Podcasts about Middle Kingdom

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

Don't be shy, send me a message!A real change for the podcast: After 5 years of talking about British culture, it's time to move on and talk about 'The Middle Kingdom', China. I lived in China from 2015-2021, and regularly wrote e-mails to my parents detailing my time there. The first half of the podcast is me reading from these and adding in my reflections almost a decade on. I talk about my first arrival in China, the visa process and settling in at work, as well as a day trip to Hong Kong. This is the first 30 minutes. I then read a fourth e-mail detailing my first trip to Macao. I do actually have a series of reflective pieces I wrote for Chinese social media in 2021 as I was leaving. I read these prior to recording, but didn't read them out, as the podcast is long enough as it is. If you enjoy this episode, perhaps I will use them later more fully.In the second half of this podcast, I talk about Chinese cultural topics as requested by my Chinese friends. These include:Different foods and citiesChinese tech citiesThe Monkey KingHou YiThe movie 'Hero' with Jet LiFood culture (more detail)Language Chinese New Year I would usually do a great deal of reading, online and from my own book collection, before talking on such specialised topics. But on this occasion, I draw 100% from my experiences, as I currently remember them. Again, I am drawing on old writing, and another source I used was a leather-bound notebook I filled with entries detailing my day-to-day life in my first few years in China. I created this for my parents, who are well-travelled but had not been to China. The notebook passed back to me after my mother passed away. I was gratified to learn that she had often read it, and it was always close to hand for her. For further reading and viewing, I recommend the Youtube channels, @VideosByCaine and @DaNiuLaoShi both by a friend of mine who also lived in China. His experiences are naturally different from mine, his personal perspective is unique, but there is much in common also. I highly recommend all his content. Between the both of us, you would get a very full and rounded idea of life in China. No two people experience the same (or similar) events in the same way. There is much to gain from seeing both our experiences. I really like this video my friend created, called "China, I miss you": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R28JoQszHqI...and also the video below, which looks at why he first went to China. Don't worry about the Chinese title of the video, he speaks in English throughout! Actually, the thoughts in his video very much relate to the first half of this podcast. We do often compare and contrast our experiences, and our differing reflections, so again, I really recommend checking out both our content. 回忆之旅 — 安庆漫跑记 | 大牛跑步第六集: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1cuC2_M1IM If you have any further questions, feel free to contact me using any of the methods below! Message me anytime on Instagram, @FlemingNeverDies, or e-mail: AlbionNeverDies@gmail.comCheck out my https://www.youtube.com/britishcultureCheck out my Red Bubble shopSubscribe to my newsletter for update e-mails, random postcards, and stickers: Support the show

Do you know the story of the Frog Prince? Do you know the Chinese chengyu about frogs and wells? In this lesson, hear a children's fairytale infused with Chinese cultural characteristics, and also get a little dose of Middle Kingdom morals. Episode link: https://www.chinesepod.com/1508

Listen in to this special episode of Voices of Renewal as we hear from leading Christian scholar, Dr. Glen L. Thompson, on his new book Jingjiao: The Earliest Christian Church in China. Thompson presents the history of the Persian church's mission to China with rigor and clarity. While Christianity remained a minority and “foreign” religion in the Middle Kingdom, it nonetheless attracted adherents among indigenous Chinese and received imperial approval during the Tang Dynasty. Though it was later suppressed alongside Buddhism, it resurfaced in China and Mongolia in the twelfth century. Thompson also discusses how the modern unearthing of Chinese Christian texts has stirred controversy over the meaning of Jingjiao to recent missionary efforts in China.  

Michael Hoffen and the protagonist in his new book are both teenagers, but there's quite an age gap between them—about 4,000 years. In Hoffen's new book, BE A SCRIBE: Working For a Better Life in Ancient Egypt (Callaway Children's Classics, April 9, 2024), he brings to life the story of a young Egyptian, Pepi, whose father, Kheti, is intent on getting his son a job in the royal court. Hoffen, who has been translating ancient texts since middle school, became fascinated by a 4,000-year-old or so piece of literature from ancient Egypt's Middle Kingdom known as The Instruction of Khety, or “The Satire of the Trades.” Under the guidance and collaboration of his two co-authors, Egyptologists Christian Casey and Jen Thum, Hoffen spent three-and-a-half years translating hieroglyphics to modern-day prose and gathering images to tell the story of Kheti and Pepi. Beyond the words, which reveal a wit that transcends 4,000 years, ancient Egypt comes to life with more than 100 beautiful images of vibrant and colorful ancient Egyptian artifacts, paintings, graphics and illustrations that are featured throughout the book. This young author, a scribe himself, has given us a tale that helps us to see just how little the human condition has changed in thousands of years. Parents still want the best for their children and teenagers face important decisions as they set out on their career path. For younger readers, the book serves as an inspiration for their own journey toward gaining greater knowledge, exercising intellectual curiosity and, perhaps, finding their own career paths.  Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/arroe-collins-unplugged-totally-uncut--994165/support.

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

Many people assume that the first introduction of Christianity to the Chinese was part of nineteenth-century Western imperialism. In fact, Syriac-speaking Christians brought the gospel along the Silk Road into China in the seventh century. Glen L. Thompson introduces readers to the fascinating history of this early Eastern church, referred to as Jingjiao, or the “Luminous Teaching.” Thompson presents the history of the Persian church's mission to China with rigor and clarity. While Christianity remained a minority and “foreign” religion in the Middle Kingdom, it nonetheless attracted adherents among indigenous Chinese and received imperial approval during the Tang Dynasty. Though it was later suppressed alongside Buddhism, it resurfaced in China and Mongolia in the twelfth century. Thompson also discusses how the modern unearthing of Chinese Christian texts has stirred controversy over the meaning of Jingjiao to recent missionary efforts in China. In an accessible style, Thompson guides readers through primary sources as well as up-to-date scholarship. As the most recent and balanced survey on the topic available in English, Jingjiao: The Earliest Christian Church in China (Eerdmans, 2024) will be an indispensable resource for students of global Christianity and missiology. Glen L. Thompson is professor emeritus of New Testament and historical theology at Asia Lutheran Seminary in Hong Kong. He has retired to Milwaukee, where he researches, works with students, and expands his Fourth-Century Christianity website. New Books in Syriac Studies is presented by Kristian Heal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Many people assume that the first introduction of Christianity to the Chinese was part of nineteenth-century Western imperialism. In fact, Syriac-speaking Christians brought the gospel along the Silk Road into China in the seventh century. Glen L. Thompson introduces readers to the fascinating history of this early Eastern church, referred to as Jingjiao, or the “Luminous Teaching.” Thompson presents the history of the Persian church's mission to China with rigor and clarity. While Christianity remained a minority and “foreign” religion in the Middle Kingdom, it nonetheless attracted adherents among indigenous Chinese and received imperial approval during the Tang Dynasty. Though it was later suppressed alongside Buddhism, it resurfaced in China and Mongolia in the twelfth century. Thompson also discusses how the modern unearthing of Chinese Christian texts has stirred controversy over the meaning of Jingjiao to recent missionary efforts in China. In an accessible style, Thompson guides readers through primary sources as well as up-to-date scholarship. As the most recent and balanced survey on the topic available in English, Jingjiao: The Earliest Christian Church in China (Eerdmans, 2024) will be an indispensable resource for students of global Christianity and missiology. Glen L. Thompson is professor emeritus of New Testament and historical theology at Asia Lutheran Seminary in Hong Kong. He has retired to Milwaukee, where he researches, works with students, and expands his Fourth-Century Christianity website. New Books in Syriac Studies is presented by Kristian Heal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

Many people assume that the first introduction of Christianity to the Chinese was part of nineteenth-century Western imperialism. In fact, Syriac-speaking Christians brought the gospel along the Silk Road into China in the seventh century. Glen L. Thompson introduces readers to the fascinating history of this early Eastern church, referred to as Jingjiao, or the “Luminous Teaching.” Thompson presents the history of the Persian church's mission to China with rigor and clarity. While Christianity remained a minority and “foreign” religion in the Middle Kingdom, it nonetheless attracted adherents among indigenous Chinese and received imperial approval during the Tang Dynasty. Though it was later suppressed alongside Buddhism, it resurfaced in China and Mongolia in the twelfth century. Thompson also discusses how the modern unearthing of Chinese Christian texts has stirred controversy over the meaning of Jingjiao to recent missionary efforts in China. In an accessible style, Thompson guides readers through primary sources as well as up-to-date scholarship. As the most recent and balanced survey on the topic available in English, Jingjiao: The Earliest Christian Church in China (Eerdmans, 2024) will be an indispensable resource for students of global Christianity and missiology. Glen L. Thompson is professor emeritus of New Testament and historical theology at Asia Lutheran Seminary in Hong Kong. He has retired to Milwaukee, where he researches, works with students, and expands his Fourth-Century Christianity website. New Books in Syriac Studies is presented by Kristian Heal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/chinese-studies

Many people assume that the first introduction of Christianity to the Chinese was part of nineteenth-century Western imperialism. In fact, Syriac-speaking Christians brought the gospel along the Silk Road into China in the seventh century. Glen L. Thompson introduces readers to the fascinating history of this early Eastern church, referred to as Jingjiao, or the “Luminous Teaching.” Thompson presents the history of the Persian church's mission to China with rigor and clarity. While Christianity remained a minority and “foreign” religion in the Middle Kingdom, it nonetheless attracted adherents among indigenous Chinese and received imperial approval during the Tang Dynasty. Though it was later suppressed alongside Buddhism, it resurfaced in China and Mongolia in the twelfth century. Thompson also discusses how the modern unearthing of Chinese Christian texts has stirred controversy over the meaning of Jingjiao to recent missionary efforts in China. In an accessible style, Thompson guides readers through primary sources as well as up-to-date scholarship. As the most recent and balanced survey on the topic available in English, Jingjiao: The Earliest Christian Church in China (Eerdmans, 2024) will be an indispensable resource for students of global Christianity and missiology. Glen L. Thompson is professor emeritus of New Testament and historical theology at Asia Lutheran Seminary in Hong Kong. He has retired to Milwaukee, where he researches, works with students, and expands his Fourth-Century Christianity website. New Books in Syriac Studies is presented by Kristian Heal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Many people assume that the first introduction of Christianity to the Chinese was part of nineteenth-century Western imperialism. In fact, Syriac-speaking Christians brought the gospel along the Silk Road into China in the seventh century. Glen L. Thompson introduces readers to the fascinating history of this early Eastern church, referred to as Jingjiao, or the “Luminous Teaching.” Thompson presents the history of the Persian church's mission to China with rigor and clarity. While Christianity remained a minority and “foreign” religion in the Middle Kingdom, it nonetheless attracted adherents among indigenous Chinese and received imperial approval during the Tang Dynasty. Though it was later suppressed alongside Buddhism, it resurfaced in China and Mongolia in the twelfth century. Thompson also discusses how the modern unearthing of Chinese Christian texts has stirred controversy over the meaning of Jingjiao to recent missionary efforts in China. In an accessible style, Thompson guides readers through primary sources as well as up-to-date scholarship. As the most recent and balanced survey on the topic available in English, Jingjiao: The Earliest Christian Church in China (Eerdmans, 2024) will be an indispensable resource for students of global Christianity and missiology. Glen L. Thompson is professor emeritus of New Testament and historical theology at Asia Lutheran Seminary in Hong Kong. He has retired to Milwaukee, where he researches, works with students, and expands his Fourth-Century Christianity website. New Books in Syriac Studies is presented by Kristian Heal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Many people assume that the first introduction of Christianity to the Chinese was part of nineteenth-century Western imperialism. In fact, Syriac-speaking Christians brought the gospel along the Silk Road into China in the seventh century. Glen L. Thompson introduces readers to the fascinating history of this early Eastern church, referred to as Jingjiao, or the “Luminous Teaching.” Thompson presents the history of the Persian church's mission to China with rigor and clarity. While Christianity remained a minority and “foreign” religion in the Middle Kingdom, it nonetheless attracted adherents among indigenous Chinese and received imperial approval during the Tang Dynasty. Though it was later suppressed alongside Buddhism, it resurfaced in China and Mongolia in the twelfth century. Thompson also discusses how the modern unearthing of Chinese Christian texts has stirred controversy over the meaning of Jingjiao to recent missionary efforts in China. In an accessible style, Thompson guides readers through primary sources as well as up-to-date scholarship. As the most recent and balanced survey on the topic available in English, Jingjiao: The Earliest Christian Church in China (Eerdmans, 2024) will be an indispensable resource for students of global Christianity and missiology. Glen L. Thompson is professor emeritus of New Testament and historical theology at Asia Lutheran Seminary in Hong Kong. He has retired to Milwaukee, where he researches, works with students, and expands his Fourth-Century Christianity website. New Books in Syriac Studies is presented by Kristian Heal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

Many people assume that the first introduction of Christianity to the Chinese was part of nineteenth-century Western imperialism. In fact, Syriac-speaking Christians brought the gospel along the Silk Road into China in the seventh century. Glen L. Thompson introduces readers to the fascinating history of this early Eastern church, referred to as Jingjiao, or the “Luminous Teaching.” Thompson presents the history of the Persian church's mission to China with rigor and clarity. While Christianity remained a minority and “foreign” religion in the Middle Kingdom, it nonetheless attracted adherents among indigenous Chinese and received imperial approval during the Tang Dynasty. Though it was later suppressed alongside Buddhism, it resurfaced in China and Mongolia in the twelfth century. Thompson also discusses how the modern unearthing of Chinese Christian texts has stirred controversy over the meaning of Jingjiao to recent missionary efforts in China. In an accessible style, Thompson guides readers through primary sources as well as up-to-date scholarship. As the most recent and balanced survey on the topic available in English, Jingjiao: The Earliest Christian Church in China (Eerdmans, 2024) will be an indispensable resource for students of global Christianity and missiology. Glen L. Thompson is professor emeritus of New Testament and historical theology at Asia Lutheran Seminary in Hong Kong. He has retired to Milwaukee, where he researches, works with students, and expands his Fourth-Century Christianity website. New Books in Syriac Studies is presented by Kristian Heal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/book-of-the-day

Michael Hoffen and the protagonist in his new book are both teenagers, but there's quite an age gap between them—about 4,000 years. In Hoffen's new book, BE A SCRIBE: Working For a Better Life in Ancient Egypt (Callaway Children's Classics, April 9, 2024), he brings to life the story of a young Egyptian, Pepi, whose father, Kheti, is intent on getting his son a job in the royal court. Hoffen, who has been translating ancient texts since middle school, became fascinated by a 4,000-year-old or so piece of literature from ancient Egypt's Middle Kingdom known as The Instruction of Khety, or “The Satire of the Trades.” Under the guidance and collaboration of his two co-authors, Egyptologists Christian Casey and Jen Thum, Hoffen spent three-and-a-half years translating hieroglyphics to modern-day prose and gathering images to tell the story of Kheti and Pepi. Beyond the words, which reveal a wit that transcends 4,000 years, ancient Egypt comes to life with more than 100 beautiful images of vibrant and colorful ancient Egyptian artifacts, paintings, graphics and illustrations that are featured throughout the book. This young author, a scribe himself, has given us a tale that helps us to see just how little the human condition has changed in thousands of years. Parents still want the best for their children and teenagers face important decisions as they set out on their career path. For younger readers, the book serves as an inspiration for their own journey toward gaining greater knowledge, exercising intellectual curiosity and, perhaps, finding their own career paths.  Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/arroe-collins-like-it-s-live--4113802/support.

