Podcasts about Miao

What do spicy peppers, handmade guitars, and green cities have in common? Guizhou. In our new on-the-ground mini-series "ChinaHorizons", we invite you to join our trip to Guizhou province. For the first stop, we record our podcast in a traditional Miao people's village cluster to appreciate diversified cultures, intangible cultural heritage items and delicious local cuisines.

Do you pay attention to information printed on food labels? From eye-catching designs companies use to entice you to buy a product to nutrition facts panels to the tiny dates printed on packages. There's a lot going on to be sure. For policymakers, they hope that refining date labels on food packaging will help reduce the amount of uneaten food ending up in landfills. Food Waste is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. The Food and Drug Administration and the Food Safety and Inspection Service recently asked for public input on food date labels. So, we decided to gather some experts together to talk about this important policy tool. Roni Neff is a professor in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Senior Advisor at the School's Center for a Livable Future. Her research looks at the intersection of food waste policy, climate change, and food system resilience. Brian Roe is a professor at the Ohio State University Department of Agricultural, Environmental and Developmental Economics. His work focuses on issues including agricultural marketing, information policy, behavioral economics, and product quality. Ruiqing Miao is an associate professor of agricultural economics and rural sociology at Auburn University's College of Agriculture. His research emphasizes sustainability, innovation, and decision making. Interview Summary Brian, let's begin with you and let's make sure everyone's on the same page. Can you talk to us a little bit about what date labels are and where they are on packaging. And what is industry required to include in terms of these date labels? Yes, so date labels, we see them anytime we pick up a food package. Most packages are going to have some type of date label on them. Oddly, federal law doesn't regulate these or really require these other than the exception of infant formula, which is the only federal requirement domain out there. But in the absence of federal regulation, states have kind of done their own thing. About 40 different states require date labels on at least some food products. And about 20 states prohibit or restrict the sale or donation of food past the label date. And even though states that require date labels, manufacturers can still choose the dates. There are no real regulations on them. So, recognizing that confusion over date labels can lead to unnecessary food waste, Government and industry actors have made, you know, some efforts to try to standardize date labeling language. But nothing terribly authoritative. Now, some states have introduced bills that seek to standardize date labels, with the motivation to try to get rid of and reduce food waste. California being perhaps the most recent of these. In 2024, they passed a bill that prohibits the use of any date label other than 'Best if Used By,' the phrase that goes along with foods where the date represents kind of a quality indicator. And then the phrase 'Use By,", if that date has some implications for product safety. The bill doesn't go into effect until July of '26, so we're going to see if this is going to create a domino effect across other states, across the food manufacturing center or even bubble up and be dealt with at the federal legislation level. Now, industries tried to do things before. Back in 2017, the Food Marketing Institute and the Grocers Manufacturers Association had a standardized date labeling suggestion that some firms bought into. FDA has given out some guidance about preferring 'Best if Used By' on certain food products to indicate quality. But again, we're all kind of waiting to see if there might be a federal legislation that kind of brings these state labels into check. Thanks, Brian. And it's really important to know about the policy landscape and the fact that there hasn't been a federal policy across all foods. And it's interesting to see the efforts of, say, in California. I think this begs the question; how do consumers actually process the information of date labels? This fascinated us too. A very clever person at Ohio State that I work with, Dr. Aishwarya Badiger, led a study I was part of. We enlisted consumers to come into the Consumer Evaluation Lab that we have here on campus and evaluate samples of milk. They were presented with the label of each milk. We gave them a little glass with a nose full of the milk that they could sniff. So, they're looking at the date label, they're given the sample they could smell, and then we kind of asked them, Hey, if this were in your fridge, would you keep it or toss it? But the entire time we actually had them fitted with special glasses that precisely track their eye movements so we could understand kind of which information they were looking at while they went through the whole process of evaluating and then making their decision. Consumers overwhelmingly looked at the date itself on the package and largely ignored the phrase or the words that go along with the date. In fact, for more than half of the evaluations, the consumer's eyes never went anywhere near the phrase. This is important. And actually, we'll talk about that a little bit more with some of our other guests. So, what are the implications of date label policies? So the eye tracking research really drove home to me that dates are much more salient than phrases. Although all the policies largely deal with the phrases. Dates give you actionable information. People can look at the date on the label, look at the calendar, and man, that's something they can do something about. They can act based upon that. The phrases are a little bit more ambiguous as Roni will talk about later. I think that people have a hard time interpreting what those phrases really mean. That doesn't mean we should not try to unify those phrases, but rather this is going to be a longer-term investment in educational infrastructure that until those phrases really become salient and actionable to consumers. And then become more of a critical component of the policies. But right now, policies are generally silent on dates. And dates seem to be the real action mover. Yeah. So why don't we just get rid of all of this? What would be the implications? Yes. We did this experiment too. Same kind of setup. Had people come in, they had the jug of the milk in front of them. They had a glass of milk that they could sniff. Same thing. And we had a bunch of different milks. We had some that were only like 15 days post pasteurization. Some that went out to like 40 days past pasteurization. So, the youngest or the freshest had about three days, quote unquote, left on its date label. The 40-day old milk was like two or three weeks past the date. And we did two things. We had them evaluate the milk with the dates on the jugs, and then we had ones where we took the dates and the labels off the milk. Not surprisingly, when they did not have the dates on the milk, they were much more likely to say that they would keep the milk. Even that 40-day old milk, about half of them said, yeah, I'd drink this. I'd keep this if it were in my fridge. But it wasn't a slam dunk. So, our youngest and freshest milk had an odd flavor note. You know, sometimes as the seasons change, feed sources change for cattle, you get an odd flavor note. It's not spoilage, it's just a slightly different note. And when people have the date label, they were much more willing to give that milk a second chance and say that they would keep it. But if the date label wasn't on there, they took that odd flavor note and said, I'm going to toss this milk. So, it's really kind of a nuanced thing. And if you would take those off, I think you're going to get some consumers who are going to kind of freak out without any guidance. And they might have kind of an itchy trigger finger when it comes to throwing away that milk or other products. So, it's compelling. We've seen England, the UK, do this; take dates off of certain products. But I would probably want to see a little more example of how consumers are responding to that before I fully endorse that as kind of a policy movement forward. Brian, thank you for that. And I have got to say, I was not expecting to have a conversation about the bouquet of a glass of milk. But this is really an interesting finding, and it does help us understand some other things that we're going to talk about. Roni, I want to turn our attention to you. And I know you are someone who's been involved in understanding date labels for a while. And I really appreciate it and I've said it before, but you're the reason I got into this work. I want to understand a little bit more about what are important things to understand about the misconceptions that consumers may have about food date labels? And why does it matter for policymakers? Well, I'll start with just saying that conceptions are what we know rationally. And it's not the whole picture because as Brian was alluding to a lot of our decision making is going on in our emotions. And like I can tell my son all day long the fact that that milk is okay, he's going to toss it because he doesn't trust it. There's a lot more going on than conceptions. But I want to talk about two misconceptions. The first one is that despite what Brian just said about the fact that these date labels other than infant formula aren't federally regulated, about two in five people think that they are. We just did a national consumer survey in January 2025, and this is one of the findings. And I did that along with Emily Broad Lieb from the Harvard Food Law and Policy Project and Akif Khan also from there, and then Dana Gunders from ReFED. And in addition to this idea that they're federally regulated, I'll say that these kinds of beliefs were most common among those who were 18 to 34, parents with children under age 18, and black and Hispanic consumers. Our earlier work also found that those who think that food date labels are federally regulated are more likely to discard food based on them. All this speaks to a real challenge. And, you know, it kind of makes sense, like if you see something and you trust it, that it's from the federal government. And of course, we all trust the federal government these days. If you trust it, then you're going to respond to it. So that's an implication for food policy. And then the next thing we did also is that we tested understanding of five different food date label phrases: a date with no text, and then two of those phrases accompanied by icon images. And since none of these actually have a federally recognized meaning the correct answer for all of them in terms of the meaning is like other. But we also accepted answers that were aligned with that voluntary industry standard, just to kind of see how people were perceiving it. And, across all of these labels, only an average of 53% of people answered correctly about what these labels meant. Now, consumers were pretty good at identifying 'Best if Used By' as a quality label. But the real challenge comes in with 'Use By' which under the voluntary industry standards should be a safety label. And more people thought it was a quality label than thought it was a safety label; 44% versus 49%. And so, we need to clear up these misconceptions in support of food safety, in support of food waste prevention. But in order to do that, we need to be able to tell people clearly what the labels mean. And we can't really do that if there's no standardized meaning of what they mean. So, we really need a national standard, and that is the policy implication. Thank you for that. And I know Ruiqing and I have done some work in this space and in part learning from what you all have done. I'm interested because you mentioned the 2025 survey, but of course you also mentioned the 2016 survey. Are there any big shifts or anything that you want to tell us about changes that you see from those two different surveys? We asked a number of the same or almost identical questions in those two surveys. And since that time, we've adopted a voluntary industry standard and there's been a lot of education and communication about wasted food. And yet in our survey we actually found that things were going in the wrong direction. Consumer misunderstandings of date labels increased. Those who quote always or usually discard food based on the label: in 2016, that was 37%, and this year it was 43%. And then in terms of belief that these are federally regulated: in 2016 it was 36% and now it's 44%. We're going in the wrong direction despite all these activities, and I don't know why. I think for those who are looking for future research questions, this would be a really interesting one. This is really disturbing because all of the information that's come out about date labels. I thought people would understand this. And that this is where we would be in a different place. So, this work is really important. So, how did people's response to date labels vary by food item? Did you see any differences? Because this is something that comes up often that people may be more responsive to some food products versus others? Yeah, indeed. We asked about five different foods, and we showed a bunch of different labels for each food. And the responses did vary both based on the item and based on what label was on it. And I'll start with where caution is needed. Deli meats are one example of where we really want people to pay attention to that label. And while there's no federal standard that label's the best piece of information people has, so they should use it. And we found that only 65% would throw out the deli meat before, on, or just after the 'Use By' label. And the number of people that would respond to it reduced with other labels that were used, and older adults were most likely to disregard those labels. And they may be particularly vulnerable in terms of foodborne illness. So that's when lack of caution leads to risk. On the other hand, when caution leads to waste, we looked at raw chicken, pasteurized milk, lettuce, and breakfast cereal. And for all of those there, like the label is really only telling you about quality, and consumers should use their senses to decide, and knowledge of how that was, stored to decide whether to eat it. And so, the most common out of all five foods, including the deli, the one that they responded the strongest to was raw chicken. And that chicken can be contaminated as we know, but if you cook it, you're killing those bacteria, so it's okay. And averaging across all those different date labels, we found 54% would discard these four foods based on the date. And the piece that was most striking to me was that for breakfast cereal, 43% said they were discarded based on the date. So, we've got some education to do. Yeah. In the earlier paper I did with colleagues at Cornell, we used breakfast cereal and we were surprised to see how much people willing to throw away breakfast cereal if it were passed to date. There is confirmation and we see this happen in many other products. And we'll definitely talk about some of those product differences with Ruiqing. The last question I'd like to ask you is you found that many consumers thought they knew the meanings of the various food date labels, but they were incorrect. And in some of the work that you've done in the past, you found that many people answered incorrectly even after viewing information about the labels. So even when you educated folks or gave people information, they still made incorrect choices. Why do you think this is, and what should we do about it? And some people's responses do improve when you show them the information, but it was striking in that study that seconds after having read the definition, according to the voluntary industry standard, people were giving the wrong answer. Even though they had previously said that they thought they understood it. So, to me, this suggests that they already think they know the answer and so they're not tuning in. And this speaks to a real challenge that we're going to have when we do standardize these date labels. How are we going to reach people and capture their attention. Like, if we just change the policy, that does nothing. We've got to reach people and we've got to do it in a sophisticated and well-planned way. And I think the education should also emphasize that misunderstandings are common because that might be something that would help wake people up. But beyond that, we've got to capture their attention. So, you know, dancing clowns, whatever it is that wakes people up. I have a fear of clowns, so I'm not sure if I want that as a policy recommendation. However... For the deli meats we want you to be afraid, so it's okay. Yes, I agree. I agree. One of the things that this conversation has helped us see is that there's some real concerns around whether or not people are paying attention to the label. Or there may be paying more attention to the dates. And even when people are taught or encouraged to think about the dates, there seems to be a mismatch. And Ruiqing, I want to now turn to you because one of the things in the study that we were a part of, there's some questions about differences among people. So, in the paper that we recently published on the relationship between date labels and anticipated food waste, and people's individual orientation to risk and loss, can you tell us a little bit about what some of the key findings of that paper are? Right. So, the paper is published recently in Applied Economics Perspective Policy. It's one of the official journals of Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA). Norbert is the leading author. So, this paper built on the framework of prospect theory and is based on the data from a series of experiments we conducted in Alabama and also the state of New York. We find that consumers do adjust their anticipated food waste by date labels and by how much they tolerate risk and losses. In the experiment, we particularly measured their tolerance to risk and losses. We found that the 'Use By' date labels tend to lead to more anticipated food waste than 'Best Buy'. Maybe this echo what Roni has said. So, people may tend to link 'Use By' with quality and food safety. We also found that the consumers with low tolerance to losses and are associated with higher anticipated foot waste regardless of date labels and the products. So, we can see a heterogeneity of the responses of different consumers to date labels and food items based on their tolerance to losses and risks. Thank you for that. And I think this is a really important aspect of looking at this set of studies because we see that people are different. They respond differently. And they have different ideas about how they handle losses. This idea that it can be worse to lose a hundred dollars versus to gain a hundred dollars. Or the way we understand how we'll negatively respond versus how positively we respond. Using this economic framework of prospect theory, something that is drawn from actually the psychology literature to better understand how people react to food labels while shopping. What are some key features of this approach to explaining people's behaviors and why do you think it's a good choice? Why do you think it's important to do this? One of the key features of prospect theory is it divides the possible outcomes of a risky event into two domains. One is a gain domain and one is a loss domain. So, in terms of the food consumption, probably the most likely status quo is do not eat the food items. So, the gain domain might be gaining nutrition from the food item. The loss domain might be the loss of health if the food item is bad. So, I think this framework fits particularly well to describe the consumer's trade off in their mind when they face a food item with a date label that is maybe one day or two days past the expiration date. So, one possibility is you consume this food. If it is good, you get nutrition and if it is bad, you potentially get lost health or lose one day of work or so on. So, I think this model can capture the trade off or the decision-making procedure in a consumer's mind pretty well. And experiments data support the theoretical prediction that loss aversion may affect people's food waste decisions. Thank you for that. And I think what's one of the sort of take home messages that I've learned out of this process is this heterogeneity, the fact that people are different and may respond differently to these date labels, really does put the onus upon policymakers to think critically what date labels, if we were to use them, or if we think they have an effect, which are the right ones. And so I actually want to open up the question to all of you. In your view, what next steps make sense for date labels to help address the food waste challenges that we see in this country? Let's start with you, Brian. Ooh, yeah. So, to me a compelling issue that needs to be addressed is how do we get 'Use By' to really translate to be people to be about safety? Is it a different color? I know we don't want to mess with the phrases, but do we just call this safety date and put it in red or put a clown by it if that scares you. Something along those lines to make that stand out. And then on the relevance side, I think it might be out of policy, but perhaps, industry collaboration to really push printed dates to the end of that quality horizon. So that everybody has confidence that they're not going to get undercut by somebody else having an earlier date printed for cereals or for canned goods or something like that. To have a kind of a truce among commercial interests to say, okay, typically canned beans, has this type of 180 days or 360 days. Let's push it to the end of that acceptable horizon so that we don't have unwarranted waste happening as often. Those are two ideas that I've kind of chewed on a lot and think could be positive steps forward. But I'm fascinated to hear what others think. Thank you, Brian and I really don't like the idea of putting clowns anywhere near this. I want to go to you, Roni. All right, well first, I'll a thousand percent echo everything that Brian just said. And I'll note also in terms of the 'Use By' date, the label that was most commonly associated with food safety was 'Expires On' by consumers. But that isn't part of what has been under [policy] discussion. But anyway, in addition to echoing that, I'll just say we do need a standardized policy and it has to be accompanied by a well-designed education campaign. And this policy change, it's just a no-brainer. It's not controversial. It's fairly minimal cost. And given the high food prices and the struggles that consumers are having right now, they need every tool that they can to save money and food, and this is one of them. Great. Thank you, Roni. I'll give the last word to you, Ruiqing. Yeah. I will echo what Brian and Roni said. So, a well-designed policy and public education campaign. Particularly for the education campaign. I think regardless of if there is a policy change or not, I think it is time to do a public education campaign. Norbert, we have done the research on food waste for almost nine years, right? So, I learned a little bit about the date label's meaning. But still, I cannot change my wife's opinion. When she sees sell by yesterday for the milk, she would suggest we throw it away. But I said this is not for us, this is for sellers. But she wouldn't believe so because I cannot persuade her. But maybe an education campaign from more authoritative institutional federal government can change people's mind as a researcher or like even husband cannot change. Roni - And can I just add to that, just please. I think that the economics and psychology expertise that all of you have can really contribute to that. Because I think that's a really important point that you're making. And it's not just factual, it's emotional too. And so how do we, you know, get in there and change what people do beyond their knowledge? Bios Roni Neff is a Professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health's Department of Environmental Health & Engineering and the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, an academic center focused on food systems and public health. Her research focuses on wasted food through the lens of equity and public health. She is a co-Director of the RECIPES national food waste research network, and she recently served on the National Academies of Science and Medicine consensus panel on consumer food waste. Brian Roe is the Van Buren Professor in the Department of Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics at Ohio State University. Roe has worked broadly in the areas of agricultural and environmental economics focusing on issues including agricultural marketing, information policy, behavioral economics and product quality. He was recently named as a fellow of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association and has previously served as an editor for the Association's flagship journal, the American Journal of Agricultural Economics. He currently leads the Ohio State Food Waste Collaborative, a collection of researchers, practitioners, and students working together to promote the reduction and redirection of food waste as an integral part of a healthy and sustainable food system, and co-leads the RECIPES Network, a National Science Foundation Sustainable Regional System's Research Network focused on increasing food system sustainability, resilience and equity by addressing the issue of food waste.  In addition to research on food waste, his other recent research includes a USDA funded project focused on local foods and school lunch programs and participation in an NSF-funded multidisciplinary team seeking to understand human-ecosystem feedbacks in the Western Lake Erie basin, including understanding how farms and agribusinesses respond to voluntary environmental programs and how Ohio residents respond to different options to manage Lake Erie water quality. Ruiqing Miao is an agricultural economist at Auburn University. Miao is interested in sustainability, innovation, and decision-making. His research focuses on the interaction between agricultural production and its environment, aiming to understand and quantify 1) agriculture's impact on land use, water use, water quality, and biodiversity, and 2) how agricultural production is affected by farmers' behaviors, public policies, agricultural innovation, technology adoption, and climate change.

