of powerful rivals, including the influential Hu Zongnan. Outmaneuvered at court, Wei was summoned to Chongqing in early 1941 and, under the pretext of strategic consultations, was effectively detained at Mount Emei. He never returned to his command in the Zhongtiao Mountains. The army he had built was left without its architect. The garrison that remained was compromised far beyond its missing commander, however. Three years of static defense had created conditions that corroded military discipline in predictable and insidious ways. Supply lines were unreliable, rations were short, and the soldiers garrisoning remote mountain positions had turned, by necessity and then by habit, to the local economy to sustain themselves. A bustling illicit trade in grain and opium had sprung up across the mountain zone, with Chinese troops selling what they could and buying what they needed from merchants who operated equally comfortably on both sides of the Japanese-Chinese frontier. This was not merely a logistical failure. It meant that Japanese intelligence had abundant commercial cover to infiltrate the garrison area, that security was a fiction, and that the defensive posture of the entire force had quietly shifted from warlike readiness to something closer to bureaucratic occupation. The Japanese had not missed any of this. For months before the offensive, Japanese intelligence agents had worked their way into the garrison's supply networks, trading relationships, and eventually its command structure itself. Japanese special forces had identified key headquarters positions. Informants had mapped the positions of individual units, traced the routes between them, and assessed the readiness of the men holding them. By the spring of 1941, Japanese planners believed, with considerable justification, that they could paralyze the entire Chinese command system within an hour of opening fire. This was not boasting. It was reconnaissance. Back in Chongqing, the intelligence picture was worse than unclear — it was actively distorted. The Nationalist intelligence apparatus issued warnings about Japanese troop movements near the Zhongtiao perimeter in April 1941, but the warnings were partial, their significance disputed, and the political will to act on them absent. A series of conferences were convened at Luoyang, the regional headquarters. Fortification orders were issued. Additional supplies were promised. Almost none of the follow-through actually materialized. The garrison's most powerful formation, the 4th Army Group, had already been transferred away from the area. Its absence left a hole in the defensive line that no amount of paper orders could fill. On the Japanese side, the operation that would eliminate the Zhongtiao garrison was carefully and systematically prepared. It was codenamed the "Central Plains Campaign" — a name that reflected its true ambition, which was not merely to take a mountain range but to reshape the strategic geography of the entire region. The operation was assigned to the North China Area Army under Lieutenant General Tada Shun, an experienced commander who had studied the Zhongtiao problem for years and had a clear understanding of why previous offensives had failed. The core of the attacking force was seven divisions: the 33rd, 35th, 36th, 37th, 41st, and 21st Divisions, along with several independent mixed brigades, puppet Chinese formations, cavalry, and a substantial artillery and air component. The 3rd Air Group, operating from airfields at Yuncheng and Xinxiang, would provide tactical air support throughout the operation. In total, the frontline assault force numbered approximately 100,000 men. This was not a repeat of the previous thirteen offensives, in which the Japanese had probed and pressed at the mountains frontally. This was a comprehensive annihilation plan. Tada's design exploited the geographic shape of the Zhongtiao position itself. The Chinese garrison occupied a roughly crescent-shaped area, with its back to the Yellow River and its front facing north and east into Japanese-held territory. The obvious previous approach — attacking from the north — had failed repeatedly because the terrain favored the defenders. Tada's solution was to attack from three directions simultaneously, with the town of Yuanqu on the Yellow River as the primary objective. Yuanqu was the hinge of the entire Chinese position: it controlled the main river crossings, served as the central supply point for the garrison, and sat at the narrowest point between the mountains and the water. If Yuanqu fell, the Chinese would be cut off from their supply line and divided into two separate pockets. Then each pocket could be destroyed at leisure. To execute this, Tada organized his forces into three attack groups. The eastern group, built around Lieutenant General Harada Yukichi's 35th Division with elements of the 21st Division and the 4th Independent Cavalry Brigade — totaling roughly 25,000 men with armor, artillery, and supporting puppet forces — would drive westward along the Daoqing Road, pushing through Jiyuan and Mengxian toward the eastern flank of the Chinese position. The northeastern group, under Lieutenant General Shozo Sakurai commanding the 33rd Division and an Independent Mixed Brigade, would descend from Yangcheng southward, striking at the middle of the Chinese line. The western and northwestern group, the largest, comprising the 36th, 37th, and 41st Divisions along with the 9th and 16th Independent Mixed Brigades, would push southward from multiple points between Sangchi and Zhangdian, driving straight for Yuanqu. The final element of the plan was the most audacious. Japanese special forces and paratroopers were to land behind Chinese lines on the opening night of the offensive, targeting the Chinese headquarters and communications nodes. If the Chinese command could be blinded and paralyzed in the first hours of the battle, resistance would collapse before it could organize. Given the penetration of the garrison by Japanese intelligence, the paratroopers knew precisely where to go. From late April, Japanese forces quietly moved into their assault positions. Supply dumps were stocked. Artillery was registered on Chinese positions. The attack was set for the morning of May 7, 1941. Everything was ready. The battle opened before dawn on May 7, and it opened everywhere at once. On the eastern front, Harada's 35th Division and its attached formations crossed the start line and drove westward in three parallel columns along the Daoqing Road. More than 5,000 infantrymen, 1,000 cavalry, dozens of artillery pieces, over 100 tanks and armored vehicles, and the supporting puppet troops of Zhang Lanfeng and Liu Yanfeng poured into the Chinese-held area around Jiyuan and Mengxian. The assault had an almost mechanical quality — it moved at the pace of its armor and artillery, methodically grinding through whatever lay in its path. On the northeastern front, Sakurai's 33rd Division descended from Yangcheng with more than 10,000 men, striking at Wu Shimin's 98th Army at Dongfeng Town. Wu was one of the more aggressive Chinese commanders in the garrison, and he did not wait to be overwhelmed. He threw his forces into active resistance on multiple axes, contesting each Japanese advance rather than simply absorbing it. In the fighting around Wangcun, his troops achieved one of the campaign's rare Chinese tactical successes, routing approximately 2,000 Japanese attackers and killing more than 700, including Colonel Hamada, a Japanese regimental commander. It was a genuine local victory, but it could not change the larger picture. On the western and northwestern front, the main Japanese force pushed south with its eyes fixed on Yuanqu. The coordinated weight of three divisions and two independent brigades, all moving along converging axes, was designed to be overwhelming. Individually, a Chinese unit might hold a ridge or a pass for a day. Collectively, there was no way to stop what was coming. And that same night, as the Chinese scrambled to respond to attacks on every side, Japanese paratroopers landed near Chinese headquarters positions. They found what intelligence had promised: a command system already in disarray, staffed by officers who had received no coherent orders and had lost communications with most of their subordinate units. The Japanese were not wrong when they predicted they could paralyze the Chinese command within hours. By the morning of May 8, the Chinese First War Zone headquarters had effectively ceased to function as a coordinating body. Individual armies would fight on, but they would fight alone. The second day of the battle brought the decisive blow. On the afternoon of May 8, the 9th Army under Pei Changhui — already reeling from the pressure of the eastern Japanese columns — abandoned the cities of Ji and Meng and fell back westward. The withdrawal opened a path through the Chinese line, and the Japanese exploited it immediately. That evening, with the assistance of paratroopers who had secured key access routes overnight, Japanese forces reached Yuanqu on the Yellow River's northern bank and took it. The fall of Yuanqu changed everything. At a single stroke, the Chinese garrison's supply line from the south bank of the Yellow River was severed. The main crossing points were in Japanese hands. The two halves of the Chinese position — those to the east of Yuanqu and those to the west — were now separated, unable to reinforce one another. The double encirclement that Tada had designed on paper became a physical reality on the ground. The trap had closed. May 9 brought further disaster. Japanese forces captured Wufujian, another significant point in the Chinese rear. And on this day the battle's human cost began to register in the most stark terms possible. Wang Jun, commander of the newly formed 27th Division of Kong Lingxun's 80th Army, was killed in action fighting in the southern Shanxi mountains. Major General Chen Wenqi, deputy commander of the 24th Division, died in fierce combat near Taizhai Village. And Major General Liang Xixian, having retreated with the remnants of his force to Taizhai and found every route blocked — his options reduced to surrender or death — walked into the Yellow River and drowned himself. He was not the last Chinese officer to choose death over capture. The loss of three generals in a single day was not merely tragic. It reflected something about the nature of the battle that the casualty statistics alone could not capture: the Chinese officers who fought most fiercely and refused to abandon their positions were precisely the men dying, while the broader institutional structure that should have supported them had already failed. The garrison was being consumed from its fighting edge inward. Over the following two days, the Japanese methodically tightened the ring. The eastern column, having taken Yuanqu, split into two prongs: one drove eastward, capturing Shaoyuan by the morning of May 12 and linking up with the forces that had been pressing westward from Jiyuan; the other drove westward to Wufujian, joining with the troops already there. The inner encirclement was now complete and continuous. The Yellow River crossings along the entire Chinese front were blocked. There was no route south that wasn't already under fire or in Japanese hands. The fighting in the mountain passes was, by all accounts, ferocious. At Fengmenkou — a critical pass that both sides recognized as a key chokepoint — the Chinese 9th Army committed the main force of its newly formed 24th Division along with elements of the 54th Division, fighting for every ridge and ravine. The Japanese sent reinforcements and simply absorbed the punishment, pressing forward until numbers and artillery told. By May 12, the position at Jianshan had been surrounded as well, and the outer ring of encirclement had sealed. The Chinese armies in the Zhongtiao Mountains were now divided into isolated pockets, each fighting separately, each trying to find a gap in the Japanese lines that simply wasn't there. Beyond the mountains, the Chinese high command in Luoyang was issuing desperate orders. Units that had already been overrun were instructed to hold positions they no longer occupied. Army commanders who had lost contact with their corps were told to coordinate with formations they couldn't reach. The gap between the orders flowing from headquarters and the reality on the ground had become absolute. The First War Zone command was, in practical terms, a spectator to the destruction of its own army. Of all the days in the three-week battle, May 13 was perhaps the most devastating for Chinese morale. At Cunbu, in the western sector, the 3rd Army under Lieutenant General Tang Huaiyuan had been surrounded and cut off. Tang was among the finest officers in the Nationalist army — a career soldier of exceptional ability, admired by subordinates and superiors alike, the kind of commander who by his personal presence could steady troops on the edge of breaking. He had led the 3rd Army in continuous fighting since May 7, conducting a fighting retreat that had preserved more of his force than most. But there was nowhere left to retreat to. Cunbu was surrounded on all sides. The Yellow River was behind him. The Japanese were in front. Tang Huaiyuan sat with his surviving officers and told them that he would not surrender. Then he shot himself. He was fifty-seven years old. On the same day, Cun Xingqi, commander of the 12th Division, was hit eight times during close combat and died on the field. The tally of dead general officers had now reached five in the space of a week. Tang Huaiyuan's death, unlike the others, resonated as something more than a military loss. He was a symbol of what the Zhongtiao defense had once represented: the possibility that courage and skill could compensate for disadvantages in firepower and logistics. His death seemed to say, loudly, that that possibility was exhausted. Chiang Kai-shek, when news reached him in Chongqing, personally ordered that Tang Huaiyuan be posthumously promoted and honored. The gesture was well-intentioned and entirely beside the point. Tang was dead. His army was destroyed. The gesture could not undo either fact. With the double encirclement complete and the primary Chinese resistance broken, the Japanese Army entered the second and less dramatic but equally brutal phase of its operation: the systematic clearance of what remained. Beginning around May 15, Japanese units shifted from the headlong offensive drives of the first week to methodical sweep operations, moving through the mountain terrain in organized formations, pressing into each remaining pocket and eliminating whatever resistance they found. The Yellow River's northern bank was secured by Japanese forces who established posts at the crossing points, blocking retreat and interdicting any resupply attempt. From the western front, sweep operations continued in a series of movements that lasted until well into June, each one driving Chinese remnants further into smaller and more untenable positions. Japanese after-action reports from this period read with the clinical detachment of men doing carpentry rather than fighting: so many positions cleared, so many prisoners taken, so many bodies counted. For the surviving Chinese forces, this period was one of desperate improvisation. With coordinated resistance impossible and every organized position either taken or surrounded, the remnant armies broke up into smaller columns and attempted to find their own routes out of the encirclement. Their experiences varied enormously depending on their starting position, the initiative of their commanders, and fortune. The remnants of the 3rd Army and 15th Army, under Zeng Wanzhong of the 5th Army Group, managed to push through to Yellow River crossings in the west and get their men across to the south bank, eventually reorganizing at Luoyang and Xin'an. The 93rd Army, which had occupied positions in the northeast, shook off the Japanese pursuit with sufficient speed and organization to cross at Yumenkou and escape into Hancheng County in Shaanxi Province, preserving more of its fighting strength than most. Wu Shimin's 98th Army — whose fighting at Wangcun had been one of the campaign's genuine bright spots — was pushed northward into the Taiyue Mountains, conducting guerrilla operations as it went. Wu himself was wounded during the withdrawal and would spend months recovering; he never fully recovered his health, and would die by suicide the following year. The 43rd Army under Zhao Shiling, which had held Yuanqu before its fall, managed a fighting withdrawal toward Fushan and Yicheng in the north. Pei Changhui's 9th Army conducted several days of guerrilla operations along the Daoqing Road before finding crossings at Xiaodukou and Guanyangdukou and getting across the Yellow River to safety. By May 27, the great majority of the Zhongtiao Mountain garrison had either been destroyed, captured, or withdrawn. The mountains that had held for three years were in Japanese hands. The battle, for all practical purposes, was over. The two sides emerged from the battle with starkly different accounts of what had happened, and the gap between those accounts is itself revealing. Japanese operational records claimed that their forces had killed approximately 42,000 Chinese soldiers on the battlefield, taken around 35,000 prisoners, captured enormous quantities of weapons and supplies, and inflicted total Chinese casualties exceeding 100,000. Against this, Japanese headquarters reported their own losses as 673 killed and 2,292 wounded — a ratio so lopsided that it seemed to describe a completely different kind of warfare. Whether or not the precise numbers are accurate, Japanese sources were consistent in portraying the battle as a catastrophic one-sided rout. The Chinese government's official figures, presented to the public and to allied nations, told a very different story. Nationalist records acknowledged approximately 13,751 officers and soldiers killed, wounded, gassed, or missing, while claiming Japanese casualties of around 9,900. These numbers, by the standards of the actual fighting and the geographic scale of the defeat, strained credulity. They were the numbers of a government that needed, for political and morale reasons, to minimize a disaster it could not afford to fully acknowledge. What is beyond dispute is the strategic result. The Zhongtiao garrison, which had held for three years against thirteen prior offensives, had been destroyed in twenty days. The last significant Nationalist Chinese presence north of the Yellow River in the region had been eliminated. Japan now controlled the northern bank of the river for a substantial stretch, had secured its supply lines through southern Shanxi, and had opened the door for future pressure on Luoyang and ultimately Xi'an. The mountain barrier that had allowed Chinese forces to threaten Japanese logistics was gone. It would not be rebuilt. Six senior Chinese generals had died in the battle: Wang Jun, Chen Wenqi, Liang Xixian, Tang Huaiyuan, Cun Xingqi, and others in the fighting. Their deaths were individually remarkable — men choosing death over surrender at rate that reflected both the desperate conditions of the battle and a code of honor that many of them explicitly invoked in their final moments. They were also, in aggregate, a measure of how completely the officer corps had been consumed. In the decades since the battle, historians have returned repeatedly to the question of why a position held for three years collapsed so completely in three weeks. The answers are neither simple nor flattering to the Nationalist government, and they were debated with bitter intensity in Chongqing even while the battle was still being fought. The most immediate cause was the removal of Wei Lihuang. This was not merely the loss of a capable general — it was the destruction of the institutional knowledge and personal relationships that had made the defense function. The Zhongtiao garrison was not simply a collection of soldiers in mountain positions; it was a system, carefully constructed over three years, that depended on specific command relationships, established logistics arrangements, and particular allocation of resources. Wei had built that system. Without him, and without any adequate replacement, it became something far more brittle than it appeared. Below the level of high command, the garrison's gradual corruption was an equally powerful factor. The trading networks, the opium commerce, the penetration by Japanese intelligence — these were not incidental problems but symptoms of a deeper institutional failure. An army that has spent three years in static defensive positions, chronically undersupplied and without a meaningful offensive mission, tends toward exactly this kind of decay. The Nationalist government's decision to prioritize anti-Communist friction operations over Zhongtiao's fighting readiness had removed the 4th Army Group — the backbone of the defense — and had consumed Wei Lihuang's attention and political capital at the worst possible moment. The Japanese plan, too, deserves credit it rarely receives in Chinese accounts of the battle. The three-pronged converging attack on Yuanqu was not simply overwhelming force applied to an obvious target. It was an elegant solution to the genuine tactical puzzle that the Zhongtiao mountains presented, exploiting the garrison's geographic vulnerability with a precision that turned the defenders' mountain terrain from an asset into a trap. The use of paratroopers to decapitate the Chinese command in the opening hours was a sophisticated operational concept that worked almost exactly as designed. Tada Shun was not lucky. He was thorough. Finally, there is the question of Chiang Kai-shek's own priorities. His reported weeping upon receiving news of the defeat was genuine, in the sense that the loss clearly shocked and grieved him. But the decisions that led to the defeat — Wei Lihuang's removal, the transfer of the 4th Army Group, the neglect of fortification and resupply in the months preceding the battle — had been made in Chongqing, not in the mountains. The Zhongtiao garrison had been strategically sacrificed, piece by piece, for political calculations in the internal factional struggle between Nationalists and Communists. Whether Chiang understood the cost of those choices before May 7, 1941, is debatable. After that date, it was difficult to pretend otherwise. The fall of the Zhongtiao Mountains did not end the War of Resistance, but it substantially worsened China's strategic position in the north. Over the following months, Japan used its consolidated control of southern Shanxi to increase pressure on the Yellow River line and probe toward Luoyang. The surviving Chinese armies, reorganized south of the river, were in no position to counterattack. The mountains themselves, stripped of their garrison and secured by Japanese occupation troops, became part of the extended Japanese occupation zone — a territory to be administered and exploited rather than contested. For the men who had fought there, the battle left wounds that went beyond the physical. Entire armies had to be rebuilt from remnants. Officers who had retreated, whether under orders or on their own initiative, faced boards of inquiry in an atmosphere of recrimination and blame-seeking. Some were cashiered. Some faced criminal proceedings. The search for culpability — which was genuine enough, since the failure was genuine — tended to fall on those least able to defend themselves rather than on the senior commanders and political figures whose decisions had created the conditions for defeat. The posthumous honors awarded to Tang Huaiyuan, Liang Xixian, Wang Jun, and the other officers who died in battle were heartfelt, and they were also convenient. The heroic dead could be elevated without requiring the living to answer uncomfortable questions. Their sacrifice was real. The system that wasted it was also real. In the broader history of the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Battle of Zhongtiao Mountain tends to be overshadowed by more famous engagements — Shanghai, Nanjing, Taierzhuang, the later battles along the Salween. This is partly because the Chinese side lost comprehensively and had little interest in memorializing the loss, and partly because the battle's significance was more strategic than dramatic. There was no great last stand, no single moment of heroism sufficient to redeem the catastrophe. There were only men dying in mountain passes, generals walking into rivers, and an entire defensive system disintegrating under the weight of its own contradictions. What the Battle of Zhongtiao Mountain represents, in the end, is a case study in how military positions are really lost. They are rarely lost on the battlefield alone. They are lost in the staff meetings where capable commanders are removed for political reasons. They are lost in the supply depots that never get restocked. They are lost in the informal economies that grow up when institutions stop functioning. They are lost in the intelligence assessments that are written and ignored. They are lost, finally and irreversibly, in the early morning hours when the guns open simultaneously on three sides and the men at the radios discover that no one is answering.     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. On May 7, 1941, Japan opened a three-front assault on Zhongtiao Mountains; paratroopers disrupted command night. With the 9th Army withdrawing, Yuanqu fell on May 8, severing supply and trapping the garrison. Fighting raged through May 13, costing generals, until Japanese sweeps cleared pockets; survivors escaped south of Yellow River.