Get lost in familiar places? You're not alone! Simon and Chris are bewildered by supernatural disorientation, including cases of people being pixy-led by  Newfoundland fairies and Balkan witches. Discover traditional defenses against non-human misleaders, from carrying bread to wearing clothes inside out (and yes, sometimes even stripping naked!). While our hosts consider scientific explanations - glitches in human compasses, they grapple with bizarre reports of impossible landscapes: gardens without paths, eighty foot hedges, and fields that trap their victims. Plus, one host recounts their own uncanny pixy-led experience in a car. Care to guess who?Our readings from this month Janet Bord, Fairies: Real Encounters with Little PeopleDermot Mac Manus, The Middle Kingdom  [stray sod]John Gregorson Campbell, Superstitions of the Highlands & Islands of Scotland, - Gaistig on the Island of Coll Jeremy Harte, Explore Fairy Traditions Mirjam Mencej, '‘Something Came Over Him': Narratives on Being ‘Carried by Witches' and Their Possible Connection to Altered States of Consciousness', Preternature 7 (2018) Barbara Rieti, Strange Terrain: The Fairy World in Newfoundland Chris Woodyard, http://hauntedohiobooks.com/news/the-lost-children/ - disorientation in the woodsS. Young, ‘Pixy-Led in the South West', Transactions of the Devonshire Association 148 (2016), 311-336  https://www.academia.edu/35045282/Young_Pixy_Led_in_Devon_and_the_South_WestS. Young, ‘Four Neglected Pixy-Led Sources from Devon', The Devon Historian 85 (2016), 39-49 https://www.academia.edu/33316277/Young_Four_Neglected_Pixy_Led_Sources_from_DevonAny others to recommend?

Use promo code ROMANTASY25 or go to dipseastories.com/romantasy25 to get 25% off an annual subscription with Dipsea!--This podcast is intended for mature listeners…Headphones highly recommended.In Chapter 3 of "Moonshadowe Chronicles" by Dipsea: Navigating the perilous passage across the Middle Kingdom border, Fang and Lillia opt for a different route—venturing beneath it. Through a dark and winding cavern, they navigate their way, but peril persists even upon reaching the other side. Confronted by a demon, both Fang and Lillia sustain injuries, compelling them to resort to moonshadowe root for healing. However, the potent and magical effects of the remedy draw them together in an unexpected way…Can't wait till the next episode drops? Want more sexy audiobooks and even spicier episodes? Get access to 1,000+ spicy audiobooks and more on the Dipsea app. Use promo code ROMANTASY25 or go to dipseastories.com/romantasy25 to get 25% off an annual subscription with Dipsea!--Created by Dipsea.

Use promo code ROMANTASY25 or go to dipseastories.com/romantasy25 to get 25% off an annual subscription with Dipsea!--This podcast is intended for mature listeners…Headphones highly recommended.In Chapter 2 of "Moonshadowe Chronicles" by Dipsea: Fang and Lillia begin their long journey towards The Middle Kingdom and on the first night, take refuge at an inn. The mood between them is tense, but once they start drinking the local wine they both begin loosening up…and even having a little bit of fun. Later, they retire to their room, but once there find there's only one bed…Can't wait till the next episode drops? Want more sexy audiobooks and even spicier episodes? Get access to 1,000+ spicy audiobooks and more on the Dipsea app. Use promo code ROMANTASY25 or go to dipseastories.com/romantasy25 to get 25% off an annual subscription with Dipsea!--Created by Dipsea.

In recent years, a high-speed train lines have popped up between many important Chinese cities. Today's Chinese podcast will explain how to order a ticket on these deluxe, speedy train lines in Mandarin. Getting around the Middle Kingdom has never been so grand. Episode link: https://www.chinesepod.com/1254

SummaryIn this episode, Tu Le and Lei Xing discuss the latest trends and insights in the electric vehicle (EV) market, focusing on sales data from November, the competitive landscape involving major players like Tesla and BYD, and the challenges faced by legacy automakers such as GM and Nissan in the Chinese market. They explore the implications of government incentives, market strategies, and the evolving consumer trust in various brands. The conversation highlights the dynamic nature of the EV sector and the ongoing adjustments required by manufacturers to stay relevant.KeywordsEV market, Tesla, BYD, NIO, GM, Stellantis, Nissan, China automotive, electric vehicles, sales trends, market analysis

In this episode Kara and Jordan talk to Egyptologist Melinda Nelson-Hurst about her online Egyptology platform, Voices of Ancient Egypt, which teaches you how to read the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs that you'll see in museums, online, and on your next trip to Egypt – in less time and without the overwhelm.About our Guest:Melinda Nelson-Hurst is an Egyptologist (Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania), specializing in the social history and archaeology of ancient Egypt, especially during the Middle Kingdom. In particular, Dr. Nelson-Hurst's research has focused on families and their influence within the state administration, office acquisition, inheritance, and family members' obligations to deceased relatives, as well as on Third Intermediate Period burial assemblages and the history of modern collections.Since 2018, Melinda has run the online Egyptology platform, Voices of Ancient Egypt. Through online courses and YouTube videos with over a million views, Voices of Ancient Egypt brings the study of ancient Egypt out from behind the classroom and library walls, so you can experience it in the real world. Voices of Ancient Egypt's programs specialize in teaching you to read the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs that you'll see in museums, on Instagram, and on your next trip to Egypt – in less time and without the overwhelm.Youtube- Voices of Ancient Egypt IG- Voices of Ancient EgyptVoices of Ancient EgyptYouTube Video on how to write your name in hieroglyphsResources for the EpisodeScripts:Hieratic and DemoticHieroglyphsStages:Old EgyptianMiddle EgyptianLate Egyptian Example 1Example 2Example 3Example 4View the Rest of the Examples Mentioned in the EpisodeSIGN UP FOR SCRIBAL SCHOOL!Want to learn more? Get all the details about Scribal School and how Melinda's students learn to read hieroglyphs by signing up for Melinda's free class:"3 Steps to Fast-Track Your Journey from Student to Scribe" Get full access to Ancient/Now at ancientnow.substack.com/subscribe

State capitalism. Socialism with Chinese characteristics. A socialist market economy. There have been numerous descriptions of the Chinese economy. However, none seems to capture the predatory, at times surreal, nature of the economy of the world's most populous nation – nor the often bruising and mind-bending experience of doing business with the Middle Kingdom. Ian Williams, a long-standing reporter on China, has a new argument in Vampire State: The Rise and Fall of the Chinese Economy (Birlinn, 2024).  Rules and agreements mean little. Markets are distorted, statistics fabricated, foreign industrial secrets and technology systematically stolen. Companies and entrepreneurs, at home and abroad, are bullied – often with the collusion of the victims themselves. The Party is in every boardroom and lab, with businesses thriving or dying at its will.  All this is part of realising President Xi Jinping's ambition of China becoming the world's pre-eminent economic, technological and military power. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

State capitalism. Socialism with Chinese characteristics. A socialist market economy. There have been numerous descriptions of the Chinese economy. However, none seems to capture the predatory, at times surreal, nature of the economy of the world's most populous nation – nor the often bruising and mind-bending experience of doing business with the Middle Kingdom. Ian Williams, a long-standing reporter on China, has a new argument in Vampire State: The Rise and Fall of the Chinese Economy (Birlinn, 2024).  Rules and agreements mean little. Markets are distorted, statistics fabricated, foreign industrial secrets and technology systematically stolen. Companies and entrepreneurs, at home and abroad, are bullied – often with the collusion of the victims themselves. The Party is in every boardroom and lab, with businesses thriving or dying at its will.  All this is part of realising President Xi Jinping's ambition of China becoming the world's pre-eminent economic, technological and military power. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/east-asian-studies

State capitalism. Socialism with Chinese characteristics. A socialist market economy. There have been numerous descriptions of the Chinese economy. However, none seems to capture the predatory, at times surreal, nature of the economy of the world's most populous nation – nor the often bruising and mind-bending experience of doing business with the Middle Kingdom. Ian Williams, a long-standing reporter on China, has a new argument in Vampire State: The Rise and Fall of the Chinese Economy (Birlinn, 2024).  Rules and agreements mean little. Markets are distorted, statistics fabricated, foreign industrial secrets and technology systematically stolen. Companies and entrepreneurs, at home and abroad, are bullied – often with the collusion of the victims themselves. The Party is in every boardroom and lab, with businesses thriving or dying at its will.  All this is part of realising President Xi Jinping's ambition of China becoming the world's pre-eminent economic, technological and military power. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

State capitalism. Socialism with Chinese characteristics. A socialist market economy. There have been numerous descriptions of the Chinese economy. However, none seems to capture the predatory, at times surreal, nature of the economy of the world's most populous nation – nor the often bruising and mind-bending experience of doing business with the Middle Kingdom. Ian Williams, a long-standing reporter on China, has a new argument in Vampire State: The Rise and Fall of the Chinese Economy (Birlinn, 2024).  Rules and agreements mean little. Markets are distorted, statistics fabricated, foreign industrial secrets and technology systematically stolen. Companies and entrepreneurs, at home and abroad, are bullied – often with the collusion of the victims themselves. The Party is in every boardroom and lab, with businesses thriving or dying at its will.  All this is part of realising President Xi Jinping's ambition of China becoming the world's pre-eminent economic, technological and military power. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/world-affairs

State capitalism. Socialism with Chinese characteristics. A socialist market economy. There have been numerous descriptions of the Chinese economy. However, none seems to capture the predatory, at times surreal, nature of the economy of the world's most populous nation – nor the often bruising and mind-bending experience of doing business with the Middle Kingdom. Ian Williams, a long-standing reporter on China, has a new argument in Vampire State: The Rise and Fall of the Chinese Economy (Birlinn, 2024).  Rules and agreements mean little. Markets are distorted, statistics fabricated, foreign industrial secrets and technology systematically stolen. Companies and entrepreneurs, at home and abroad, are bullied – often with the collusion of the victims themselves. The Party is in every boardroom and lab, with businesses thriving or dying at its will.  All this is part of realising President Xi Jinping's ambition of China becoming the world's pre-eminent economic, technological and military power. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/chinese-studies

State capitalism. Socialism with Chinese characteristics. A socialist market economy. There have been numerous descriptions of the Chinese economy. However, none seems to capture the predatory, at times surreal, nature of the economy of the world's most populous nation – nor the often bruising and mind-bending experience of doing business with the Middle Kingdom. Ian Williams, a long-standing reporter on China, has a new argument in Vampire State: The Rise and Fall of the Chinese Economy (Birlinn, 2024).  Rules and agreements mean little. Markets are distorted, statistics fabricated, foreign industrial secrets and technology systematically stolen. Companies and entrepreneurs, at home and abroad, are bullied – often with the collusion of the victims themselves. The Party is in every boardroom and lab, with businesses thriving or dying at its will.  All this is part of realising President Xi Jinping's ambition of China becoming the world's pre-eminent economic, technological and military power. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/economics

State capitalism. Socialism with Chinese characteristics. A socialist market economy. There have been numerous descriptions of the Chinese economy. However, none seems to capture the predatory, at times surreal, nature of the economy of the world's most populous nation – nor the often bruising and mind-bending experience of doing business with the Middle Kingdom. Ian Williams, a long-standing reporter on China, has a new argument in Vampire State: The Rise and Fall of the Chinese Economy (Birlinn, 2024).  Rules and agreements mean little. Markets are distorted, statistics fabricated, foreign industrial secrets and technology systematically stolen. Companies and entrepreneurs, at home and abroad, are bullied – often with the collusion of the victims themselves. The Party is in every boardroom and lab, with businesses thriving or dying at its will.  All this is part of realising President Xi Jinping's ambition of China becoming the world's pre-eminent economic, technological and military power. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics

State capitalism. Socialism with Chinese characteristics. A socialist market economy. There have been numerous descriptions of the Chinese economy. However, none seems to capture the predatory, at times surreal, nature of the economy of the world's most populous nation – nor the often bruising and mind-bending experience of doing business with the Middle Kingdom. Ian Williams, a long-standing reporter on China, has a new argument in Vampire State: The Rise and Fall of the Chinese Economy (Birlinn, 2024).  Rules and agreements mean little. Markets are distorted, statistics fabricated, foreign industrial secrets and technology systematically stolen. Companies and entrepreneurs, at home and abroad, are bullied – often with the collusion of the victims themselves. The Party is in every boardroom and lab, with businesses thriving or dying at its will.  All this is part of realising President Xi Jinping's ambition of China becoming the world's pre-eminent economic, technological and military power. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

State capitalism. Socialism with Chinese characteristics. A socialist market economy. There have been numerous descriptions of the Chinese economy. However, none seems to capture the predatory, at times surreal, nature of the economy of the world's most populous nation – nor the often bruising and mind-bending experience of doing business with the Middle Kingdom. Ian Williams, a long-standing reporter on China, has a new argument in Vampire State: The Rise and Fall of the Chinese Economy (Birlinn, 2024).  Rules and agreements mean little. Markets are distorted, statistics fabricated, foreign industrial secrets and technology systematically stolen. Companies and entrepreneurs, at home and abroad, are bullied – often with the collusion of the victims themselves. The Party is in every boardroom and lab, with businesses thriving or dying at its will.  All this is part of realising President Xi Jinping's ambition of China becoming the world's pre-eminent economic, technological and military power. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/finance