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China will work with other countries to promote the digital transformation of education through technological innovation, Vice-Premier Ding Xuexiang said on Wednesday.中国国务院副总理丁薛祥周三表示，中国将与其他国家合作，通过技术创新促进教育的数字化转型。Ding made the remarks at the opening ceremony of the 2025 World Digital Education Conference, which began in Wuhan, capital of Hubei province.丁薛祥在湖北省省会武汉召开的2025年世界数字教育大会开幕式上，发表了上述讲话。Ding said that China will boost joint efforts to develop generic technologies, as well as more services and products, that meet diverse learning needs to deepen international cooperation in digital education.丁薛祥表示，中国将加强通用技术研发合作，开发更多满足多样化学习需求的服务与产品，以深化数字教育领域国际合作。"We should jointly advance the inclusive sharing of digital education achievements by supporting developing countries in their digital education efforts and helping bridge development gaps," he said.他指出：“我们应通过支持发展中国家数字教育建设，帮助其缩小发展差距，共同推进数字教育成果的普惠共享。”Ding also called for global action to strengthen ethical and security safeguards in digital education, including oversight of intelligent education tools and services.丁薛祥还呼吁国际社会采取行动，加强数字教育领域的伦理与安全防护，包括对智能教育工具与服务的监管。 In a keynote speech at the event, Education Minister Huai Jinpeng said artificial intelligence is reshaping the global education landscape, and China will pursue a human-centered and ethically guided approach to education reform.教育部长怀进鹏在大会主旨演讲中指出，人工智能正在重塑全球教育格局，中国将坚持以人为本、伦理先导的教育改革路径。 "We must never lose sight of the fundamental purpose of education," Huai said, urging a balance between innovation and preserving core educational values.“我们绝不能偏离教育的根本宗旨。”怀进鹏强调，呼吁在创新突破与坚守教育核心价值之间寻求平衡。Education, he said, should focus on cultivating young people's abilities in observation, independent thinking, rational judgment, innovation and complex problem-solving.他表示，教育应重点培养青年人的观察力、独立思考能力、理性判断力、创新力及复杂问题解决能力。Huai emphasized application-driven reform, with China's National Smart Education platform playing a central role.怀进鹏强调要以应用为导向推进教育改革，充分发挥中国国家智慧教育平台的核心作用。"AI, big data and virtual simulation should be integrated into all processes of teaching and learning," he said.他说：“要将人工智能、大数据和虚拟仿真技术融入教学全过程”。The minister also highlighted the need for ethical norms to address potential risks, including data privacy, misinformation and algorithmic bias.这位部长同时指出，需建立伦理规范应对潜在风险，包括数据隐私保护、虚假信息治理和算法偏见防范。Miao Fengchun, chief of the unit for technology and artificial intelligence in education at UNESCO Headquarters, said China has issued nearly 10 laws and regulations related to AI governance, placing it among the most advanced countries in the field.联合国教科文组织总部教育信息化与人工智能部门主任苗逢春表示，中国已出台近10部人工智能治理相关法律法规，使中国在该领域跻身全球最先进国家行列。"Looking ahead, I hope China becomes the first country in the world to officially introduce a policy or regulation that establishes a formal system for the certification and evaluation of AI systems used in primary and secondary school classrooms," Miao said.苗逢春表示：“展望未来，我希望中国能成为全球首个正式出台政策法规的国家，建立针对中小学课堂使用人工智能系统的认证评估体系。”Stephen Morgan, parliamentary undersecretary of state at the United Kingdom's Department for Education, said global cooperation is key to ensuring the safe and effective use of AI in education.英国教育部议会事务副国务大臣斯蒂芬·摩根指出，确保人工智能在教育领域安全有效应用的关键在于国际合作。"By working together, we can make sure all young people get the most out of their education and the skills that they need in the digital future," Morgan said.“通过携手合作，我们既能确保所有青少年都能充分接受教育，也能为其数字化未来储备所需技能。”摩根强调。generic technologies通用技术digital education数字教育algorithmic bias算法偏见virtual simulation虚拟仿真Department for Education教育部

Episode Description Sign up to receive this Unreached of the Day podcast sent to you:  https://unreachedoftheday.org/resources/podcast/ People Group Summary: https://joshuaproject.net/people_groups/13705/CH   #PrayforZERO is a podcast Sponsor.         https://prayforzero.com/ Take your place in history! We could be the generation to translate God's Word into every language. YOUR prayers can make this happen.  Take your first step and sign the Prayer Wall to receive the weekly Pray For Zero Journal:  https://prayforzero.com/prayer-wall/#join Pray for the largest Frontier People Groups (FPG): Visit JoshuaProject.net/frontier#podcast provides links to podcast recordings of the prayer guide for the 31 largest FPGs.  Go31.org/FREE provides the printed prayer guide for the largest 31 FPGs along with resources to support those wanting to enlist others in prayer for FPGs

Fluent Fiction - Mandarin Chinese: From Tradition to Transformation: Ming's Festival Epiphany Find the full episode transcript, vocabulary words, and more:fluentfiction.com/zh/episode/2025-03-27-22-34-01-zh Story Transcript:Zh: 在贵州的一个苗族村庄里，春天的阳光柔和地洒在梯田上，小木屋在阳光下闪耀。En: In a Miao village in Guizhou, the spring sunshine softly falls on the terraces, and the wooden houses glisten in the sunlight.Zh: 村里的空气中弥漫着花朵的芬香，到处都是春季节日的忙碌声音。En: The fragrance of flowers fills the air of the village, mingling with the busy sounds of spring festivals.Zh: 连是村里一个年轻的女孩，她站在家门口，手中捧着五颜六色的糯米。En: Lian is a young girl from the village, standing at her doorstep, holding colorful sticky rice in her hands.Zh: 连深深热爱着她的文化传统，她正在为即将到来的姐妹饭节做准备。En: Lian has a deep love for her cultural traditions and is preparing for the upcoming Sisters' Meal Festival.Zh: 她熟练地用天然植物染料将糯米染成不同的颜色，这是一年中她最期待的时刻。En: She skillfully dyes the sticky rice in different colors using natural plant dyes, the moment she looks forward to most each year.Zh: 她希望这次节日不仅成功，而且能让她的哥哥明感受到这份文化的珍贵。En: She hopes this festival will not only be successful but also allow her brother, Ming, to appreciate the value of their culture.Zh: 明则不同，他是个向往大城市生活的人。En: Ming is different; he yearns for life in the big city.Zh: 他不太在意这些传统仪式，只想尽快离开村子去追求自己的梦想。En: He is not very interested in these traditional rituals and just wants to leave the village as soon as possible to pursue his dreams.Zh: 这样的想法让姐弟之间产生了矛盾。En: This way of thinking has caused tension between the siblings.Zh: 明告诉连：“我不想浪费时间在这些无趣的事情上，我要去城市看看。”En: Ming told Lian, “I don't want to waste time on these boring things. I want to go to the city and explore.”Zh: 连心里有些失落，但她没有放弃。En: Although Lian felt a bit disappointed, she did not give up.Zh: 她决定去找村里的老人杰寻求建议。En: She decided to seek advice from the village elder, Jie.Zh: 杰是一位智慧长者，年轻人都很尊敬他。En: Jie is a wise elder, respected by the young people.Zh: 连对杰说：“杰伯伯，我想让哥哥明也能感受到节日的美好，我该怎么办呢？”En: Lian said to Jie, “Uncle Jie, I want my brother Ming to also experience the beauty of the festival. What should I do?”Zh: 杰微笑着回答：“传统可以与现代结合，你可以在节日中加入一些新元素。他会看到不一样的精彩。”En: Jie smiled and replied, “Tradition can blend with modernity. You can incorporate some new elements into the festival. He will see a different kind of brilliance.”Zh: 连听了杰的话，决定试试看。En: Inspired by Jie's words, Lian decided to give it a try.Zh: 她在准备节日时，融入了一些现代风格的表演和装饰。En: While preparing for the festival, she included some modern-style performances and decorations.Zh: 节日当天，村子里的人们穿着华丽的苗族服饰，五彩斑斓，热闹非凡。En: On the day of the festival, the villagers dressed in magnificent Miao costumes, creating a vibrant and lively scene.Zh: 在众多活动中，连央求明帮忙参加一个传统舞蹈队，En: Among the many activities, Lian persuaded Ming to help out by joining a traditional dance troupe.Zh: 他犹豫了一下，但最终还是答应了。En: He hesitated at first but eventually agreed.Zh: 当明穿上苗族的服装，站在舞台上，随着音乐旋律踏起舞步，他感受到了一股从未有过的自豪感和快乐。En: When Ming put on the Miao costume and stood on stage, stepping to the rhythm of the music, he felt a sense of pride and joy he had never experienced before.Zh: 随着舞蹈的继续，明开始明白这些节日和传统，背后是对生活的热爱和对家乡的眷恋。En: As the dance went on, Ming began to realize that these festivals and traditions are expressions of love for life and a deep connection to their hometown.Zh: 节日结束后，他对连说：“我决定留下来帮你，以后每年我们一起筹备节日。”En: After the festival, he told Lian, “I've decided to stay and help you. From now on, we'll prepare for the festival together every year.”Zh: 连欣慰地笑了，她知道，这是他们共同努力的新开始。En: Lian smiled contentedly, knowing this was the start of a new journey they would embark on together.Zh: 明总算理解了家乡文化的美好，并愿意融入其中。En: Ming had finally understood the beauty of their hometown's culture and was willing to immerse himself in it.Zh: 未来的日子里，她和明将一起，将传统和现代完美地结合，为村庄创造更美好的节日。En: In the days to come, she and Ming would perfectly blend tradition and modernity, creating even more beautiful festivals for the village.Zh: 在苗族村庄的春天里，连和明的故事，也像花儿一样，渐渐绽放。En: In the springtime of the Miao village, the story of Lian and Ming also gradually unfolded like a blossoming flower. Vocabulary Words:terraces: 梯田glisten: 闪耀fragrance: 芬香mingling: 弥漫sticky rice: 糯米dyes: 染料festival: 节日pursue: 追求tension: 矛盾hesitated: 犹豫incorporate: 融入performances: 表演magnificent: 华丽vibrant: 五彩斑斓troupe: 舞蹈队brilliance: 精彩blend: 结合modernity: 现代decorations: 装饰costumes: 服饰pride: 自豪感joy: 快乐expressions: 表达embark: 开始immerse: 融入unfolded: 绽放advice: 建议elder: 长者appreciate: 感受contentedly: 欣慰

Offerta ESCLUSIVA NordVPN ➼ https://nordvpn.com/naqp Provate subito senza rischi con una garanzia di rimborso di 30 giorni. Washington, Stati Uniti. Agli inizi degli anni 2000, una donna con zero conoscenze bibliche inizia a predicare in una piccola chiesa pentecostale. Nel giro di pochi anni, trasforma un gruppo di fedeli in una setta che la venera come una divinità. Questa è la storia di come una donna comune è riuscita a manipolare centinaia di persone, distruggere famiglie e accumulare una fortuna, il tutto in nome di Dio e di migliaia di gatti che ci salveranno dall'apocalisse. Vieni a vederci dal vivo: nonapritequellapodcast.com/live Iscriviti al Patreon per ascoltare UN EPISODIO IN PIÙ a settimana: patreon.com/NAQP Seguici su Instagram per video esclusivi e molto altro: @nonapritequellapodcast Compra il nostro merch: merch.nonapritequellapodcast.com Per sponsor, collaborazioni o semplici mail: nonapritequellapodcast@gmail.com Segui Matteo su Instagram: @matteo.lenardon Segui Pedar su Instagram: @iosonopedar Segui J-Ax su Instagram: @j.axofficial Grazie ai nostri flex producer: Alessandro Micheli, Andrea Salvadori, Baiocchi In Brodo, Dario D'Amico, Dr. Amido Di Patata, Eleonora, Fran, Giuseppe Greco, Graziano Gentileschi, La Ele, Littlegum, Marco BigMac, Mauro Zaccone, Michele Battistella, Mimmo, Nick Franco, Nira, Patatti, Quell Uomo, Ric, Rocco Ferretti, Salvo Greg, Shedly The Mad Hatter, Svizzerotto Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bentornati Orsetti e Orsette dai mille coloriL'altro giorno sono andato a trovare i miei amici gatti, era la loro festa!

Episode 235Special Guest:Dave Miao - 3D DIY Davehttps://www.instagram.com/3d_diy_dave/ https://www.youtube.com/@3ddiy Sponsor:WTB WoodworkingCheck out WTBwoodworking.com for all your woodworking needs! In store specials, Giveaways, custom wood milling, and more!Huntingdon Valley PA Store now open!Enter the giveaway by going to:https://www.wtbwoodworking.com/giveaway Sign up for Patreon for Early access, and special Patreon-only content:https://www.patreon.com/anotherwoodshoppodcastPATREON GIVEAWAY!Donate to Maker's For St. JudeEvery $5 earns you an extra entry in the January Patreon Giveaway (Paid Patrons Only)http://fundraising.stjude.org/goto/anotherwoodshoppodcast Whats on our bench:

En lo último en salud y fitness edición de diciembre 2024, damos un paseo por las últimas tendencias, investigaciones y noticias en el mundo de la salud y el fitness. En este episodio vamos a platicar sobre cómo sacarle el máximo provecho al entrenamiento de resistencia combinándolo con los horarios de comida, una estrategia que está dando resultados muy concretos. También veremos qué dice la ciencia sobre mantener los músculos fuertes mientras envejecemos (y por qué es más importante de lo que crees). Le daremos un vistazo al cafestol, ese compuesto del café que genera tanto debate, y exploraremos una combinación interesante de nutrientes que podría ayudar a mantener la memoria aguda. Atajos Del Episodio 01:20 - Una combinación ganadora: Comer en horario restringido y entrenamiento de resistencia1 03:56 - La proteína y el entrenamiento de resistencia: clave para envejecer con vitalidad2 10:21 - El cafestol: beneficios inciertos y riesgos claros en la salud metabólica3 15:18 - Ácido fólico y vitamina D: una dupla prometedora para la memoria4 19:00 - DYG-400: Un extracto natural que ayuda a controlar el peso y los antojos5 Referencias: 1.      Ho, Y., Hou, X., Sun, F., Wong, S. H. S. & Zhang, X. Synergistic Effects of Time-Restricted Feeding and Resistance Training on Body Composition and Metabolic Health: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Nutrients (2024). 2.      Li, J., Wang, Y., Liu, F. & Miao, Y. Effect of Protein Supplementation Combined With Resistance Training in Gait Speed in Older Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized …. Journal of Aging and … (2024). 3.      Mellbye, F. D., Nguyen, M. D., Hermansen, K. & Jeppesen…, P. B. Effects of 12-Week Supplementation with Coffee Diterpene Cafestol in Healthy Subjects with Increased Waist Circumference: A Randomized, Placebo …. Nutrients (2024). 4.      Liu, W. et al. Effects of Vitamin D3 Combined with Folic Acid on Domain and Specific Cognitive Function among Patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment: A Randomized Clinical …. The Journal of … (2024). 5.      Hausenblas, H. A., Lynch, T. A. & Befus…, S. M. Efficacy of Dichrostachys Glomerata Supplementation on Overweight and Mildly Obese Adult's Weight, Mood, and Health-Related Quality of Life: A Randomized …. Journal of Dietary … (2024).

Dr. Don and Professor Ben talk about the risks from eating a paper ballot. Dr. Don - not risky

In this episode, Scott Becker is joined by Winjie Tang Miao, COO of Texas Health Resources, and Josh Hix, CEO of Season Health, to explore the growing role of clinical nutrition in chronic disease management. They discuss the importance of diet in healthcare, how personalized nutrition can improve patient outcomes, and the collaboration between healthcare systems and innovative companies in tackling food insecurity and dietary challenges.

Demystifying LSAT Prep with Cindy MiaoThe LSAT is known to be challenging, and much of its difficulty lies in its multiple question types requiring different skill sets. Which skills should you focus on while preparing for the LSAT, and which strategies will help you see your best results?A New Approach to LSAT Prep: Revolutionizing the Student Experience In this thoughtful episode of Success Unlocked, I'm grateful to have the opportunity to sit down with Cindy Miao, one of our exceptional Apply Yourself LSAT coaches! Cindy has held numerous teaching roles since her undergrad and is passionate about helping others unlock their full potential.Press play to discover how Cindy's academic background gave her unique insight into highly effective LSAT preparation, and how she has integrated these valuable lessons into her coaching approach.We explore:The major reason why Cindy's scores improved as she was preparing for the test — and how this has influenced her coaching strategy The role of formal logic in the LSAT and why so many test prep companies miss the mark when preparing their students for the examWhy successful LSAT prep can be surprisingly unintuitive (and the score-boosting skills that Cindy teaches her students)   Cindy's softer, human-centred approach to LSAT coaching — and why it works so well!Follow and subscribe to never miss an episode!Guest bio: Cindy Miao is a valued LSAT coach at Apply Yourself and a second-year student at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. Her undergraduate background is in philosophy and mathematics, and she earned her Bachelor of Arts from McMaster University.Timestamps:‌ ‌01:47  Meet Cindy Miao04:18  Cindy's LSAT experience06:08  Cindy's LSAT results & strategy09:33  Revolutionizing LSAT prep13:45  Student experience17:31  Cindy's human-centred approach22:30  Working with Cindy23:26  Cindy's #1 tip26:12  OutroLinks mentioned:‌ ‌Work with Cindy MiaoConnect with Adrienne!Looking for support with your graduate or professional school applications? Connect with us at Apply Yourself: The Advancement Spot! Email us at hello@applyyourselfglobal.com, or email me personally at adrienne@applyyourselfglobal.com. You can also DM us on Instagram @applyyourselfglobal — Let us know about your scheduling strategies!Ask the ExpertHave any questions on applications, advancement, studying for law school exams, and more? Send your questions to our above contacts, or you can submit an audio file via DM and we can feature you on the podcast!Work with Adrienne>>> Calling all applicants! Learn more about our signature course, Mastering Academic Applications: From Scratch to Submission and how you can finish your applications — with clarity, support, structure, and strategy with Adrienne, an Admissions Committee Member. Check out Adrienne's Calendar and book your Strategy Call HERE to learn more about if this program is right for you! Mastering Academic Applications: From Scratch to Submission is now open for you to complete your applications in 12-weeks! With live coaching, you develop your applications & gain insights into your applications processes like never before. Join us now using this link to enroll!

This week, co-host Conor Bronsdon sits down with Daniela Miao, co-founder and CTO of Momento, to discuss her journey from DynamoDB at AWS to founding the real-time data infrastructure platform Momento. Daniela covers the importance of observability, the decision to rebuild Momento's stack with Rust, and how observability can speed up development cycles. They also explore strategies for aligning technical projects with business objectives, building team trust, and the critical role of communication in achieving success. Tune in for valuable insights on leadership, technical decision-making, and startup growth.Topics:02:01 Why is observability often treated as an auxiliary service?06:14 Making a push for observability13:32 Picking the right metrics to observe and pay attention to15:49 Has the technical shift to Rust paid off?19:23 How did you create trust and buy in from your team to make a switch?26:31 What could other teams learn from Momento's move to Rust?38:15 Advice would you give for other technical founders?Links:Daniela MiaoThe Momento BlogMomento: An enterprise-ready serverless platform for caching and pub/subUnpacking the 2023 DORA Report w/ Nathen Harvey of Google CloudGoogle SRERust Programming LanguageSupport the show: Subscribe to our Substack Leave us a review Subscribe on YouTube Follow us on Twitter or LinkedIn Offers: Learn about Continuous Merge with gitStream Get your DORA Metrics free forever

In today's episode, I interview Lu Lu about her film "Invocation," a story of dealing with life's changes based on her own personal experiences. The film was selected as a semifinalist for the 2024 Student Academy Awards.Listen to hear about the inspiration for the film rooted in her own experience, the importance of the Miao people in Guizhou to the development of the story, and what I think is the most practical dinner party yet recommended on The Oscar Project.Films mentioned in this episode include:“Invocation” directed by Lu LuKill Bill Vol. 1 and 2 directed by Quentin TarantinoThe Killing of the Sacred Deer directed by Yorgos LanthimosRaw directed by Julia DucournauCloudy With a Chance of Meatballs directed by Phil Lord and Chris MillerAnother Round directed Thomas VinterbergFrances Ha directed by Noah BaumbachFollow Lu Lu on Instagram @grooffe_llu.