Gerda Bukauskaitė-Žiūkienė yra slaugytoja, geriatrinės slaugos dėstytoja, ir ekologijos ir aplinkotyros doktorantė. Ji siekia išsiaiškinti, kiek aplinkos veiksniai veikia vyresnių žmonių sveikatą, o taip pat, kas svarbu pritaikant miesto žaliąsias erdves taip, kad jose būtų saugu, patogu ir gera lankytis.Su ja vaikščiojame po Alytų ir vertiname miesto centre ir gamtos apsuptyje esančias erdves.Autorė Inga Janiulytė-Temporin

Penktadienį tradiciniuose „Auksinių bičių“ apdovanojimuose net dvi bitės atsidūrė LRT KLASIKOS kūrėjų rankose – programų redaktorei Agne Daniulei ir vyriausiajai redaktorei Monikai Bertašiūtei-Čiužienei.„Dabar nėra tos meilės darbui“, – taip apie šiuolaikinius metalo dirbinius sako kalvė Viginta Jakubonienė. Ji kartu su vyru Rolandu Jakuboniu Šilagalyje įkurtoje kalvėje ir puoselėja, ir tobulina amato tradicijas. Jakuboniai – vieninteliai kalviai Panevėžio krašte, turintys aukštesnįjį savo profesijos išsilavinimą. Apie šio amato subtilybes su kalvių pora pasikalbėjo Evelina Povilavičiūtė.Marcinkonių kaimo bendruomenė kartu su Dzūkijos nacionalinio parko ir Čepkelių valstybinio gamtinio rezervato direkcija išleido knygą „Marcinkonys: Šilų dzūkų pasaulio klodai“. Knygos sudarytoja Dalia Blažulionytė.Medijų rėmimo fondas skelbs konkursą, kuriuo bus finansuojama nauja Visuomenės atsparumo programa. Ja siekiama didinti informacinį saugumą ir skatinti kokybiškos informacijos nacionalinio saugumo klausimais rengimą ir sklaidą. Apie naująją programą kalbame su fondo vadovu Ruslana Iržikevičiumi.„Tapymas man yra ramybės ir laisvės laikas, kurį labai vertinu“, – sako tauragiškė Reda Daniulė, pristačiusi savo pirmąją tapybos darbų parodą „Visi veidai“. Paveiksluose atsiskleidžia įvairūs veidai, emocinės būsenos ir asmenybės, kurios gali priminti ir šį bei tą iš parodos lankytojų gyvenimo. Kaip gimsta kūriniai ir ar Tauragėje yra galimybių kūrėjų debiutams domėjosi kolegė Vesta Vitkutė.Tokijo nacionaliniame Vakarų meno muziejuje baigėsi paroda „M. K. Čiurlionis: vidinis žvaigždėlapis“. Kokio susidomėjimo ji sulaukė? Kalbame su antrąją kadenciją Lietuvos kultūros atašė Japonijoje pradedančia Gabija Čepulionytė ir Nacionalinio M. K. Čiurlionio muziejaus vadove Virginija Vitkiene.Europos Parlamentas, Europos Komisija ir Europos Sąjungos Taryba pasirašė deklaraciją „Europa kultūrai – kultūra Europai“. Ja įsipareigojama stiprinti kultūros vaidmenį Europoje. Apie deklaraciją kalbame su Lietuvos kultūros atašė Lietuvos nuolatinėje atstovybėje Europos Sąjungoje Vida Gražiene.Ved. Marius Eidukonis

Každý si může nabrat plnou náruč naděje. Nanaberte ji s Jiřím Zdráhalem.Tento podcast můžete podpořit na https://radio7.cz

Marcela Tobiášová v nové epizodě podcastu Ve stínu popisuje okamžik, kdy navzdory vlastním obavám předávala děti zpět do biologické rodiny. Její příběh není ojedinělý. Přinášíme i další případy dětí, u kterých přišla pomoc pozdě.Smrt tříleté Viktorky, jejíž příběh zmapovala podcastová série Ve stínu, vyvolala mimořádnou veřejnou reakci. Vznikly petice, veřejné výzvy i komise pro přezkum nepřirozených úmrtí dětí. Do redakce zároveň začala přicházet další svědectví o dětech, u nichž měli jejich blízcí pocit, že systém ochrany selhal.Některé z těchto příběhů uslyšíte i v debatě, kterou podcast Ve stínu uspořádal.Přijďte na naše živé vystoupení dne 26. 8. ke kauze v Zoo Praha. Bližší informace a vstupenky naleznete zde. Těšíme se na vás.