State capitalism. Socialism with Chinese characteristics. A socialist market economy. There have been numerous descriptions of the Chinese economy. However, none seems to capture the predatory, at times surreal, nature of the economy of the world's most populous nation – nor the often bruising and mind-bending experience of doing business with the Middle Kingdom. Ian Williams, a long-standing reporter on China, has a new argument in Vampire State: The Rise and Fall of the Chinese Economy (Birlinn, 2024).  Rules and agreements mean little. Markets are distorted, statistics fabricated, foreign industrial secrets and technology systematically stolen. Companies and entrepreneurs, at home and abroad, are bullied – often with the collusion of the victims themselves. The Party is in every boardroom and lab, with businesses thriving or dying at its will.  All this is part of realising President Xi Jinping's ambition of China becoming the world's pre-eminent economic, technological and military power. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Just in time for NATIONAL READ A BOOK DAY - September 6, teen-author Michael Hoffen, has been spending HIS TIME going back some 4,000 years. Michael worked for three-and-a-half years translating hieroglyphics to modern-day prose. Yet only to discover, what people want for their children today, is very much the same as even some 4,000 years ago! He is the youngest-ever recipient of the annual Emerson Prize. BE A SCRIBE Working For A Better Life In Ancient Egypt by Michael Hoffen Michael Hoffen and the protagonist in his new book are both teenagers, but there's quite an age gap between them—about 4,000 years. In Hoffen's new book, BE A SCRIBE: Working For a Better Life in Ancient Egypt (Callaway Children's Classics, April 9, 2024), he brings to life the story of a young Egyptian, Pepi, whose father, Kheti, is intent on getting his son a job in the royal court. Hoffen, who has been translating ancient texts since middle school, became fascinated by a 4,000-year-old or so piece of literature from ancient Egypt's Middle Kingdom known as The Instruction of Khety, or “The Satire of the Trades.” Under the guidance and collaboration of his two co-authors, Egyptologists Christian Casey and Jen Thum, Hoffen spent three-and-a-half years translating hieroglyphics to modern-day prose and gathering images to tell the story of Kheti and Pepi. Beyond the words, which reveal a wit that transcends 4,000 years, ancient Egypt comes to life with more than 100 beautiful images of vibrant and colorful ancient Egyptian artifacts, paintings, graphics and illustrations that are featured throughout the book. This young author, a scribe himself, has given us a tale that helps us to see just how little the human condition has changed in thousands of years. Parents still want the best for their children and teenagers face important decisions as they set out on their career path. For younger readers, the book serves as an inspiration for their own journey toward gaining greater knowledge, exercising intellectual curiosity and, perhaps, finding their own career paths. Michael Hoffen is the youngest-ever recipient of the annual Emerson Prize, awarded by the Concord Review for outstanding promise in history. While still in middle school, he was introduced to the joys of translating ancient texts and never looked back. During the COVID pandemic, Michael embarked on an ambitious project to bring ancient Egyptian literature to life outside the classroom. Be A Scribe! is Michael's first book in a series. When not chasing down new stories to translate or write, Michael enjoys biking, swimming, and rock climbing. He lives with his family in New York. Dr. Christian Casey is an Egyptologist who specializes in the study of ancient Egyptian languages. He obtained his PhD in Egyptology from Brown University in 2020 and now works as a researcher at Freie Universität Berlin. He is especially interested in sharing the exciting world of ancient Egypt with young people and other interested members of the public. Dr. Jen Thum is an Egyptologist, educator, and curator at the Harvard Art Museums. She studied Egyptology and archaeology at the University of Oxford and Brown University. Jen's work celebrates the learning potential of ancient material culture, especially across disciplines. She teaches at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, writes and leads workshops about learning with art and artifacts, and is the lead editor of Teaching Ancient Egypt in Museums: Pedagogies in Practice. Jen conceived of Be A Scribe! after recognizing the need for accessible ancient Egyptian primary sources for young learners. Be a Scribe By Michael Hoffen, Dr. Christian Casey, Dr. Jen Thum Callaway Children's Classics; April 9, 2024 $24.99; 96 pagesISBN-13: 979-8987412435 His interactive, highly illustrated book BE A SCRIBE! Working For A Better Life In Ancient Egypt recently released. It's beautifully placed currently among many locations, at

The war for Ta-Wer. The Thebans had seized the sacred city of Abdju (Abydos) in the district of Ta-Wer. The northern rulers, from the House of Khety, contested this violently. Inscriptions and art reveal the movements of armies, the clashes on field and river, and the sieging of major towns. Soon, things going downright apocalyptic. Also… dogs! Music and interludes by Keith Zizza www.keithzizza.net. Music and interludes by Jeffrey Goodman www.jeffreygoodman.com. Interludes by Luke Chaos www.chaosmusick.com. Logo image: Intef II, from a stela in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Intro: Saruman's Speech from The Two Towers (2002), adapted by Dominic Perry. Fawlty Towers excerpts via Britbox Don't Mention the War | Fawlty Towers (youtube.com). The History of Egypt Podcast: Website: www.egyptianhistorypodcast.com. Support the show via Patreon www.patreon.com/egyptpodcast. Make a one-time donation via PayPal payments. Partial Bibliography: M. D. Adams, ‘Community and Society in Egypt in the First Intermediate Period: An Archaeological Investigation of the Abydos Settlement Site', Unpublished PhD. Thesis, University of Michigan (2005). D. Arnold, Gräber des Alten und Mittleren Reiches in El-Tarif (Mainz, 1976). D. D. Baker, Encyclopedia of the Pharaohs Volume I: Predynastic to the Twentieth Dynasty 3300 - 1069 BC (Cairo, 2008). H. Brunner, Die Texte aus den Gräbern der Herakleopolitenzeit von Siut mit Übersetzung und Erläuterungen (Glückstadt, 1937). J. J. Clère and J. Vandier, Textes de la Première Période Intermédiare et de la XIeme Dynastie (Brussels, 1948). J. C. Darnell and D. Darnell, ‘New Inscriptions of the Late First Intermediate Period from the Theban Western Desert and the Beginnings of the Northern Expansion of the Eleventh Dynasty', Journal of Near Eastern Studies 56 (1997), 241--258. W. Ejsmond, ‘The Nubian Mercenaries of Gebelein in Light of Recent Field Research', Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections 14 (2017), 11--13. N. Fields, Soldier of the Pharaoh: Middle Kingdom Egypt 2055--1650 BC (2007). H. G. Fischer, Inscriptions from the Coptite Nome: Dynasties VI-XI (Analecta orientalia 40; Rome, 1964). H. G. Fischer, ‘Provincial Inscriptions of the Heracleopolitan Period', Varia Nova, Egyptian Studies 3 (New York, 1996), 79--90. G. P. Gilbert, Weapons, Warriors, and Warfare in Early Egypt (Oxford, 2004). H. Goedicke, ‘The Inscription of Dmi', Journal of Near Eastern Studies 19 (1960), 288--291. W. Grajetzki, The Middle Kingdom of Ancient Egypt (London, 2006 & 2024). R. Landgráfová, It Is My Good Name That You Should Remember: Egyptian Biographical Texts on Middle Kingdom Stelae (Prague, 2011). M. Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature Volume I: The Old and Middle Kingdoms (Los Angeles, 1973). M. Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Autobiographies Chiefly of the Middle Kingdom: A Study and an Anthology (Freiburg, 1988). D. O'Connor, Abydos: Egypt's First Pharaohs and the Cult of Osiris (London, 2009). S. Seidlmayer, ‘The First Intermediate Period (c. 2160--2055 BC)', in I. Shaw (ed.), The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt (Oxford, 2000), 108--136. I. Shaw, Ancient Egyptian Warfare (Oxford, 2019). J. Wegner, ‘The Stela of Idudju-Iker, Foremost-One of the Chiefs of Wawat: New Evidence on the Conquest of Thinis Under Wahankh Antef II', Revue d'égyptologie 68 (2018), 153--209. T. Wilkinson, The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt: The History of a Civilisation from 3000 BC to Cleopatra (London, 2010). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Intef the Great (c.2050—2000 BCE). The reign of Intef II, ruler of Waset (Thebes) shows a sudden surge in expansion and conflict. Seeking absolute power over the south, Intef brought major districts like Abu (Elephantine) into his territory. He made alliances with the rulers of Wawat (Nubia). Then, he sent his armies north to seize a sacred city… Episode details: Music and interludes by Keith Zizza www.keithzizza.net. Music and interludes by Jeffrey Goodman www.jeffreygoodman.com. Interludes by Luke Chaos www.chaosmusick.com. Logo image: Intef II, from a stela in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The History of Egypt Podcast: Website: www.egyptianhistorypodcast.com. Support the show via Patreon www.patreon.com/egyptpodcast. Make a one-time donation via PayPal payments. Select Bibligraphy: M. D. Adams, ‘Community and Society in Egypt in the First Intermediate Period: An Archaeological Investigation of the Abydos Settlement Site', Unpublished PhD. Thesis, University of Michigan (2005). D. Arnold, Gräber des Alten und Mittleren Reiches in El-Tarif (Mainz, 1976). D. D. Baker, Encyclopedia of the Pharaohs Volume I: Predynastic to the Twentieth Dynasty 3300 - 1069 BC (Cairo, 2008). H. Brunner, Die Texte aus den Gräbern der Herakleopolitenzeit von Siut mit Übersetzung und Erläuterungen (Glückstadt, 1937). J. J. Clère and J. Vandier, Textes de la Première Période Intermédiare et de la XIeme Dynastie (Brussels, 1948). J. C. Darnell and D. Darnell, ‘New Inscriptions of the Late First Intermediate Period from the Theban Western Desert and the Beginnings of the Northern Expansion of the Eleventh Dynasty', Journal of Near Eastern Studies 56 (1997), 241--258. W. Ejsmond, ‘The Nubian Mercenaries of Gebelein in Light of Recent Field Research', Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections 14 (2017), 11--13. N. Fields, Soldier of the Pharaoh: Middle Kingdom Egypt 2055--1650 BC (2007). H. G. Fischer, Inscriptions from the Coptite Nome: Dynasties VI-XI (Analecta orientalia 40; Rome, 1964). H. G. Fischer, ‘Provincial Inscriptions of the Heracleopolitan Period', Varia Nova, Egyptian Studies 3 (New York, 1996), 79--90. G. P. Gilbert, Weapons, Warriors, and Warfare in Early Egypt (Oxford, 2004). H. Goedicke, ‘The Inscription of Dmi', Journal of Near Eastern Studies 19 (1960), 288--291. W. Grajetzki, The Middle Kingdom of Ancient Egypt (London, 2006 & 2024). R. Landgráfová, It Is My Good Name That You Should Remember: Egyptian Biographical Texts on Middle Kingdom Stelae (Prague, 2011). M. Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature Volume I: The Old and Middle Kingdoms (Los Angeles, 1973). M. Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Autobiographies Chiefly of the Middle Kingdom: A Study and an Anthology (Freiburg, 1988). D. O'Connor, Abydos: Egypt's First Pharaohs and the Cult of Osiris (London, 2009). S. Seidlmayer, ‘The First Intermediate Period (c. 2160--2055 BC)', in I. Shaw (ed.), The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt (Oxford, 2000), 108--136. I. Shaw, Ancient Egyptian Warfare (Oxford, 2019). J. Wegner, ‘The Stela of Idudju-Iker, Foremost-One of the Chiefs of Wawat: New Evidence on the Conquest of Thinis Under Wahankh Antef II', Revue d'égyptologie 68 (2018), 153--209. T. Wilkinson, The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt: The History of a Civilisation from 3000 BC to Cleopatra (London, 2010). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The first phase is over, and the war is heating up. Around 2055 BCE (approximately), a lord of Waset/Thebes/Luxor named Intef I promotes himself far above the established norms. Sending representatives to treat with the other rulers, Intef nonetheless begins to push his military power further afield. Soon, he begins to isolate and attack the loyalist governors nearby… Episode details: The Qena Bend and locations referenced in this episode. “Godfather” Walz theme by Andrea Giuffredi. “Declare Independence” by Björk, instrumental version. Music and interludes by Keith Zizza www.keithzizza.net. Music and interludes by Luke Chaos www.chaosmusick.com. The History of Egypt Podcast: Website: www.egyptianhistorypodcast.com. Support the show via Patreon www.patreon.com/egyptpodcast. Make a one-time donation via PayPal payments. Select Bibliography: D. D. Baker, Encyclopedia of the Pharaohs Volume I: Predynastic to the Twentieth Dynasty 3300 - 1069 BC (2008). E. Brovarski, ‘Overseers of Upper Egypt in the Old to Middle Kingdoms', Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde 140 (2013), 91—111. Available online. J. J. Clère and J. Vandier, Textes de la Première Période Intermédiare et de la XIeme Dynastie (1948). J. C. Darnell, Theban Desert Road Survey in the Egyptian Western Desert, I: Gebel Tjauti Rock Inscriptions 1-45 and Wadi el-Hôl Rock Inscriptions 1-45 (2002). J. C. Darnell and D. Darnell, ‘New Inscriptions of the Late First Intermediate Period from the Theban Western Desert and the Beginnings of the Northern Expansion of the Eleventh Dynasty', Journal of Near Eastern Studies 56 (1997), 241—258. JSTOR. A. E. Demidchik, ‘The History of the Heracleopolitan Kings' Domain', in H.-W. Fischer-Elfert and R. B. Parkinson (eds), Studies on the Middle Kingdom in Memory of Detlef Franke (2013), 93—106. Online. H. G. Fischer, Inscriptions from the Coptite Nome: Dynasties VI-XI (1964). H. G. Fischer, Dendera in the Third Millennium BC Down to the Theban Domination of Upper Egypt (1968). W. Grajetzki, The Middle Kingdom of Ancient Egypt (2006 & 2024). R. J. Leprohon, The Great Name: Ancient Egyptian Royal Titulary (2013). M. Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature Volume I: The Old and Middle Kingdoms (1973). S. Seidlmayer, ‘The First Intermediate Period (c. 2160--2055 BC)', in I. Shaw (ed.), The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt (2000), 108—136. N. Strudwick, Texts from the Pyramid Age (2005). T. Wilkinson, The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt: The History of a Civilisation from 3000 BC to Cleopatra (2010). T. Wilkinson, Lives of the Ancient Egyptians (2019). H. Willems, ‘The First Intermediate Period and the Middle Kingdom', in A. B. Lloyd (ed.), A Companion to Ancient Egypt, 1 (2010), 81—100. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