Buddhism Reference – Miao-lo. Japanese name for Zhanran, the sixth patriarch of the Tien-Tai Chinese sect of Buddhism. E-books - “Buddhism Reference – Now Available   Threefoldlotus.com/home/Ebooks.htm

ᖰꪔ̤̫ᖳ S7EP15｜【芊妙】芊妙大談自己的音樂創作路程，一路充滿感謝和珍惜，一連公開兩首創作單曲的背後故事！ ♡ יִ יִ יִ S7EP15精華盤點 יִ יִ יִ ♡ ▶ 芊妙為什麼踏上音樂道路？創作歷程大公開！ ▶ 遇到氣餒和無力的時刻，芊妙會這麼做 ⁉️ ▶ 〈黑夜來過〉竟然是芊妙送給朋友的一份禮物

Last time we spoke about the first Guangdong-Guangxi War. The First Anhui-Zhili War not only affected northern China, it also put into motion many events in the south. Viceroy Lu Rongting, working for Duan Qirui and his Anhui Clique was sent south to take over the position as governor of Guangdong. But those already in the Guangdong Clique wanted nothing to do with the north, nor with Lu Rongting and this led to conflict. A bitter struggle emerged between the southern cliques, all seeking to influence the Guangzhou southern government. Forces from Guizhou, Guangxi and Yunnan invaded Guangdong and it looked like they would have their way, until Chen Jiongming entered the scene. Chen Jiongming led the Guangdong Clique beside the common people of the province to rid themselves of the invaders resulting in the first Guangdong-Guangxi war. This resulted in the near annihilation of the Old Guangxi Clique and the return of Dr Sun Yat-Sen to Guangzhou.   #100 The Spirit Soldier Rebellions   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. Hey before we jump into it, just wanted to acknowledge this is episode 100 for the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, sheesh. Thank you all for surviving this far into the wild story of China's Century of Humiliation, you are all awesome. Perhaps if you got a moment, could you do me a huge favor? Unlike Youtube with a built in comment section, its hard to get feedback for audio podcasts. If you get a second could you toss feedback, what you like, what you don't like, suggestions going forward anything. You can toss it to the Pacific War Channel Discord server or literally just comment any video over at the Pacific War Channel. Would mean a lot to me, lets get on with the show! As one can imagine, China's warlord era was not something one would refer to as stable. After the absolute mess Yuan Shikai made before his death he basically provided the perfect environment for any wannabe strongman to compete for their place amongst the warlords. The warlords fleeced their respective regions of control to pay for their private armies. They would overly tax, steal away funds and get involved in just about any means to acquire more money to pay their soldiers. Even after fleecing the population, these warlords would then allow their troops to plunder, rape and enslave. Combine this with the incredible amount of regionals wars, plus natural disasters, famine and an insane rise in banditry, it was not a great time to live in China to say the least. Some regions suffered more than others. The less developed provinces, the more remote areas of China, typically in the center, south and west were hit the worst. Here the common people were poor, more isolated and when major crises occurred, they were far less likely to see any outside assistance. The warlord armies in these regions were less equipped, less fed, less disciplined compared to their Northern or coastal counterparts. The troops of these warlords treated the citizenry especially bad. As a result of the unrelenting hardship, the peasants of these parts of China perceived the warlord soldiers, tax collectors and foreign state agents as literal parasites, hell wouldn't you? In a rather vain attempt to rid themselves of these parasites, the peasants launched a large number of uprisings, riots and protests. Some were tiny villages squabbles, others could bring down warlords. They often came directly after a bad harvest season. Some but not all saw peasants join secret societies, acting as self defense forces….yes it sounds exactly like the Yihetuan all over again. Yet in most cases these peasant groups were not coordinated enough to really make a dent, more often than naught, warlords crushed them. Now after the National Protection War against Yuan Shikai, the provinces of Hubei and Sichuan fell into miserable chaos. As we have talked about in the previous episode where I introduced the Southern Warlords, Sichuan province literally was cut up into pieces and dominated by a large number of what I would call Petty Warlords. Some of these Petty Warlords had little more than a few villages under their thumb, others led armies in the several tens of thousands. The situation in Hubei was not as bad, but comparable, seeing numerous warlords battle each other, resulting in hundreds of thousands of soldiers, militiamen and bandits roaming both provinces. To complicate things, these Petty Warlords in a means to try and bolster themselves often flirted with the Beiyang government. They did so similar to how the last episode saw figures trying to negotiate north-south resolutions, basically they would acknowledge the authority of the Beiyang government. The two provinces were also affected by socio-ethnic divisions. Within the valley and plains of Sichuan and Hubei were mostly Han Chinese, but in the highlands there were many non Han such as Miao and Tujia. For those interested, the Miao people speak Hmongic languages, a subfamily of the Hmong-Mien languages. Something notable about the Miao is how their women historically exercised more independence, especially in terms of socio-political mobility. Unlike the majority of asian cultures at the time, Miao women had the freedom to choose the men they marry. The Tujia people speak Tujia, a Sino-Tibetan language, they were at the zenith of their power under the Ming Dynasty. During the Qing Dynasty, the Manchu basically adopted a carrot and stick approach to the Tujia, by gifting compliant chieftains and hindered non compliant ones. The Tujia resented any central body trying to exert control over them and during the Taiping Rebellion many flocked to the Taiping. These non han groups felt oppressed and historically had always resisted Han immigration into their lands. The highlanders were much more versed in organized self defense forces and thus prone more so to uprising.  The environments these people lived in were the type to foster ancestor worship and belief in magic, spiritualism, possession and such. Within the context of these people struggling for further autonomy this led to the development of “spirit soldiers”. Similar to the Yihetuan, this was the belief people could summon divine beings that would fight alongside or possess them, granting them power. These beliefs were also part of messianic and apocalyptic movements, think of the White Lotus apocalypse. There were many who believed the spirit soldiers would help establish a new and fair rule on earth. In 1920 there was a large power vacuum that hit western Hubei province. A 30,000 strong army commanded by the Warlords Li Tiancai, Bao Wenwei, Lan Tianwei and Wang Tianzong came into the area. The reason for this was because Wang Zhanyuan the governor of Hubei had evicted them from the Enshi-Hefeng area. Having suffered so greatly, the peasants of Hubei and Sichuan became increasingly discontent and in 1920, major conflicts emerged. A group of Taoist priests began a spiritual movement with a militant wing behind it. They were fighting against over taxation in Lichuan of Hubei province and the abuses upon them by warlord troops. In the beginning they were no more than 100 people chanting the slogan "Kill the Warlords and Out with Rotten Officials and Loafers". Their slogans were very appealing and as more people joined up the priests began to tell them they could bless them to become spirit soldiers through magical rituals. Again similar to the Yihetuan, these rituals consisted of acts like drinking special potions or consuming ashes of various things like burned amulets. Supposedly this would make the spirit soldiers invulnerable to gunfire and raise their bravery, so yeah it really does feel like the Boxer Movement 2.0. Of course these young males were emboldened and felt they could mount a serious rebellion against the warlord troops, who were vastly better armed. The spirit soldiers typically were armed with melee weapons such as spears or a dao. They quickly overran Lichuan county and killed the local magistrate there. Upon that success further uprisings sprang up like wildfire.  After the taking of Lichuan it is estimated the spirit soldiers numbered over 10,000 and they would only continue to grow. Given their numbers, they were gradually beginning to organize themselves seriously, though they would still operate in numerous cells, they never unified. Three main spirit armies emerged alongside countless militias. They rarely coordinated, lacked real military training, had very few firearms, no uniforms, but nonetheless tried to act like real armies. They implemented military ranks and identified as such with yellow bands around their left hands middle finger, the color yellow being their official movement color. Similar to the Taiping Rebellion, which they definitely took inspiration from. Major spirit soldier armies and militias wore distinct colors based on their region. For example in western Hubei, they wore red turbans and sashes, many also carried red flags with their leaders' names inscribed upon them or with slogans. Some of these slogans were about “heavenly kingdoms being established on earth” yes Hong Xiuquan would approve.  These spirit soldier groups did not want to seize power, nor did they have any real revolutionary ideologies. Even from a class point of view, they were not exactly championing the impoverished or anything, when they took over counties they did not change the counties social order. Typically they stormed a county, killed or replaced the magistrate with someone they deemed to be a fair person. Ironically this often led to an even more corrupt person taking the magistrate position, making the lives of people worse. But you know what, when these spirit soldiers showed up to your county, as a regular peasant you were probably pretty happy about it, because anything was better than being ruled by a warlord. The great thing about the Spirit armies was when they came to your town they fought the tax and rent collectors off alongside warlord troops and bandits. It was said, under spirit rule, the people could finally travel unarmed without fear. Now soldiers no matter what god or spirit resides within them need to eat, thus money was required. To make ends meet the Spirit armies fought bandits and warlords and seized control over salt and opium trade routes running from Sichuan and Guizhou through western Hubei. Just like the Yihetuan, the Spirit soldiers also persecuted christians and foreigners. Most of them were under the belief western modernization efforts and christianity were the reason for all of china's troubles.  Once the Spirit soldier rebellion began to see tens of thousands enlist, they gradually advanced west into Sichuan province. There lies a regional trade hub, the city of Wanzhou, lying on the upper reaches of the 3 gorges of the Yangtze River. In the late part of 1920, a spirit army from Lichuan approached Wanzhou, spreading slogans of their movement, such as "Stand Against Rents and Taxes, Kill the Grey Dogs". Gray dogs refers to warlord troops. Now they did not attack Wanzhou, instead they allowed members to infiltrate the city and the local towns to mass recruit. After a few months they managed to nearly gain 5000 new spirit soldiers. They also set up a military HQ at a local temple dedicated to Yama. For those unaware Yama is a deity shared by Hindus and Buddhists. This temple was dedicated to the Buddhist variety of Yama. Yama here is regarded as one of the 20-24 Devas, a group of protective Dharmapalas. If you were a spirit soldier, it would be an ideal location to set up shop, +20 to spirituality and such. They were armed mostly with bamboo spears when they assaulted Wanzhou on March 5th of 1921. The assault was performed in two waves of roughly 2000 spirit soldiers each. Despite being armed with firearms, the local warlord troops were terrified by the tenacity of the spirit soldiers who very much performed like Boxers. They fought bare chested, unafraid of bullets, some performed martial arts and incantations. Just like what happened to Qing militia's and green standard troops in 1900, the warlord troops were terrified the spirit soldiers might actually be wielding magic, and soon routed fleeing Wanzhou's outskirts to hide behind fortified walls in the inner city.  The Spirit troops stormed through Wanzhou quickly seizing most of the city, however unlike a warlord army who would have plundered and left or heavily fortified the city, well the spirit army was simply not that kind of army. As soon as they took footholds within, they began performing public incantations and rituals. Basically they were doing exactly what the Boxers had done, however the Boxers had been facing governmental forces who were not really keen on fighting back. For the spirit soldiers their enemy were warlords who relied on fleecing the population and Wanzhou was a major trade center, prime real estate. The warlord forces fortified parts of the inner city, hiding behind walls where the Spirit troops simply could not breach, nor did they try to do so. After 3 days, the Warlord leaders slapped their troops around, telling them not to be afraid of magic and they launched a counter attack on the 8th. That day saw brutal street to street fighting, which did benefit the melee wielding spirit warriors, but guns certainly would win the day. After an entire day of battle, the spirit forces were pushed out of the city. Nearly 500 were killed during the battle, the majority being spirit soldiers. On the 12th, the Warlord Chou Fu-yu after receiving distressed requests for help arrived in Wanzhou with reinforcements. Once he figured out they were holding up at the Yama temple he organized an offensive against their HQ. Chou Fu-yu's forces stormed the temple massacring over 1000 of them. Chou Fu-yu's men specifically hunted down their leadership, executing them publicly to send a message. After seeing the carnage the spirit army collapsed and fled the Wanzhou area swiftly, most would return to civilian life, though others would fight for another day. Those who chose to keep championing the cause formed small militia groups that honestly were more akin to Honghuzi. Local officials in Hubei and Sichuan would refer to them as such "the whole country districts [were] laid waste, by these rebels who plundered wherever they went". The spirit milita's did not attempt to seize any significant towns or cities, they simply stormed them hunting for christians and foreigners, before moving to the next. They would do this for years in the Hubei-Sichuan region with power bases located along their border. Now despite the major setback at Wanzhou, the spirit armies would continue to expand, but instead of heading westwards into Sichuan, they turned back to Hubei. This had a large effect on Hubei based warlords who sometimes were pushed out of their spheres of influence. Spirit armies seized Yichang, Badong, Xuan'en, Enshi and countless other counties. One Spirit leader, a farmers' work hand named Yuan declared himself the new Jade Emperor and attempted to seize most of western Hubei. From around 1920-1922, acting as an emperor he issued numerous edicts. For the most part he led a campaign against pretty much every class imaginable: students, farmers, business owners, land owners, merchants, the military, workers, missionaries, and more. He called for killing christians, placing blame upon them for all of China's problems, promising his followers once the Christians were all gone, China would be at peace. There were those amongst his flock and others who were Ming loyalists, the age old secret society types trying to restore the Ming Dynasty. Similar to the wannabe Jade Emperors belief that getting rid of Christianity would save China from her plight, the Ming loyalists saw the Ming Dynasty as a golden age that needed to be re-ushered in.  The Spirit armies were largely successful because of the fighting amongst the warlords of Hubei and to a lesser extent Sichuan. Western Hubei in particular was ripe with chaos, for there was not only Spirit armies and warlord armies, there were large groups of Honghuzi roaming the region. Now I could cut this story about the spirit soldiers here, but instead I will try to not allude to things in the future too much. But around 1921, armies of the Zhili Clique began to invade Hubei and Sichuan from their power base in Hunan province. The Zhili armies soon fought battles against both Hubei and Sichuan warlord armies and were gradually forced back north. In the process some Sichuan warlords seized Badong, Zigui and Xingshan, fleecing the populations for all they were worth before departing. The Sichuan warlord, Yang Sen, notably seized Lichuan and Jianshi in October of 1921 and would hold them until February of 1923. Yang Sen was a Taoist master and an avid polygamist. He met the Taoist Master Li Ching-yuen, who claimed he had lived to be 250 years old. He was quite famous, hell Wu Peifu while leading the Zhili clique would take Li Ching-yuen into his home trying to discover his secret method of living for so long. Li Ching-yuen died in 1933, but claimed he produced over 200 descendants and had 24 wives over the course of his very long life. Yang Sen wrote a famous book after his death titled “A Factual Account of the 250 Year-Old Good-Luck Man” Within the book he described Li Ching-yuen "He has good eyesight and a brisk stride; Li stands seven feet tall, has very long fingernails, and a ruddy complexion." Allegedly, Li was born in Qijiang county of Sichuan province back in 1677. At the age of 13 he embarked on a life of gathering herbs in the mountains amongst 3 elders of his village. At 51 years of age he served as a topography advisor in the army of General Yue Zhongqi. At 78 he retired from military service after fighting in a battle at the Golden River, whence he returned to a life of gathering herbs on Snow Mountain of Sichuan province. Due to his military service under Yue Zongqi, the government sent him a document congratulating him on his 100th birthday and this was done on his 150th and 200th. In 1908 Li co-wrote a book a disciple of his, Yang Hexuan called “the secrets of Li Qingyuns immortality”. In 1920 General Xiong Yanghe interviewed Li and published an article about him at the Nanjing university. In 1926 Wu Peifu took him under his home and Li took up a job teaching at Beijing university's Meditation Society branch. In 1927 General Yang Sen invited Li to Wanxian where the first known photograph of the man was taken, if you google him you can see it. After hearing about the famous 200+ year old man, General Chiang Kai-Shek requested he visit him in Nanjing, however when Yang Sen sent envoys to find Li at his hometown of Chenjiachang, his current wife and disciplines broke the news, he had died, the year was 1928. You might be raising an eyebrow, yes, after his supposed death, newspapers began writing pieces claiming he died in 1929, 1930, then the last report was in 1933, no one has ever verified how he died, they all just list natural cases. Now about this fascinating case of his age, Li Ching-yuen claimed he had been born in 1736, it was a professor at Chengdu University, Wu CHung-Chieh who asserted he was born in 1677. According to an article by the New York Times in 1930, Wu discovered imperial records from 1827 congratulating Li on his 150th birthday, then another one for his 200th birthday in 1877. In another New York Times article from 1928, correspondence wrote that many old men of Li's village asserted that their grandfathers all knew him as young boys and that he had been a grown man at the time. Now many researchers have pointed out his claim to be 256 years of age was a multiple of 8, considered a lucky number in Chinese culture. Many researchers also point out the prevalence of such myths as extreme old age to be very common in China and the far east. They believed he was just telling a tall tale like countless others before him. One of Li's disciplines, Master Da Liu said of his master, when Li was 130 years old he encountered an older hermit in the mountains claiming to be 500 years old. This old hermit taught him Baguazhang, that is a style of martial arts and Qigong, these are breathing, meditation and posturing exercises. Alongside dietary habits all combined was what gave the hermit his longevity. Du Liu would say “his master said that his longevity is due to the fact that he performed the exercises every day – regularly, correctly, and with sincerity – for 120 years." Sorry for the extreme side story, but I just found it fascinating haha.  So General Yang Sen had seized Lichuan and Jianshi and would be involved in numerous wars in Sichuan. He often fought the Governor of Sichuan, Xiong Kewu who was gradually defeated by 1923, where upon he took his armies into western Hubei. Yang Sen amongst other warlords exploited the absence of Xiong Kewu and invaded Sichuan. The departure of Xiong Kewu from Sichuan also allowed Petty warlord Kong Gen to seize territory and for a large Honghuzi army led by Lao Yangren to invade Yunxian. Things got so bad for Xiong Kewu, he turned to a very unlikely group to form an alliance, the Spirit Soldiers. Xiong Kewu allied the Spirit armies encamped at Enshi and Hefeng. In 1924 a large part of Xiong Kewu's army were advancing through the Wu Valley, trying to link up with him. The Wu valley was a strategic stronghold for the Spirit armies, thus in order to gain free passage he joined up with them. Chaos would reign supreme in both Hubei and Sichuan for many years, not aided much when General Yang Sen took the governorship over Sichuan. Once governor there he provoked several of his loose allies who all formed a coalition to oust him from his position by early 1925. Like Xiong Kewu, now it was Yang Sen retreating west into Hubei, eventually forming a base at Badong. One of his opponents, the Petty warlord Yuan Zuming, a member of the Guizhou clique invaded the region and seized Lichuan and Shinan, before setting his eyes on Hefeng. Meanwhile the Spirit Armies, bolstered by Xiong Kewu spread again into Sichuan where they offered protection to locals from warlord troops and Honghuzi. They fought a large battle around Wangying that allegedly turned the local river crimson red with blood. By early 1926 the Spirit movement had surged past 100,000 troops and dominated over 40 counties in Hubei. Yet they never fully centralized their organization, rarely coordinated between armies and differing groups and were not heavily armed with firearms. Honestly by becoming a larger force and by becoming more sedentary, it actually spelt their doom. While they were smaller and more mobile, they were harder to catch and less appetizing to warlord armies, now they were fully on the menu. In 1926 three divisions of warlord troops were sent against them. The Spirit armies were absolutely crushed in waves of one sided battles. Their leaders were hunted down and executed, that is if they did not die on the battlefield or simply off themselves prior to being caught. Yet 1926 would bring an entirely new element at play, it was when the Northern Expedition began and such a colossal event would save the Spirit soldiers from complete annihilation.  Don't want to give anything away, but the Northern Expedition would affect both Yang Sen and Xiong Kewu and by proxy the areas they controlled. This would cause further chaos in Hubei and Sichuan which in turn would be exploited by countless figures. For example a large Honghuzi army of Lao Yangren, perhaps 20,000 men strong or more ran rampant in both provinces. Honghuzi loved to follow behind warlord armies, exploiting areas they passed through since the rival warlords would have been kicked out. With the Northern Expedition brushing aside countless warlords in the area, both Honghuzi and Spirit soldiers expanded. Some Spirit Soldiers even decided to join up with a new group hitting the scene, Red Armies. The CCP were falling into a war with the KMT and they began to latch onto anyone who would join forces with them. Two prominent CCP figures, Xu Xiangqian and He Long worked with Spirit Soldiers. He Long came to view them as nothing more than another version of Honghuzi, but acknowledged they wanted to protect the local people which was admirable. Their quasi alliance allowed the Spirit Soldiers to expand into northern and central Sichuan, western Henan and eastern Guizhou well into the 1930s. Despite the incredible amount of wars that would occur over the decades, the last known Spirit Army rebellion would take place in February of 1959.  As you can imagine it was an anti-communist uprising, that occurred in Sizhuang county of Henan province. This was directly a result of Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward enacted the year prior. For those who don't know, the Great Leap Forward encompassed a change of pretty much all aspects of Chinese society and it was disastrous to say the least. Mao sought to reconstruct the entire nation from an agrarian economy into a real industrialized society, but on fast forward mode. He did so via peoples communes, while decreeing every possible effort to increase grain yield must be done so they could bring industry to rural China. This resulted in one of the worst man made famines in history. Alongside this came an economic disaster, unbelievable governmental abuses upon the people. An estimated 15-55 million would die. Many resisted the government's actions, but the government had decreed no one could leave their village or farms, thus it made it extremely difficult to coordinate a resistance movement. Desperate peasants tried to resist, alongside countless secret societies. Numerous rebellions broke out, but they were quite small in scale. Armed resistance broke out in Henan in 1959, where large bandit groups began to steal weapons from armories and attacked major roadways. A secret society known as the “shenbingtuan / regiment of spirit soldiers” gathered 1200 fighters from hubei, Sichuan and Shaanxi and began to attack government officers in Sizhuang county. It took the red army roughly 20 days to quell the uprising. Thus ended the Spirit Soldier movement. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. The Spirit Soldier Movement was a drop in the bucket for China's Warlord Era. They were a group amongst many others who tried to navigate a very cruel world. As comedic as they may come off, they were brave people who were trying to protect the population from what they deemed to be villains, many became twisted as a result.