Pro obyvatele dvacetimilionové Káhiry je Jihlava jen malé město. Přesto se teď její jméno učí Egypťané vyslovovat. Na několik dní se totiž objevilo v programu káhirského kina Záwíja, kam Mezinárodní festival dokumentárních filmů Ji.hlava ve spolupráci s Českými centry přivezl výběr festivalových snímků. A jak říká náš zpravodaj Štěpán Macháček, na podzim by se naopak mohly do Jihlavy podívat vybrané egyptské dokumenty.

Proč si vzít psa do práce? A jak se jmenovali trpaslíci? Otázky k zamyšlení pro Jiřinku a Alenku.

Pro obyvatele dvacetimilionové Káhiry je Jihlava jen malé město. Přesto se teď její jméno učí Egypťané vyslovovat. Na několik dní se totiž objevilo v programu káhirského kina Záwíja, kam Mezinárodní festival dokumentárních filmů Ji.hlava ve spolupráci s Českými centry přivezl výběr festivalových snímků. A jak říká náš zpravodaj Štěpán Macháček, na podzim by se naopak mohly do Jihlavy podívat vybrané egyptské dokumenty.Všechny díly podcastu Zápisník zahraničních zpravodajů můžete pohodlně poslouchat v mobilní aplikaci mujRozhlas pro Android a iOS nebo na webu mujRozhlas.cz.

Co způsobil jeden neopatrný skok do rybníka? Jaké další zdravotní problémy sebou poranění míchy přináší? Je těžké si říct o pomoc a přijmout ji? Co ho inspirovalo k cestě na handbiku na Island? Proč je někdy lepší asistence cizích lidí než vlastní rodiny? Jaké dovednosti musí trénovat otec s postižením, když má dvě malé děti? Jakou zprávu většinové společnosti dávají Ceny Olgy Havlové? O co Jiří Čeloud svým úrazem přišel a co naopak získal?Všechny díly podcastu Jak to vidí... můžete pohodlně poslouchat v mobilní aplikaci mujRozhlas pro Android a iOS nebo na webu mujRozhlas.cz.

V Omeletkách si budeme povídat o Vídni. V zimě mi zavolalo neznámé číslo: „Nechtěla byste vystoupit pro české a slovenské rodáky ve Vídni?“ Řekla jsem ano. Při první cestě nás sejmul kamion, a z Vídně sešlo. Později jsem s přítelem opět uháněla po D1. Publikum se při mých odpovědích dost smálo a mne potěšilo, že nezáleží na tom, kde se právě nacházím, že lidé mají smysl pro humor snad všude na světě. V Omeletkách ještě uslyšíte příspěvek Jiřího Čutky Školka třetího věku.

Co způsobil jeden neopatrný skok do rybníka? Jaké další zdravotní problémy sebou poranění míchy přináší? Je těžké si říct o pomoc a přijmout ji? Co ho inspirovalo k cestě na handbiku na Island? Proč je někdy lepší asistence cizích lidí než vlastní rodiny? Jaké dovednosti musí trénovat otec s postižením, když má dvě malé děti? Jakou zprávu většinové společnosti dávají Ceny Olgy Havlové? O co Jiří Čeloud svým úrazem přišel a co naopak získal?

Hledat cestu ke štěstí a doufat, že Bůh zařídí zázrak stylem abrakadabra bez lidského přičinění, je naivní. Hledat cestu ke štěstí ruku v ruce s Bohem, bude stát hodně. Pokud... Zaposlouchejte se do záznamu Bohoslužby a objevte principy toho, jak zaměření pozornosti mění naši realitu. K poslechu zve Jiří Čihulka, pastor sboru My Father´s house v Turnově. Tento podcast můžete podpořit na https://radio7.cz

fWotD Episode 3333: KPop Demon Hunters Welcome to featured Wiki of the Day, your daily dose of knowledge from Wikipedia's finest articles.The featured article for Saturday, 20 June 2026, is KPop Demon Hunters.KPop Demon Hunters is a 2025 American animated musical urban fantasy film co-written and directed by Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans. It was produced by Sony Pictures Animation for Netflix and stars the voices of Arden Cho, Ahn Hyo-seop, May Hong, Ji-young Yoo, Yunjin Kim, Daniel Dae Kim, Ken Jeong, and Lee Byung-hun. The story follows a K-pop girl group, Huntrix, who lead double lives as demon hunters. They face off against a rival boy band, the Saja Boys, whose members are secretly demons.KPop Demon Hunters originated from Kang's desire to create a story inspired by her Korean heritage, drawing on elements of mythology, demonology, and K-pop to craft a visually distinct and culturally rooted film. Production had begun by March 2021. The look of the film was influenced by concert lighting, editorial photography, music videos, and anime and Korean dramas. The soundtrack includes original songs by several musicians and a score by Marcelo Zarvos.KPop Demon Hunters began streaming on Netflix on June 20, 2025, and by year's end became the most-watched original title in Netflix history with over 500 million views. A sing-along version had limited theatrical releases on August 23–24 and October 31–November 2. Its theatrical release was the widest by number of theaters for a Netflix film, and the first to top the box office in the United States. The soundtrack was the first film soundtrack to have four songs in the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100 simultaneously, and was certified double platinum in the US in October 2025.KPop Demon Hunters received acclaim for its animation, visual style, voice acting, story, and music. The recipient of many accolades, it won Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song ("Golden") at both the 83rd Golden Globe Awards and the 98th Academy Awards, and won multiple awards at the 53rd Annie Awards. A sequel is in development.This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 00:30 UTC on Saturday, 20 June 2026.For the full current version of the article, see KPop Demon Hunters on Wikipedia.This podcast uses content from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.Visit our archives at wikioftheday.com and subscribe to stay updated on new episodes.Follow us on Bluesky at @wikioftheday.com.Also check out Curmudgeon's Corner, a current events podcast.Until next time, I'm standard Joanna.

Pluje mezi žánry a její hlas si zapamatujete. Zpěvačka Barbara Kanyzová se po odchodu z projektu Jiřího Krhuta a Štěpána Kozuba naplno věnuje vlastní kariéře. Působila také v Berlíně, odkud má zkušenost s buskingem. Přestože se jí tam dařilo, přesunula se zpět do Ostravy a začala spolupracovat s Divadlem Mír a Třemi Tygry. Průřez svojí českou i anglickou tvorbou představí v červenci na festivalu Colours of Ostrava.Všechny díly podcastu Host Lenky Vahalové můžete pohodlně poslouchat v mobilní aplikaci mujRozhlas pro Android a iOS nebo na webu mujRozhlas.cz.

Pluje mezi žánry a její hlas si zapamatujete. Zpěvačka Barbara Kanyzová se po odchodu z projektu Jiřího Krhuta a Štěpána Kozuba naplno věnuje vlastní kariéře. Působila také v Berlíně, odkud má zkušenost s buskingem. Přestože se jí tam dařilo, přesunula se zpět do Ostravy a začala spolupracovat s Divadlem Mír a Třemi Tygry. Průřez svojí českou i anglickou tvorbou představí v červenci na festivalu Colours of Ostrava.

Tony revisits Ji, a visually striking sci‑fi romance short that imagines a future where humanity has fractured across worlds. After centuries of pollution, war, and collapse, Earth is left in ruins. The East escapes to build a pristine off‑world colony called Nilo, while the West seals itself behind fortified walls. From this divide emerges Ji, a disciplined Nilo general played by Lewis Tan. Rumors swirl on Nilo that life still exists on Earth — a claim their government denies. Ji risks everything to descend to the planet of his ancestors, only to discover Tiffany, a resilient Earth survivor portrayed by Eva De Dominici. Their connection forces Ji into a choice that could reshape both worlds. Tony chatted with Ben Griffin to explore the film's emotional core, its world‑building, and the timeless tension between duty and love. SAVE 17% ON PLUS  

Jeho předúnorovou éru novináře Svobodného slova registrovali počátkem 90. let už jen jeho vrstevníci. Ale během krátké doby se Jiřímu Ješovi podařilo stát se doyenem českých komentátorů, zejména těch rozhlasových. Vůbec nehodlal být za každou cenu „vyvážený“. „Já jsem nedělal odboj proti komunismu. Jenom jsem prostě dělal všechno možné, aby zlo nenastoupilo. Aby se vůbec nedostalo k moci. A pokračuju v tom celý život,“ tvrdil.Všechny díly podcastu Archiv Plus můžete pohodlně poslouchat v mobilní aplikaci mujRozhlas pro Android a iOS nebo na webu mujRozhlas.cz.

Europos Parlamentas trečiadienį 418 balsų prieš 218 pritarė migrantų grąžinimo reformai. Ji leidžia nelegaliai ES esančius migrantus sulaikyti iki dvejų metų ir perkelti į grąžinimo centrus už ES ribų. Lietuvos europarlamentarai pritarę sprendimui aiškina, kodėl jis buvo reikalingas.

Klub má dnes okolo padesátky registrovaných členů. Podle předsedy Jiřího Axmanna přibývají noví členové, bývají ale starší.

Letos v listopadu to bude 60 let od premiéry oscarového snímku Jiřího Menzela Ostře sledované vlaky. Toto jubileum oslaví lidé 20. června v Loděnici u Berouna, kde se velká část filmu natáčela. Navštívit tam mohou také Muzeum trati.