An excavation on an old film set, an ancient evil prisoner unleashed, and a genuinely good premise. In this episode, we examine the film Sands of Oblivion (2007). Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/MummyMoviePodcast Email: mummymoviepodcast@gmail.com BibliographyAllen, T. G. (1958). The Egyptian Coffin Texts. VI. Texts of Spells 472-786. Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 17(2), 146-190. Assmann, J. (2011). Death and salvation in ancient Egypt. Cornell University Press. Beinlich-Seeber, C. (1976). Untersuchungen zur Darstellung des Totengerichts im alten Ägypten (Vol. 3500). Deutscher Kunstverlag. DuQuesne, T. (2001). Concealing and revealing: The problem of ritual masking in ancient Egypt. Discussions in Egyptology, 51, 5-32. Ikram, S. (2010). Mummification. UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, 1(1). Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0z4d4zr4 Ikram, S. (2015). Death and burial in ancient Egypt. American University in Cairo Press. IMDB. (2024). Sands of Oblivion. Retrieved from https://www.imdb.com/?ref_=nv_home Newell, C. (2022). The significance of Anubis as seen in coffin texts (Doctoral dissertation, Macquarie University). Macquarie University ResearchOnline. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/1959.14/1267890 Taylor, J. H. (2001). Death and the afterlife in ancient Egypt. University of Chicago Press. Troy, L. (1993). Creating a god: The mummification ritual. The Bulletin of the Australian Centre for Egyptology, 4, 55-82. Zandee, J. (1960). Death as an enemy: According to ancient Egyptian conceptions (Vol. 5). Brill Archive. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Jackson sits down to talk to author and historian Wolfram Grajetzki to discuss the Middle Kingdom of Ancient Egypt, what it was like, how we know about it, and the dynasties that ruled it, all of which he discusses in his new book with Bloomsbury 'The Middle Kingdom of Ancient Egypt'Grab a copy of The Middle Kingdom of Ancient Egypt hereIf you want to get in touch with History with Jackson email: jackson@historywithjackson.co.ukPlease support us on our Patreon!To catch up on everything to do with History with Jackson head to www.HistorywithJackson.co.ukFollow us on Facebook at @HistorywithJacksonFollow us on Instagram at @HistorywithJacksonFollow us on X/Twitter at @HistorywJacksonFollow us on TikTok at @HistorywithJackson Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey, friends! Today's episode is about a series of 120 martyrs over the course of about 200 years. Let's find out how the seeds of faith were planted in the Middle Kingdom with our new friends: Saint Augustine Zhao Rong & his Companions.

It's been a busy week in space, with Boeing's test pilots still stuck on the International Space Station thanks to their faulty capsule, and then being forced to take shelter from space debris. The debris came from RESURS-P1, a decommissioned Russian satellite launched in 2013, which broke up this week into over 100 observable pieces, all traveling at around 17,000mph. As the debris field approached the ISS astronauts were forced to take cover in a hardened safety chamber. Not that the station has long left, as NASA awarded a contract this week to deorbit the platform in 2030. By then there may be a replacement, and there'll almost certainly be a rival in the form of China, which is building its own space station. It's also been a good week for the Middle Kingdom, with the Chang'e-6 re-entry capsule bringing back the first samples from the far side of the Moon. You can see the full discussion below.

Michael Hoffen and the protagonist in his new book are both teenagers, but there's quite an age gap between them—about 4,000 years. In Hoffen's new book, BE A SCRIBE: Working For a Better Life in Ancient Egypt, he brings to life the story of a young Egyptian, Pepi, whose father, Kheti, is intent on getting his son a job in the royal court. Hoffen, who has been translating ancient texts since middle school, became fascinated by a 4,000-year-old or so piece of literature from ancient Egypt's Middle Kingdom known as The Instruction of Khety, or “The Satire of the Trades.” Under the guidance and collaboration of his two co-authors, Egyptologists Christian Casey and Jen Thum, Hoffen spent three-and-a-half years translating hieroglyphics to modern-day prose and gathering images to tell their story. Beyond the words, which reveal a wit that transcends 4,000 years, ancient Egypt comes to life with more than 100 beautiful images of vibrant and colorful ancient Egyptian artifacts, paintings, graphics and illustrations that are featured throughout the book. This young author, a scribe himself, has given us a tale that helps us to see just how little the human condition has not changed in thousands of years. Parents still want the best for their children and teenagers face important decisions as they set out on their career path. I hope that you enjoy our conversation.

Middle Kingdom is a fun action RPG with a mysterious past that starts at the BBC Micro, runs through the Dragon 32, and ends in...Brazil?! Find out on the CoCo Show! Special thanks to Buck Owens for helping me sort this one out!

A tomb revisited. In 1923 CE, excavations at Luxor revealed the graves of ancient Egyptian soldiers. They bore scars of battle on their bones and flesh; and their story may belong to one of several major conflicts within the Nile Valley, around 2000—1900 BCE. In this episode, we revisit an old topic, and describe the tale anew… Note: This episode has an extended version on Patreon (link below). Dates: 1923—1926 CE (excavation); c. 2000—1900 BCE (ancient burial). Website: www.egyptianhistorypodcast.com. Support the show via Patreon www.patreon.com/egyptpodcast. Make a one-time donation via PayPal payments. Music and interludes by Keith Zizza www.keithzizza.net. Music and interludes by Luke Chaos www.chaosmusick.com. Select Bibliography: H. E. Winlock, The Slain Soldiers of Neb-Hepet-Re Mentu-Hotpe (1945). Available in Open Access via MMA. C. Vogel, ‘Fallen Heroes? Winlock's “Slain Soldiers” Reconsidered', The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 89 (2003), 239—245. Access via Academia.edu and JSTOR.org. P. Chudzik, ‘Middle Kingdom tombs in the North Asasif Necropolis: Field Seasons 2018/2019 and 2020', Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean (2020), 177—202. Open Access via Academia.edu. Wikipedia, ‘MMA 507,' https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MMA_507&oldid=1151562120. Artefacts from the tomb at the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Archers' wrist guard. Folded linen with hieratic text of Sobekhotep Son-of-Imeny. Additional pieces at MMA Collections (objects dated .1961 – 1917 BC). Skull fragment with arrow in eye (images restricted). Model weapons of the early Middle Kingdom: shield, spear, quiver. The tomb of Queen Neferu at Deir el-Bahari: Wikipedia, photos at Flickr.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Buddhism reached China in the 1st century AD, yet it remained a minor, foreign religion for the next 100 years. It was not until the fall of the Han dynasty in 220 AD and the cracking of the classical Confucian order that Buddhism began to make headway in the Middle Kingdom. Over the following centuries, the religion took hold and so China both transformed Buddhism and was transformed by it. Yet, a monk named Xuanzang, born in 600 AD, was worried about Chinese Buddhism. He feared it had strayed too far from its origin and so he undertook a journey to the Buddhist heartlands of North India and the great university of Nalanda. Listen as William and Anita discuss the early stages of Buddhism in China. For bonus episodes, ad-free listening, reading lists, book discounts, a weekly newsletter, and a chat community. Sign up at https://empirepod.supportingcast.fm/ Twitter: @Empirepoduk Email: empirepoduk@gmail.com Goalhangerpodcasts.com Assistant Producer: Anouska Lewis Producer: Callum Hill Exec Producer: Neil Fearn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I was scanning the financial news this morning and realized Germany was in recession. In my morning brief I was informed Japan was in recession as well. On a call with a client someone brought up that the United Kingdom had joined the downers club. A quick convo with the staff revealed the same was true for Hungary and Ireland. And Greece and Lithuania and Estonia and Finland. Israel probably as well, while Australia, New Zealand, France, Spain and Italy are only a rounding error away. China's data, such that it is, suggests that the Middle Kingdom is by most definitions at best recession-adjacent. Full Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/zeihan/recession-for-almost-everyone