Jessica is the CEO and co-founder of Apricotton, the only bra brand... The post Designing For A Forgotten Demographic with Jessica Miao first appeared on Startup Canada.

"I do not need motivation any more because it has become a habit." - Shi Miao Jian. Isra Garcia interviews Shaolin Teacher and Master Student Shi Miao Jian about embracing the Shaolin Way, his learnings, transformation and daily experience after many years in the Monastery as a Shaolin student. Shi Miao Jian also explores routines, rituals and life lessons learnt over all these years, as what it is like to be a master student and to live in the Shaolin Temple Europe, also about learning Kung Fu, Qi Gong, Tai Chi and Traditional Chinese Medicine. Shi Miao Jian tells us about his life in the Temple, his day-to-day tasks, how he became a Shaolin teacher, and what you can gain from living the Shaolin lifestyle. "The more you learn about yourself through practice, the more you learn that is in your power." "I'm not actually doing it; it's done to me. You go through life, and then a possibility comes... The problem is getting too caught up in thinking." - Shi Miao Jian. Index of contents - and what you will learn in this episode: Intro. How Shi Miao Jian ended up living in the Shaolin Temple Europe. What's the difference between being a novice and a master student in the Shaolin Temple tradition. The biggest reason why Shi Miao Jian applied for the monastery. Stellar moments and life highlights before and during the stay at the Shaolin Temple Europe. The most significant difference between living inside and outside the Temple is. Changes between Shaolin students and master students. How Shi Miao Jin thinks about happiness now. How Shi Miao Jin finds the middle Way and his balance. The daily habits that work better for Shi Miao Jin. The five ways Shi Miao Jin pays daily attention to find balance. An introduction to Traditional Chinese Medicine. Optimizing your life according to the fundamental aspects of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Most astonishing facts were found when Shi Miao Jian was studying TCM. The most critical skill nowadays, according to Shi Miao Jian. Shi Miao Jian explains a full typical day in the Temple. The Shaolin Bootcamp and getting to your personal limit. Recommendations for newcomers. His biggest teachings are from the Shaolin Temple Abbot, Shi Miao Hai, and Shi Heng Zuan. The thing that has impressed most Shi Miao Jian about his master, Shi Heng Yi. Three biggest learnings from Shi Heng Yi. The most significant turning point for Shi Miao Jian. How to let go of your book knowledge. The motivation for Shi Miao Jian. 5 concepts and what they mean to him. Parting thoughts. "When my mum died, my life became real." "Feel the gratefulness for all your relationships and all the people around you." - Shi Miao Jian. Podcast show notes, resources and links Shaolin Temple Europe website. First interview with Shi Heng Yi (recorded in August 2020) about the Path to Self-Mastery. Second interview with Shifu Shi Heng Yi about Life Mastery (recorded in July 2021) - Interview (in English with a summary of each question in Spanish) with Shaolin Master Shi Heng Yi. Third interview with Shaolin Master Shi Heng Yi about what you need to improve yourself. Interview with Shi Miao Hai. A video with my personal experience in the Shaolin Temple (documentary). "The stellar moments or highlights play no role in what I'm trying to learn here." Shi Miao Jian (Shaolin Teacher): Living the Shaolin Way, Traditional Chinese Medicine, becoming a Shaolin Master Student, the Way Back to Yourself, the Routines and Rituals of a Master Student, Surpassing Your Personal Limits, and Vital Learnings from his masters - podcast #252 "I pay attention to the right food, the right move, the right lifestyle, the right social context, and the Right Way to see things." - Shi Miao Jian.

Miao ethnic people in the mountainous area of Southwest China's Guizhou are bringing theirvibrant embroideries to the Milan Fashion Week. #PotsideChats

Miao Rios was listening to the Side Hustle Show episode “Rank and Rent” with Luke Van Der Veer about creating niche websites to rank them on Google, then renting out the leads to local service businesses. She decided to give it a try, and just 3 months after creating her first site, she got an unexpected call. It was from the Ministry of Education in New Zealand, inviting her new website business to bid on a large demolition project for a local school. Despite having no actual demolition capabilities, Miao took a chance responding to the tender. She partnered with a qualified local contractor, got help polishing up the bidding documents, and ended up winning the $5,000 job! In this episode, you'll learn how Miao of blackbirdseo.com builds and ranks her sites to earn $1000-$1500 per month passively. More importantly, you'll get a blueprint to find profitable niches and service providers to create your own side income stream. Tune in to Episode 597 of the Side Hustle Show to learn about: Finding profitable niches and locations Building out niche sites to rank locally Getting high-quality leads Partnering with reliable service contractors Full Show Notes: Website Rentals: The simple local websites that earn $1000/mo each Free Listener Bonus: 50+ Rank and Rent Niches New to the Show? Get your personalized money-making playlist here! Sponsors: US Bank — Get a 75,000-point sign-up bonus with the US Bank Business Altitude Power World Elite Mastercard, and earn 2X points on everything you buy for your business. Notion – Try Notion AI for free! Factor — Get 50% off America's #1 ready-to-eat meal delivery service w/ code sidehustle50! Indeed – Start hiring NOW with a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chapters 15-16 of the Lotus Sutra - Join us as we read and discuss Chapters 15-16 of the Burton Watson translation of the Lotus Sutra! Resources: Hurvitz, Leon. 1976. Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma. New York:  Columbia University Press.; Kato, Bunno. 1971. The Threefold Lotus Sutra: Innumerable Meanings, The Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Law, and Meditation on the Bodhisattva Universal Virtue. Tokyo:  Kosei Publishing Company.; Kern, H. 1884. 1963. Saddharma-Puṇḍarīka or The Lotus of the True Law. London:  New York:  Clarendon Press. Dover Publications. The Sacred Books of the East, Volume XXI; Kubo, Tsugunari and Akira Yuyama. 1993. The Lotus Sutra: The White Lotus of the Marvelous Law. Tokyo and Berkeley:  Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research.; Murano, Senchū. 1974. 1991. The Lotus Sutra: The Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma. Tokyo:  Nichiren Shu Shimbun.; Reeves, Gene. 2008. The Lotus Sutra. Boston:  Wisdom Publications.; Soothill, W.E. 1930. The Lotus of the Wonderful Law or The Lotus Gospel: Saddharma Puṇḍarīka Sūtra, Miao-fa Lien Hua Ching. Oxford:  Clarendon Press.; Watson, Burton. 1993. The Lotus Sutra. New York:  Columbia University Press.; Lopez, Donald S. The Lotus Sūtra: A Biography. Princeton; Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2016; Teiser, Stephen F., and Jacqueline I. Stone, eds. Readings of the Lotus Sutra. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009.; Lopez, Donald S., and Jacqueline I. Stone. Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side: A Guide to the Lotus Sūtra. Princeton University Press, 2019. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvfjczvz. Do you have a question about Buddhism that you'd like us to discuss? Let us know by tweeting to us @BrightBuddhism, emailing us at Bright.On.Buddhism@gmail.com, or joining us on our discord server, Hidden Sangha https://discord.gg/tEwcVpu! Credits: Nick Bright: Script, Cover Art, Music, Voice of Hearer, Co-Host Proven Paradox: Editing, mixing and mastering, social media, Voice of Hermit, Co-Host --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/brightonbuddhism/message

本期节目是 2023 年结束前的临时加更！因为朋友的一段短文，想要回顾一下 2023 年那些深深影响我的创作者/创造者们。之前有句话很火，「勇敢的人先享受世界」。这句话听起来很爽，但现实往往并非如此，或者说，很多勇敢的人选择勇敢，并不是为了先享受世界，而是为了别的什么。但有一点是确定无疑的，那就是勇敢的人都会得到属于他们自己珍视的礼物。这才是最重要的！2023 那些创造了点什么的人：[03:11] 王子鹏：人与土地[06:13] Miao：建一个自己的世界[09:21] 梁海源：坐在角落里的人[12:52] 野木亚纪子：创作的反骨[19:23] 坂本龙一：创作之光[21:37] 巫鸿和小河：创作的热情[25:42] 万玛才旦：推开一扇门[27:22] 简莉颖：在北欧客厅和电视台八点档之间找到一条自己的路[30:24] 陈英：勇敢的礼物[36:02] 一位柴姓记者【节目主播/制作】主播/制作：VC微博：@VividCrystal https://weibo.com/u/1241505120 小红书：@午夜飞行VC https://www.xiaohongshu.com/user/profile/572a84ee50c4b435fe74744e【节目互动】微博：@午夜飞行Official https://weibo.com/u/7298580324公众号：午夜飞行【欢迎加入听友群】入群方式 A：微信添加小助手 Amber (ID: hellomarcast)，拉你入群入群方式 B：关注公众号「午夜飞行」 ，回复「听友群」三个字，即可获取入群通道【本集音乐】All music credits to:1. 住所不定無職低収入 (New ver.) - 細野晴臣 2. TSUBASA - Awich,Yomi Jah 3. The Close of Another Year - Kathryn Kaye 4. In Spite Of All - Max Richter5. A Good Year - October 6. Sense of Time - Only paradise 7. だが、情熱はあるのテーマ - T字路s 8. 28 - ゴンチチ 9. 1967 - ゴンチチ 10. 秋柳 (live版) - 小河与寻谣计划【关于节目】《午夜飞行》是一档关注旅行、城市、文化和生活的播客节目，由 VC 主持/制作，力求用声音将多彩的城市故事带给你。微博：@午夜飞行Official / 小红书：@午夜飞行VC / 公众号：午夜飞行【节目出品】本播客由 Marcast Media 制作出品，也欢迎你订阅收听 Marcast 旗下的其他播客节目。你可以通过以下方式找到我们：- 微博：@Marcast https://weibo.com/u/2743283854- 公众号：Marcast - 小红书：@Marcast新播客- 进听友群请添加微信：hellomarcast- 商务合作联系：hello@marcastmedia.com- 欢迎订阅 Beads Newsletter 每周一封精选英文播客内容分享，为你提取、总结那些 90% 的人听不到的、隐藏在声音里的一手信息、知识、经验、工具、趣味和审美，和你一起拓展认知和视野，每周一上午发送，订阅地址：https://beads.beehiiv.com © 2023 Marcast Media

Dave Miao - 3D DDIY Dave - is well known for his Maker Scans project, 3D scanning makers and making those files available. He started out focused on photography, and now explores the ways to combine traditional materials with 3D printing. He's always learning and sharing what he learns. Check out Dave on Instagram or download your favorite maker from the Maker Scans Project.

Episode 178Special guestDave Miaohttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVe0cKoYo30HDNwn4e9fBWAhttps://www.instagram.com/3d_diy_dave/This week in Maker NewsOnefinity Masso upgradeJonathan Katz Moses No BS seriesSign up for Patreon for Early access, and special Patreon-only content:https://www.patreon.com/anotherwoodshoppodcastQuestions:Patrick GenselHow did you get so handsome?!With the new 3d printing innovations, what do you think is the next innovation is?Kimani StrayhornVan Stray DesignsWhat was your origin story with woodworking / 3d printing?What is the best camera platform and why is it canon?Is there a project thats not 3d printing related that you are excited about?ThomasTSG MakesNo question, just some commentary about 3d printing.You can send in your question to get answered on the podcast! Record your question or comment on your phones voice memo app and email it to anotherwoodshoppodcast@gmail.comYou can follow us all and the podcast on Instagram and YouTube!Podcast:https://www.instagram.com/anotherwoodshoppodcast/https://www.youtube.com/anotherwoodshoppodcast https://www.etsy.com/shop/awpstore Pete:https://www.instagram.com/ptreesworkshop/ https://www.youtube.com/ptreesworkshophttps://www.etsy.com/shop/pTreesWorkShop Dan:https://www.instagram.com/danieldunlap.woodworks/ https://www.youtube.com/danieldunlap  https://www.etsy.com/shop/ddwwstore Support the show

How can you turn a seemingly hopeless situation into a gift? It is possible, according to today's guest Yuan Miao who shares her story of tragedy to triumph by realizing the profound importance of joy. Yuan Miao is a spiritual teacher, gifted in the art of Mudra and Mantra. As a child, Yuan was thought to be mute, but under the guidance of her grandmother, a Tibetan Spiritual Master, she learned the power of mantric voice. Yuan is joined by her translator, Peter Shiao, and Obadiah Harris, President of the Philosophical Research Society.   Peter Shiao is the producer of “Phoenix Rising,” a journey into vibration, music, and mantra, in which Yuan shares her magical, healing voice. Peter is a media entrepreneur and film producer. He is currently the founder and CEO of Orb Media Group, which is focused on producing, financing, and marketing films and online games with transformational themes that unite the international and Chinese markets. Peter also chairs the annual US-China Film Summit since 2010.  Obadiah Harris, an expert in Eastern and Western esoteric cultures and religions, relates the myth of the phoenix rising from the flame and compares it to Yuan's life after she lost her daughter to leukemia, battled with suicidal thoughts, and rose up to triumphantly share her gifts of sound and mantra with the world. Info: www.NCFinternational.org and www.PRS.org.  

Jane Lo, Singapore Correspondent speaks with Miao Song, Global Chief Information Officer, GLP Singapore.Miao Song has over 23 years of global experience in various industries, with broad exposure to the Oil/ Energy/Natural Resources as well as Consumer Goods and Health Care business. Over the course of her past tenure, she received many awards such as the CIO of the Year by IDG, Leadership Excellent, Women Leader, CIO of the Year Silicon Valley, Global CIO 100, and more.In this interview, Miao shares the highlights of her presentation, “The emergence of GenAI technology”, at the World AI Show 2023.She notes that latest AI innovation based on LLM (large language model) is significantly different from previous “traditional” AI or machine learning. In particular, the AI LLM models, enable the generation of new content with cognitive search and text summarisation.Noting how the new capabilities could help drive efficiency or help humans “do jobs better” (for instance, in medical diagnosis), Miao stresses such benefits need to be balanced with concerns. Some of these considerations including the impacts on jobs, the need for regulation, and security risks implications. For companies looking to adopt the latest AI innovation, Miao points out that it is “not a simple matter of having a conversation with ChatGPT and the problem will be solved”. Rather, there is a need to understand the space and the technology (data structure and overall technology architecture), and the business pain points, to “translate the business opportunity into technology adoption”.She elaborates that implementing AI is different from a traditional large IT project that typically runs linearly requiring a team of consultants. Instead, the adoption requires hands-on approach to re-iterate “test and learn” cycles - in other words, education – which requires a secure environment to learn the capabilities and limitations of AI. From her firm's adoption journey, Miao offers a few tips:• the technology team be immersed in the business to build practical use cases. • the need for data architects and engineers to design data structures and identify the data types to be fed into AI • security professionals to implement necessary measures to mitigate potential security breaches and AI specific risks (such as model risks that could lead to fraud)• guidelines for the organisation (for examples, restricted use of confidential company information or personal information to experiment with AI; privacy regulations that are applicable)Wrapping up, Miao offers the view that to remain competitive, companies will have to embrace and adopt the latest AI innovations. She also offers an optimistic view that with generative AI, we can move away from “memorising” knowledge to focus on generating creative ideas.Recorded 2nd August 1.30pm, World AI Show 2023, Singapore Marina Bay Sands.

Yao Miao is a professional runner for Salomon International from Wuhan, China. Miao won CCC in 2018 and is extremely dominant in the Chinese trail running scene. At the age of 23 she set the CCC course record that wasn't broken until last year by Blandine L'Hirondel. Recently she was 2nd at the Mont Blanc Marathon and is continuing her 2023 campaign at Sierre Zinal.  Interpreter: Jian-Xing Lin  This episode is brought to you by Freetrail @runfreetrail  www.freetrail.com⁠ - subscribe and JOIN US IN SLACK Episode Sponsor: NEVERSECOND @never.second use code SUBHUB25 Freetrail Fantasy for Sierre Zinal - https://fantasy.freetrail.com/events/687a9bff-660a-4bdd-af3d-f7b2dee9c896 Instagram - ⁠@emkaysulli⁠ ⁠@dan_yell_a⁠ ⁠@the_subhub_ @yaomiao1 @sierrezinal_officiel  @_jianxinglin 

在 YouTube 上看這集：https://youtu.be/AHbpfyWJlDE -- 訂閱壽司坦丁，別錯過國際上最新、有趣的社會科學研究發現！ -- 壽司坦丁 Sociostanding 的其他精彩影片： 曾經，臺灣有個原子彈：臺灣核武的興與衰｜核武研發與地緣政治，讓台灣與南韓步上迥異的核電之路 https://youtu.be/3CoA8vuZp00 無能之國：在印度，「家暴仲介」是門好生意｜壓迫性的社會結構，卻催生意料之外的社會結盟 https://youtu.be/6uQy0ZsDp3U 逃離中國：台灣（外省人）的創傷與記憶｜在中國受的傷，卻成為外省人在台灣自我療癒的記憶 https://youtu.be/LjMiRspthHM 「信心」和「自我實現的預言」：矽谷銀行倒閉＆台灣缺蛋 https://youtu.be/C0MRQ1QHcV4 約炮的社會學研究／破除一些關於暈船、女性高潮、性愛分離的迷思 https://youtu.be/h3p0tObkn98 看見中南海之外：中國官員的「升遷機制」和「清零災難」的關係 https://youtu.be/_hYG9urXHBU 中國的「大監禁時代」：從新疆鎮壓／清零／白紙運動看習近平的治理邏輯 https://youtu.be/I4sHPxToexc 習近平與「弱者聯盟」：習快速登基的歷史條件／二十大可能是中共崩解的起點？ https://youtu.be/8KJap6TJAcw 越痛苦的宗教越容易成功？為什麼人在宗教中容易變抖M？社會科學解釋宗教中的「不理性」 https://youtu.be/-r-07Rfw9Aw 台灣女人可能是東亞最「命苦」的一群人？社會科學怎麼測量「性別不平等」？ https://youtu.be/BvOcgKZuads 同性伴侶當爸媽：同性戀可以生／養小孩嗎？台灣護家盟最愛的社會學者，如何掀起一場激烈的科學論戰？ https://youtu.be/bDvwsqBb3tE --- 關於民調的數據說明： 其實只要進一步拆解數據，我們就能看到答案。在很多民調問題裡，受訪者除了「贊成」或「不贊成」以外，還可以選「唔知／難講」，也就是「不表態」。這一類型的題目，讓我們看見香港人實際上在想什麼。比如說，香港人對於六四天安門事件的支持度，在 2020 年 6 月之後，同樣大幅下滑，讓我們看見端倪的是，不支持的比例完全沒有增加，消減的支持度，全都移轉到另一選項：「唔知／難講」，也就是不表態。這些問項清楚的告訴我們：香港人的態度很可能完全沒有改變，造成民調系統性偏差的原因是：香港人不敢說真話了。 --- 參考資料： 1. Hung, Ho-fung. 2022. “City on the Edge: Hong Kong under Chinese Rule.”（《邊際危城》英文版） 2. 孔誥烽，2022。《邊際危城：資本、帝國與抵抗視野下的香港》。（中文翻譯有幾處錯誤，但大致上還是翻得很通順） 3. Miao and Wu. 2022. Social Consequences of Homeownership：Evidence from the Home Ownership Scheme in Hong Kong. Social Forces 101(3): 1460-84. 4. 沈棟，2023。《紅色賭盤：令中共高層害怕，直擊現代中國金權交易背後的腐敗內幕》