Socialdemokratai, demokratai ir „valstiečiai“ pasirašo valdančiosios koalicijos sutartį. Kokius darbus planuoja naujoji Vyriausybė?Jungtinių Valstijų prezidentas Donaldas Trumpas Versalio rūmuose Prancūzijoje pasirašė memorandumą dėl taikos su Iranu. Jį pasirašė ir Irano prezidentas. Dokumente Iranas kartoja pažadą nesiekti branduolinio ginklo, tačiau dėl išsodrinto urano likimo su Teheranu numatoma susitarti per naujas šešiasdešimties dienų derybas. Memorandume numatomas ir Hormuzo sąsiaurio atvėrimas, ir Amerikos sankcijų Irano naftai atšaukimas. Vėliau žadamas ir 300-tų milijardų dolerių fondas Irano atstatymui. Susitarimas aštriai kritikuojamas.Koks tikėtinas JAV ir Irano taikos susitarimo poveikis pasaulio ekonomikai?Seimas balsuos dėl vieningo viešojo transporto bilieto sistemos. Ji apjungtų ne tik autobusus, bet ir geležinkelį, vidaus vandenis ir paspirtukus.Ar žinote koks gatvės pavadinimas Lietuvoje yra populiariausias? Liepų. Tačiau egzistuoja ir retesni, neįprasti pavadinimai. Pavyzdžiui, Pasimatymo akligatvis Kaune arba Palmių takas Raseiniuose.Ved. Andrius Kavaliauskas

News,  Prague's Jiřího z Poděbrad Square officially reopens, Troja Festival,  interview with Czech climber František D'Agostino

Di vê bûletenê de: Ji qezayên trafîkê bêtir Australî ji ber bikaranîna madeya hoşber dimirin... DFAT hişyariyên rêwîtiyê ji bo hin welatên Rojhilata Navîn sivik dike. Û di Kûpa Cîhanê de, Fransa û Norwêc kampaynên xwe bi serkeftinan dest pê kirirn. Ew nûçeyana û nûçeyên din di bûlentenê de hene.

7 iš 10 Lietuvos gyventojų neigiamai vertina valdžios veiksmus suvaldyti degalų kainas. Vyriausybė, siekdama, sumažinti degalų kainas, tam išleido 20 mln eurų- buvo įvesta akcizo lengvata dyzelinam kurui. Ji vakar nustojo galioti ir nebebus pratęsta. Ekonomistai teigia, kad valdžia neturi neribotų resursų kovai su degalų kainomis tokioje situacijoje.Į LRT kreipiasi klausytojai, kurie sako pastebėję, kad daugėja atvejų, kai Maisto ir veterinarijos tarnyba praneša, kad viename ar kitame prekybos centre įsigyta mėsa buvo užkrėsta, kurią galima grąžinti. Klausytojai taip pat teiraujasi, kodėl apie užkrėstą mėsą pranešama kone po mėnesio, kai ji jau būna suvartota?Krašto apsaugos viceministro pareigas palikęs Tomas Godliauskas ėmėsi vadovauti naujai įsteigtai asociacijai „Visuotinė gynyba“. Asociacija įsteigta siekiant stiprinti Lietuvos nacionalinį saugumą ir visuomenės atsparumą nuo tradiciškai karinio gynybos supratimo pereinant prie kiekvieno piliečio įsitraukimu grindžiamo modelio.Duris atvėrė jubiliejinį, šešiasdešimtąjį, sezoną pasitinkanti Palangos vasaros skaitykla. Kaip įprasta, ji kurorto svečius priims iki rudens, o tuomet vėl užvers duris. Kurorto savivaldybė norėtų, kad skaitykla veiktų ištisus metus - siūlomas ir finansavimas jos remontui bei pritaikymui, žadama pasiūlyti ir veiklų, kurios čia kviestų palangiškius ir poilsiautojus. Tačiau skaityklos šeimininkai - Lietuvos nacionalinė Martyno Mažvydo biblioteka - į tokius norus žiūri skeptiškai, esą statinys pritaikytas naudoti tik vasaros sezono metu.Šią savaitę visoje Lietuvoje vyksta didžiausias Baltijos šalyse pabėgėlių indėlį kultūrai ir visuomenei švenčiantis festivalis „Pabėgėlių savaitė“. Iniciatyva kviečia į koncertus, diskusijas, parodas, ekskursijas, kūrybines dirbtuves ir bendruomeninius susitikimus, kuriuose atsiskleidžia žmonių, ieškančių saugumo, istorijos, kūryba ir kasdienės patirtys. Kaip sekasi integruoti pabėgėlius per kultūrą, su kokiais iššūkiais susiduriama ir ko galime pasimokyti iš kitų Europos valstybių patirties?Ved. Rūta Kupetytė

Rozhovor s lektorem angličtiny Jakubem Čáslavou o strachu Čechů z mluvení a o tom, proč dávání kurzů zdarma v praxi nefunguje. V otevřené zpovědi vysvětluje, jak po letech na sociálních sítích došel k vyhoření a proč se rozhodl postovat videa bez toho, aby na sítích sám aktivně trávil čas. Popisuje výuku angličtiny u bojovníka Jiřího Procházky a zmiňuje, jak zápasník řeší souběh titulového zápasu s termínem porodu své partnerky. V rozhovoru dojde také na překlady skrytých významů v textu hitu Despacito nebo na živý kvíz s publikem zaměřený na chytáky v anglické gramatice.