Happy New Year! This episode we take a look back at where we've come and talk about some of the broad themes and changes that we've experienced over the episodes in the past year. For a little more, including references for the year, check out:  https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-newyear2024 Rough Transcript Shinnen Akemashite!  Happy New Year and Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.  My name is Joshua, and this is the New Year's Recap episode for 2024 Every year I try to take a moment and look back at the material we covered.  In part, this is to remind us of the journey we've been on, but it is also to help look at some of the larger themes that we might otherwise miss when we are looking at more discreet topics.  This year we have not necessarily progressed through as much of the archipelago's history as in previous years—we started in the early 530s and have probably covered about 80 or 90 years, in contrast to 2022 and before where we covered multiple centuries in a year.  But there's a good reason for that: it has been an eventful period, or at least more of the events are getting written down.  However, there is a lot of important stuff going on.  We are seeing, more than anywhere else, the rise of powerful families, not just individuals, a process that began as a way to expand the power of the state, but which then took on a life of its own under what is known as the uji-kabane system—the system of families and family rank.  This is happening alongside of a reimagining of the state and of the royal family in particular.  Many of the 8th century cultural norms are starting to be set in this period.  In many ways, the people of Yamato are revising their cultural imaginary of themselves, often in reference to new ideas, concepts, and philosophies being imported from the continent.  This includes the arrival of Buddhism and its shake up of the way that the people of the archipelago viewed the world and their place in it. And so we're going to start with a recap of the various sovereigns, then go into some of the more particular aspects of what was going on, and try to cover some of those more overarching themes.  Hopefully this gives us a good base to move on into 2024. Now over the past year we've gone through seven sovereigns.  First was the short reign of Magari no Ohine, aka Ankan Tennou, around 531 to 536, back in episode 79, when we talked about the glass bowl attributed to his tomb.  He was followed by his brother Takewo Hirokunioshi Tate, or Senka Tennou, who reigned until his death in 539.  That was Episode 80, where we also kind of kicked off the Asuka period, which many see as starting around 538.  Next, in Episodes 81 through 86, was their half-brother, Amekunioshi Hiraki Hironiwa, or Kinmei Tennou, who ruled until about 571.  Amekunioshi was followed by his son, Nunakura Futodamashiki, known as Bidatsu Tennou, who ruled until 585—Episodes 88 and 89.  Bidatsu was followed, in episode 90, by our fifth sovereign in this year's line up, Tachibana no Toyohi, or Youmei Tennou, father of Prince Umayado, aka the famous Shotoku Taishi, who we talked quite a bit about for his legendary and historical importance.  Youmei Tennou passed away in 587, and after some conflict, Hasebe no Wakasasaki came to the throne, remembered as Sushun Tennou.  He was assasinated in 592, as we covered in Episode 92, and succeeded by Toyomike Kashikiya Hime, daughter of Amekunioshi, wife to Nunakura Futodamashiki, and known to most as Suiko Tennou.  That's where we are at present. We also have seen a succession of high officials.  We started off with Ohotomo no Kanamura and Mononobe no Arakahi as the two Ohomuraji, but we quickly saw the addition of Soga no Iname as Oho-omi.  This foreshadowed the fading of the Ohotomo family appear to have lost their status with their failures in peninsular dealings,   while the Mononobe and Soga continued to help lead the country.  Mononobe no Arakahi was succeeded in the position of Ohomuraji by Mononobe no Okoshi, and then Mononobe no Yugehi no Moriya.  Soga no Iname was succeeded to the position of Oho-omi by his son, Soga no Umako. Taken together with Prince Umayado, aka Shotoku Taishi, these are perhaps some of the main names in the Chronicles.  Let's recap what was most important about each of them. We started this year talking about the reign of Magari no Ohine, aka Ankan Tennou.  The official account says that he was the son of Wohodo, aka Keitai Tenno, and one of two of Wohodo's sons that were basically just keeping the seat warm for their half-brother, Amekunioshi, aka Kinmei Tennou.  In other words, they were kind of regents.  This story quickly falls apart, however, when you look at several factors.  First, based on some of the dates given for his birth, Amekunioshi would have been around 22 years old when their father, Wohodo, passed away—young, but old enough to take the throne without requiring any kind of regent.  In addition, neither of his two brothers gave up the throne to him when he finally came of age—whatever age that might have been.  Instead, each one died in the position.  That doesn't exactly scream that they were giving up power. Why this discrepancy?  The best explanation is that the Chroniclers were trying to keep things nice and tidy, and we are told that the tradition was for sovereigns to only come from lineages where both the male and female lines were considered royal—one sovereign and one royal princess, typically, who would be raised up as the Queen, and whose offspring would be eligible for the throne.  However, that was slightly disrupted by Amekunioshi, aka Kinmei Tennou, who seems to have taken the throne despite the fact that his two half-brothers and their offspring may have had the stronger claim.  Still, he was able to point to his mother's royal status.  In fact, she was even of the previous dynasty, sister to the last sovereign from that line, Wohatsuse Wakasazaki, aka Buretsu Tennou.  Or so we are told by the Chroniclers. .  And so only Amekunioshi's mother is considered to be the truly legitimate queen, while Magari no Ohine and the other so-called “regent” brother - Takewo Hiro Kunioshi Tate, aka Senka Tennou - must have been from a consort other than the Wohodo's main wife.  Their mother, Menoko, was instead linked to a prominent family, that of the Owari no Muraji, but it is unclear if they had the royal connections on her side—though I have little doubt that they could have been invented if they didn't already exist. I would point out that even given this explanation, both of the brothers were given the posthumous honors of “Tenno”, rather than being referred to as a regent, whereas the sovereign Okinaga no Tarashi Hime, aka Jingu Kougou, also ostensibly a regent, was never granted that honor, at least by the Chroniclers.  We discussed this a bit in Episodes 41 and 42, and how that may have been due to the Chroniclers' misogynistic tendencies as much as anything.  There is a suggestion that in reality, these two brothers may have been rival claimants, and there may have even been competing courts, as different family members rallied support to their side.And all of that perfectly helps illustrate just how we think things might have looked around this time.  Succession to the royal throne hardly appears to have been cut and dry.  Even before this period, we saw times where there were multiple claimants , regents, etc.  There is no clear pattern by which we can deduce who would succeed any given sovereign: it might be a brother, or any of their sons, or even a daughter.  And without a clear system of succession, every time the sovereign passed away, there was a competition for the throne.    You might recall that the mutual father of these three sovereigns, Wohodo, was himself said to have been the first in a new dynasty-- the previous dynasty died out with Wohodo's predecessor, Wohatsuse no Wakasazaki, aka Buretsu Tennou.  There are a lot of questions around this transition, but even the Chroniclers couldn't immediately connect Wohodo to the previous lineage without having to go all the way back to Homuda Wake, aka Oujin Tennou, on his father's side, and to Ikume Iribiko, aka Suinin Tennou, on his mother's side, but there are still plenty of questions about those ties and how real they were.        When it comes to the complications of succession, one thing to factor in is that this was still in the time when every sovereign moved into a new palace.  There are various thoughts on why this was —one of them being that the move prevented spiritual pollution associated with a dead body.  I also wonder if it wasn't practical as the new sovereign may have already had their own base of power, or perhaps by building new it was a way to ensure that the buildings were always fresh and free of any problems, as I believe these early buildings were largely built of fresh, untreated wood.  Whatever the reason, moving to a new palace each time also means that there wasn't an actual, physical throne to fight over.  Rival sovereigns could set themselves up in different areas in and around the Nara basin, Kawachi, et cetera, and gather supporters to their court.  Those supporters, no doubt individuals with some power and clout in their region who saw benefit in allying themselves with an even bigger name, would eventually become the heads of various corporate families, further extending their power and influence.  There is plenty of reason to believe that the family systems we see on the archipelago were not necessarily indigenous creations.  Early on people were associated with a place, perhaps, and of course you would know your line of descent, possibly even going back into myth and legend.  The concept of “family” as simply a matter of descent and relationship no doubt existed—after all, everyone has a mother and a father.  However, the idea of families with wide ranging control over a particular industry, administrative function, or even court ritual were likely imported from the continent as a way to group people together.  In fact, these are often referred to more as “clans”—groups of individuals who claimed shared descent, whether real or imagined, often from some legendary figure.  The new concept of these families not only grouped people based on things like their occupation or common ethnicity, if they came from the peninsula, but it also added a layer of administration that was then tied into the concept of the Yamato court, making it an extension of the government.  In turn, the government classified these families through a system of rank and titles—the kabane.   This system had people being known as much or even more by their family name as they were by the common name they went by as individuals.  Originally we see individuals working in similar professions organized into groups that used the term “-Be” in the name, but later we get the “uji”, or familial clans, that were more like administrators and extensions of the court.  Of note, there would continue to be many people who were not formally part of a particular -Be or Uji or even Ie, or “house”.  These were mostly individuals of the common agricultural class or similar, and long lineages might have no actual family name until the Meiji period, when everyone was expected to take on a family name as part of the efforts to modernize the country.  Until then, having a family name meant that you actually were already a part of the upper crust of society, even if you were only on the bottommost rung of that particular social ladder. In addition, a family name allowed someone to take on the family kabane, or title.  While there were some titles that appear to be given to the individual, these kabane titles, such as Suguri, Kishi, Atahe, Kimi, Muraji, and Omi, designated entire families.  These terms themselves appear to come from earlier job positions, indicating different types of leadership, from a local headmaster up to rulers of countries, and high ministers of the court.  For example, the title of “Omi” was originally a job description, indicating one of the many functionaries that made the court run, but as a kabane, any member of a given family would be able to use the term, whether they were actually in a ministerial position or not.   At this point, these important families were essentially an extension of the state—a way to decentralize control so that the Yamato state could function at an expanded level.  Some families appear to have been set up around local administration, including making local chieftains and the like part of their own family unit that was then granted control of the area by the court.  During the period we've covered this past year, we see that approach of absorbing regional families mature and grow, and those families taking on greater roles: initially with stories of the Ohotomo and Mononobe families, culminating in the powerful Soga family.  For the Ohotomo and the Mononobe, the family name likely tells us part of what and who they were.  The Ohotomo were the Great Tomo, or the Great Tomo no Miyatsuko.  These Tomo no Miyatsuko are some of the earliest court nobles, and it would make sense that the Ohotomo were at their head—which would also explain their position as the Oho-omi in the 5th and early 6th centuries.  Next to this family were the Mononobe, the Be (occupational group) of the Warriors, or Mononofu.  Together these families represented the early concepts of administration and military might.  However, as the families continued to evolve, they became independent from the roles they were originally created to hold.  The Ohotomo would eventually fall from power, and in their place would rise up the Mononobe.  However, the Mononobe would also find themselves on the outs, especially in the tumultuous period following Amekunioshi's death.  It was at this time that a new family would rise up to take their place:  the Soga, which we've heard a lot about this year.  The head of the Soga, Soga no Iname, had positioned his family in part through carefully marrying his daughters into the royal line.  While this had been done in the past, it wasn't to the extent or success that the Soga were able to achieve: In only a single generation, Iname saw Soga descended sovereigns on the throne.  This took place, of course, with not a small amount of maneuvering and the eradication of rival lineages.  It was their own Game of Thrones playing out, with the families created to serve the state and the royal family grabbing for themselves more power.  This would seem to be an unexpected consequence of a concept that had initially helped expand the royal authority, and we'll only continue to see more of it in the coming decades and centuries. At the same time that all of this was playing out on the archipelago, things on the continent were also changing.  First and foremost, in that it was closest to home for Yamato, was the rising power of Silla on the Korean peninsula. Up to this point, most of the Korean peninsula appears to have been a collection of small, regional polities, with occasional alliances between them.  There were two or three kingdoms of note.  In the north was Goryeo, a shortened version of the original name, Goguryeo, which is how we generally refer to it today to distinguish it from the 10th century state of the same name.  It was the oldest of the various kingdoms, and claimed descent from the northern Buyeo kingdom, centered in modern Manchuria. In the southwest of the peninsula was the kingdom of Baekje.  They, too, claimed descent from the nobility of Buyeo, and they were made up of many of the various polities collectively referred to as Mahan.  While Goguryeo was ruling up in the north, Baekje was one of the first kingdoms to set up shop in the southern end of the peninsula. Then there was Silla.  Originally a confederation of six polities in the area known as the Jinhan, they eventually became a kingdom and started pushing against the other polities in the region.  This includes the fledgling kingdom of Kara, mostly known as a confederation of smaller polities from the old Byeonhan region.  There are royal style tombs in the area, but before they could really get going Kara and the other polities fell under the control of the kingdom of Silla.  This included groups like Ara and the controversial polity of Nimna.  This set Baekje and Silla in direct confrontation, as Silla's land grab eliminated much of the buffer territory between the two of them. Nimna appears to have been of particular concern to Yamato, and appears to have been one of Yamato's allies, along with Baekje.  While Baekje appears to have been the stronger of the two, Nimna may have had a special place for Yamato, especially as it may have been an important port for Yamato ships traveling to trade with the rest of the continent.  Nimna being under Silla rule would have made this trade much more risky, as the Silla-Yamato relationship was often a rocky one.  Yamato attempted to move Nimna out from under Silla control, both through an alliance with Baekje, in concert with some of the other polities, as well as through attempts to take the country by force—most of which excursions were called off for one reason or another. At the same time, Baekje had been in decline, generally speaking.  They moved their capital farther south after being defeated by Goguryeo.  They were rebuilding, and still a powerful force, but not quite at the height of their power. Farther on the mainland, between the Yellow and Yangzi rivers, the period of the Northern and Southern Courts was coming to a close, and the Sui dynasty would eventually rule much of the Middle Kingdom, what is today modern China.  They would bring a stability to the region and embark on public works projects that would forever change the face of East Asia. As all of this was happening, influences were coming from the west.  We mentioned the Sassanian glass bowl and similar wares that made their way from the Middle East all the way to Japan—though whether as part of a sovereign's burial or not might still be up for debate.  Nonetheless, we know that the overland trade routes were booming, even if the occasional instability might disrupt them now and again.  The whole of Asia was more connected than we often give it credit for. Along this road came not only material goods, but new ideas.  Greek culture had reached at least as far as Gandhara, modern Pakistan and Afghanistan, and from east of the Indus came a new religion:  Buddhism.  It spread along the silk road, eventually finding a home in China, where it flourished, and continued to spread to the Korean peninsula and then, in the 6th century, to the archipelago of Japan. Buddhism came hand in hand with other mainland texts, exploring a variety of science and philosophy.  We discussed how the mainstream story of the introduction of Buddhism is likely not entirely correct.  That story sets up a conflict between the foreign religion of Buddhism and the worship of local kami—the practices that would become Shinto.  So, resistance to Buddhism is initially depicted as a resistance to foreign influence and the need to continue to support indigenous belief.  The reality, however, is much more complex. First is the role of kami worship in the expansion and exercise of State power.  The archaeological record demonstrates some expansion of Yamato ritual in the spread of various kofun styles —especially the royal keyhole shaped kofun, which were clearly adopted by others, demonstrating Yamato's influence.  More subtly, we see the spread of Yamato ritualists to various parts of the archipelago, and eventually the spread of various beliefs—though it may be somewhat difficult to say just when belief in any particular kami started at this period.  Remember, though, the way that powerful physical icons of the kami, such as mirrors and swords, had been taken by the Yamato sovereign and held by the court.  We touched on this back in Episode 20, where we discussed on Yamato took on “guardianship” for various relics, almost like they were taking sacred hostages.  Worship of the kami was intertwined with statecraft, and spiritual power and political power were both a part of the mix along with actual military power.  If you could perform a ritual that people felt was effectual, that was seen as on par with actual governance.  We also see this in the way that various families identified with different kami, such as the Mononobe and their link to the deity of Isonokami shrine, and the Royal family with the deity of Mt. Miwa.  Worship, however, was already starting to take on a continental tinge, as we see in stories about various deities, and the practice of worship.  This was no doubt influenced by immigrants from the Korean peninsula, who brought their own stories and beliefs.  Furthermore, whenever nothing else seemed to be working, bringing in new and exotic ritual practices from across the sea was likely seen as New and Shiny.  It was, after all, the latest in spiritual technology, and that foreign-ness and lack of local understanding would have led not only to its also having a somewhat mysterious quality, but also in the power that comes with being the only ones to quote-unquote “understand” the power of it and how to translate it.  If you were a 5th or 6th century ritualist family, if you could get hold of things that seemed to be ancient practices from the continent that nobody else really knew or understood, you were automatically the local subject matter expert. Furthermore, there wasn't necessarily a single, unified concept of how the kami worked, either.  Kami worship was often localized, and then later would spread as others heard about particularly powerful kami and rituals.  But there was no single concept of “Shinto”—there's no evidence that Izumo, Yamato, and Kibi all had the same origin stories, and, in fact, the many different stories that make up the Age of the Gods in the Chronicles speaks to the idea that there were many different stories, depending on who you asked.  In many ways, this is even true today.  While there are general themes that most Shinto shrines and practitioners follow, ritual practices from place to place may vary wildly.  This is less so in places that were part of more unified systems, such as the shrines connected to the royal family or those regulated by State Shinto in the Meiji period through World War II, but even today you can find a variety of differing beliefs and rituals in Shinto, even as most things appear to be the same on the outside.  A shrine's teachings may have local meaning or local rituals that are not practiced elsewhere, though many will fall into a recognizable cultural milieu that tends to make them more standardized.  As a small, but visible example, different shrines may have different omamori—protection amulets—that they offer.  While most offer amulets against sickness, disaster, or for attaining goals, some may have specific amulets for the martial arts, while others may have more specific amulets about love and marriage.  These will often be based on those things which the shrine and its kami are most associated with. In many ways, the Soga clan's acceptance of and use of Buddhism early on emphasizes this kind of spiritual borrowing, but to an extent that went well beyond what anyone else had done.  Most groups or families seem to have borrowed bits and pieces from the continent and then applied them to their local customs, but the Soga appear to have taken on Buddhism wholesale.  The benefit was that Buddhism wasn't just a few new practices—it was an entire corpus of material, with a rich written tradition.  Of course the writing was primarily in Sinic script, which was not exactly accessible to most people.  And early attempts at building temples and holding worship demonstrate a clear lack of understanding of Buddhist rites and rituals – indeed they are described much more like what one might expect to see in kami worship, with an emphasis on Buddhist “feasts”.  This may have been an attempt to make these new practices more accessible, but I believe that it is more likely that these early attempts at Buddhism were trying to treat the Buddha as another kami, through which the Soga family could control access to rites and rituals and thus gain political power through their perceived spiritual power.  It didn't hurt that, when they finally did build some temples, they were in the continental style, even further illustrating the Soga family's connection with all of these new fangled ideas coming over from across the sea. This was likely facilitated by the Soga family's connections to the immigrant community, particularly to various people from Baekje whom they sponsored and who, in turn, would be able to assist them in various ways.  These included people like Shiba Tattou and his family, who were regularly assisting Soga no Iname and Soga no Umako in their endeavors.  This may in part explain why early Buddhist images were coming over from Baekje, Yamato's ally at the time, though that may have been coincidental or even a catalyst—it isn't entirely clear. It is also intriguing to me that I have not seen a clear reference to a Soga family shrine.  Perhaps the Soga themselves were from the continent, originally—that may explain some of the earlier Soga names that appear to reference the peninsula and even Goguryeo.  Then again, it is hard to say—it may be that the Soga family shrine was never of as much import as their eventual attachment to Buddhist institutions. For those in power who could see how the Soga family was using this new religion, it is little wonder that they pushed back against it.  They had no particular reason to see Buddhism as anything particularly special, but they no doubt knew that the Soga would use it as a platform to further enhance their position.  And the powers-that-be succeeded several times, it would seem, in resisting Soga attempts to found a new ritual center. The Soga, however, had already gained considerable power outside of Buddhism.  Much of their rise is not entirely catalogued, but by the time of Soga no Iname, things were looking good.  The Ohotomo family was on the decline, which likely created something of a power vacuum that Soga no Iname was able to exploit.  By the way, there is a thought that early on the position of “Muraji” was actually superior to that of “Omi”, and it may be that the “Oho-omi” position was not quite as prestigious as that of Ohomuraji.  This is obscured by the fact that by the time of the Chronicles, the Oho-omi position clearly eclipsed the position of Ohomuraji, and that is projected back into the distant past by the Chroniclers.  This would speak to the idea that the Soga family was actually ranked behind the Ohotomo and the Mononobe, originally, but their Omi family was on the rise, and eventually their position as Oho-omi, the Great Omi, became the most influential position at court. This may go along with the fact that Soga no Iname is also given the personal kabane of Sukune in the Chronicles, which is described as the highest personal title that could be bestowed on an individual.That also speaks to his personal power and influence at court.  Of course, he is described by these terms from early on, even though he likely received them later in his career, and so it can be difficult to track just when he came to the peak of his effectiveness.  There is also the possibility that some of it is projected back on him because of his offspring, though even then he was still likely someone of consequence to be able to have those familial connections with the royal family in the first place. I suspect that much of Iname's position was likely derived from his access to Baekje and other immigrants and their access to reading, writing, and the new technologies that the court was hungering for.  Iname then parlayed that position into strategic marriages with the royal house.  Several consorts were from the Soga lineage, daughters of Soga no Iname.  Their sons and daughters, while royal princes and princesses, would also be connected to their Soga relatives.  This was a not uncommon ploy, as we've seen it in many other cases as well.  However, then something happened that would disrupt the apple cart.  Remember hwo we talked about how a sovereign was supposed to be be descended from the royal family through both their paternal and maternal lines? Amekunioshi was succeeded by his son Nunakura Futodamashiki, aka Bidatsu Tennou.  His mother had been Ishi Hime, son of Amekunioshi's half-brother, Takewo Hiro Kunioshi Tate, aka Senka Tennou.  But when he died, his son, Hikobito, was not made sovereign.  Instead, the throne passed to his half-brother, Tachibana no Toyohi, aka Youmei Tennou, a son of Amekunioshi and a daughter of Soga no Iname—so royal blood on only half of the family's side.  Following him, we see a bloody fight for the throne, largely personified by the military forces of the Mononobe v. those of the Soga.  Remember, the Mononobe had started as the Be of the warriors.  They were expected to be the armies of the court, at least in Yamato and the archipelago.  In previous reigns they had been the ones to mete out punishment and to be given charge of places like the Yamato government's outpost in Kyushu, from which point armies would be launched against the continent.    They did not, however, have a monopoly on military power.  Many families participated in raids against the peninsula, so we can assume that there were many who had their own, private forces.  While the Mononobe may have been the court's warriors, they had also branched out into other areas of administration, as well as maintaining the ritual site of Isonokami. The Soga versus Mononobe fight also saw various royal princes pitted against each other, and many would-be sovereigns were killed.  Prince Hikohito, whom one might think as the eldest son of Nunakura was the heir presumptive, was killed, and the Mononobe ended up supporting Prince Anahobe against the Soga's candidate, Prince Hasebe.  However, both of these candidates were descended from daughters of Soga no Iname—nobody was putting up a candidate that truly had royal blood on both sides. In the end, the Soga were victorious, and they destroyed the Mononobe—though not entirely.  The Mononobe were certainly out of power, but they would continue to exist in a more minor role.  The Soga candidate, Hasebe, was then placed on the throne as Sushun Tenno, while Soga no Umako enjoyed unparalleled power as Oho-omi.  However, despite his Soga lineage, and the fact that Soga no Umako had helped put him on the throne, Hasebe was not necessarily going to let himself be controlled.  And so Soga no Umako resorted, we are told, to assassination, to clear the throne for someone else.  And that someone else was none other than Toyomike Kashikiya Hime, aka Suiko Tennou.  She is something of an enigma.  She is the first woman to be granted the title of “Tennou” by the Chroniclers, and several accounts make her seem like she was a shrewd operator.  She had been the second wife of her half-brother, Nunakura Futodamashiki, and she'd been in or near the halls of power since his reign.  And yet some believe her to be little more than a puppet for Soga no Umako, while others believe she was a consensus candidate who was largely inoffensive to the majority of the court.  This is further complicated by the fact that she didn't even name her own offspring as Crown Prince, designated to succeed her.  Rather, that position went to none other than her nephew, the Prince of the Upper Palace, Kamitsumiya, aka the Prince of the Stable Door, Umayado, more popularly known today as Prince Shotoku Taishi. Shotoku Taishi is a mytho-historical figure by all accounts.  While many believe that an actual prince existed, he is given credit for almost anything good that happened.  Although the Soga family was clearly responsible for bringing in Buddhism, it is Shotoku Taishi who is credited with spreading the holy religion.  He is also said to have written the first constitution for the state, and set up a court rank system similar to the continent, though still unique to Yamato.  He is said to have ruled jointly with his aunt, and is treated in later stories as a dharma king, even though he never took on the actual mantle of sovereign.  Of course, Soga no Umako also exerted a huge influence, and in the end it is hard to say exactly who held the real power amongst the three:  Kashikiya Hime, Prince Umayado, or Soga no Umako. Umayado was the first to pass away, however—which may have also contributed to his holy status as any problems could be passed off as belonging to his aunt or, even better, to his grand-uncle, Soga no Umako, who would follow Umayado in death a few years later, and then, finally, Kashikiya Hime herself would succumb to time.  They all passed away within a decade of each other, but Kashikiya Hime would manage to outlast them all. Through this reign, for all of the fighting and politics, many of the foundations were laid for a reimagining of the Yamato state, the sovereign, and the vehicles of power.  The court had spread their control through ritual, through the familial system, and through the establishment of Miyake—government outposts designed to control rice land and send tribute back in the form of tax.  However, now they were formalizing that structure and in so doing they were putting a legal framework around it.  Built around a continental model, the throne became the source of rank for the individual, not just the family, and that rank could be given out across the archipelago.  This set up some of what was needed to start to move towards a more bureaucratic state in the continental model. Certainly, we see that Yamato power had expanded.  Further out from Yamato, we see the round, keyhole shaped tombs becoming popular, while closer to the Nara basin, they actually began to die out.  In part this can be seen as a possible sign of Yamato control, since the local elites were no longer being represented as rulers, but in a lesser capacity.  However, it then takes a real turn as even the sovereigns—or at least the Soga descended sovereigns—are no longer buried in keyhole shaped tombs, either, and these tombs become smaller.  This may be, at least in part, because resources to build tombs were being redirected into the new temple building craze.  For whatever reason, Buddhism had caught on, at least amongst the elites.  If the Soga family had hoped to control Buddhism, they appear to have failed.  Numerous temples started up, tied to different families, most of them connected, in some way, with various immigrant groups in the archipelago.  Where this would go, we'll have to see. And that largely catches us up.  I skipped over a few things, but it is worth recalling the Haruna eruptions that we covered back in episode 87, which reminds us that the Chronicles really only give us a narrow view of everything that was going on.  Much of the history of the archipelago remains unrecorded, and is only understood through the archaeological record.  While a lot was happening in Yamato, there was plenty going on elsewhere, but we only see it when it touches on Yamato and their politics. And so we learn a little more about the creation of the Dazaifu, and we hear about natural disasters, such as earthquakes and floods, but only if they affect the Nara basin.  There are some hints in the fudoki, the local gazetteers that were compiled in the 8th century to catalog the local stories and histories, but we only have so much, and even then the stories aren't always easy to place in a truly chronological context.  Still, we can see some general themes running throughout this period. As we start into 2024, we'll finish up with the reign of Kashikiya Hime.   Before her reign ends, we'll also see the rise of the Tang dynasty on the continent—a new inspiration for Yamato, but also a new threat, especially as they ally with Silla.  Also, with Prince Umayado gone, who will next take the reins of power?  And what will happen with the Soga family?  Will Umako's children prove as formidable as he was?  There is plenty more to look forward to. Until then, Happy New Year!  As usual, thank you for listening and for all of your support.  Thanks also to my lovely wife, Ellen, for her continued work at helping to edit these episodes! Remember, if you like what we are doing, please tell your friends and feel free to rate us wherever you listen to podcasts.  If you feel the need to do more, and want to help us keep this going, we have information about how you can donate on Patreon or through our KoFi site, ko-fi.com/sengokudaimyo, or find the links over at our main website, SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on topics from this episode. Also, feel free to Tweet at us at @SengokuPodcast, or reach out to our Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page.  You can also email us at the.sengoku.daimyo@gmail.com.  And that's all for now.  Thank you again, and I'll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.  