Heavy floods triggered by torrential rains have displaced thousands of people across the country as Beijing and areas nearby experienced a brief respite from recent scorching temperatures.由于暴雨引发的严重洪灾，致使全国各地数以千计的人口流离失所，而北京及其周边地区最近的炎热天气得到了暂时的缓解。The country may continue to simultaneously suffer floods and sweltering heat waves this month, according to the Ministry of Emergency Management.根据中国应急管理部的数据，本月内，中国可能继续同时遭受洪涝灾害和酷热天气。Downpours have battered parts of Hunan province since Thursday, with the Xiangxi Tujia and Miao autonomous prefecture one of the worst-hit areas, according to the province's flood and drought control headquarters.湖南省防汛抗旱指挥部称，从6月29日开始，暴雨袭击了湖南省的部分地区，其中湘西土家族苗族自治州是受灾最严重的地区之一。Over 95,000 people in the prefecture have been affected, and more than 14,000 of them were relocated or evacuated, local authorities said on Sunday. Direct economic losses are estimated to be around 575 million yuan ($79.5 million).7月2日，当地政府表示，该自治州已有超过9.5万人受灾，其中超过1.4万人被重新安置或疏散。直接经济损失估计约为5.75亿元人民币（约合7950万美元）。"The rain was so heavy that the water level rose by over 1 meter within about 10 minutes," Luo Jiashun, a resident of Mengke village in the prefecture's Baojing county, recalled about the time when the rain started to pour down on Friday, triggering floods that left the lowlying village isolated.“好大的雨，眼看着水位十分钟猛涨出一米多高。”村民罗家顺回忆起6月30日雨势倾盆时的情景，湖南省湘西土家族苗族自治州保靖县阳朝乡猛科村被洪水包围沦为“孤岛”。Forty-four houses in the village were swamped, over 50 hectares of farmland were inundated and 163 residents were evacuated. Local authorities are still trying to restore water and power supplies to help get village life back to normal.猛科村里有44间房屋被淹，50多公顷的农田被淹，163名村民被紧急转移。当地政府仍在全力抢修，恢复水电供应，以加快恢复生产生活秩序。Shortly before 1 pm on Tuesday, the Xiangxi meteorological station issued a yellow alert for heavy rainfall, warning of maximum hourly precipitation of 24 millimeters from noon to 6 pm in Fenghuang county. The alert was soon upgraded to orange, as the latest forecast showed that the largest hourly precipitation from 1 pm to 4 pm may reach 36 mm.7月4日下午1点前不久，湘西州气象台发布暴雨黄色预警信号，预计预计凤凰县12时至18时最大小时雨强24毫米。随后，最新预警显示，预计凤凰县13时至16时最大小时雨强36毫米，预警很快由黄色升级为橙色。China has a four-tier, color-coded weather alert system, with red representing the most severe warning, followed by orange, yellow and blue.中国有一个四级色彩编码的天气预警系统，其中红色代表最严重的预警，其次是橙色、黄色和蓝色。Local observatories in at least four counties in the prefecture also issued yellow or orange alerts for downpours on Tuesday afternoon.该自治州至少四个县的地方气象台也在7月4日下午发布了暴雨黄色或橙色预警。In Zhenba county, Shaanxi province, downpours from 6 pm Sunday to 6 pm Monday forced the evacuation of more than 7,800 people, according to the emergency services bureau of Hanzhong city, where the county is located.陕西省汉中市镇巴县的应急管理局称，7月2日18时至7月3日18时，暴雨迫使全县撤离群众7800多人。The bureau said workers are still laboring round the clock to clear 80 roads cut by floods and restore power supply to affected areas. Luckily, the rain subsided in the county on Tuesday.镇巴县应急管理局表示，正在全力除险保畅受损中断的80条道路，并恢复受灾地区的供电。幸运的是，该县在7月4日雨势减弱。In Sichuan province, local authorities have evacuated more than 85,300 people as of 7 am on Tuesday to avoid potential dangers from a downpour forecast to strike vast stretches from Monday to Tuesday.在四川省，截至7月4日7时，当地政府已经疏散了85300多人，以避免7月3日到4日大范围暴雨带来的潜在危险。The rain was expected to affect five prefecture-level cities, including Guang'an, Luzhou and Panzhihua, and parts of Yibin city and Garze Tibetan autonomous prefecture, bringing a maximum precipitation of 100 to 120 mm, Sichuan meteorological station said.四川省气象台表示，预计降雨将影响广安、泸州和攀枝花等五个地级市，以及宜宾市和甘孜藏族自治州的部分地区，最大降水量将达到100至120毫米。In Henan province, 66 of its 157 county-level areas were pummeled by heavy rainfall from 8 am Sunday to 7 am Monday, and 26 of them received more than 100 mm of precipitation. Downpours continued in many of the counties till Tuesday morning, local authorities said.从7月2日8时到7月3日7时，河南省157个县级行政单位中有66个受到强降雨的袭击，其中26个县级行政单位的降水量超过100毫米。当地政府表示，许多县区的暴雨一直持续到7月4日上午。In Queshan county in the province, a car with five passengers was washed away by floods when it was passing a bridge on Monday evening. One of the passengers was saved, but the other four remain missing, according to media reports.7月3日晚，河南驻马店确山县发生事故，一辆载有五名乘客的汽车在经过一座桥时被洪水冲走。据媒体报道，其中一名落水人员获救，但其他四人仍处于失联状态。Many other regions were expected to experience torrential rains from Tuesday to Wednesday, according to the National Meteorological Center.根据国家气象中心的预报，预计从7月4日到5日，国内许多地区将迎来暴雨天气。On Tuesday, the center renewed a blue alert for downpours, warning of maximum hourly precipitation of 20 to 50 mm in parts of the Inner Mongolia and Guangxi Zhuang autonomous regions, and Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Yunnan and Guizhou provinces in the 24 hours starting 2 pm on Tuesday.7月4日，国家气象中心再次发布降雨蓝色预警，预计当天14时开始，未来24小时内，内蒙古和广西壮族自治区部分地区以及黑龙江、吉林、辽宁、云南和贵州等省的最大小时雨强将达到20至50毫米。Precipitation in northern Liaoning may even reach 100 to 120 mm, the center said, adding that some areas in these regions may be hit by severe convective weather — a sudden and destructive weather phenomenon that often includes thunderstorms, hail, gales and heavy rain.该中心表示，辽宁北部的降水甚至可能达到100至120毫米，并补充说，这些地区的部分地方可能会受到剧烈的对流天气影响，这是一种通常包括雷暴、冰雹、大风和大雨的突发和破坏性天气现象。Sometimes spanning only 10 kilometers, such events can produce intense precipitation.这种天气现象有时在只有10公里的范围内发生，可以产生密集的降雨。In contrast, a light rain that lasted from Monday night to Tuesday morning allowed Beijing to have some respite from heat waves with temperatures above 35 C. The capital, however, is forecast to be enveloped by sweltering heat with temperatures up to 38 C once again from Wednesday to Thursday.相比之下，从7月3日晚到7月4日早的一场小雨让北京从超过35摄氏度的热浪中得到了短暂的缓解。According to the National Climate Center, the number of days with temperatures above 35 C in June in Beijing outpaced the same month in all other years since 1961. A tour guide was reported to have died of heatstroke in the capital on Sunday at the Summer Palace, as the scorching heat wave lingered in the city.根据国家气候中心的数据，今年6月以来，北京35摄氏度以上的平均高温日数是自1961年以来同期最多的。据报道，7月2日，在北京市颐和园，一名导游因中暑而不幸身亡，而炎热的天气仍在城市中持续蔓延。The Ministry of Emergency Management has warned of a grim situation for flood control and drought relief this month.中国应急管理部警告称，本月的防汛抗旱形势严峻。The precipitation in central and eastern parts of Northeast China, the northern part of Central China, and western part of Southwest China will receive more precipitation than the yearly average in July, it said.该部门称，中国东北地区中部和东部、华中地区北部以及西南地区西部7月份的降水量将超过全年平均水平。It forecast floods in parts of the country's two longest watercourses — the Yangtze and the Yellow — and in some sections of Qiantang and Songhua rivers. Torrential rains may raise water levels in these rivers above their warning marks, it said.据预测，全国两大最长水系，即长江和黄河的部分地区，以及钱塘江和松花江的一些河段可能会发生洪水。暴雨可能导致这些河流的水位上涨超过警戒线。It said higher temperatures and less precipitation are expected in many other areas, including the northern part of North China and some areas in Inner Mongolia.据称，预计包括华北北部和内蒙古部分地区在内的许多其他地区将出现较高的气温和较少的降水量。"The supply of water and power will be relatively tight in these regions," it noted.并指出，“这些地区可能出现水电供应偏紧的情况。”Torrential英/təˈrenʃ(ə)l/ 美/təˈrenʃ(ə)l/adj.（水）奔流的；（雨）倾泻的Flood英/flʌd/美/flʌd/n.洪水，水灾

Scrump and Drew talk about Randy Orton possibly retiring, The Rock's return to the Fast franchise, CM Punk vs Samoa Joe 4, Roman Reigns winning the tag team championship, Miao's return, Don Callis' turn, and more! Special thanks to Kenny Omega for the outro.   Patreon Merchandise   Sponsors: Manscaped Use promo code: PWTCAST to get 20% off AND Free shipping   Social Media: Twitter Instagram 

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Hello beautifulsSSSssSssSSSssssSSs !!!Giorno di resurrezione per Mi Sale il Crymine.La lunga assenza ci ha imposto una mega intro di cazzy nostry per riaggiornarci fra noi e con voi.Dopodiché l'andre ci battezza la fede e noi tutty con una storiella """cucciolina""".ENJOYLink di Instagram dove postiamo tutte le foto e i riferimenti della puntata: https://www.instagram.com/misale_ilcrymine/Se non ci segui su Instagram, puoi scriverci tutto quello che vuoi in una mail a:misaleilcrymine@gmail.com Miao

This is Eric Golden and my guest this week is Kevin Miao, Partner and Head of Credit at BlockTower Capital. I've been excited for this conversation because while a lot of people in crypto seem to be focused on building a brand new financial system from scratch, this conversation focuses on how crypto rails can improve the traditional finance world. After nearly a decade at Citi, Kevin straddles both the TradFi and the DeFi world, and at BlockTower, he is working on bringing the multi-trillion dollar securitization market on-chain. We go deep into the weeds in this one, first getting into the nuts and bolts of how credit and securitization traditionally work, before diving into BlockTower's approach to transform this entire process, moving it on chain, which will reduce friction, errors. and consequently fees. Enjoy. For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here. ----- This episode is brought to you by OKX. You may have seen OKX on McLaren's Formula 1 race car or Manchester City's football kit. But what is OKX? OKX has over 730 spot trading pairs, 280 derivatives markets, and 1000 options markets. It processes 400,000 requests per second with 99.95% uptime. That's why over 20 million traders and institutions choose OKX when they want to trade. Visit okx.com to learn more. ----- Web3 Breakdowns is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Web3 Breakdowns, visit joincolossus.com/episodes. Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @Web3Breakdowns | @ericgoldenx | @patrick_oshag  Show Notes (00:04:00) - (First question) - The impact of TradFi shifting towards crypto infrastructure (00:14:00) - How crypto could drastically reduce friction in credit markets and mortgages (00:28:29) - Building crypto rails in parallel to legacy systems to prove their power and destabilize those traditional structures (00:37:15) - The gravity of competing with the most entrenched American industry and how Blocktower's system addresses this (00:45:22) - How they cooperate and compete with different TradFi and DeFi players (00:47:38) - Considerations for privacy and reversibility with crypto-based banking (00:55:41) - How blockchain in banking can eliminate much of the human error in the system (00:58:57) - What he's most excited to see built over the next six months and six years

MIAO-MIAO-MIAO!!!Preparatevi a un ritorno col botto perché il volante è in mano alla fede per questo episodio 54. Aspettatevi DI TUTTO. Colpi di scema a destra e a manca.La storia che ci racconterà è quella delle sorelle Papin.Buona fortuna a tutt* noi e che il Signore ce la mandi buona.PS: di seguito al trigger warning c'è un consiglio speciale from una persona speciale.Link di Instagram dove postiamo tutte le foto e i riferimenti della puntata: https://www.instagram.com/misale_ilcrymine/Se non ci segui su Instagram, puoi scriverci tutto quello che vuoi in una mail a:misaleilcrymine@gmail.com Miao

In episode 284, Kestrel welcomes designer Angel Chang to the show. Over the last decade, Angel has been working with artisans in southwest rural China, making garments using zero carbon design / Indigenous practices (all-natural, locally-made, zero electricity). “For the past 20,000 years, we've been making our own fabric and you know, using ingredients from our own backyard. It's only in the last 150 years that electricity was invented, that chemical dyes were created, that plastic and plastic textiles were created. And all the stuff that we say is polluting for the fashion industry — well, that was all created in the last 150 years. So, if we really want to create quote unquote sustainable clothing, we just have to make clothing like it was before then, before the Industrial Revolution." -Angel The sustainability and fashion narrative has an obsession with whatever is *new and innovative*. The focus regularly leans toward innovations in fabric development or tech-centered approaches to reduce carbon emissions. There tends to be this obsession with looking forward into the future, instead of slowing down to look back and maybe unveil what we could also learn from the past.  This week's guest has deep knowledge around this. After falling in love with the hand-embroidered Miao traditional costumes exhibited in museums around the world, Angel found herself traveling to remote mountain villages in Guizhou Province, China, searching for the elders who made them. And she ended up finding them.  Years later, she's working in collaboration with several communities, in an effort to help preserve their textile traditions that over the last 30 years or so, have been eroding amidst China's rapid modernization. As she says – “Saving these textile traditions is not just about preserving the past. They can also provide tangible solutions for an environmentally sustainable future.” Turns out, zero carbon design – fashion that's all natural and locally-made with no electricity — is possible.  Quotes & links from the conversation: “I think maybe it's human nature to always want to find something that's new and flashy. But I feel like it's also feeding an obsession that will never be satiated. There's always so much emphasis on technology and the future, and the thing is — technology is not going to be the thing that's going to save us from climate change or whatever. We have to learn how to work with nature again.” -Angel (49:59) Alexis Bunten, Angel mentions them and some of their wisdom about the need to reconnect with our own roots “I think not being able to know who you are fuels a lot of insecurity and unrest internally. And so, I feel like learning about where we come from, our ancestral roots, and going to that physical land and just feeling it and spending some time there — I feel like that will give us a lot of solace and calm us down and bring more satisfaction to our hearts and souls.” -Angel (59:38) “How Ancient Textiles Can Help The Future”, Angel's TEDTalk Angel Chang Website > Follow Angel on Instagram > Follow Angel Chang (the brand) on Instagram >