The Dazai no Sochi--the head of the Yamato government in Kyushu--was a powerful position, with a lot of autonomy with lucrative opportunities.  The people in this position were often powerful members of the court capable of representing the sovereign.  They would often go on to become quite powerful in their own right.  So who were the movers and shakers that held this prestigious position during Uno no Sarara's reign?  This episode, we take a look at those who held the position and those who supported them. For more, check out our blogpost:  https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-151 PS:  Hang around to the end (or check the end of the transcript) for information on some possible updates coming to the show. Rough Transcript Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.  My name is Joshua and this is Episode 151: The Dazai no Sochi of the late 7th century   Tsukushi no Masaru was busy.  A new boss was coming in, and he wanted to make sure everything was prepared.  The Dazai may have been about as far as one could get from the capital and still be in Yamato, but it was also the first—and sometimes only—encounter some would have with the archipelago, so there was no excuse to be slacking off.  Of course, this was hardly his first new boss, though for as long as he'd been on the job, each one could well be his last.  He was getting a bit long in the tooth, after all.  Twenty-nine years was a long time to be working in the same position.  As Masaru paused, he thought back on some of the people he'd served.  There was Soga no Akae—he was ambitious.  Apparently he'd been in some rather compromising positions before coming out, but he'd done well enough when he went back.  Shame that he backed the wrong horse. That did bring a chuckle to old Masaru's throat, though.  He remembered when Prince Kurikuma had come out there, to the the Dazai, , and there were still people around who told stories of him.  When those Afumi court stooges had showed up to try and conscript the barrier guards, Prince Kurikuma and his sons just stared them down.  Everyone had been afraid that it would end in bloodshed, or at least that there would be consequences for defying the court, but Kurikuma was adamant, and the messenger had left with his tail firmly between his legs. Then there was Shima. By the time he came, Masaru already knew how everything was supposed to work. He may not have been in charge, but that wasn't his ambition.  It was enough for him to be good at what he did.  He didn't need to go all the way to the Palace and deal with the politics there—there were enough politics out here already.  Shima, though, he was clearly suited for that Palace life.  He was a capable administrator, but Masaru could tell he was ambitious.  When he left, everyone knew that he would be going on to bigger and better things. And now there was another Prince coming out. So they would get the government offices prepared and greet him with proper fanfare.  They'd bring him in and hold the ceremonies, and then they would get down to work.  A stream of officers would present him with what they were working on and what had to happen.  Masaru would be there to help make sure that everything was running smoothly and nothing got too out of hand.  And that was the way things worked out on the edge of the realm.   Welcome back to Sengoku Daimyo.  We are still covering the reign of Uno no Sarara, and, similar to last episode, we are going to continue to talk about the people who made up Yamato at this time.  This episode, more specifically, we are going to be turning away from the capital, in Asuka, and looking all the way over to Tsukushi—modern Kyushu—and at the people who served as Dazai no Sochi, or head of the local government out there, as well as the bureaucrats and staff that worked for them—at least as far we know.  Many of them went on to have considerable careers that took them well beyond Kyushu.  At the same time, we'll take a look at some of the things that happened under their rule as what Aston translates as the "Viceroy of Tsukushi". After that, I have a special announcement about the podcast at the end of the episode, so if you are interested in learning more about what we plan on doing, please listen all the way to the end to hear about some plans for the future. And with that out of the way, let's begin. So we are talking about the position of Dazai no Sochi or the Viceroy of Tsukushi.  Often these people are referred to only as being of the "Tsukushi no Dazai" or the "Tsukushi no Ohomochi".  The term "Sochi" appears later, and we first see this term applied to Prince Kawachi, in 689.  It seems to show up with two different characters, which might be a term from the later Taihou code that was retroactively applied or may refer to an evolution of the position over time.  I'm honestly not sure.  There is still plenty of confusion over what was meant in some of the references. We've discussed this position before on the podcast: This was the sovereign's representative to the world outside of the archipelago.  Not only did the Dazai no Sochi  oversee all of Tsukushi—all of Kyushu— and extensive defensive forces stationed there and in the outlying islands, but they oversaw all diplomatic and trade missions to and from the archipelago.  Envoy missions would come to Tsushima, where they would get a local pilot and send word ahead.  They would then be received at the government center, the Dazai, near modern Fukuoka and Hakata bay.  For most envoys, this was as close as they would ever get to Yamato proper.  They would offload their goods there and be put up at the government supplied quarters in Wogohori.  They would be wined and dined there, entertained as appropriate to their status, while word was sent on to the capital.  In rare cases, envoys would be sent on another journey through the inland sea to Naniwa, and then on to Asuka, but otherwise their journey would end at the Dazaifu.  Any return gifts would come back with the correspondence from the capital, and thus be handed out to the envoys and their escorts before the mission was sent back home to Silla, Tamna, or wherever they had come from. Being the middle man in this operation offered a lot of power and authority, but it also would have been quite lucrative.  While diplomatic missions brought gifts for the court, they also brought  trade goods, of which the Dazai no Sochi could have first  pick.  This is on top of the fact that this position often came with a stipend equaling the labor of hundreds of individuals.  Many of the Dazai no Sochi would serve limited terms, eventually returning to Asuka, where we see them take on powerful positions. Take, for example, our first Dazai no Sochi, Tajihi no Mabito no Shima. Tajihi no Shima was born, we are told, in or around 624 to Tajihi no Maro and a daughter of Ohotomo no Hirafu.  Tajihi no Maro, Shima's father was a powerful noble in the court of Ohoama, aka Temmu Tennou, and he had enough standing that he was one of the named individuals who provided eulogies for Ohoama on the occasion of his passing.   The Tajihi family were quite well placed: they were descendants of Hinokuma no Takata no Miko, aka Senka Tennou, Shima's great-grandfather.  This earned them the kabane of "Mabito", or "True Person" because of their royal lineage.   Tajihi no Shima was placed in charge of the Dazai from at least 682.  His predecessor that we know about is Prince Yagaki, who was dismissed around 676, and we don't know who filled the gap between him and Shima. Shima had quite the run.  We don't know exactly when he returned to the court in Asuka, but it cannot have been later than 689, when we see Awada no Mahito in the position.  A year later, in 690, Shima was made Udaijin, or minister of the right.  That's a huge deal and we will talk about that in a bit, but what did Shima actually oversee during his tenure as Dazai no Sochi? We have quite a few events attributed to him, this reign.  In 686, we see the Tsukushi no Dazai sending tribute in the form of human beings:  Common men and women of Goguryeo, Baekje, and Silla, along with 62 priests and nuns.  We aren't told where these men and women came from, but I suspect that they were refugees or captives from all the fighting on the peninsula.  That they were given as tribute suggests to me that they were enslaved—or at the very least they were not free.  If they were uneducated, they were likely put to work as labor, perhaps building out the new capital or opening new farmlands.  Later we see the various missions from Silla around the death of Ohoama, and the back and forth that went on, there, and in 688 the Tsukushi no Dazai entertained Kara, a Minister of Tamna, aka modern Jeju island, who had been sent by the king of that small country.  You may recall that Tamna, while late to the game, may have been one of the last holdouts of an early Japonic speaking people outside of the archipelago. Being the Tsukushi no Dazai, Shima would not have only been concerned with foreign envoys, but also with two other groups of Hayato—specifically the Ohosumi no Hayato and the Ata no Hayato.  Little is known about them, other than that Yamato considered them to be distinct ethnic and cultural groups living in the far south of Kyushu.  We've talked before about how southern Kyushu maintained a significantly different material culture through Kofun period until more recent times.  We also have indication that they had a distinctive shield and even art style—the famous "Hayato shields" appear to have been appropriated by the court, along with a contingent of Hayato men that were expected to act as an exotic guard for the sovereign and the court.  The earliest reliable evidence we have for them is a record from 682.  There are some questions as to whether or not they were related to the groups previously called Kumaso or even the Tsuchigumo, but there is no clear historical or archaeological  evidence linking them other than the common cultural finds in Kyushu more generally. The Ata and Ohosumi Hayato may have been distinct clans or lineage groups living in Ohosumi and the area of modern Satsuma.  We have a record in 687 of the Ata no Hayato attending Ohoama's funeral and presenting a eulogy.  The chiefs who came brought 337 others—a sizeable contingent—and they were all given presents by the court.  Later, we would see presents given out to 174 Hayato by Shima's successor in the Dazai, Awada no Mahito, and then in 692 we know that the court sent priests to preach Buddhism to Ata and Ohosumi.    In 695, Hayato of Ohosumi were entertained in the capital, and they even held a wrestling match for the Queen and her attendants in the area west of Asukadera, by the site of the famous Tsuki tree. So the Hayato would have been another group that Shima no doubt dealt with on a somewhat regular basis in his capacity as Dazi no Sochi—and then later on when he returned to Asuka and took up his new role as Udaijin.   And as I mentioned, that appointment was a Big Deal.  The position of Udaijin had been vacant since Nakatomi no Kane, one of the infamous leaders of the Afumi court, was non-consensually removed from the position—and this plane of existence—when he was executed in 672, at the closure of the Jinshin no Ran.  After that, Ohoama appears to have been gun-shy about sharing power with anyone outside the royal family.  The position had been left vacant for about 18 years.  So what made Uno no Sarara take up Shima as Minister of the Right?  And what about the Minister of the Left, or the Sadaijin? Well, we don't have a Sadaijin, but we do have a Dajodaijin in the form of Prince Takechi, Ohoama's first-born son.  The Dajodaijin was the Prime Minister in charge of the entire Dajokan, the Council of State, made up of the ministers of the left and right and the 8 bureaus of the government.  The Sadaijin and Udaijin served under the Dajodaijin, in that hierarchical order, with the Sadaijin generally being considered higher in precedence.  So it looks like, in this case, they had the Dajodaijin, Prince Takechi to run the Council and Shima, as Udaijin would have been responsible for ensuring the administration of the eight bureaus was properly carried out. That Shima was appointed just under Prince Takechi again shows the power and influence he likely had and the trust he must have had from Uno no Sarara.  Remember, the Crown Prince, Kusakabe, had died before he could take the throne.  Uno was enthroned as Queen, while the Crown Prince, Karu, was still a minor.  Whereas Ohoama had his wife and many sons to help him run things, Uno no Sarara was running thin.  As had been seen with Prince Ohotsu, there was always the threat that one of Ohoama's other sons could be propped up on the throne.  Uno had to look after Karu's birthright, but there was no guarantee that he would make it to adulthood in times before modern medicine.  It appears that Prince Takechi was actually considered the next in line, just in case something happened to Karu before he could ascend the throne, which makes sense that Prince Takechi was also trusted as Dajo Daijin.  Shima's place as Udaijin must have been indicative of similar trust that he would look after the royal family's interests.  This was no doubt helped by the role he played as Dazai no Sochi. As Udajin, Tajihi no Shima went on to have a rather incredible career.  He was given 4 cho of land for his residence.  This appears to be around 10 acres or so—a not inconsiderable amount of land, and it probably refers to the amount of land he was granted in the new Fujiwara capital city.  Later, in the Nara capital of Heijo-kyo, Prince Nagaya's residence was about that size and Fujiwara no Nakamaro's residence is thought to have been about twice that.  This would have given Shima space for multiple buildings, sprawling gardens, servants quarters, quarters for his wives and children, and much more. Tajihi no Shima would continue in his role as Udaijin, and would eventually, be promoted to the position of Sadaijin, a post he held only briefly, as he passed away almost a year later. He was not forgotten, however.  It is thought that he was the model for one of the suitors of Kaguya Hime in the famous story of Taketori Monogatari—the tale of the Bamboo Cutter.  Taketori Monogatari, also known as Kaguya Hime Monogatari, is considered the oldest known story in the Monogatari form.  It was probably written in the late 9th or early 10th century, with references to it appearing in works as early as 909 CE.  This suggests that Tajihi no Shima and others were still remembered, at least in part, over a century later. Shima is also thought to have been the patron of the famous poet, Kakinomoto no Hitomaro, one of the famous 36 immortal poets.  We'll have to include Hitomaro in a later episode, though we might come back to him after this reign, as he isn't mentioned in the Chronicles, but we do have some fragmentary biographical information thanks to his inclusion in the Man'yoshu.  In fact, he's probably one of the most famous poets in the Man'yoshu who is not otherwise mentioned.  We are told that he was the court poet during the reign of Uno no Sarara, so it makes sense that Shima may have very well been his patron and helped him get his start. Now while Shima was back in Asuka, making it big in the court, the position of Tsukushi no Dazai had to be filled, and we are told that the mantle was taken up by Awada no Mahito no Ason.  This name is a bit tricky, as it seems to have two kabane:  Mahito and Ason.  Since his father is said to have been Kasuga no Awada no Omi no Kudara, the assumption seems to be that "Mahito" was his name, rather than his kabane.  Although it was likely pronounced "Mabito" at the time, I'm going to go with the modern pronunciation of "Mahito" in part to distinguish it from the kabane.  A quick side note:  When reading names from this period, we usually see the kabane coming right after the family name, as the kabane is basically a rank for the family and not the individual.  But we do occasionally see the kabane tacked on at the end of a name, as in Awada no Mahito's case.  I would also like to quickly draw your attention to his father's name:  Kudara.  That can also be read as Baekje.  Was this an indication that his father or an ancestor came from the continent, perhaps from Baekje?  Or just that he had close ties to that kingdom?  I couldn't find anything specific, but it seems interesting that he was put in place at the Dazai, where dealing with the continent would have been an important part of his duties. Awada no Mahito was not just a noble of the court, and even if his father was of Baekje descent, that may not have been the main thing that gained him the position.  It may have also had to do with an earlier incident.  We are told that in 653 Mahito was one of those who traveled with the 2nd envoy to the Tang court as a scholar monk.  He would later return to secular life, but that experience must have been a big feather in his cap, helping him land a good position at court.  In fact, in 685, we are told that he was Jikikwoushi rank—a fairly respectable position for anyone at the time—and he apparently tried to get his father raised to the same rank as he was.  Aston translates the record as saying he was willing to give his rank to his father, but it is unclear to me if this means he was offering to give up his rank altogether.  At the very least it seems that he felt awkward outranking his father—a good, filial attitude, it would seem.  However, Ohoama didn't care.  In the past, rank may have been given to entire families, but now the court was giving rank to individuals, and the rank Mahito had earned was his, not his father's.  And so his request was denied. Four years later, Ohoama was gone and Awada no Mahito was sent to the Tsukushi no Dazai.  We are told that he was in that position as of 689.  If that was the position of Dazai no Sochi, however, he didn't hold it for long, as Prince Kawachi was raised up to that position that same year, and here we have a bit of a conundrum.  Mahito is only mentioned as "Tsukushi no Dazai" while Prince Kawachi is specifically mentioned, at least twice, as Tsukushi no Dazai no Sochi.  There are some who suggest that Mahito may have been the Dazai Daini, an assistant to the Dazai no Sochi—effectively the second-in-command it would appear.  This makes some sense, when you consider it, and he may even have been acting Dazai no Sochi until Prince Kawachi was appointed. Of course, because our records are quite lackluster, and we are never actually told when Tajihi no Shima left the position, it is possible that Awada no Mahito was actually the Dazai Sochi for many years leading up to 689, and that Shima had returned to Asuka some time ago.  This is the problem with the way things are written—sometimes they mention a name and sometimes just a position, and rarely do they mention when someone stepped down. Still, Mahito oversaw a few things that we can be somewhat sure about as they happened after he is first mentioned in the position, though it was all in the same year.  For one thing, he is the one who presented gifts to the 174 Hayato in the first month of 689.  This included cloth, ox hides, and deerskins.  He was also there when the Queen sent relief to the Barrier Wardens whose terms were up.  These were the Sakimori, a position set up to defend the archipelago and repel any potential invasions.  I would assume they were regularly rotated out, especially if they were expected to man the fortifications out on some of the islands.  It is interesting that we don't often see them referenced, so it isn't clear to me why the reference was made here—it may have just been a note in one of the sources the Chroniclers were using. Later that same year, we also see garments being given out—likely meaning official court clothing—to the Tsukushi Dazai and others.  This was probably to bring them all in line with the latest formal wear being used in the court in Asuka.  We also know that in the 6th month of that year they entertained the Silla envoys, who were given various presents. And then, two months later, Mahito is out and Prince Kawachi comes in.  At the same time that Prince Kawachi is being made the Dazai no Sochi, our previous Dazai no Sochi, Tajihi no Shima, had his rank and fief increased.   I doubt this was a coincidence, and it is one of the things that, for me, lends credence to the idea that Shima had just then returned to Asuka and Prince Kawachi was his replacement, suggesting that Mahito had really just been in an acting capacity while the change over was taking place. Unfortunately, if we were looking for more information about Prince Kawachi's background, we would be disappointed.  