Adrian Gomez is the man behind China's Middle Kingdom Wrestling, and MA is his current champion! Adrian explains how he originally came to China by way of Phoenix, Arizona, what inspired him to start a wrestling promotion in China, and how he first met a young wrestler named MA. MA shares his pro wrestling journey from his first introduction to wrestling through a childhood friend at school to training with The Slam to becoming MKW World Champion! Adrian details how wrestling legend Ho Ho Lun helped him get MKW started, the impact that China's Zero COVID policy had on MKW, and his upcoming plans for MKW's Bash At The Bay 3 in January 2024! Adrian also talks about MKW's marketing efforts and growth, and small role it's played in diplomatic relations between nations. Thank you for supporting our sponsors!Brunt Workwear: Go to https://BruntWorkwear.com/TIJ and use code TIJ to get $10 off your first order plus free shipping and returns.Better Help: TIJ is sponsored by Better Help. Visit https://BetterHelp.com/JERICHO to get 10% off your first month.1stPhorm: 1stphorm.com/JERICHO & get free shipping on orders over $75Factor Meals: Go to https://FactorMeals.com/TIJ50 and use promo code TIJ50 to get 50% off.Progressive: Quote today at https://progressive.com STAY CONNECTED:TikTok: @ChrisJerichoInstagram: @talkisjericho @chrisjerichofozzy Twitter: @TalkIsJericho @IAmJerichoYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ChrisJerichoFozzyWebsite: https://www.webisjericho.com/