Last time we spoke Emperor Xianfeng died at the ripe age of 30 having spent a life smoking opium with his harem. Now the Qing dynasty was in the hands of his 5 year old son, but in reality henceforth until its collapse the Qing dynasty would actually to be controlled by the infamous Empress Dowager Cixi. Hong Rengan received a military defeat at Tongcheng and it seems he would never psychologically recover from it. Li Xiucheng went on the offensive and performed a grand eastern campaign taking multiple provinces. Zeng Guofan needed a new army created and chose his student Li Hongzhang to command it. The Anhui army was formed and it looked like the Qing side was going to win this civil war after all. The only thing that might turn the tide back for the Taiping was that ever sought after foreign support.   #33 This episode is The Taiping Rebellion part 10: The Ever Victorious Army   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. Meanwhile back in Nanjing, Hong Rengan's life was becoming more and more miserable. He lost at Anqing and his rivals used his absence to take away his authority in the capital. His continued efforts at gaining western support was going nowhere, in fact it was earning him embarrassment. The foreign relations to the Taiping had become poisoned due a large part to the eastern campaign led by Li Xiucheng. Many of the foreign missionaries stopped visiting Nanjing and soon that direct line of communication that Hong Rengan cherished had slipped away. Shanghai was bracing itself for what it believed was a Taiping offensive against the city and Hong Rengan could do little to nothing to stop Li Xiucheng. As for Zeng Guofan, he knew Shanghai was extremely wealthy and must be protected from the Taiping, but Nanjing was simply more important and he could not launch two enormous campaigns simultaneously against both. Zeng Guofan elected to focus on Nanjing and perhaps once Li Hongzhang had built up his Anhui army he could deal with Shanghai.    For Shanghai, it looked certain the Taiping would soon attack, and the Qing had no assurances from the foreigners that they would help defend the city. They had no one to turn to, then our old friend the filibuster wannabe Frederick Townsend Ward. Despite Britain's attempts to stop the mercenary leader, he was still going strong with his HQ at Songjiang. He only had 68 foreign mercenaries left because of the constant harassment from the Taiping and British, but he did have some Napoleon field guns and a promise form his Qing benefactors that if he took Qingpu he would be rewarded handsomely. Way back when we talked about how Ward's ragtag group failed to take Qingpu from the Taiping and they attempted 4 more times with disastrous results. They just kept using the same strategy over and over, blast the gates with artillery, storm the walls and hope the Qing military followed through. Ward's defeats were brutal and he lost a third of his force for his efforts. The foreign community of SHanghai had zero sympathy for the filibuster, he was just a source of embarrassment. But then the American civil war broke out and a rumor emerged about a group of Californians purchasing the vessel, Neva and that it was a confederate ship now being run by none other than Ward. According to these rumors, the Neva was outfitted with guns stolen from US munitions stored in Shanghai and this said vessel was firing up Union merchant ships going around the Chinese coast.    The United States only had a single warship in China at the time, the USS Saginaw which hunted the so called Neva. When they finally caught the Neva, the so called guns it held were actually whiskey, it was just a merchant ship, but still the rumors persisted raising Ward as this legendary figure. Now this was all awkward as hell in Shanghai, the american population was overwhelmingly pro union northerners, while the British were more pro confederacy. The American merchants were dependent on the British warships to protect their business and this caused all sorts of conflict. During one particularly bad incident, the Trent incident of 1862 in which a US captain chased down and boarded the British steamer Trent trying to arrest two confederate diplomats, if you know the story you know the story haha. Long story short it was the confederates trying to go to Britain to make their case and the Union illegally arrested them, anyways this led Admiral Hope to get his naval forces at Shanghai to seize the homes, vessels and assets of the American community. This led to a rumor, Ward was going to pre emptively attack Hope's force. The entire American community in Shanghai thought they might go to war with Britain yet again, but this never came to be.    Meanwhile during all that chaos, the very real threat, the Taiping began to appear on the horizons of Shanghai on January 11th.  The alarms all sounded when smoke emerged due north of the city and a new wave of refugees began pouring in. The smoke began to get closer and closer prompting the foreign community to hold emergency meetings to plan a defense. The Americans, British and French put aside their quarrels and banded together to man the walls. The threat was extremely real, one member of the community had been captured and interrogated by the Taiping about the city defenses and this man reported that he saw the rebels were carrying British and German muskets and that there appeared to be an Arab military advisor and a small group of European mercenaries in their ranks. Then a force of around 3000 Taiping branding muskets seized the town of Wusong just 10 miles north of the city. One British captain reported witnessing the battle and said the Taiping were quite astonishing, very well organized and equipped far better than the Qing seemed to be at the battle of Peiho.    Li Xiucheng did not want to smash Shanghai into pieces, he wanted to do everything possible to take it mostly intact. Thus his strategy was to surround the city and bring her to her knees. Beginning in January, 5 Taiping armies each numbering in the thousands to tens of thousands began surrounding Shanghai at a distance of several miles each. Soon a propaganda campaign emerged between Songjiang and Shanghai, with written notices stating the Taiping would ensure the safety and protection of all those who joined their side. As for the foreign community, Li Xiucheng warned them to stay out of the conflict, and that anyone caught giving aid to the Qing “will be like a flying moth dashing into the fire, seeking his own extirpation.” Thus Shanghai was under siege and the communications to inland places were severed. Admiral Hope sent word to Hong Kong asking for reinforcements and the consul of Canton relayed the dire news back to Britain. The new wave of refugees brought far too many mouths to the city. 80,000 or so Taiping surrounded Shanghai and word was that more would be coming from Suzhou by the end of the month.   The main defensive body for the foreign community were British and French troops who manned the walls, alongside 200 volunteers, some police and a contingent of Punjabi infantry. In an unusual fashion, on January the 26th, snow began to fall, now do remember Shanghai lays in a subtropical zone rarely seeing temperatures below freezing. By the time the Taiping began to fully encircling Shanghai there was about 2 feet of snow in the area and this had a paralyzing effect in the lower Yangtze region. By the end of January the eastern seaboard froze. The weather would break in early February, but the Taiping were delayed greatly by all of this. The Taiping found an unexpected resistance at Songjiang, Ward's force. Now after losing so many battles, Ward had stopped simply recruiting westerners, he now began training Chinese instead. He had a minimal staff of American and European officers overseeing the training of his Chinese forces and because of the payment differences, they Chinese were paid a tenth of what the westerns were paid, he had a pretty large force under him. Ward taught his Chinese soldiers how to respond to english commands and standard bugle calls. The men were outfitted with european style uniforms, typically blue jackets for artillery men and green jackets for infantry. They were trained in the western fashion and equipped with cutting edge weaponry, British enfield rifles, some Prussian made rifles and the odd American rifle or pistol here or there. But the Taiping were also getting their hands on some western weaponry. One report in 1862 showed a ship was caught smuggling 300 cannons, 100 cases of small arms and 50 tons of ammunition to the Taiping from Singapore. Another report indicated the Taiping at Wusong had been supplied with nearly 3000 muskets, 800 pieces of artillery and 18,000 cartridges, a dangerous amount to be sure.   On February the 3rd, Wards new militia fought the Taiping managing to hold out at Songjiang against a force of 20,000 rebels. Their success was largely due to hidden artillery batteries they had placed outside the town which surprised the rebels during their approach, gunning down over 2000 men before their commander called for a retreat. Wards men managed to capture 700 Taiping alive and shipped them back to Shanghai in chains. Two days after the battle, Ward went on the offensive attacking a Taiping outpost halfway between Songjiang and Qingpu forcing the garrison commander to pull out. This was the first time the Shanghai gentry funded private army had any real success and this prompted them to rename the force to give it more inspiration, and thus it Wards militia became known as the famous “Ever Victorious Army” (EVA). Many of you may have heard of this force if you are American, its probably one of the very few things known about the Taiping rebellion in the west to be honest. The EVA force took orders from Wu Xu, their main benefactor, who by no means trusted his General Ward. Ward and the westerners continuously plundered where they went, despite Wu Xu pleading for them not to. In order to try and secure some form of loyalty from Ward, one of the wealthiest backers, the banker Yang Fang married his daughter off to Ward. The Chinese women had been betrothed to another, but the man died before the wedding making her unmarriageable within the Chinese culture. It was a mutual arrangement, for Ward he could pressure his wife to push the backers to pay up and for the backers they could pressure Ward to remain loyal.    Now after the snowstorm dissipated, and I refer to it as a snowstorm simply because my source does, but as a Canadian if you think 2 feet of snow is a storm wow haha. Admiral Hope and Rear admiral Auguste Leopold Protet signed a joint agreement on February 13th to defend Shanghai from the Taiping based on Hope's 30 mile radius idea. They formed a land force to take out into the field against the Taiping, although the British parliament had made it clear to Hope he was not to break neutrality unless it was to save the lives of British subjects. Hope as you can imagine disregarded the orders. Their force was not very large, 900 French and 650 British soldiers, some sailors as a reserve and 200 civilian volunteers including Americans. The Qing forces in Shanghai were around 10,000 strong. Hope had no…well hope to match the Taiping out in the field, but he believed he could hold the walls. If he wanted to perform any action out in the field he simply needed more men, and take a wild guess who he went to. Oh yes the man he tried to arrest on countless occasions, the wild filibuster Ward.    Since Ward now was recruiting Chinese rather than trying to steal away westerners, and given his recent military victories, Admiral Hope decided to form an alliance with Ward. Ward had zero interest in the defense of Shanghai, but Hope enticed him with gunships that could move his men to hit Taiping towns along the riverways, un gagnon gagnon. Frederick Bruce approved the alliance of convenience, but stressed while they could perhaps drive the Taiping out of the immediate area, they had to allow the Qing forces to actually push further and to garrison towns taken. Zeng Guofan upon hearing of all of this, disapproved and did not think it would prove fruitful. But he had no large cards to play in the east, and if the EVA held Shanghai, well that would be just dandy. And when Wards men won the battle for Songjiang on february 20th, zeng Guofan begrudgingly sent word to Beijing that it was in the dynasty's best interests to allow the bizarre foreign mercenary force to continue its work in Shanghai and even Ningbo if they could get there. But he also strongly warned them not to let the EVA forces campaign further inland, especially not against Nanjing. If foreigners were to help defeat Nanjing, what might they demand as a reward for such deeds.    Now give the Eva would be augmenting the Shanghai area, now Zeng Guofan felt perhaps he could dedicate some forces there, afterall if he could grab Shanghai it would be an enormous boost to his power. He approached the Gentry of Shanghai and they found common ground. They sought further protection and Zeng sought funding for his campaign against Nanjing. Thus Zeng Guofan tossed an army to try and break the siege of Shanghai, if they were successful that said army could later be used to cut off Nanjing. Another enormous benefit of this arrangement was Zeng Guofan obtaining what Hong Rengan so desperately desired. The Shanghai backers, nominally Wu Xu formed a contract with a British firm, Mackenzie, Richardsons & company to use their steamships. Now Zeng Guofan could move his forces unimpeded down river to Shanghai aboard British steamers. The Taiping could not fire upon the ships because of the Union Jack and in just 3 round trips, 6500 of Li Hongzhangs new Anhui forces were encamped in Shanghai ready for campaigning. Li Hongzhang then assumed his role as governor of the province and by proxy became the leader of the Shanghai backers, while Wu Xu would retain control over the EVA forces. Meanwhile, with Shanghai under Li Hongzhang's oversight, Zeng Guofan and both his brothers Zeng Guoquan and Guobao began a march towards Nanjing.   Shanghai was under siege, albeit from quite a distance, still this had an enormous effect on its economy, its very lifeblood. The price of rice went up 50%, flour and firewood doubled, but the Taiping were not attacking the walls, not yet at least. Joint operations between the EVA and foreign defenders began on a small scale in mid february with an assault upon High Bridge, 8 miles away from Shanghai proper. Ward had 600 men while Hope and Protet brought 500. The battle was a quick one, with only a single Frenchman killed before the Taiping fled the town. Then on April the 23rd a rather fateful action occurred at Ningbo. A taiping commander received a promotion, now General Fan and in his honor they fired a 10am salute from the cannons facing the river. The guns apparently were not well aimed as a handful of projectiles went across the river and hit the French gunship l'etoile as it was passing by. Admiral Hope and Protet used the situation to dispatch their forces led by Captain Roderick Dew aboard Encounter to retaliate against Ningbo. However when Dew got to Ningbo the Taiping profusely apologized and stated they wanted to remain under friendly terms and would make sure it never happened again. Hope and Protet were not at all content with this and sent word to demand the Taiping take down all the guns on the eastward facing wall of Ningbo. They were given 24 hours to comply or else the British would do it themselves. Well the Taiping refused to comply, because they obviously needed said cannons where they were to defend against the Qing, but they offered to take away the gunpowder from said cannons and to only provide it back if the Qing attacked. Then on May 5th a large group led by the disposed Ningbo gentry, got together a group of 150 small armed boats led by some pirates and peasants to come up the river to attack Ningbo and as they did so they asked the British and French for aid. Just as a mere coincidence their point of attack was the same eastern wall. Thus the British and French invited the motley group to their side of the river. Then Captain Dew sent word to the Taiping “If you fire the guns or muskets from the battery or walls opposite the Settlement, on the advancing Imperialists, thereby endangering the lives of our men and people in the foreign Settlement, we shall then feel it our duty to return the fire, and bombard the city.” It would turn out this was all a planned scheme go figure.    The motley group began approaching Ningbo, but then positioned itself in such a way as to push the European gunships between them and the city. Accounts differ, by the Europeans state one of the Taiping cannons fired first upon the Encounter killing 2 crewmen. It is also alleged that the person operating said cannon was actually a servant of one of the Shanghai gentry backers. Then the British and French ships began to bombard Ningbo before the combined allied party stormed the eastern wall. The motley group were actually the last to storm the city, leaving most of the bloody work to the europeans. According to an eyewitness account “in a few hours did more damage than the rebels did in the whole of the five months that they had possession, chopping off the heads of the unlucky rebels that he caught.” The British press went right to work demonizing the Taiping, a lot of which was based on witness accounts from specific men responsible for trying to break the neutrality stance of Britain. There was also a need to create a narrative to control China in general. Britain had turned its attention squarely to asia since the American civil war had broken much of their trade. The Times declare “the only route to Great Britain's economic survival lay down the path of the Taipings Annihilation”. The Times carried on stating the tea market was being ruined allegedly by the Taiping, and to compensate Britain would have to raise the tax rate on tea to preserve revenue. This would bring hardship to the tea drinking working class of Britain who were already suffering from the textile depression. Thus the stance of neutrality was hurting the good people of Britain, boy oh boy do you see the parallels to today's politics.    The warmongers won the day and Britain's government's hands were tied, thus Britain was dragged into a proxy war with the Taiping. The European coalition, EVA, the Qing and Li Hongzhangs Anhui army were now an allied front embarking on a large campaign to push the Taiping out of the Shanghai region. The beginnings of the campaign were largely successful as a result of the superior firearms, by May 16th a combined force left Shanghai and Songjiang marched upon Qingpu. They bombarded the town for 2 hours using 40 artillery pieces, including a 68 pounder and 4 giant 110 pound naval armstrong guns. Its gates were blown to splinters and 3500 of Wards Chinese EVA troops stormed the town as “god save the queen” was blasted by the military band. 4 days later Admiral Protet led an assault upon South Bridge which lay due south of Songjiang and was shot right through the heart by a Taiping sniper. His death enraged the French who took out their vengeance upon the nearby town of Zhelin where they massacred 3000 civilians, including women and children before raising it to the ground.    While the allied force proved very capable at seizing walled cities, holding them was another matter entirely. They simply did not have enough manpower to hold everything they took. After taking Qingpu, Li Xiucheng sent a large force from Suzhou to hit Songjiang, since the EVA force was absent. Ward turned back to hit Songjiang with 2000 EVA troops, leaving 1500 to garrison Qingpu, which fell under a siege to more Taiping. The garrison of 1500 men held out for a month, but ultimately were forced to torch the city and make their escape. In the summer of 1862, the British and French handed over a group of Taiping prisoners over to Qing forces and according to an eyewitness sat by idly while the Qing performed horrible atrocities. Here is part of the harrowing account: “A young female, apparently about eight months pregnant, who never uttered a groan or sigh at all the previous cruelties she had endured from the surrounding mob, had her infant cut out of her womb, and held up in her sight by one of its little hands, bleeding and quivering; when, at the sight, she gave one heartrending, piercing screech that would have awakened pity in a tiger, and after it had been in that state dashed on her breast, she, with a last superhuman effort, released her arms from those holding her down, and clasped her infant to her bleeding heart, and died holding it there with such force that they could not be separated, and were thus thrown together on the pile of other carcasses. Another young woman among the prisoners awaiting her turn to be disembowelled, with a fine boy of ten months old crowing and jumping in her arms, had him snatched suddenly away from her, and flung to the executioner, who plunged the ruthless knife into his tender breast before his mother's eyes. Infants but recently born were torn from their mother's breasts, and disembowelled before their faces. Young strong men were disembowelled, mutilated, and the parts cut off thrust into their own mouths, or flung among the admiring and laughing crowd of Chinamen.“May God forgive England for the part she is taking in this war”    The foreign press ran rampant stories of the horror and brutality, many still trying to stop their nations from taking an active role in China. Others pointed out the savagery to be a justification for colonizing China. Admiral Hope's vision of creating a 30 mile radius around Shanghai proved impossible. The allied coalition did not have enough men to garrison the places they took from the rebels and given the gruesome events at Qingpu and the death of Protet, Hope was forced to toss the towel. Soon the forces pulled back to the walls of Shanghai and Hope was replaced by Rear Admiral Augustus Leopold Kuper. Captain Dew likewise was reprimanded for his part in the escalations to war. Ward could not be reprimanded of course, but his EVA force was left to fight on its own, something he did not mind too much as the British and French forces often stopped his men from plundering.   While things were going badly for Shanghai, Zeng Guofan was enjoying an amazing campaign. Duolonga's cavalry were harassing Chen Yucheng in northern Anhui for him to flee to Luzhou. From Luzhou Chen Yucheng had an extremely bold strategy, he began calling upon Taiping forces and Nian groups to launch a four pronged campaign going north through Henan and Shaanxi provinces with the ultimate goal of hitting Beijing. Three of the four armies marched north as planned early in 1862, but Chen Yucheng found himself stuck in Luzhou, under a siege by the forces of Duolonga and the Xiang army. His communication to the other 3 armies were cut off and his provisions were dwindling. On may 13th, he took 4000 men and broke out of the siege trying to flee north, but Duolonga's cavalry force gave quick pursuit. Chen Yucheng headed for the city of Souzhou which one of the army groups had been sent to attack. The army was led by Miao Peilin, someone Chen Yucheng had gotten to defect during the siege of Anqing. Chen Yucheng reached Shouzhou before Duolonga's cavalry cut him to pieces, much to his relief. But as he entered the city, Miao Peilin was nowhere to be found. It turns out, because of the severing of communication, Chen Yucheng had no idea that Miao Peilin had been defeated at Shouzhou already back on April 25th, his entire army surrendered to the Qing. Miao had turned back over to the other side, once a defector always a defector as they say. A large reason he was allowed to defect back was because he promised to deliver to the Qing a Taiping general, ie: Chen Yucheng.   Chen Yucheng was taken prisoner and before he was executed in June of 1862 he had this to say to his captors. “It is Heaven's will that has brought me here, and there is nothing that can be said of my past. I have long enjoyed the reputation of a victorious commander, but now I would prefer to look to the future. For the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom to lose me, one single man, it will be as if the mountains and the rivers of the kingdom have been reduced by half. I bear a great debt of gratitude to my Heavenly Dynasty and will not surrender. The general of a defeated army cannot beg for his life. But as for the four thousand men I command, they are veterans of a hundred battles, and I do not know whether they are still alive. You can cut me to pieces for the crimes I have committed, but this has nothing to do with them.” And so the Brave King was dead.   The death of Chen Yucheng and the preoccupation of Li Xiucheng with the Shanghai front left Nanjing vulnerable. The Taiping garrisons along the Yangtze river between Anqing and Nanjing would have no hope for reinforcements from the north nor the east, and Zeng Guoquan was on the march towards the Taiping capital. As Zeng Guoquan advanced, Taiping garrisons simply abandoned their outposts and forts, setting fire to their stockades before fleeing. It was an absolute disaster for the Taiping. They had always known the Qing forces would strike Nanjing from Anqing, but they never expected it to come this soon. By late May, Zeng Guoquans forces were reaching the Nanjing outskirts. Zeng Guoquan first seized an important junction in the riverway that controlled Nanjing's moat. Then on May 30th, he attacked a small hill just outside the southern gate of Nanjing.   The hill was known as Yuhuatai “terrace of flowering rain”, and it held a fort at its top. While Nanjing had been so heavily fortified, people literally said it was impenetrable, it did have vulnerabilities and Yuhuatai was one of them. The hill was over 300 feet high, around a mile across and about a half mile away from Nanjing southern gate. From atop the hill one could peer into Nanjing, the perfect base of operations one would want when sieging such a grand city. Zeng Guoquan had 20,000 men with naval support to provision him. Zeng Guoquan dug in and began to send word back to his brother asking him to help procure western arms. Zeng Guofan was surprisingly not impressed with western arms. He wrote about how he found them quite finicky, overly complicated and prone to breaking down after 20-30 shots. He wrote back to his brother ‘the way to achieve victory is to be found in men, not in arms. Bao Chao has no foreign guns and no foriegn powder, yet he repeatedly achieves great victories. He Chun and Zhang Guoliang had foreign cannons with their Green standard force's siege of Nanjing in 1860, but they did not prevent their defeat. A true beauty doesn't fuss over pearls and jade, and a great writer needs no more than brush and ink. If a general is truly skilled at war, why should he go grasping for foreign weapons?””. Despite his views on the matter, Zeng Guoquan's persistent pleas eventually led him to purchase foreign arms from agents at Canton and Shanghai. Still Zeng Guofan insisted the foundation of their armies should rely on Jingalls, bird guns, Chinese made cannons and the good old sword and spear.    One thing Zeng Guofan did realize though was the dramatic advantage of steamships. While in Anqing in 1862 he purchased a small steamship from Shanghai and gathered all the Qing scientists and engineers he could to the city to try and reverse engineer it. The ship soon broke down and none were able to repair it. But by the summer one engineer managed to build a working prototype steam engine and a year later Anqing would create a 28 foot long steamer. Meanwhile Prince Gong was also enthralled by the power of the steam engine and was trying to procure the purchase of some ships from Britain. While Britain wanted to keep the facade of neutrality going, especially after the Shanghai embarrassment, the idea of selling steamships to the Qing was an interesting one. If they provided ships, perhaps Britain's interests in China could be secured simply by protecting major waterways like the Yangtze. Prince Gong found a agent to try to get the ships, one Horatio Nelson Lay. Lay went to work approaching Captain Sherard Osborn, the captain of the Furious during the second opium war. He offered the captain a 4 year contract stating the man would take orders only from the Qing emperor and no other in China. These orders would go first to Lay, who would take up residence in Beijing.   Now a nit picky piece of information here. Unlike the civil war in America, where Britain granted belligerent status to the confederates, in China no such recognition was ever made. This was because the British parliament wanted to officially remain neutral. But because there was no official belligerent status for the Taiping, this meant they were not protected by Britain's foreign enlistment act, which prevented the selling of things like, gunships to any party that was at war with a nation Britain had friendly relations with, ie: the Qing. Thus Britain was free to sell gunships to the Qing to be used against the Taiping. Ironically at the same time Lay was trying to procure a naval force from Britain, so was James Bulloch of the Confederate states of America. Lay would find success whereas James would find failure. Now there were some hiccups for Lay when it came to the foreign enlistment act. It was forbidden for British subjects to enlist in the national militaries of foreign states, thus captain Osborn would require special permission from the crown.    But wouldn't you know it, in August of 1862 the foreign enlistment act was suspended suddenly and parliament went into recess over the entire summer and would only reconvene in february. Thus Lay and Osborn were able to serve the Qing and were allowed to hire British crews for the ships. Four months later, Lord Palmerston's government issued a second order making it lawful for any British officer to enlist in the service of the Qing emperor to quote “to serve the said Emperor in any military, warlike, or other operations, and for that purpose to go to any place or places beyond the seas, and to accept any commission, warrant, or other appointment from or under the said Emperor, and to accept any money, pay, or reward for their services.” There was one twist to all of this, anyone who served the Qing would have to resign or take a leave of absence from the Royal Navy. As you can imagine this meant that anyone who took the job would go unregulated and be unaccountable for their behavior, basically they were becoming much like Ward's mercenaries. By the time february came, all the work could not be undone, though the Tory's tried to reverse everything accusing Palmerston and the Whigs for getting Britain directly involved in the Chinese civil war. The entire thing was lambasted by multiple presses in Britain who pointed out rightfully, that Britain's finances were tied to the Qing paying reparations, and if the Taiping toppled the Qing the money might stop flowing.    The first 3 vessels to be sent to China were the Mohawk, Jasper and Africa, renamed the Pekin, Amoy and China. The rest of the ships would be freshly constructed and it would take roughly a year to get them all over there. It was to be 7 gunships and one store vessel, they would range from men-of-war to smaller steamers that could traverse shallow riverways. They would carry around 40 guns and a crew of 400. Interestingly the Qing had never before required a naval ensign, so Lay helped them invent one, a green and yellow ensign with a dragon in the middle. The ships lacked the latest iron armoy, but this was insignificant as the Taiping had no decent artillery to hit them. The fleets flagship, the Kiang-soo was a 241 footer that could reach 19 knots, a very fast ship for its day. The fleet was called the Anglo-Chinese expedition, though many Historians refer to it as the Lay-Osborn flotilla. Though for the common Chinese people who were witnessing their weak imperial government's willingness to pay foreign mercenaries to win their battles, they deemed it the Vampire Fleet. The year of 1863 would prove very fruitful for the Qing forces.    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. It seems the rest of the world were now allied against the Taiping. Zeng Guoquan made an extremely bold attack upon Yuhuatai ushering in the deathrows of the Taiping capital. What could the Taiping do to stop it.  