Although he is a prince, probably descended from Nunakura, aka Bidatsu Tennou, we don't have a lot about him.  He—or someone with the same name, since we do see these Princely titles get reused, it seems—is found in the reign of Ohoama traveling with Ohotomo no Yasumaro and Fujiwara no Ohoshima to go entertain Gim Jisyang of Silla.  Later we see a Prince Kawachi delivering eulogies during Ohoama's funeral.  That suggests he held an important position, and that he was somewhat familiar with the continent, but we don't get a whole lot more.  Our next evidence is when he was appointed to the post of Dazai no Sochi in 689, a position he would hold until his death in 694—which may also explain why we just don't see too much of him in the record.  A promising career may have been cut short, as happened all too often back in that day and age. Still, as Dazai no Sochi, he had plenty to keep him busy.  Not a month after he arrived, Isonokami no Maro and Ishikawa no Mishina arrived at the head of a delegation.  They were there to deliver patents of rank to members of the Tsukushi government and to inspect the fortifications at the edge of the archipelago.  These were the same fortifications being manned by the newly arrived Sakimori. Speaking of the members of the Tsukushi government, it took a lot of people to make the Dazaifu work, not just the Sochi giving people orders about what they should do.  There were numerous assistants helping to keep everything running.  Some of them would have just been dealing with the Sochi's own residence, while others were clerks, guards, and more.  It really was a miniature version of the court in Asuka, and would have required a lot of people to tend to it.  And we know of at least one of them:  Tsukushi no Fubito no Masaru, whose imagined thoughts we heard at the top of the episode.  In 691, Masaru was recognized for 29 years of service as a secretary to the Tsuksuhi no Dazai.  Twenty-nine years in place suggests to me that he would have likely been one of the longest serving members of the Tsukushi government center.  He would have known where all the bodies were buried—perhaps quite literally.  While the Dazai no Sochi was often a temporary appointment, sometimes just for a few years, they would have likely leaned on Masaru for his expertise.  This is just like how modern government appointees like ambassadors may come and go, including for political reasons, but they rely on permanent staff, including a lot of locals, to provide the institutional knowledge they need to do their jobs.  One can assume that if Masaru had been successful for 29 years he knew how things were supposed to work.  And so I hope that his superiors made sure to remember that when Secretary's day rolled around. Prince Kawachi didn't make it 29 years, but he made it five.  He might have gone even longer, but he died in office in 694 and was posthumously raised in rank for his service.  History is full of stories, but in real life, the stories don't always follow the expected narratives.  As much as we'd like to think otherwise, good, moral people do not always triumph and sometimes those who do awful things are never punished.  And some times stories come to abrupt ends.  Of course, looking back, it just is what it is.  Prince Kawachi's life becomes little more than a footnote.  And yet, what if he had gone on?  Would he have followed Tajihi no Shima to help become one of the grand ministers of the court?  Unfortunately, we will never know.  He could have been a rising star, but we just know about his passing. Five months after Prince Kawachi's untimely death, he was followed in the post by Prince Mino.  Prince Mino would continue in the position, it seems, through the end of the reign in 697—or at least nobody else was appointed until 700, when Isonokami no Maro—apparently the same one who had previously come out to inspect the fortifications during Prince Kawachi's tenure—was appointed.  Although he came into the position in the next reign, we'll still touch on him, as he was another notable figure at this time. Looking back at Prince Mino, however, we seem to run into a problem—there are too many Princes Mino in the record.  If you just use the English translations, you'll find several references to Prince Mino, but if you look at the original text, you'll see that there are at least three different spellings.  For one it means "Beautiful Field" and another is just "Three Fields".  A third "Mino" is spelled with characters that don't necessarily create obvious meaning, and may just be a phonetic spelling. It is possible that all of these Princes Mino are the same.  Spelling wasn't standard, and different characters could be used for the same name.  On the other hand, we have one set of characters being used to describe a Prince Mino who supported Ohoama during the Jinshin no Ran, while another, the "Three Fields" Prince Mino, describes one of the sons of Prince Kurikuma, who was with his father in Tsukushi when the Afumi court came calling.  Since travel wasn't necessarily an overnight endeavor—unless you were Ohoama, rushing through the mountains to the east—it would seem that the Prince Mino in Tsukushi is unlikely to be the same one as the Prince Mino who joined Ohoama's forces back in the Home Provinces. So let's make the assumption that Prince Mino—Prince "Three Fields" Mino—is one person and the others are separate.  What do we know about him? Well, he appears to have had experience with Tsukushi and the government out  there, since he would be the son of Prince Kurikuma, a former Tsukushi Dazai no Sochi.  We talked about Prince Kurikuma before, back in numerous episodes, but particularly in episodes 128 and Episode 144, as well as references in betweend. Prince Kurikuma was not only a significant factor in the outcome of the Jinshin no Ran, denying the Afumi court the resources of all of the defenders at the Tsukushi fortifications, he shows up in local legends in Tsukushi still today.  So he definitely seems to have had an impact on the region.  It also suggests that Prince Mino had connections in the area through his father. After his father's posting as Dazai no Sochi ended, Prince Mino appears to have returned with him to Asuka.  He is described as a key member in Ohoama's court.  He was one of the Princes mentioned in the audience at the Daigokuden in 681, when Ohoama instituted the commission to bring together the various court sources that we presume would eventually lead to the creation of the Chronicles—the Nihon Shoki and the Kojiki.  Later, he become a daibu, a high official, of the Household Bureau, responsible for the household of the sovereign, the sumera no mikoto.  This meant the upkeep of the palace, the kitchens, and the various servants waiting on the sovereign and his family.  This also means that he was likely close to the movers and shakers of the court. One of the projects under his purview appears to have been the laying out of a new palace and a new capital city.  In 682 he headed up the investigations at the place called Nihiki, determining that it would be a good location for what would eventually become Fujiwara-kyo—a project still underway in Queen Uno's reign.  He was also sent out to Shinano two years later to look for a site for a second capital.  It ended up not happening, but he spent a couple months and eventually came back with a map of the region.  It may be that the Fujiwara-kyo project took up a lot of Mino's time and effort, because we then don't hear from him for another decade, during which Ohama passed away and so much more happened.  Assuming he was still involved with the Fujiwara capital project, however, we see that in 691 there was a ceremony held for the tranquility of the new capital—a Chin-sai or, what we would today call a "Ji-chin-sai".  This is a "land pacification ceremony" done when breaking ground on a new building or other project.  So it looks like planning and land clearing had taken some 10 years, but it was finally ready to get started.  Later that same year we hear of them laying out the residences of high ranking nobles, like the Udaijin, Tajihi no Shima, and we also see the Queen inspecting the roads.  Then, a year later in 692, they were holding the land pacification ceremony for the new palace.  The queen would move into the new palace in the very last months of 694. But by that time, Prince Mino was on to his next assignment.  He had been appointed Tsukushi Dazai no Sochi earlier that year following the death of Prince Kawachi.  Not much more is said of Tsukushi for the next three years of the reign, but we do see the Hayato visiting Asuka, presumably with Prince Mino's assistance. We don't have a clear idea of when Prince Mino retired—it's certainly not in the Nihon Shoki—but we know that he did because he was succeeded in the role by none other than Isonokami no Maro, who would take up the position in 700.  Prince Mino, on the other hand, returned to the court, where he would eventually pass away in the year 708. And that was the last Dazai no Sochi who held the position during this reign, but I do want to talk about the one who came after Prince Mino just a bit—though more because this was an up-and-coming court noble whom we should be watching. Isonokami no Maro was born, by all accounts, in the year 640.  Despite his name he was actually born to a family that we know somewhat well from much earlier on: The Mononobe.  In fact, his father is apparently Mononobe no Muraji no Umaro, and he appears to be descended from the main line of the Mononobe family, which had declined ever since Mononobe no Moriya had been defeated and killed by Soga no Umako and others. And it seems that the Mononobe curse of being on the losing side in a contest for power hit Maro during the Jinshin no Ran, because we see him, at that time referenced as Mononobe no Muraji no Maro, along with two servants, or Toneri, serving Prince Ohotomo—aka Koubun Tennou—up to the very end.  In fact, when Ohotomo fled and the Afumi court deserted him, only Mononobe no Maro and the servants stayed with him when he eventually strangled himself. And one would think that would be it.   You were with the rival for the throne in the most contentious fight in recent memory.  You couldn't protect him and you were on the wrong side.  Sure, Ohoama was going to pardon you because he couldn't just rid himself of half of the court and hope things would still run smoothly—that would be a surefire recipe for disaster, and nobody wanted the government crippled like that.  However, you can't imagine that those on the losing side would be given any position of trust or authority. And yet, in 676, we see that Mononobe no Maro was sent to Silla.  And he wasn't just helping out: he was sent as the chief envoy of Ohoama's court.  That is quite the turnaround in four years, and we don't really know why, but it has been speculated that Ohoama was actually impressed.  While other members of the Afumi court fled and abandoned Ohotomo to his enemies, Maro and the two toneri with him did not, staying with Ohotomo until the bitter end, and likely conveying what had happened to the other side once it was all over.   That kind of loyalty was impressive, especially back then. It is also thought that Maro may have benefited from the fact that Enoi no Okimi, who was also descended from the Mononobe family, fought on the side of Ohoama.  This is a common scenario we see throughout Japanese history, where different members of the same family fight on different sides of a conflict, often meaning that no matter who wins the family can still claim to have been on the winning side.  When Okimi passed away in 676 he was posthumously recognized as the ujigami, or clan head, of the Mononobe, leading some to suspect that a bit of his shine may have rubbed off on Maro as well. In 684, when the various kabane were being rectified by Ohoama's court, the Mononobe no Muraji were included as Ason, or Asaomi.  There is some thought that around this time is when Maro changed his name to Isonokami, which is a name that was previously used by members of the Mononobe, including one of the brothers to Mononobe no Moriya.  We see him mentioned as Isonokami no Maro in 686, as one of those giving a eulogy for Ohoama: specifically he gives the eulogy on behalf of the Houkan, or Nori no Tsukasa, the Judicial officers.  He is mentioned right after Fuse no Miushi, whom we talked about last episode, who would go on to become a Dainagon and, later, Udaijin, or Minister of the Right. The first connection between Isonokami no Maro and Tsukushi was in 689, and we noted it earlier—he came out to inspect the fortifications as well as to hand out patents of rank to the court officials working out there on the edge of the realm.    He would return to Asuka in time to be a part of Uno no Sarara's official enthronement ceremonies.  There he is named Mononobe no Maro, and is in charge of the shields.  Given what we know of the role of the Mononobe as the early soldiers of the court, it makes sense that he would play this role, and that they would use the name Mononobe rather than Isonokami.  In the same way, the ritual was conducted by Fujiwara no Ohoshima, but he is recorded as Nakatomi no Ohoshima, probably because these were roles specifically for the Mononobe and Nakatomi, rather than for the Isonokami and the Fujiwara. This is another thing that can be quite frustrating when researching Japanese history—names can change at the drop of a hat, and people often had various ancestral names and titles that could be pulled out for various political or ceremonial reasons.  If you don't have the history or understand the nuance it can be easy to just think that it is a different person altogether.  And when you don't have much information, sometimes you have to ask yourself which is it? Maro would stay close to Queen Uno, even accompanying her to Ise shrine, and then, in the following reign, he would succeed Prince Mino as Dazai no Sochi in the year 700.  It isn't clear, however, if he left for the Dazaifu immediately, since in 701 he is noted as having been promoted from the office of Chunagon to Dainagon, and in that same year he went with Royal Prince Osakabe to pay respects at the house of the late Udaijin, Tajihi no Shima, who had just passed away.  He then left for Tsukushi in 702—or possibly headed back.  But in 703, he was once again back in Asuka, paying condolences on the death of the next Udaijin, Abe no Miushi—aka Fuse no Miushi, the same one whom Maro had pronounced a Eulogy with during the funeral ceremonies for Ohoama.  Isonokami no Maro would go on to take the mantle of Udaijin, and then eventually Sadaijin as well.  He would be raised up to the second rank, along with the famous Fujiwara no Fubito, who took the vacated position of Udaijin.  This meant that technically Maro was the senior of the two, though many people think that Fujiwara no Fubito held most of the actual power.  Regardless of that, Isonokami no Maro nonetheless would go on to become the highest ranking court noble before his eventual death in 717.  At that point he was 78 years old, by the reckoning of the day, and he had seen multiple sovereigns, several bloody conflicts, and the creation of two permanent capitals—Fujiwara kyo and Heijo kyo, in modern Nara.  He went from being a supporter in the Afumi court, on the wrong side of the Jinshin no Ran to become the highest ranking court noble in the land.  He would be granted the head of the Mononobe family and would continue to prosper as Isonokami.  It was truly a remarkable career over an incredible span of time. And there you have it.  A look at some of those that were sent out to the Dazaifu in Tsukushi.  In later years, the post of Dazai no Sochi would be seen more as a burden than a blessing, but at this point it was still a lucrative and powerful position.  Several of those involved in the Dazaifu or who held the position as Dazai no Sochi would go on to even more powerful positions back in Asuka.  Whilst this posting did move you further away from the politics—perhaps not always a bad thing—it also put you atop a structure where one had considerable power, authority, and autonomy, at least at this point. Next episode we'll get back to the court in Asuka and take a look at a little more of what is going on.  Before I end this, however, a quick administrative note about the podcast.  This creation is a labor of love.  It was started largely as a way to get myself to regularly dive into the Chronicles and really see what was going on.  In particular, I was excited about the Asuka period, because I don't think we really have enough of a sense of what life was like and what was going on back then.  It was clearly a very dynamic time, and yet we tend to see it through the lens of later Nara and Heian court culture, which was still very much evolving.  The stories that I *didn't* know about were what drew me to this project, and I hope that we've all learned a bit more as the project has continued. And we are reaching the end of the area that is covered by the main Chronicles, the Kojiki, the Nihon Shoki, and the Sendai Kuji Hongi, which have been our main guides through this period.  But that doesn't mean we are bringing things to a close. Next we have the Shoku Nihongi and many other grecords, and I am going to keep up with the project and the schedule as best I can.  In fact, it looks like I may be able to devote even more time to it in the near future as some drastic life changes are coming for me, such that I will no longer be working a 9-to-5 job while also trying to get this podcast out like clockwork twice a month—not to mention my other passion, teaching traditional Japanese martial arts here in the DC region at a local not-for-profit dojo.  This is happening as we are also in the process of building a house, traveling, and more.  But it does mean that we are going to be looking into alternative sources of funding beyond just donations.  We are eternally grateful to everyone who has donated, but I may end up doing something that I've been putting off for a while: allowing advertisements.  I want to do this so that we can continue to offer this for podcast for free, but hosting, staying up to date on sources, etc. does cost money.  I'm not looking to make a huge profit, but if we can at least get the podcast paying for itself, that would be a good start. Before I do that I'll look to find a way that we can get subscribers on Patreon and elsewhere ad-free copy.  I just need to figure that out, but once I do, I'll let you all know. So there you have it.  We aren't going to stop the podcast, but we may be adding a bit more to it in the future.  I hope, though, that we can do more beyond the historical chronicles.  For instance, did you know that we have an English translation of a 17th century cookbook up on our website, SengokuDaimyo.com?  I would love to redact those recipes and maybe provide some cooking videos for anyone who would want to try them.  A shoutout to Max Miller of Tasting History, who reached out to us about using a couple of our translations for his episodes on historical Japanese cooking – Max is a great guy and his series and cookbook are well worth following.  But there's a lot more to explore: one of my favorites so far that we've tried is "keiran", or "eggs": doughy balls filled with brown sugar and cooked in a miso based soup.  I don't know if there is anything like that still being served in Japan, but it's a strange and pleasant recipe and I would love to do that again and record it for everyone to try. All of this is in the works, and nothing will change immediately, but I wanted to keep you all in the loop.  Thank you so much for listening, I can't tell you how much it means. And of course, as always, if you like what we are doing, please tell your friends and feel free to rate us wherever you listen to podcasts.  If you feel the need to do more, and want to help us keep this going, we have information about how you can donate on Patreon or through our KoFi site, ko-fi.com/sengokudaimyo, or find the links over at our main website,  SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on topics from this episode. Also, feel free to reach out to our Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page.  You can also email us at the.sengoku.daimyo@gmail.com.  Thank you, also, to Ellen for their work editing the podcast. And that's all for now.  Thank you again, and I'll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.