This is Garrison Hardie with your CrossPolitic Daily News Brief for Thursday, October 26th, 2023. Alps Precious Metals: IN GENESIS CHAPTER 2, VERSES 10 THROUGH 12, GOD TELLS OF THE GOLD IN THE LAND OF HAVILAH, AND THAT THE GOLD OF THAT LAND IS GOOD. EVER SINCE THE DAWN OF OUR FATHER’S WORLD, GOLD HAS BEEN UNIVERSALLY RECOGNIZED AS TRUE MONEY AND, THEREFORE, THE MOST RELIABLE STORE OF SAVINGS. CROSS POLITIC’S CORPORATE PARTNER, ALPS PRECIOUS METALS, ENABLES THEIR CLIENTS TO PROTECT THEIR GOD-GIVEN, HARD-EARNED WEALTH FROM THE SERIOUS FINANCIAL PROBLEMS THAT ARE UPON US. ALPS PROVIDES THE CROSSPOLITIC FAMILY WITH THE BEST STRATEGIES AND SOLUTIONS FOR INVESTING IN PHYSICAL PRECIOUS METALS. AS A RESULT, YOU CAN ENJOY A PEACE OF MIND THAT CAN BE HAD WITH FEW OTHER INVESTMENTS. CALL JAMES HUNTER OF ALPS AT 251-377-2197, AND VISIT OUR WEBSITE AT WWW.ALPSPMG.COM https://www.foxnews.com/live-news/speaker-of-the-house-race-october-25 Johnson secures speaker's gavel as Republicans rally behind nominee Rep. Mike Johnson was elected by the House to become the next speaker as Republicans rallied behind their fourth nominee to replace former Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Johnson could afford only a handful of defections from his fellow Republicans in the chamber-wide vote, but unlike prior candidates, there were no defections to his candidacy from his party. He won 220 votes, needing around 217 to become speaker. Democrats meanwhile continued to vote for Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. He picked up 209 votes from his fellow Democrats. Johnson scored his party's nomination late Tuesday, with several members absent and three voting present. In just the hours from Tuesday, though, Johnson has shored up support from the three Republicans who voted present in Tuesday's late nomination vote. Johnson also got support from President Trump, who gave his support for the GOP nominee, urging Republicans to "get it done, fast" ahead of a potential House speaker vote. DNC says House GOP will 'have to answer' for electing 'MAGA' Mike Johnson as speaker The Democratic National Committee (DNC) took aim at newly-elected House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., Wednesday just before he won a House-wide vote to replace former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., saying Republicans would "have to answer" to voters in 2024 for supporting him. “Many Americans are waking up this morning wondering — who is Mike Johnson? We’re here to help: MAGA Republicans’ new speaker-designate supports extreme nationwide abortion bans," DNC National Press Secretary Sarafina Chitika said in a statement. "He led the charge for Donald Trump denying President Biden’s legitimate election win and tried to overthrow the votes of 81 million Americans. He’s a leading proponent of slashing Social Security and Medicare," she said. Chitika called Johnson a "carbon-copy" of "MAGA extremism," and predicted House Republicans would have to answer for supporting him when voters head to the polls in 2024. "Make no mistake: The American people will hold them accountable for this choice," she added. Republicans celebrate newly minted House Speaker Mike Johnson's gavel ascension Republicans celebrated the election of House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., after he ascended to the gavel on Wednesday. Johnson was elected speaker via a vote of 220-209, taking over the gavel from Speaker pro-tempore Patrick McHenry, R-N.C. Republicans were ecstatic about the election of Johnson, with House Majority Whip Tom Emmer — who secured the GOP's speaker nomination on Tuesday before bowing out — writing his congratulations to the new speaker. "Congratulations to my friend and colleague, [Johnson], on being elected Speaker of the House!" Emmer posted. "His strong convictions and commitment to conservatism will serve this body and the American people well," Emmer added. Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., who also ran for House speaker, wrote "servant leadership," with a picture of the new speaker's nameplate "God bless America," Donalds wrote. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/new-report-unmasks-true-costs-electric-vehicle-mandates-remain-expensive New report unmasks true costs of electric vehicle mandates: 'Remain more expensive' A sweeping first-of-its-kind analysis published by think tank Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) concludes that electric vehicles (EV) would cost tens of thousands of dollars more if not for generous taxpayer-funded incentives. According to the TPPF report — authored by energy experts Jason Isaac and Brent Bennett — the average model year 2021 EV would cost approximately $48,698 more to own over a 10-year period without the staggering $22 billion in taxpayer-funded handouts that the government provides to electric car manufacturers and owners. The analysis factors in federal fuel efficiency programs, electric grid strain, and direct state and federal subsidies. "It is not an overstatement to say that the federal government is subsidizing EVs to a greater degree than even wind and solar electricity generation and embarking on an unprecedented endeavor to remake the entire American auto industry," the report states. "Despite these massive incentives, EVs are receiving a tepid response from the majority of Americans who cannot shoulder their higher cost." "It’s time for federal and state governments to stop driving the American auto industry off an economic cliff and allow markets to drive further improvements in cost and efficiency," it continues. The report determined that, thanks to a special multiplier that has existed for more than two decades, EVs receive roughly seven times more credits under federal fuel efficiency programs than they provide in actual fuel economy benefits. That figure, the total regulatory credits from federal and state fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions standards, amounts to an average of $27,881 per vehicle for EV makers. Further, the analysis calculated the socialized cost of EV charging stations' strain on the U.S. electric grid amounts to an average of $11,833 per EV over 10 years. Such costs are shouldered by utility ratepayers and taxpayers, many of whom may not own an EV. And, finally, state governments and the federal government provide an average of $8,984 per EV over 10 years in direct taxpayer-funded subsidies. "The stark reality for proponents of EVs and for the dreamers in the federal government, who are using fuel economy regulations to force manufacturers to produce ever more EVs, is that the true cost of an EV is in no way close to a comparable [internal combustion engine vehicle (ICEV)]," the report concludes. "Without increased and sustained government favors, EVs will remain more expensive than ICEVs for many years to come," it states. "Hence why, even with these subsidies, EVs have been challenging for dealers to sell and why basic economic realities indicate that the Biden administration’s dream of achieving 100% EVs by 2040 will never become a reality." The TPPF report, meanwhile, comes as lawmakers at the federal and state level continue to take aim at traditional gas-powered vehicles while boosting EVs. President Biden has set a goal of ensuring 50% of all car sales are zero-emissions by 2030 and his administration has pursued rigorous restrictions on gas-powered vehicles. In December 2022, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized rules, which targeted heavy-duty trucks, that it said at the time were the "strongest-ever national clean air standards to cut smog- and soot-forming emissions" from such vehicles. The new standards went into effect on March 27 and will be implemented for new trucks sold after 2027. Then, in April, the EPA proposed the most aggressive federal tailpipe emissions rules on light- and medium-duty emissions ever crafted. If finalized and implemented, 67% of new sedan, crossover, SUV and light truck purchases, up to 50% of bus and garbage truck purchases, 35% of short-haul freight tractor purchases, and 25% of long-haul freight tractor purchases could be electric by 2032, the White House projected. Months later, in July, the Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued its most aggressive fuel economy standards ever, an action critics say would increase consumer costs. And last year, the EPA also reinstated California’s authority under the Clean Air Act to implement its own emission standards and electric vehicle sales mandates, allowing other states to also adopt California's rules. The state then approved regulations that mandated all car purchases in the state — which leads the country in annual car sales — be electric by 2035. https://redstate.com/wardclark/2023/10/24/chinese-scientists-discover-8-new-viruses-on-tropical-island-what-could-possibly-go-wrong-n2165509 Chinese Scientists Discover 8 New Viruses on Tropical Island - What Could Possibly Go Wrong? Chinese scientists working on tropical Hainan Island off China's southern coast have discovered eight new viruses in that island's rodent population, and have not ruled out the capability of those viruses to species-jump to humans. One of the viruses has been confirmed to have been a coronavirus; the COVID-19 virus was also a coronavirus, as are several of the viruses that can cause the syndrome we call "the common cold," although rhinoviruses are more common in those cases. Researchers tasked with preparing the world for future pandemic took almost 700 samples from rodents living in Hainan, just off China's southern coast. Eight novel viruses — including one belonging to the same family as Covid — were uncovered in the project, funded by the Chinese Government. Experts said the discovered pathogens had a 'high probability' of infecting humans should they ever cross the species barrier. As a result, they called for further experiments on the viruses to determine exactly what their effects on humans could be. Lots of people from lots of governments as well as academic institutions and private-sector organizations do these kinds of surveys, of course. That's how we learn about viruses, or about anything else in the natural world — by going out, taking samples, and examining things. But there's a different wrinkle in this case. The findings were shared in the journal Virologica Sinica, the publishing arm of the Chinese Society for Microbiology (CSM). CSM is linked to the state-affiliated China Association of Science and Technology, which 'accepts administrative supervision' from the Chinese Government's 'Ministry of Civil Affairs'. Virologica Sinica is also edited by Dr Shi Zhengli, an influential scientist described as China's 'bat woman' who works inside the Wuhan Institute of Virology – considered to be the source of the Covid pandemic in some corners. The journal's editorial board also features over a dozen other academics linked to the WIV. The last sentence of that article's conclusion might raise some concerns: The pathogenicity and associated impact of these novel viruses on humans and animals should be evaluated in further studies. This is, yes, the same Wuhan virology lab that set off alarms about their safety practices at the outbreak of the COVID-19 panic. (There, the Wuhan lab isn't alone.) This is also the same Wuhan virology lab where $2 million in U.S. taxpayer funds were used to conduct research, including gain-of-function research. If that doesn't set some alarm bells ringing, it's not at all clear what would. Coming as it does, hot on the heels of the impeccably coiffed Governor Newsom flying to the Middle Kingdom to stump for Chinese electric cars, and at a time when the American public is growing good and tired of the whole COVID scare, the timing of the discovery is interesting as well. Granted, these kinds of expeditions go on all the time, and granted as well that China doesn't have an unlimited pool of virologists out there looking for work.