BUON ANNOOOOOO

I talk about "I need you Miao Yin" scene from the greatest movie ever, John Carpenters Big Trouble in Little China. Kurt Russell - Kim Cattrall. Please rate, review and leave 5 stars. www.patreon.com/biggertrouble biggertroublepodcasts@yahoo.com --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/itsallinthereflexes/message

More than spinning, weaving, stitching, or any of the other crafts she's written and published about, Linda Ligon is fascinated by the people who make traditional textiles. From Peruvian spinners to Miao embroiderers to Navajo weavers, the people who make cloth the way their ancestors did have a special interest for her. Many of the people who know Linda Ligon's work don't know her by name (which is just fine with her). Linda founded Interweave in 1975, and it went on to become a craft juggernaut. After selling the company, she founded Thrums Books, which published highly illustrated, immersive books about traditional textiles around the world. She cofounded Long Thread Media in 2019, bringing three of her original publications (Spin Off, Handwoven, and PieceWork) home. Bringing together textiles, stories, words, and images is Linda's life work—but she never loses her fascination for one person in particular: the reader. Links Thrums Books (https://www.schiffercraft.com/search?type=product&q=thrums+product_type:Craft) Long Thread Media (https://longthreadmedia.com/)

Today, we cover a vigil held on campus, USG's weekly meeting, and a bike ban in town.Michelle's article: https://www.dailyprincetonian.com/article/2022/12/urumqi-fire-covid-19-china-censorship-protest-vigil-princeton

As the Malaysian General Elections draw close, we wonder whether we're being manipulated or distracted to see different things in a different light. On today's podcast, we have with us Media Policy Activist Miao Ling to share with us some of the tactics that are used to spread disinformation in Malaysia, and find out how to spot and combat them. Learn more about what Miao Ling does here! Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgLeb0Kc9Q9dxOulBKo8t5g Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/miaolingng/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/miaoling.ng Website: http://ngmiaoling.com Join our Community Discord Server! https://discord.gg/thetakeawaytable

Many people have heard of Seasonal Depression, but a form of that that isn't as well known is Autumn Anxiety. We talk about that on this week's episode and how it's so important to talk about mental health in the church. We also talk about the cat who sparked controversy in a town in southern Italy after winning the mayoral election. And we also talk about what Christians can do to help pregnant individuals instead of just suggesting they put their baby up for adoption. What is 'autumn anxiety?' Learn more about what experts call 'the anxious cousin of the winter blues.' https://news.yahoo.com/what-is-autumn-anxiety-135254239.html?guccounter=1 Dinosaur Gardens Photos Bernheim Forest Photos Cat sworn in as Italian mayor plagued with rigged election claims from fuming opposition https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/weird-news/cat-sworn-italian-mayor-plagued-28313834 The Next Era of Pro-Life https://relevantmagazine.com/magazine/the-new-pro-life-how-adoption-is-changing-and-how-christians-can-help/

Last time we spoke, the Qing Dynasty faced the last real death throes of the Ming Dynasty. What is known as the Revolt of three Feudatories resulted in a war against Wu Sangui, Geng Jingzhong & Shang Zhixin. One by one each warlord fell to the Qing dynasty's vast armies and with each defeat brought more territory and populace under the Qing yolk. However one last major enemy loomed, the Kingdom of Taiwan established by Koxinga. Koxinga's descendent Zheng Keshuang would eventually be defeated and with his submission it seemed the Qing Dynasty would have eternal peace. However, the Qing' enemies remained within and outside its borders at all times. Holding the new empire together would not be easy. The Qing empire, much like the great wall of China could be destroyed, brick by brick and only time would tell how that wall would hold.    This episode is the White Lotus Rebellion   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 the history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. The revolt of the 3 feudatories had ended, Wu Sangui, Geng Jingzhong & Shang Zhixin were all defeated. The grandson of Koxinga, Zheng Keshuang was defeated, Taiwan was conquered and brought under the fold of the Qing dynasty. The Qing also managed to defend its borders from the external threat of the Tsardom of Russia. The Russians had ventured into border skirmishes around the Amur River valley, first in 1658 with the Battle of Hutong, in which a force of Manchu and Koreans overwhelmed a force of 500 Cossacks aboard 11 ships, sending them fleeing to Albazin. Albazin was a Russian settlement on the Amur River right along the Qing Dynasty's border and it remained a point of conflict in the late 17th century. Since their defeat at the battle of Hutong, the Russians began a campaign of persuading nearby populaces to their cause rather than the Qing which became such a nuisance by 1685 that the Qing sent a force to lay siege to the settlement. In just one day the settlement garrisoned by 450 men surrendered, however a year later the Russians would return to the settlement looking to re-establish themselves. The Qing yet again besieged the settlement in 1686, however this time it was much bloodier. The Qing threw around 3000 men at Albazin which was garrisoned by 800, by the end of the ordeal it is said just 24 men survived within Albazin and the Qing lost perhaps 1500 casualties. In the greater scheme of things, it was just a small border clash, but the result was rather significant. The Russians had been acting rather boldly, because of all the strife going on between the Qing and Ming, but now that the Qing had consolidated their new empire they were more than capable of defending any encroachments, especially those in Manchuria,their native homelands. After defeating the Russians again at the Siege of Albazin, the Qing government sent letters to the Tsar suggesting they sign a peace treaty, because for quite a long time now, the Qing were dealing with an age old enemy, the Mongols, to be precise the Dzungar Mongols. Emperor Kangxi wished to rid the Russian nuisance from the Amur area which was the northern border so he could focus his army on the north-western problem that was the Dzungar Mongols. The Russians knew they could not hope to defend outposts as far as the Amur region and the idea of peace talks perked their interests as trade would be far more beneficial to them then border skirmishes. A treaty would be signed called the Treaty of Nerchinsk, which established trade between the 2 empires and relative peace for quite a long time. This was also the first treaty between the Tsardom of Russia and the Qing dynasty, so a bit of legitimizing for the new-ish regime.   The Qing would have a hell of a time with the Dzungar Mongols which accumulated into what is known as the Dzungar-Qing war which almost went on for a hundred years. By the time the Qing would effectively end the wars with the Dzungar mongols, and all culminated in what is known as the Dzungar genocide. By the end of the wars in the 1750's it is estimated that around 80% of the Dzungar population, something like 500-800 thousand people were killed. During the early 18th century, the Qianlong Emperor gave a directive stating “"Show no mercy at all to these rebels. Only the old and weak should be saved. Our previous military campaigns were too lenient. If we act as before, our troops will withdraw, and further trouble will occur. If a rebel is captured and his followers wish to surrender, he must personally come to the garrison, prostrate himself before the commander, and request surrender. If he only sends someone to request submission, it is undoubtedly a trick. Tell Tsengünjav to massacre these crafty Zunghars. Do not believe what they say."”. As you can imagine such directives led to the massacres of countless people. On Top of the killings, the remaining Dzungar peoples were forcefully relocated to places all over China. Reports from a QING scholar named Wei Yuan who lived almost 100 years after the events state that 30% of the Dzungar people were killed by the Qing military, 40% died of disease such as a smallpox epidemic, 20% fled to other places like Russia and modern day Kazakhstan. There are quite a few historians who argue the Qianlong Emperor simply engaged in a genocidal campaign. Regardless after this rather horrible and bloody ordeal, for the most part the Qing dynasty undergoes a period of relative peace, and I mean the word peace should be taken with a grain of salt, for all Chinese history I don't think there is a single year some revolt or rebellion is not occurring.    When Emperor Kangxi took the throne from 1661-1722 this began what is called the Qing Golden Age. His successor Emperor Yongzheng continued the golden age from 1723-1735 and was further succeeded by Emperor Qianlong who would rule from 1735-1796 which is seen as the peak of the Golden age. During this period China annexed most of Mongolia, northeast China, Xinjiang, Tibet and Taiwan, aside from Taiwan, its basically the borders of the very China we know today. China at this time amounted to over 32% of the worlds industrial output, its population soared past 100 million for the first time in history and soon grew to an enormous 300 million, hell I live in Canada and we barely have 38 million right now! Despite being such a colossus, China for the most part was quite isolated in its market. China allowed foreign trade through places like Macau, but it was quite limited in scope. Eventually it would be expanded upon.   When the Qianlong Emperor took the throne he began numerous projects including the Ten Great Campaigns, which was a series of military campaigns that enlarged the empire to the extent I had mentioned previously. He put together the largest collection of books in Chinese history to that point known as the Siku Quanshu, “complete repository of the Four branches of Literature”. The exploration of the new world also brought riches in the form of new foods to China. The potato and peanut dramatically improved food supplies allowing for China's population to boom.    Now the upcoming episodes are going to specifically look at the emergence of European powers mingling with China. But this episode is going to be directed at an internal story, and one that is not often talked about. Stating that I will be glossing over some very very important events such as the journey of James Flint and the mission of Lord George Macartney, but rest assured those stories will be the very forefront after this one.   In the spring of 1794, the HMS Lion departed from Macau for its long voyage back home to England and a rumor spread amongst its crew that in the mountainous counties of Shanxi province, that a “true master” had appeared. This so-called Master was said to be marked with the character for the sun upon his left hand and the character of the moon on his right. Together these characters formed the character “Ming”, dun dun dunnnn. According to another rumor, a giant boulder in the village of where this master was born had suddenly split open revealing a hidden scripture inside thar read:  “A black wind will blow for a day and a night. It will destroy men beyond number. White bones will be piled into mountains, and Blood will flow to become an ocean”    It was the telling of an apocalypse, and rumors sprang all through China that the only way to escape the destruction was to memorize that scripture from the boulder and to chant it. Oh and to begin stockpiling guns and other weapons and be ready to support the great master's uprising against the Qing. It was said the “black wind” would hit in the spring of 1796 and it would destroy the world and usher in a new age. Zhang Zhengmo, a peasant living in Hubei province was one of many who believed the prophecy. At 32 years of age he had heard it told to him by a sect leader named Bai who explained to Zhang and many others that the True Master's doctrine was part of the White Lotus teachings.    The White Lotus sect had been around for hundreds of years, it was something like a marriage between Buddhism and Daoism. For the most part, the White Lotus sects amounted to nothing more than harmless people practicing a faith based on healing and protection from misfortune. The founder of the Ming dynasty Zhu Yuanzhang, joined a White Lotus Revolution that took shape in 1352 in Guangzhou. The revolution saw him taking firm control over the head of a rebellious army and he would go on to conquer Nanjing and take the title of Emperor Hongwu ushering in a new age. His title also held religious sentiment of the White Lotus. This religion however like many others held a prediction of an apocalypse and its followers believed that with it would come the second coming of Buddha who would return in the form of a bodhisattva named Maitreya to rid the world of corruption and suffering. Maitreya would destroy the corrupt government and the non believers and a utopia would be formed for those who helped bring upon the apocalypse.    So put yourself in the shoes of the Manchu rulers of the new Qing dynasty. You hear these rumors going around and see the potential rebellion you might be seeing from this religious group. White Lotus groups had sprung uprisings countless times in history and hell the dynasty you just defeated was made by one of those uprisings! Back to Zhang Zhengmo, well he was a recent convert and Bai who was a traveling sect leader became his teacher who indoctrinated him in the True Master's doctrine. Zhang donated money to the cause, not much, he was a peasant after all, but enough to start hoarding weapons. He then began to recruit other followers to become his students…you can see where this is going, think of a good old fashion MLM scam of today like herbalife or scientology haha except instead of toxic shakes or alien stories its people hoarding weapons to begin an apocalypse. So you can sort of get the picture, you become a follower, in the process you pay money to hoard weapons. Then you recruit other followers, rinse and repeat, soon you got yourself a rebellion cooking.    Zhang Zhengmo lived in a part of China considered to be an internal frontier, wide mountain ranges along the points where Hubei, Shaanxi and Sichuan pressed against another, same types of places all the bandit armies would run up into when the Qing came after them. This particular region was known as the Han River Highlands, which fed into the Yangzi river, not a very hospitable area and thus less developed. It was dense with forest, hills and such, perfect for bandits to hang out in. The reason I am describing this area is to emphasize something that is going on in China. I mentioned the population boom, from 100-300 million, it was enormous. With so many people, the necessity for agricultural expansion was enormous as well. Most of the southern and eastern parts of China were being cleared out for crops, literally everywhere was getting gulped up by farms. More and more people were forced to move into areas like the Han River Highlands and all of this culminated in more and more competition between settlers over natural resources. Like with most frontier societies, this got violent very fast. The Han River Highlands were a pretty scary place to live in the late 18th century, there was just about no security because the government officials were all in other areas. Thus without much intervention, who could step in to marshall such places? The White Lotus thats who.   The White Lotus promised safety for all of its followers and were more than happy to accept any settlers. By 1794 the Qing administration warily watched as regions such as the Han River Highlands had sects such as the White Lotus grow. Provincial authorities saw the potential risk of insurrection and began to work at dismantling such cells before they could cause trouble. A crackdown came in 1794 targeting groups based out of Sichuan, Shaanxi and Hubei. Emperor Qianlong made an edict in September ordering all captured sectarians to be punished according to the nature of their guilt. So for example, spiritual leaders would be executed by being cut into pieces, wozzors. Those who spread the White Lotus teachings would be beheaded. Mere followers, would be arrested and deported to Manchuria as slaves. All in all not a very subtle edict.    So the local Qing officials set to work, first it was village headmen who organized forces to round up White Lotus members. Within a few months time they had arrested 20 teachers and over a hundred followers, and as you can imagine their methodology was brutal and would intensify the situation. There was not enough forces to get the job done so the local officials began to hire local thugs to go house to house. As you can imagine the thugs began to run amok, many began to threaten to arrest people if they didn't pay them off. So those who paid them off or somehow managed to prove they were not White Lotus members received placards that they could put on their doors marking them as “decent people”. Everyone else were open targets for abuse as they were suspected White Lotus members. When Zhang Zhengmo heard the officials going house to house he quickly abandoned his home and fled before inspectors could get him. He returned to his native county in the same province where he continued his mission to recruit more followers. By the late winter of 1796, it is estimated that Zhang had more than 1000 followers. Only 2 months before the planned date for the apocalypse or better called uprising, Zhang found out that local officials were mounting a new crackdown now in his native county. Fearing his arrest, Zhang prepared for their arrival, calling upon his followers and telling him the time had come.   Zhang's followers took to the roads where they joined up with other cells that other recruiters had grown. In only a few days more than 10,000 White Lotus members converged under the leadership of Zhang Zhengmo. They brought with them, swords, guns, gunpowder and other supplies necessary for waging a rebellion. They plundered villages for supplies and began conscripting the local populace, coercing them with food. This all mattered not to the White Lotus believers who were taught that non believers would all be destroyed when Buddha returned regardless, so who cares if they harm any of these people in the meantime. The worshipers and their indentured conscripts soon swelled to 20,000 and they began to create blockades along the roads and pathways and made their way to the hills. Zhang Zhengmo's first HQ was to be a mountain estate of a very wealthy believer, but Zhang worried it was to undefendable and thus brought his force further into the mountains where he knew they could hold up better. A campment was built with thousands of shacks, white banners were spread out and the force began to adopt white headbands to identify themselves as legitimate rebels. Their weaponry was mostly swords, knives, though they did have 300 matchlock rifles and 6 chestnut wood cannons. They also had a ton of crossbows and a lot of poison tipped bolts. The defense of the mountain was typical guerilla stuff seen to this day, booby trapped paths, watch towers, makeshift landmines and people hidden around every nook and cranny.    Despite all the preparation, Zhang Zhengmo was quite reluctant to take his newfound rebel army down the mountain side, fearing they would all be slaughtered by the Qing army who must surely be awaiting them. So they all dug in for months, only sending the occasional raiding party down to gather supplies. July came and Zhang received word the Qing were slowly closing in on the mountain. He had burned his name in the registers hoping that he might be able to make an escape and some of his followers began to see he was not the leader they thought him to be. They had  been told he had met the True master, but many found out this was a lie. They looked to him for guidance, but all he could provide were cheap parlor tricks. When Zhang had called for the uprising he thought all of the White Lotus followers from miles all around would heed the cause. Yet after the first 10,000 flocked to him none others were found, he assumed everyone had been arrested and killed. They were trapped on this mountain, there was nowhere to escape to, there was no help coming. They held out another 2 months, but then in September the Qing broke their perimeter and arrested the lot of them. Zhang was to be executed, but before the deed a Qing interrogator demanded to know why he and his followers rebelled. “You are all peasants, you receive the blessings of the emperor. He relieves you of taxes and tribute grain. He relieves your debts. When there is a flood or a drought he gives you aid. You have a human heart, and you should feel gratitude and abide by the laws. So why, under the banner of these evil teachings, did you start a rebellion? In the end, what was it you wanted?”.  Zhang replied “We have indeed received blessings from the emperor. We had warm clothes and could eat our fill. We were peasants, and we were grateful. It was at a time when I was ignorant, that I first began to practice this religion. It was only because I wanted to encourage people to do good deeds and to avoid misfortune. But then the investigations and arrests intensified, and I saw that when people who practiced our religion were captured, all of them were charged with heavy crimes. So I became afraid”. So he was nothing more than a peasant, who ignorantly was led astray and when the crackdown occurred he did what he did out of fear. It is the excuse given by countless peasant uprisings, reckless bursts of defiance towards an perceived malevolent empire, nothing too remarkable. Zhang's force of 20,000 were brushed aside….and little did they know what had occurred all over China.    The “black wind” uprising spread like wildfire. The vast range and appeal of the apocalyptic rumors that had pushed Zhang and his followers had only increased exponentially. From word of mouth through the province, uprisings began to all explode spontaneously through the hill countries of the Han River Highlands. Zhang had no idea, but it was his movement that became the spark to see the entire forest ablaze. By the time the Qing officials had dealt with Zhang Zhengmo's camp, all of Hubei was engulfed in a wave of rebellion, and soon it spread to the neighboring provinces of Sichuan and Shaanxi. On february 9th of 1796, the first day of the lunar new year and just 6 days before Zhang Zhengmo began his uprising, Emperor Qianlong gave up the throne. The abdication had been planned for a very long time, all the way back to 1735 when Qianlong had given an edict that he planned to rule as long as high grandfather had. Emperor Kangxi had reigned for 61 years and Qianlong wanted to keep his word, but not entirely. While on the surface he did quote en quote abdicate on his 60th year as emperor, giving the throne to his son Jiaqing, in reality all he did was install a puppet. The calendars record the new year as Jiaqing Year 1, but within the capital it was truly Qianlong year 61. 2 calendars were kept, 2 sets of imperial annals with one referring to the supreme retired emperor Qianlong, who would continue to rule while his son kept the throne warm.   It probably would have been better for China if Emperor Qianlong really did abdicate, for while his reign was impressive, his effectiveness was deteriorating with his age. A Korean diplomat in 1794 reported to his superiors that Emperor Qianlong had acted in a bizarre manner. He stated that the Emperor ordered breakfast immediately after eating breakfast on some occasions. Thus the implication here was that the Emperor was going senile. Later in 1797 a different Korean envoy reported that the Emperor seemed to be unable to remember what occurred during the morning of their meeting nor what they had done the day prior. With the emperor in a weakened state, factions within his court began to vie for power. One of Emperor Qianlong's closest court officials a man named Heshen began to act out in the emperors name. The more the Emperors mental health declined the more Heshen would speak on his behalf. As observed by the western George Staunton in 1790 “Heshen enjoyed, almost exclusivity, the confidence of the emperor. He might be said to possess, in fact, under the emperor, the whole power of the empire”. It just so happens, Heshen was one of the most corrupt officials in Chinese history during a particularly corrupt ridden time in Chinese history. Heshen treated large amounts of the Qing governments bureaucracy as his own personal patronage network. For example, he began to appoint officials into positions and expected them to pay him handsomely for such appointments. This led the officials to embezzle money to pay him back. In one example he appointed a man to the Yellow River Conservancy, which controlled the funding for flood control over China's second longest river and the man embezzled over 6 million tales of silver each year to pay back Heshen. That money of course was required to help prevent the Yellow River from flooding and by the end of the 18th century about 1/10th of the government funds were actually used for flood prevention. As Heshen and others sucked up the money, the peasants on the floodplain suffered tremendously as the appointed official at the Yellow River Conservancy found it was in the best interests of everyone to allow the river to breach its dikes periodically, just to make sure the government funds kept pouring in. Heshen's corruption was widely apparent to the court, but to make any accusations against him was a death sentence as he had the mouth of the emperor.    Now back to the White Lotus rebellion, it was spreading as I said with great speed and this was greatly aided by government corruption. With the rampant corruption came a huge lack of government forces to respond to the initial uprisings. Skeleton garrisons in key locations such as Hubei allowed for the uprisings to spread like wildfire. The officials were caught off guard and massively unprepared. Across Hubei overwhelmed government forces tried to resist the rebels with whatever weapons they could muster, but soon began pleading other provinces for reinforcement. With such a lack of governmental forces to protect the common people, landowners resorted to raising private militias called “Xiangyong” (means local braves) which in turn began to simply plunder areas. As one witness reported “the so called militia soldiers just continued the work of stealing everything the refugees had left behind in their houses. There wasn't an empty hand anywhere…if the White Lotus rebels are like an ordinary comb, the private militia are the fine-toothed one”. These militias killed, robbed and caused further havoc. To the government all of them were rebels and in turn this caused all the rebels to find common cause. The slogan “the officials oppress, and the people rebel” spread across multiple rebel groups, and at the forefront was the White Lotus. The Qing government began a cycle of violence, redoubled its efforts to extinguish the White Lotus sects, only to give justification to them to increase their rebellious activity.    It is interesting to note the hiring of these militia's will play a crucial role in the downfall of the Qing dynasty. Many scholars attribute the adoption of hired militia's by the Qing government to being something like cutting off your limbs and eating them during starvation. The idea being that while the Qing could raise such militia's to try and stamp out the endless rebellions that will occur during their dynasty's reign, these were short term solutions and only hurt them in the long run. Hiring civilians in war showcased how the Qing standing armies were losing their fighting capability and greatly hurt the Qing treasuries. Regardless this will all be showcased much more in the future.   Emperor Qianlong saw the uprisings as a local issue that should be dealt with by local forces. His focus was on internal unrest, not the problems of the frontier lands and so he denied requests for military aid. He kept telling provincial officials to use the resources they had to deal with the uprisings even though he held ample elite troops that could have swept in to restore the peace. What Emperor Qianlong did do however was send funds to the province to help as the government treasury was jam packed with silver during this age. Without the capitals troops to reinforce them, provincial officials began to follow the lead of the militia rebels and armed peasants to fight off the rebels. At the beginning of the uprising most frontier territories had government militias of just a few hundred, luckier ones perhaps a few thousand. But as the rebellion spread into neighboring provinces and the funds from Beijing poured in, the militia armies grew exponentially. By 1798, Hubei had nearly 400,000 militiamen registered on its books and Sichuan and Shaanxi each had comparably large militia forces. In the concert of the war against the rebels, the 3 provinces reported a total of 100,000 government soldiers and upto a possible million militiamen.    The militiamen strategy proved to be very ineffective against the rebels, in fact the militias did more harm than good. Militiamen came from all walks of life, from farmers, to unemployed city folk to ruthless criminals. If you were a bandit, it was actually far more beneficial to join the militia which paid a salary about the same as a government soldier. These militiamen had no real allegiance beyond the salary they were paid so as the White Lotus watched the government hiring all of these people they simply offered them the same salary or more. By the later years of the uprising it turned out nearly half the White Lotus armies were made up of former militiamen! And if you were wondering what else than money could persuade these militiamen to join the White Lotus hear this. The governor general of Sichuan province reported with disgust that whenever government troops went into battle they simply quote “sent the militia to charge in ahead of them as they hung back where it was safe. If the militiamen got turned back by the rebels and started to run away, the government soldiers just ran after them”. On top of this, tons of false victories over the rebel armies were being reported when in reality, the government troops would just pretend to engage the rebels and continuously move their camps around. There was even reports that government forces would murder refugees from nearby villages and set up their mutilated bodies at their camps to make it look like they had caught rebels. The fact the government forces were really not engaging the rebel armies very much was so apparent one witness said “where the rebels are, there are no government forces; and where the government forces are, there are no rebels”.    With the declining mental health of Emperor Qianlong growing worse, the campaign against the White Lotus fell into the hands of Heshen who was too busy using the opportunity to enrich himself. As emperor Qianlong obsessed over the reports of the rebel war, apparently barely sleeping while he read them day and night according to accounts from his son, well Heshen was doing his best to control which reports came to the emperor. Heshen made sure all the reports were fake victory stories making it seem that the entire campaign was going off without a hitch. Heshen had appointed his own personal goons to be in key military positions who in turn fed falsified victory reports for money or military honors in return. This went further to whitewash massacres done to the civilian population by the government armies. And of course the funds for the military were going to the goons who in turn paid tribute right back to Heshen, making sure they kept their positions regardless of how incompetent they were. For the first 3 years of the war, Heshen effectively controlled the central government's military funding. It would also turn out that the registry of over 300,000 militia soldiers recruited to fight the White Lotus did not exist and it was an embezzlement scheme. It gets even worse. Those militia soldiers who did exist and who died fighting the rebels, well the corrupt officials would embezzle their death benefits, so a ton of mourning families got nothing and this had the disgusting side effect of creating an incentive for corrupt officers to have more of their soldiers die on the battlefield. The Militia related expenses would claim at least half the war effort funding according to Jiaqing who discovered the racket. A scholar in Hubei said this of the situation    “At first they nibbled away like worms, gradually taking more and more until they were gulping like whales. In the beginning, their embezzlements could be reckoned in hundreds and thousands of taels, but presently nothing less than ten thousand would attract notice. Soon amounts ran to scores of thousands, then to hundreds of thousands, then to millions.” Emperor Qianlong expected an easy victory over the White Lotus, but the war was not ending. After reading so many countless reports of victories over the rebels, Qianlong because frustrated and confused as to why the White Lotus rebels did not submit. By 1799, the cost of the war was reaching nearly 100 million taels of silver, an unbelievable sum that had completely exhausted the treasury surplus and there still was no end in sight. Emperor Qianlong spent his last years of life losing his mind to the rebellion and died in a position of helplessness with the treasury emptied. Jiaqing did not have an enviable start to his reign. He was a broad, fat man with a talent for archery and was left with a clean up job that was simply immense. He had been forced to suffer the indemnity of being enthroned in 1796 only to find out he was a puppet and that his father was not even in charge, it was Heshen. He was in his 40's and quite powerless as long as his father remained alive. The day after Emperor Qianlong died in 1799, one of Jiaqings first major acts was to order the arrest of Heshen, boom. There was a swift and very publicized trial where the board of punishments found Heshen to be guilty of a long list of corruption related charges and the sentence would be death. Because Heshen held one of the highest ranks in the court he was allowed to strangle himself with a silk cord, a privilege considered more honorable than having your head cut off. Although the execution of Heshen was symbolically cathartic, it did little to stop the rot of corruption within the government. Heshen was blamed for just about all the sins of the time, as if he alone dragged the empire down…though one could argue he certainly provided a helping hand. All Heshens misdeeds were laid to bare and his enormous wealth was unimaginable.    Heshen had a sprawling mansion of over 730 rooms. In his secondary residence there were 620 rooms. He held landholdings of over 120,000 acres of productive farmland. All the stories you can imagine were there, he had golden chopsticks, silver place settings for banquets, entire rooms filled with jewels, jade and other riches. He owned 10 banks, 10 pawnshops and millions upon millions of taels of silver hoarded into them. Apparently one wall in his main residence turned out to be filled with 5000 pounds of gold bullion if its to be believed. One extremely overexaggerated estimate his sum worth was around 800 million taels of silver, thats around  1.5 billion at the time, around 4 times the entire gross domestic product of the United States of America. More conservative estimates are at around 80 million taels of silver, which was more than the entire treasury surplus that preceded the White Lotus war and enough to make Heshen as wealthy as the Emperor!   After dealing with Heshen, Jiaqing began a campaign against the corruption in the government. However, Jiaqing understood how an anti corruption campaign could fall into chaos and become a general purge, so he allowed it to peter out pretty quick. What did happen, was the Qing government saw a lot of old scores settled and factionalism rose amongst officials. The first order of business after dealing with Heshen was obviously the White Lotus war. The day after Qianlong's death, Jiaqing issued an edict naming the suppression of antigovernment religious sects as the dynasty's most urgent priority. Jiaqing rallied against the corrupt military officers accusing them of dragging out the war in order to fill their pockets. He laid blame for the insurrection upon the civil servants who extorted the peasants. “The peasants enjoy few fruits from their labor. So how can they possibly supply such insatiable demands? It is the local officials who provoked these rebellions”.    Emperor Jiaqing began removing corrupt and incompetent military officials to try and replace them with better men, but the reality at the time was quite thin pickings. Most of the Manchu generals of his father or grandfathers generation were dead or far too old to lead. The younger generation were not born into the same world as their parents. If you've ever listened to Dan Carlin's podcast and yes I am nothing but a mere fanboy, he often makes the analogy of how empires go soft. The old quasi proverb of old wooden shoes going up the stairs and soft silken sandals going down them. This new generation of Manchu did not live the hardened lifestyle of their ancestors, they were living in a world of luxury now. A ton of the younger generation were also tainted by the Heshen click. Yet there was a minority of great warriors and some of the old guard so to say that had won Emperor Qianlong some victories back in the day. The very best of them was a physically enduring Manchu named Eldemboo. At 51 years old in the year of 1799 he was selected to lead the White Lotus suppression. He was quite old, but experienced, ruthless and said to be incorruptible.    Elemboo's had been part of campaigns in the 1770's to bring parts of the frontiers under the Qing Yolk. He fought the Burmese in southern Yunnan. He fought during the Tibetan rebellion in the1770's, during a muslim uprising in Gansu in 1784, helped put down a rebellion in Taiwan in 1787 and served in the far west against the Gurkhas in Tibet and Nepal in the 1790s. By 1797 he was a Lt-general who had just succeeded in suppressing a Miao ethnic uprising in Hunan province. The campaign against the White Lotus faced a crucial problem, that of mobility. The rebels required little in terms of weaponry and could get pretty much anything on the go from just about any village. They did not construct elaborate camps, they were accustomed to the mountains and forests and could carry out guerilla warfare at a moments notice. The Qing military was another beast altogether. It required enormous logistical operations to move its food, matchlock muskets, ammunition, powder, bows and arrows, this all required carts and beasts of burden. Usually these logistics were not a problem, but for mountains and forest regions it was a nightmare. The rebels understood the advantage and made sure to take up positions in the worst possible places for such logistics.    Because of these logistical problems the Qing forces had been simply setting up stations in fixed positions hoping to cast a net around rebel pockets. Many commanders simply did not have the stomach to march into forests or up mountain sides to chase an enemy that would use every obstacle against them. Eldemboo unlike his predecessor commanders not only was willing to venture into the forests and mountains, but was perfectly willing to endure the hardship of such ventures alongside his men. A new approach was necessary for the campaign. Eldemboo called for “jianbi qingye” “fortify the walls and clear the countryside”. The idea was two fold, first to separate the good peasants from those who would support the White Lotus, by concentrating them in places of safety ie, behind fortified encampments known as baozhai. In these Baozhai, some peasants would be trained as militia to defend their respective camps. The second idea was to clear the countryside, by moving all the grain harvest and food stores away and into the Baozhai where all the good peasants would be taking refuge. The hope was the rebels would eventually be unable to scavenge food from the emptied countryside and would be forced to come out of their hiding and fight the government forces on their terms.   Under the command of Eldemboo, the jianbi qingye strategy was implemented throughout the war zone. Hundreds of fortified camps were in the wartorn provinces. The fortified camps held strong walls and deep moats. The militiamen would defend them and not be taken out on campaigns that earlier had caused so much havoc upon the populace. The new role of the militiamen was to protect their own families, neighbors and such and thus they were far less likely to fall into banditry. While the quote “good” population concentrated in their Baozhai, defended by their good militiamen, Eldemboo's manchu and Han troops were now free to campaign at will through any wartorn province. Soon Eldemboo began producing a string of victories over the weakened rebel forces. By early 1803, Eldemboo's campaign had moved into its final phase, a brutal mop up operation. The remnants of the broken rebels needed to be crushed and the demilitarization of all the militiamen needed to gradually begin.  Emperor Jiaqing warned his generals not to relax in their campaigns prematurely. “Though the main disease is cured, there are boils and sores that remain. If even a single rebel is left alive, it would be enough for them to keep spreading and growing”. Emperor Jiaqing's generals heeded his words and continued to ruthlessly crush the remnants of the rebels. A systematic program of pacification was enacted. The “good” populace was continuously resettled into the fortified cities, while the Qing forces pursued and exterminated the rebel guerrilla bands, though it should be noted they did give amnesty to many rebels who deserted. It was the combination of military and social policies that were winning the day. Qing administrators seized and destroyed all White Lotus scriptures they could find in the warzones.  By the late summer of 1803, some of Jiaqing's commanders reported back to him that after 8 years of extermination efforts against the White Lotus in the 3 provinces, it seemed for all intensive purposes the job was complete. In early 1804, Eldemboo traveled back to Beijing and returned his carved seal of authority to the Emperor, signifying that the war was over. It would be the last great victory of Eldemboo's very long career. The next year at the age of 57 Eldemboo died and with him the last of that hardened generation. In 1805, Emperor Jiaqing was able to address the empire without the ongoing drain of resources due to the White Lotus War.   It was a very bitter victory, most rebellions are. A chinese scholar wrote a few decades later that it was estimated that several hundred thousand rebels had been killed during the war. For the governmental forces, militiamen and countless civilians who died of war and starvation the scholar simply stated it could not be calculated. There was also no way to differentiate the White Lotus from the rebels as there were countless groups rebelling for differing reasons.   A major problem with the White Lotus Rebellion aside from the death and horror was the loss of prestige for the Qing military. There was a sort of myth of invincibility for the Manchu warriors, hell they had conquered the Ming Dynasty afterall. But the scale of damage caused by the White Lotus Rebellion was eye opening, it took the Qing 8 years to quell it! And quell it is a strong word, for the White Lotus were not truly gone or anything, there would be sporadic revolts throughout the early 19th century, just not on the same scale as the 8 year war. The Manchu army of the early 19th century was not the same generation that once conquered the Ming. The wooden shoes were being cast off and silky slippers were starting to become the norm so to say for you Dan Carlin fans. To make everything much worse, the adoption of training and hiring militia's would have a devastating effect on the Qing dynasty until its demise in the 20th century. This was not a unique problem for China, many empires fell for this same reason. Take example the Egyptian empire under the Ptolemy's. Under the reign of Ptolemy IV Philophater the military was forced to hire local native Egyptians in large numbers for the first time to deal with the 4th Syrian war of 219-217BC. Prior to this war, the Ptolemiac empire had a military consisted mostly of Greeks and for a very important reason, they did not want to train or arm the native population who did not like them very much. When their backs were against the wall they trained around 30,000 native egyptians as Phalangites and hell it paid off during the battle of Raphia when they smashed the army of Antiochus III. The Ptolemies had finally ended what was an ongoing manpower problem. Oh and then the trained and armed Egyptians rebelled and created a separate kingdom that lasted 20 years. It was an enormous turning point in Ptolemaic history and a bitter lesson.  For the Qing the hiring of militia armies will occur on countless occasions for countless reasons, but one thing is for sure it is part of a long list of reasons as to why the great dynasty will crumble.    I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me.  The once mighty Qing have proven to be not so mighty anymore. The 8 year White Lotus Rebellion was quelled, but at what cost to the empire? With the death of Eldemboo came also the deaths of a generation of strong warriors. And while this rebellion was going on, something else was afoot, this time not an internal issue, but a growing external one. 