MVP vystoupí živě v nedělí 19. 7. v rámci Letní podcastové scény. Můžete se těšit na předávání ceny MVP pro nejužitečnějšího hráče uplynulého ročníku nejvyšší české fotbalové ligy nebo na projekci finále MS ve fotbale.

Malá Charlottka je už v bezpečí u pěstounů. Zachránila ji vlna rozhořčení a zároveň podpory na sociálních sítích, která dokázala to, co úřady dlouho ne. Dítě se dostalo pryč z prostředí, které soud označil zdraví ohrožující. Hlasujte pro Ve stínu v anketě Podcast roku.

MVP vystoupí živě v nedělí 19. 7. v rámci Letní podcastové scény. Můžete se těšit na předávání ceny MVP pro nejužitečnějšího hráče uplynulého ročníku nejvyšší české fotbalové ligy nebo na projekci finále MS ve fotbale.Česká reprezentace má za sebou první zápas s Jižní Koreou na MS ve fotbale, v němž byli češti hráči horším týmem. Sportovní ředitel AC Sparta Praha Tomáš Rosický přesto na veřejném vystoupení v rámci festivalu Offseason predikoval, že fotbalisté postoupí. Kromě MS ve fotbale jsme probrali přípravu Sparty na novou sezonu, jak Tomáš Rosický hodnotí uplynulý ročník, proč se nestal trenérem a jak prožíval výhru titulu Arsenalu v Premier League? Poslechněte si záznam z fanouškovského festivalu Offseason.---Fotbal ze všech možných i nemožných úhlů pohledu. MVP jsou bývalí fotbaloví profesionálové Karel Tvaroh, Antonín Rosa, Tomáš Kučera a zkušený novinář Jan Palička, šéf sportovní rubriky Seznam Zpráv. Společně s námi hledejte nejdůležitější hráče, trenéry, přestupy, akce, problémy. Do hloubky a s humorem. I vy můžete být MVP. Každé úterý na webu Seznam Zpráv.Odebírejte na Podcasty.cz, Apple Podcasts nebo Spotify.Sledujte nás na Stream.cz nebo YouTube.Bližší pohled do kabin MVP se vám nabízí na našem Instagramu.Máte návrh, jak podcast vylepšit? Nebo nás chcete pochválit? Pište na audio@sz.cz

Can the San Francisco 49ers' defense become the foundation of a championship run in 2026?In this episode of The Wayne Breezie Show, Wayne Breezie takes a deep dive into the players, expectations, and potential that could determine the fate of the 49ers this season.We discuss:

Fluent Fiction - Korean: From Doubt to Triumph: A Team's Journey in Seoul's Skyline Find the full episode transcript, vocabulary words, and more:fluentfiction.com/ko/episode/2026-06-12-07-38-19-ko Story Transcript:Ko: 롯데월드타워는 서울의 번잡한 도시 속에서 우뚝 서 있습니다.En: Lotte World Tower stands tall amid the bustling city of Seoul.Ko: 태양이 높이 떠오른 여름날, 유리창 너머로 빛이 바쁜 사무실을 비추고 있었습니다.En: On a summer day with the sun high in the sky, light streamed through the glass windows, illuminating the busy office.Ko: 지각할지 모른다는 걱정이 사무실을 가득 메우고 있었지만, 동시에 이곳에서는 희망도 피어나고 있었습니다.En: Although worries about being late filled the office, hope was blossoming there as well.Ko: 지원은 이 사무실에서 프로젝트 관리자 역할을 담당하고 있었습니다.En: Ji-won was filling the role of project manager in this office.Ko: 그는 세심함으로 유명했지만, 팀의 실패를 두려워했습니다.En: Known for his meticulousness, he feared the failure of his team.Ko: 이번 프로젝트가 승진에 중요한 역할을 할 것임을 알기에, 그는 한 걸음도 놓칠 수 없다고 생각했습니다.En: Knowing that this project would play a crucial role in his promotion, he thought he couldn't miss a single step.Ko: 반면, 그래픽 디자이너인 민서는 항상 창의적인 아이디어로 가득 차 있었습니다.En: On the other hand, Min-seo, a graphic designer, was always full of creative ideas.Ko: 하지만 그녀는 자신의 능력이 제대로 인정받지 못한다는 느낌을 받곤 했습니다.En: However, she often felt her abilities weren't properly recognized.Ko: 그녀는 더 많은 책임을 맡고 싶었고, 자신의 실력을 인정받고자 했습니다.En: She wanted to take on more responsibility and have her skills acknowledged.Ko: 어느 날 오후, 작업 중이던 프로젝트에 기술적인 문제가 발생했습니다.En: One afternoon, a technical issue arose with the project they were working on.Ko: 고민에 빠진 지원은 팀원들을 모아 해결책을 찾아보려고 했습니다.En: Troubled, Ji-won gathered his team to find a solution.Ko: 민서는 이 기회를 이용해 창의적인 전략을 제안했지만, 지원은 회사의 기준에 맞지 않을까 걱정했습니다.En: Min-seo used this opportunity to propose a creative strategy, but Ji-won was worried it might not meet the company's standards.Ko: "지원, 이게 당신의 목표를 이룰 방법이에요.En: "Ji-won, this is how you'll achieve your goal.Ko: 한 번만 믿어봐요," 민서는 자신 있게 말했습니다.En: Just trust me once," Min-seo said confidently.Ko: 지원은 망설였지만, 팀의 힘을 믿어야 할 때임을 본능적으로 느꼈습니다.En: Ji-won hesitated but instinctively felt it was time to trust in the team's strength.Ko: "좋아, 해봅시다," 마지막으로 결심한 지원이 답했습니다.En: "Alright, let's do it," Ji-won finally decided.Ko: 프로젝트 마감일에 가까워지며, 지원과 민서는 문제 해결을 위해 밤낮없이 애썼습니다.En: As the project deadline approached, Ji-won and Min-seo worked tirelessly day and night to solve the problems.Ko: 마침내 그들은 각자의 강점을 조합하며 새로운 접근법을 찾아냈습니다.En: Finally, they combined their strengths and discovered a new approach.Ko: 마지막 순간까지 둘은 포기하지 않았고, 정성을 다했습니다.En: Until the last moment, they didn't give up and poured their utmost effort into it.Ko: 결과적으로, 프로젝트는 성공을 거두었고, 윗사람들은 두 사람의 노력을 깊이 감명받았습니다.En: As a result, the project was a success, and their superiors were deeply impressed by their efforts.Ko: 지원은 팀의 창의력을 신뢰하는 법을 배웠고, 민서는 협력의 힘을 깨달으며, 드디어 그녀의 능력을 인정받게 되었습니다.En: Ji-won learned to trust the team's creativity, and Min-seo realized the power of collaboration, finally receiving recognition for her abilities.Ko: 회사를 떠나기 전, 지원과 민서는 다시 한 번 타워의 전망대를 올려다보았습니다.En: Before leaving the company, Ji-won and Min-seo looked up at the tower's observatory once more.Ko: "다음에는 더 큰 도전도 두렵지 않을 거야," 지원이 말했습니다.En: "Next time, I won't be afraid of bigger challenges," Ji-won said.Ko: 민서도 빙긋 웃으며 대답했습니다, "맞아, 함께라면 가능해.En: Min-seo also smiled and replied, "Right, anything is possible together."Ko: "이렇게 그들의 여름은 끝났지만, 새로운 시작이 두 사람을 기다리고 있었습니다.En: Thus, their summer ended, but a new beginning awaited them.Ko: 그들에게는 이제 더 큰 목표가 생긴 것입니다.En: They now had even bigger goals. Vocabulary Words:bustling: 번잡한illuminating: 비추고meticulousness: 세심함crucial: 중요한blossoming: 피어나고promotion: 승진acknowledged: 인정받고자technical: 기술적인instinctively: 본능적으로approach: 접근법tirelessly: 밤낮없이observatory: 전망대creative: 창의적인strategy: 전략superiors: 윗사람들collaboration: 협력recognized: 인정받게amid: 속에서streamed: 비추고 있었습니다crucial: 중요한feared: 두려워했습니다technical: 기술적인arose: 발생했습니다propose: 제안했지만deadline: 마감일tirelessly: 밤낮없이combined: 조합하며discovered: 찾아냈습니다hesitated: 망설였지만instinctively: 본능적으로

More people than ever can vote, organise, and make their voices heard. Yet wealth is becoming increasingly concentrated in the hands of a tiny minority. How can democracy and extreme inequality coexist? American political scientist Jeffrey A. Winters argues that oligarchs are not primarily interested in governing. Their main objective is to protect and preserve their wealth — and this defence of wealth increasingly shapes the limits of democratic politics. Together with political scientist Vladimíra Dvořáková and political scientist and philosopher Ondřej Lánský, Winters discusses how economic power is converted into political influence, why oligarchs are becoming more visible, and what this means for democratic institutions, public media, taxation and the future of political equality. The discussion was recorded at last year's Inspiration Forum at the Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival and is moderated by Klára Votavová. The voices of Ondřej Lánský, Vladimíra Dvořáková, and Klára Votavová are AI-generated.