Last time we spoke about the Qing - Boxer siege of Beijing and the 8 nation alliance expedition led by Seymour. Baron Von Ketteler was murdered by Kansu soldiers, ushering in a real siege of the foreign legation's in Beijing. The situation was dire, communications were cut and soon the railways also. The foreign ministers called for aid and thus came an expedition of 8 nations led by Seymour to the rescue. Seymours expedition started out quite well, but soon the Boxers disrupted the tracks stopping them in…well their tracks. To the dismay of the westerners it turned out the Qing were joining the Boxers in battle against them and Seymour's force had to make a fighting withdrawal back to Tientsin. They fought all the way to a secret arsenal where they dug in, until another relief force rescued them! Now they all marched back to Tientsin as gunfire could be heard.   #63 The Boxer Rebellion part 3: The Siege of Tientsin & Battle of the Taku Forts   Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. When Seymour set out on his expedition a lot of events had unfolded. I mentioned it a few times, but gunfire could be heard by his expeditionary forces coming from Tientsin. When thousands of Boxers began storming the region looking to kill christians and foreigners, many flocked to Tientsin. Tientsin consisted of two adjacent but quite different subdivisions. To the northwest was an ancient high walled chinese city around 1 mile per side. 2 miles southeast along the Hai River were the foreign settlements around half a mile wide. The chinese city held around a million Chinese, the foreign settlements around 700 foreign civilians with their thousands of Chinese servants. The Boxers came at first to the railway station carrying placards and chain letters stating “Those who see this sheet and distribute six copies will deliver a whole family from calamity. If ten sheets are circulated they will save an entire district. If any see this hand-bill and fail to disseminate it they will certainly be beheaded.” Within mere hours of Seymour's expedition departing, reinforcements were landed at Taku to head over to the foreign settlements at Tientsin to defend them. On June 11th, Commander Beatty of the Royal Navy had 150 sailors, marines and 2 Maxim machine guns with him. He would be joined a few days later by 1600 Russians who rushed to the scene from Port Arthur, before their railway lines were cut by Boxers. Alongside the other nations forces, Tientsin had roughly 2400 troops to defend the foreign settlements, facing a force of 30,000 Boxers and 15,000 Qing soldiers camped nearby.  On June 15th the Boxers began burned down all the missions outside the Chinese city like the Notre Dame Des Victories. They stormed the streets attacking Chinese christians, massacring as they went. They destroyed all christian and foreign goods or property they could find. The foreigners in the settlement watched this unfold in horror from a distance, then at 2am on the 16th they were attacked. Beatty recalled seeing Boxers “came in great strength, setting fire to all the Houses and outlying Villages they could. . . . They came on quite heedless of the Volleys we opened on them, never replying because the poor beggars had no arms to reply with, and coming up to within 300 and 400 yards armed with swords, spears, and torches. So there we squatted, knocking them over as they came along.” Chaos ensued in Tientsin, as the Admirals on their warships off the Taku Fort bar became more and more anxious.  The western navies had received no word since June 10th, Tientsin was clearly under attack and Seymours expedition force was gone. Seymours last message to them came on the 14th and all evidence suggested the Boxers and Qing would block the way between them and Tientsin. The Qing naval forces were seen priming torpedo tubes on their warships and laying mines in the rivers mouth. The entire situation looked like a trap. If the Peiho river was closed, the naval squadrons would be unable to rush up it to rescue the civilians of Tientsin and Beijing. On the 16th the Admirals met aboard the Russian flagship. They all formed a multinational ultimatum that was issued to the Qing, the Taku forts had to be surrendered by 2am the next day or they would attack. A russian officer was sent to deliver the message to the Taku Fort commander who responded “I would be glad to surrender the Forts, but I am here to obey orders”. The French consul general in Tientsin then took it upon himself to telephone the local viceroy and advised him to surrender the Taku Forts or face the consequences. The Admirals knew their actions were tantamount to declaring war on China and that taking the Taku Forts would not be easy. The Taku Forts were 4 forts with pairs of 2 on each side of the river mouth. They had been recently rebuilt and reinforced by German engineers. The walls were made of mud mixed with chopped straw, which might sound silly, but this made them impervious to shell fire. Their garrison was around 3000 men, equipped with quick firing Krupp guns and other heavy pieces. Approaching from the sea was the most hazardous and would see men fighting through oozing mud flats surrounded by sharpened stakes. The Qing Navy held 4 new German built destroyers equipped with rapid fire guns patrolling near the forts. To attack them by land was also not favorable it would see men clamoring over small canals, irrigation works and behind the forts were the Boxer infested towns of Tongku and Taku. Another issue was the Taku mud bar, it only allowed shallow water vessels to pass, the allied navies only had 9 ships that could pass; 3 British ships the HMS Algerine, Fame and Whiting; the German Iltis; Russian Gilyak, Bobr and Koreytz; French Lion and Japanese Atago. 900 men consisting of 380 British, 300 Japanese, and the rest Russian, Austrian and Italian were loaded aboard the 9 ships as the allies, we shall call them that from now on for simplicity by the way, awaited the deadline on June 16th for the Qing to respond. All the warships arranged their broadsides aimed at the Taku forts with a bombardment order to commence at 2am if the Qing did not respond. However the Qing did respond, by opening fire at 12:50, as a eye witness recalled ““A shell shrieked over the Algerine in unpleasant proximity to her topmasts”. To this 7 of the 9 allied ships opened fire. The Russian gunboat Gilyak made the poor decision of turning her searchlight, turning her immediately into the most prominent target, she was nearly sunk by shell fire. The HMS Fame and Whiting pulled in close trying to capture the Qing destroyers and within the mayhem the two ships managed to slip upstream abreast of the 4 Qing destroyers. At Lt Keyes aboard the Fame recalled “The shells were literally shrieking around us; several fell just short and splashed muddy water right over us; several pitched just over; we really had a charmed existence.” The British destroyers cast out whaler ships holding dozens of men to board the Qing destroyers. The British sailors and marines boarded the Qing destroyers with ease, capturing all 4 without firing a shot and receiving no casualties. Lt Keyes gave explicit orders to hit men not to fire upon the Qing who were in the process of escaping up the riverbank. Meanwhile the Russian gunboat Korietz was severely damaged by the opening salvo; the Monocacy despite being at quite a distance holding many women and children aboard took a far flung shell to her bow, luckily not hurting anyone. The Qing fort guns were very accurate managing hits on the HMS Whiting, SMS Iltis, French Lion and Giliak was forced to ground  herself lest she be sunk. Giliak had 18 deaths and 65 wounded. Meanwhile at 3am landing parties began their advance upon the forts, struggling through thick mud. The first fort was on the north bank and the landing forces came at it with bayonets pointed. British and Japanese troops were the first to scale its walls and they were even racing another. British officer Cradock recalled “I was frantic at the idea of the Japanese getting in first; they were very keen and in better condition than anyone else.” The union jack was soon hoisted followed by the rising red sun, the defenders of the Fort made a symbolic defense, but fled quickly.  As the men cheered, suddenly two Qing soldiers burst out of a gateway 20 yards away with bayonets fixed firing their rifles as they marched forward from the hip. A Lt emptied his revolver at them and pulling out his sword to defend himself. The allied troops raced towards the second fort on the northern bank as allied shells struck its walls. The air was filled with dust and smoke as the Qing soldiers fired their guns until the last minute upon which they fled. There was to be barely a need to seize the southern forts. The Qing commander was seen galloping away on a white horse and as the Shanghai Mercury put it “The forts were a mass of ruins, rivers of blood, with headless and armless bodies everywhere, which the blue-jackets were gathering together and cremating in heaps.”  The allied troops in the northern forts turned their guns on the southern forts. One shot hit a powder magazine exploding a part of the southern fort walls, creating a large fire. Through the smoke and dust the Qing defenders could be seen abandoned the forts. By 6:30am the battle of the Taku fort was done. By 8am many of the allied troops were coming back aboard their ships, the allies had suffered 172 casualties. Rivers of blood were seen around the forts. The survivors of the carnage aboard ships or the forts ate tinned beef, salmon and ship biscuits reflecting on their good fortune to be alive. With only 9 ships the allies had secured the mouth of the river. All in all it was a brave action helped considerably with some luck. Many questioned its necessity as it undoubtedly would increase the attacks upon the foreign legations in Beijing. Herbert Hoover recalled “it was this act of aggression which marked the downfall of the moderate party in Peking, unmasked the gigantic plot of the powerful party behind the Boxers, and turned the Government over definitely into their hands . . . no more favorable moment could have been chosen by our Admirals to precipitate a general massacre.” At the same time it was happening, MacDonald had been sending assurances to Empress Dowager Cixi that Britain wished to remain on friendly terms with China. Cixi was literally receiving reports of the attack on the Taku Forts as MacDonald's letters came in and when he found out he wrote “this would put the old buddha in a good temper”. Back over in Tientsin's foreign settlement, people could hear the loud gunfire coming from the Taku Forts. At 8am Tientsins foreign community received word the Taku Forts had been taken and now all wondered what would happen next. As recalled by Lou Hoover in Tientsin “All the forenoon at Tientsin there was an ominous silence, nothing doing on either side, each waiting for the other to play the next card, neither knowing the result of the attack at Taku, and yet both sides knowing that now we were committed to a war, if not with China itself, with Northern China and the Manchu Dynasty.” At 3pm Qing artillery began to open fire upon the foreign settlements. Shells were hissing overhead, explosions followed everywhere. An alarm bell began to ring on the Municipal Hall as foreign residents ran through the streets. Rifle fire was cracking against brick walls as civilian dived for cover. It looked like a hopeless situation, 600 foreigner civilians were trapped in a mile long by quarter mile wide area bounded by a river on one side and a flat plain on the other. It was a maze of narrow alleys and single storied Chinese houses, perfect conditions for snipers. The whole was enclosed by a mud wall around 15 feet high and wide enough for 4 people to stand across. As Midshipman C.C Dix recalled “The prospect was hardly brilliant; inside the settlement was a mixed force of 2,400 men, with nine field guns, and a few machine guns; outside were 15,000 Imperial troops, with immense numbers of quick-firing guns. Their ammunition was of the best, and practically unlimited, and they had the dreaded Boxers at their back.”  The most senior officer in Tientsin at the time was Russian Colonel Wogack who took control of the multinational force of Americans, Russians, Australian, Germans, French, Japanese and Italians, the except of course were the British who chose to be led by Captain Bayly of the HMS Aurora. The Russians deployed in a very exposed position trying to defend the railway station on the opposite side of the river from the foreign settlement. They were in close proximity to a Chinese grave site, some houses and ditches, places Qing snipers could hide in. With the Russians were the French who took up a position in front of the French concession at the north end of the settlement near the Taku road. The Americans defended a stretch with the British along the eastern side of the entire settlement; it was a very thin line. The Germans, Austrians, Japanese and Italians deployed along the mud wall near the riverbank. Civilians who were capable were given the task of policing, sentry, engineering and medical duties. Herbert Hoover and his men were the only engineers in Tientsin, Colonel Wogack asked them to get people building barricades. Hoover and the men frantically searched for Chinese laborers to help and any materials that were sturdy enough for barricades. As Hoover recalled “Soon we . . . had a thousand terrified Christian Chinese carrying and piling up walls of sacked grain and sugar along the exposed sides of the town and at cross streets.” Within the first hours of battle it seemed the Qing and Boxers would overrun them. Hoover had this to say “With the smoke of many burning buildings pouring over the settlement, with the civilians erecting barricades across the streets for the final rush, the terrific bombardment, the constant sound of rifle-fire in the distance, and the knowledge,—if not the sight,—of the scores of wounded brought in from the lines—it all seemed bad—very bad. It was really the climax of terror, of the black fear, as it was of the fighting. And this was the ‘black fear,' not that the siege would be successful and we should be compelled to lower our flag and surrender to an honourable enemy,—but that, if every man fought to his utmost strength and was beaten, there were without,—Chinamen, —mobs of Chinamen, at their very worst,—barbarians who knew no quarter.”  The women, children and non combatants huddled in fear within the catacombs beneath Gordon Hall, the most robust stone municipal building available. The Qing assault was first directed at the railway station. Upon seeing this Commander Beatty formed a bridge of boats and took sailors across to reinforce the Russians, but they soon became pinned down. The sailors tried to hide amongst some Russian artillery horse carriages as Chinese artillery and snipers fired hell upon the area. The allied forces had to allow the Chinese to approach closer, because their artillery and snipers were wielding an enormous advantage, no one could stand up right unless they wanted shrapnel or sniper bullets to hit them. Those who did advance were armed Boxers who were driven off by volley fire from the defenders. The defenders could not know this, but the Boxers and Qing despite appearances were not really coordinating together. The Qing troopers were awaiting orders from Beijing whether they were to support the Boxers or the protect the foreigners! It was only a result of the attack upon the Taku forts that finally led the Qing government to officially take the side of the Boxers and orders began to trickle over to support them. Despite the official orders, there were many moderates counter ordering and commanders out in the field who did not support the Boxers and were only putting up symbolic efforts at battle. General Nie Shicheng led the forces in the field overall and he had his artillery fire constantly, it is reported nearly 60,000 shells would be fired upon the foreign settlements. These shells however, much akin to what occurred during the first sino-japanese war, were not all exploding upon impact. Corruption was still rampant and the shells were quite lackluster in their results. The Boxers who did advance were quickly met with volleys at close range, and Beatty noted this of the Russians s “they worked their guns like men, scorning to build up protection with the bales of goods that were there and which we utilized for our riflemen.” Beatty was less impressed with the Germans who continuously sent messages stating they were under heavy attack and required reinforcements, lest they be forced to abandon their positions. According to Beatty the Germans were crying wolf and he made it clear they would receive no reinforcements from the British. Sailors and marines pushed through against Qing and Boxer infiltrators tossing them out. The allied forces formed a closed ring around the civilians as Hoover described it “It was in the center that the melodrama and comedy were played—the rim was nearly all tragedy.” Sniper fire was coming from within the settlements prompting wild hunts. Chinese Christians within the settlement numbered 3-4 thousand were prime targets for Boxer attacks. Hoovers wife Lou Hoover volunteered at the hospital using a bicycle to move between alley's and had a sniper bullet hit her tire once. The hospital saw around 200 wounded brought in a day, people requiring bandages, bedding, dressings, disinfectants all of which were in short supply. Tientsin was under siege. Herbert Hoover bicycle around the defensive perimeter braving the streets to see his barricades were working. The situation was incredibly stressful for the civilians, cooped up together while artillery and gunfire raged outside their buildings. According to Herbert Hoover many friendships ended because of the stress and he recalled ““No one will again dare to organize a dinner party in Tientsin without consulting an inmate of Gordon Hall, for how could Mrs. E. ever sit at meat again with Mrs F., who slapped Mrs. E.'s Peking pug?” So…someone slapped a pug? War never changes. By the 22nd of June things were becoming critical. Commander Beatty had been shot and was losing a ton of blood after the attempted seizing and enemies gun in a narrow escape when a shell burst near him. The men fighting in the barricades were mutilated by shellfire and gunshot. Contact with Taku had been lost on the 17th, casualties were piling up and the settlement was completely surrounded, there was no escape. The only reason the settlement had not already been overrun was because the Qing and Boxers were not working in concerted efforts to simultaneously hit all fronts. The Russians sent word that if the fighting continued the way it had been for the past 4 days, their ammunition would run out and they advised preparing a night time escape. Their recommendation was for the women, children, wounded and sick to be escorted by the Germans, Austrians, French, Japanese and Italians while the Russians and British would perform a rearguard. Upon hearing this, the very injured Beatty remarked “it was the maddest, wildest, damndest, rottenest scheme that could emanate from the brain of any man. Doing this would mean abandoning Seymour to certain destruction”. Beatty made it known to the Russians the British would not comply. Unbeknownst to them all, help was on its way and quite close by. On June 19th, my birthday random factoid, a young British volunteer, James Watts set out with 3 Cossacks in an attempt to make contact with Taku. They men rode through hostile villages as Boxers tried to attack them. Watt carried a message from Captain Bayly stating “Hard pressed, heavy fighting; losses, 150 killed and wounded; Chinese Imperial Artillery shelling the Settlement; women and children all in cellars; fires all over the Settlement; every one worn out with incessant fighting.” A rescue force of Russian infantry and American marines had already been dispatched but they were pinned down near the outskirts of Tientsin. According to one American Gunnery Sergeant “We fell into a trap . . . we laid on our faces with the bullets coming like hail not knowing what to do . . . we fell and got up, staggered, crawled—but got out. I never saw such a tired party in my life and yours truly was on the hog!” The force was 131 US marines and 400 Russians who got ambushed 2 miles from the city. The Americans suffered 3 deaths, 13 wounded before they withdrew back to Taku. Bayly's message made it clear a more substantial force was required.  Taku and her forts were left with just 1000 men as a garrison as the allies prepared an expeditionary force. Luck was theirs again, as two new warships arrived, the HMS Terrible from Hong Kong carrying 300 Royal Welch Fusiliers and a Russian troopship from Port Arthur carrying hundreds of Russian troops. On June 23rd a multinational force 2000 men strong set out which also held the British 1st Chinese regiment from Weihaiwei, so even some Chinese troops were in their ranks. They rushed up to Tientsin reaching it the same day and upon seeing them the Qing and Boxers dispersed into the east. Lou Hoover described the scene of their arrival to Tientsin as such “A good many hundred civilians and a couple of thousand troops sat still and repelled faint hearted charges while 10,000 or 15,000 Chinese troops and 20,000 Boxers plunked shells of all sizes into us for exactly one week without a sound or a word from the outside reaching us. Then the first relief cut their way into us . . . enough to get in but not to do anything more than we could when they got there.”  With the Chinese siege lifted momentarily, the lines of communication and supplies from Taku to Tientsin were quickly restored. However Tientsin's battle was nowhere close to be over as the Qing and Boxers would quickly remount their siege.  Back over in Beijing the foreign legations work up to their first day of siege on the 21st. The first hours of the siege brought panic, the Austrians from the offset abandoned their isolated legation to fall back upon the French barricades leaving the northeast sector in enemy hands. The next day, Professor Huberty James who had been working with missionaries at the Fu Palace calmly walked up to the north bridge going over the canal. He gave the appearance of someone trying to parley, but Qing troops on the other side shot him dead upon the bridge. They all awaited Seymours rescue party, but it was not to be seen. A letter from Captain McCalla, Seymour's second in command dated June 14th managed to pass through to the American legation. The letter had been written 35 miles from Beijing and whose contents were nothing more than small chat, indicating nothing about when they would arrive. On June 22nd, by 9am the Italians, Austrian, French, German, Japanese, Russian and American detachments suddenly abandoned their positions and frantically ran to the British legation. Three-quarters of the legation quarters defenses were left undefended, including the Fu Palace, which held nearly the entire Chinese christian population that had fled into the legation quarters. Everyone was in a tremendous panic, it turned out a single man had caused it. Captain von Thomann of the Austrian cruiser Zenta whom from the offset of hostilities had been trying to take command of the defenses for the legations went into a panic when he reportedly was told the American legation had to be abandoned by a random American marine. Von Thomann lost his wits at the news and without verifying it to be true began screaming to everyone that all forces east of Canal street had to retreat immediately to the British legation. So yeah, everyone blindly began running. Once everyone figured out what had happened all the troops were ordered to retake their positions, but in the mayhem the Italian legations was already being burnt down. Boxers and Qing forces occupied the allied barricade in the Customs street, but had failed to press their advantage further. Von Thomann was relieved of command and now it was MacDonald in command. MacDonald was an ex-soldier, but held little experience in the guerilla style warfare they faced. MacDonald also had no official control over any non British forces. MacDonald would write orders and give it to the respective ministers who would arrange them to be carried out. It was a terrible system, but it was all they had it seemed. One of MacDonalds first orders was to dispatch the Italian guards who had no legation to guard to help the Japanese with the Fu Palace defenses. If the Fu Palace were to fall, the French, German and Japanese legations would be cut off from the British legation which was the last stronghold. MacDonald took a stock of the legations defenses: over 400 men, 20 officers and 389 men of 8 differing nations. They were supplemented by two bands of armed volunteers. The first were 75 men with some military experience, such as Nigel Oliphant of the Chinese imperial Bank who had served with the Scots Greys, Captain Poole of the East Yorkshire Regiment and Captain Labrousse of the Infanterie de Marine. The second group were more amateurish, titled the carving knife brigade because of their variety of weapons going from elephant rifles to fusil de chasse. Professionals and amateurs alike were all short of ammunition and each nationality used differing weapons with differing types of ammunition making it a nightmare logistically. The legation had only one piece of real artillery, the Italian one pounder and that too held little ammunition.  Their lines of defense had shrunk alarmingly after just the second day, they only had 7 legations to defend. The outliers such as the Belgian and Dutch legations had been abandoned at the beginning, the Austrians shortly after and the Italians lost theirs during the Von Thomann confusion. The area they defended was now 700 yards east to west from the Russian and American legations and 750 yards north to south from the Fu Palace and British legation to the north and the Tartar Wall in the south. Sandwiched between these were the Japanese, Spanish and German legations alongside some other buildings. All the legations, excluding the British one, were on Legation street. The Germans and Americans were on the south side of the street overshadowed by the massive Tartar wall. MacDonald knew the Tartar wall had to be held at all cost, if it was taken anyone from its top could lob incendiaries down, spelling doom. The British legation grounds quickly became the place everyone congregated searching for further information, everyone was starved to know what was going on outside. Meanwhile the Chinese Christians were doing their part helping with labor an invaluable aspect to the defenders plight. There was also the issue of having to watch over them, lest the enemy infiltrate using them as cover. The foreigners and Chinese likewise were introduced to the hazard of fire which constantly was an issue. Boxers would toss torches and firecrackers at all hours trying to burn the legations out. It was all to easy for the Boxers to dip rags in kerosene attach it to the end of a long bamboo pole and lit it ablaze. On the 22nd, many buildings in the western sector were lit of fire and it took the defenders a long time to put it out. The first casualty for the British was to be Private Scadding who was shot dead as he stood watch while the fire committee went to work putting out fires. The very next day was the same, the Chinese tried to burn them out again, this time they aimed for the Hanlin Academy just due north of the British legation. Thousands of silk covered books were there, it was a tremendous tragedy to try and burn the place.  On the morning of the 23rd, the enemy was spotted running through the four acre compound tossing torches soaked in petrol around. The foreigners were stunned the Chinese would burn such a place, but burn it they did. The fire teams tried to put the flames out, but the Chinese were firing down upon anyone who would go near the academy. Eventually MacDonald sent some royal marines to go through a hole in the wall getting into the academy where firefighting efforts were organized. Scholars among the foreign community were in despair knowing the academic treasures being burnt. Morrison had this to say  “the combustible books, the most valuable in the Empire, were thrown in a great heap into the pond round the summer house . . . a heap of debris, timber in ashes, sprinkled with torn leaves, marked the site of the great library of the Middle Kingdom . . . what can we think of a nation that sacrifices its most sacred edifice, the pride and glory of its country and learned men for hundreds of years, in order to be revenged upon foreigners? It was a glorious blaze. The desecration was appalling.” By the night time the fire was still burning as soot covered fire fighters struggled.  Other fires were seen that day, the Russo Chinese bank containing 80,000 dollars of cash was burned down, many officials houses alongside it. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. The battle for the Taku Forts was won at a small cost, but the battle for Tientsin and Beijing would rage on for many more days. Time was of the essence if the allies were to reach the foreign legations in Beijing to save their countrymen.