En este episodio tengo a Uriel Suriel ayudandome a responder preguntas sobre que hacer cuando te das al arbol geneologico de tu vecina. Tambien hablamos de que es mejor entre perseguir tu sueño o irte por lo seguro? Sigan #DandoLengua www.lenguascalvas.com

Ep08 | Miao Miao y la Línea Los equipos de la Comisión Internacional contra la Impunidad en Guatemala y del Ministerio Público empezaron una investigación histórica. Sus revelaciones provocarían en el 2015 un terremoto político-judicial cuyas réplicas se siguen sintiendo hoy día. El caso La Línea barrió como un torbellino la presidencia de Otto Pérez Molina, el general de la mano dura.   Créditos: El Experimento es un podcast producido por No Ficción Guatemala. Narrado por Guillermo Escalón. Investigación, guion y montaje Sebastián Escalón. Edición de textos, Oswaldo Hernández. Asistente de producción Jovanna García. La música es de Lloyd Rogers.El Experimento fue grabado en Nevería Records. Técnico de grabación: Ikari Lorenz.Esta producción ha sido posible gracias a la Seattle Foundation y a los más de 150 patrocinadores que respondieron a nuestra campaña de crowdfunding.Para contar la vida de Otto Pérez Molina nos basamos en el perfil escrito por Asier Andrés "el ascenso del general", publicado el Periódico;Material de archivo: Emisoras Unidas, Univisión, Prensa Libre y extractos del documental Titular de hoy: Guatemala, de Mikael Wahlforss.No Ficción cuenta a Guatemala a través de reportajes, crónicas y periodismo de datos. Búscanos en Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, o en nuestra página web.

This week our special guest is Liu Miao who discusses the topic of disability and academia. Liu is a PhD student in human development and family sciences and is passionate about research on positive youth development, cross-cultural studies, immigrant youth, as well as fostering and adoption. In this episode we discuss: - How she got involved with content creation as a means of making knowledge accessible to the wider public - Her experience as someone with a physical disability attending graduate school and experiencing issues of injustice and inaccessibility - How the pandemic, Zoom education, and access to recorded lectures, in some cases has helped individuals with disabilities access education -The value and assets that disabled students bring to the table in academic spaces -And advice for disabled students who are or will be applying to graduate school You can connect with Liu on Instagram by following @awordwithliumiao Liked what you heard? Then join my exclusive community on Patreon to support the show: https://www.patreon.com/gradschoolfemtoring Get my free 15-page Grad School Femtoring Resource Kit here: https://gradschoolfemtoring.com/kit/ Want to learn how to work with me? Get started here: https://gradschoolfemtoring.com/services/ For this and more, go to: https://gradschoolfemtoring.com --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/gradschoolfemtoring/message

In today's Chinese language Environment China podcast episode, we turn to the topic of women working in environmental and sustainability fields. We join two professionals to talk about their unique and interesting experiences and stories, and explore what's new in their particular fields. Today's guests are Si Jialing, who works on green finance at the British Embassy, and Zhang Miao, founder of R Cubic, who is sometimes known as the Walking Wastepedia. In terms of career paths, the two represent the extremes of having entered the field by chance, or having  cultivated a topic on a straight line from academic study to professional career. We ask what challenges they face in their respective fields, and what advice they have for newcomers to the workplace.  实在是听过到太多次"环保和可持续圈还是女生多”（也确实是事实），我们萌生了一个想法：那为什么不干脆做一系列在"可持续议题工作的女性”播客，一起来聊一聊她们独特又好玩的经历和故事，探一探她们所在行业的新鲜事呢？ 于是「环境中国」便有了个这期节目，在这次初尝试中，我们请到了在英国大使馆做绿色金融的佳灵和行走的“垃圾百科”张淼。她们或误打误撞入了圈，或从读书到工作一直在这个领域深耕，都逐渐在可持续议题的工作中找到了自己所关注和热爱的地方。她们在各自领域都有着什么样的挑战？对初入职场的小伙伴又有着什么样的建议呢？欢迎收听本期「环境中国」播客。