Vilnių galima pažinti ir per kiną - jau startavo kino turizmo maršrutai po filmavimo vietas.„Jei žiūri į paveikslą ir tave sukrečia, jei pašiurpsta oda, tai Karavadžas“, sako Vilniaus universiteto dėstytoja, dailės ir bažnyčios istorikė Irena Vaišvilaitė. Pirmą kartą Lietuvoje galima susipažinti su šiuo vienu garsiausių visų laikų dailininku. Valdovų rūmuose vyksta vieno šedevro paroda „Caravaggio. Šv. Marijos Magdalietės ekstazė“. Šis paveikslas nuo 17 amžiaus pradžios laikytas dingusiu, atrastas tik 2014 m.Aplinkosaugininkei Linai Paškevičiūtei įteikta prezidento Valdo Adamkaus premija. Ji įvertinta už lyderystę telkiant pilietinę visuomenę, aktyvų aplinkosauginį viešojo intereso gynimą ir pastangas darnia linkme pasukti šalies miškų politiką.Birželio 12 d. 100-metį minintis LRT RADIJAS pristato dokumentinį ciklą, skirtą garso istorijoms. Kaip garsas ir garso kūrėjai ieško kelio pas žmones? Kaip radijo dokumentika Lietuvoje tapo unikaliu ir klausytojų mėgiamu žanru, padedančiu ne tik geriau suprasti save ir pasaulį, bet ir keičiančiu gyvenimus?  Klausytojų laukia 4 ciklo dalys, kurias kūrė Teresė Bernatonytė, Rūta Dambravaitė, Vita Ličytė ir Vaida Pilibaitytė.Ved. Agnė Skamarakaitė

Aplinkosaugininkei Linai Paškevičiūtei įteikta prezidento Valdo Adamkaus premija. Ji yra viena iš judėjimo „Girių spiečius“ iniciatorių ir nevyriausybinės organizacijos „Aplinkosaugos koalicija“, įvertinta už lyderystę telkiant pilietinę visuomenę, aktyvų aplinkosauginį viešojo intereso gynimą ir pastangas darnia linkme pasukti šalies miškų politiką.Ved. Agnė Skamarakaitė

Ve volbě provázané spory poslanci znovu vybrali do Rady ČT Luboše Xavera Veselého a Jiřího Šlégra. Oba přitom svého času hlasovali pro odvolání dozorčí komise Rady, což soudy vyhodnotily jako nezákonné. Proč pro ně vládní koalice přesto zvedla ruku? „Zaprvé ten spor ještě může probíhat dál, není finálně potvrzeno, že škodu způsobili. Je pak otázka, jestli zákon je nastaven správně,“ poukazuje poslanec hnutí ANO a předseda volební komise Martin Kolovratník.

氣候變遷 qì hòu biàn qiān - climate change世界各地 shì jiè gè dì - around the world加州 Jiā zhōu - California洛杉磯 Luò shān jī - Los Angeles森林大火 sēn lín dà huǒ - wildfire / forest fire造成 zào chéng - to cause損壞 sǔn huài - damage空氣品質 kōng qì pǐn zhì - air quality極端 jí duān - extreme熱浪 rè làng - heat wave氣溫 qì wēn - temperature危害 wéi hài - to harm / endanger熱死人 rè sǐ rén - so hot that it could kill people損害 sǔn hài - damage / harm不光 bù guāng - not only屋頂被掀翻 wū dǐng bèi xiān fān - roof being blown off網路線 wǎng lù xiàn - internet cable假議題 jiǎ yì tí - fake issue / false issue存在 cún zài - to exist排放 pái fàng - to emit / discharge二氧化碳 èr yǎng huà tàn - carbon dioxide溫室氣體 wēn shì qì tǐ - greenhouse gases熱能 rè néng - heat energy困在大氣中 kùn zài dà qì zhōng - trapped in the atmosphere平均溫度 píng jūn wēn dù - average temperature升高 shēng gāo - to rise / increase乾旱 gān hàn - drought暴雨 bào yǔ - heavy rainstorm冰川融化 bīng chuān róng huà - glacier melting海平面上升 hǎi píng miàn shàng shēng - sea level rise吸收 xī shōu - to absorb頻繁 pín fán - frequent採取 cǎi qǔ - to take / adopt行動 xíng dòng - action搭乘 dā chéng - to take / ride (transportation)大眾交通工具 dà zhòng jiāo tōng gōng jù - public transportation節省 jié shěng - to save / conserve電力 diàn lì - electricity / electric power一次性塑膠製品 yí cì xìng sù jiāo zhì pǐn - single-use plastic products塑膠袋 sù jiāo dài - plastic bag加強 jiā qiáng - to strengthen綠能的建設 lǜ néng de jiàn shè - green energy infrastructure太陽能 tài yáng néng - solar energy風力 fēng lì - wind power發電 fā diàn - to generate electricity制定 zhì dìng - to formulate / establish排放標準 pái fàng biāo zhǔn - emission standards地球 dì qiú - Earth Follow me on Instagram: fangfang.chineselearning !

Ve volbě provázané spory poslanci znovu vybrali do Rady ČT Luboše Xavera Veselého a Jiřího Šlégra. Oba přitom svého času hlasovali pro odvolání dozorčí komise Rady, což soudy vyhodnotily jako nezákonné. Proč pro ně vládní koalice přesto zvedla ruku? „Zaprvé ten spor ještě může probíhat dál, není finálně potvrzeno, že škodu způsobili. Je pak otázka, jestli zákon je nastaven správně,“ poukazuje poslanec hnutí ANO a předseda volební komise Martin Kolovratník.

Ve volbě provázané spory poslanci znovu vybrali do Rady ČT Luboše Xavera Veselého a Jiřího Šlégra. Oba přitom svého času hlasovali pro odvolání dozorčí komise Rady, což soudy vyhodnotily jako nezákonné. Proč pro ně vládní koalice přesto zvedla ruku? „Zaprvé ten spor ještě může probíhat dál, není finálně potvrzeno, že škodu způsobili. Je pak otázka, jestli zákon je nastaven správně,“ poukazuje poslanec hnutí ANO a předseda volební komise Martin Kolovratník.Všechny díly podcastu Dvacet minut Radiožurnálu můžete pohodlně poslouchat v mobilní aplikaci mujRozhlas pro Android a iOS nebo na webu mujRozhlas.cz.

Ústecký kraj povolil kácení lesa kvůli projektu, který je v rozporu s územním plánem, navíc v chráněné ptačí oblasti. Důvod? Sport, konkrétně autokros, převážil nad ochranou přírody. Později úřady rozhodly, že to bylo nezákonné. Hlasujte pro Ve stínu v anketě Podcast roku.

Kam s vyřazenou pánví? Do sběrného dvora, pod květináč, nebo na cvičení pánve? Jiřinka s Alenkou řeší úklid, vaření i záludnosti umělé inteligence. Pro mlsné jazýčky nebude chybět recept na ovesné palačinky.

Domečky pro kočky, pozůstatky bývalé zahrádkářské kolonie i představy o budoucí silniční tepně. I tak vypadá lokalita za Borskou ulicí na Jižním Předměstí v Plzni, kterou nově oživuje audio procházka Atlas nepoddajnosti. Projekt připravili umělci ze skupiny Divadlo setkání a návštěvníky zve k objevování místa, které běžně zůstává stranou pozornosti.

This week we're excited to present a conversation with The Little Sister lead actress Nadia Melliti, moderated by FLC programmer Madeline Whittle. A 2026 Rendez-vous with French Cinema selection, The Little Sister is currently playing at Film at Lincoln Center, courtesy of Strand Releasing. Get tickets at filmlinc.org/sister Devout Muslim teenager Fatima (Nadia Melliti) lives with her loving Algerian immigrant family in Paris, but fears the inevitable fallout if her tradition-minded kin discover her identity as a lesbian. Initially wary of her own sexuality and eager to downplay it, Fatima blossoms when she meets Ji-na (Return to Seoul star Park Ji-Min), but challenges await the nascent couple. In her fourth directorial effort, Hafsia Herzi (also acclaimed for her captivating performances in The Rapture and The Secret of the Grain) rejects the clichés of queer coming-of-age stories, which so often center around tragedy and trauma. Instead, Herzi centers one young girl's relatively drama-free journey of self-discovery and coming out, one telling incident at a time. A true discovery in her first on-screen role, Melliti won Best Actress awards at Cannes and Lumières, as well as the César Award for Best Female Newcomer, while the film took home the prestigious Louis-Delluc Prize in 2025. A Rendez-Vous with French Cinema 2026 selection. A Strand Releasing release.

Piştî salên dirêj yên hebûna çekên derveyî qanûnê ku di nakokiyên navxweyî de hatine bikaranîn û bûne sedema kuştin, birîndarkirin, revandin û windakirina gelek welatiyên bêguneh, niha pêvajoyeke cidî ji bo radestkirina çekan bo dewletê dest pê kiriye. Ji alîyekî din ve, hejmareke ji siyasetmedar û kesayetên Êzîdî yadestnameyeke fermî şandine hukûmeta Îraqê û daxwaz kirine ku navên gund û bajarokên Kurdî û Êzîdî yên resen vegerînin bo tomarên fermî.

„Tlak na ponechávání dětí v biologických rodinách neexistuje,“ říká ředitel Krajského úřadu Středočeského kraje Jan Louška. Investigativní podcast Ve stínu se vrací k případu, který otevřel debatu o ochraně ohrožených dětí. Hlasujte pro Ve stínu v anketě Podcast roku.

Dva bratři a jejich sestra se už dva a půl roku neviděli. Nežijí na opačných koncích světa, dělí je zhruba půlhodina cesty autem. Do jejich života zasáhl spor rodičů, domácí násilí, rozhodnutí soudu - a nakonec policejní pátrání. Hlasujte pro Ve stínu v anketě Podcast roku.

Di vê bûletenê de: Hukûmeta federal guhertineke mezin di sîstema xizmetguzariya kar a Australya de radigihîne... Komeke dine ku bi rêxistina DAIŞê ve girêdayî ne gihîştin Australya, ew nûçeyana û nûçeyên din di bûletenê de hene.Ji bo bihîstina babetên din serî li sbs.com.au/language/kurdish/ku/guhdar-bike

Di vê bûletene de: Ji bo malbatan rihetî tê payîn dema ku bihayên enerjiyê dakevin... Tê payîn ku jinên bi Dewleta Îslamî DAIŞ ve girêdayî ne, piştî vegera wan ya îşev bo Australya rastî sûcdariyan werin, ew nûçeyana û nûçeyên din di bûlentenê de hene.