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3 episodes with sakoku
4 episodes with sakoku
2 episodes with sakoku
3 episodes with sakoku
If you would like to give us feedback on how were doing follow us at: https://discord.gg/cd6sNqvnav https://beacons.ai/senornerdpodcast https://www.instagram.com/senornerdpodcast/ @senornerdpod on Twitter. Blue Eye Samurai is an adult animated action television series created and written for Netflix by wife-and-husband team Amber Noizumi[1][2] and Michael Green, with supervising director and series producer Jane Wu. It was co-produced and animated by French studio Blue Spirit [fr]. The first season premiered on November 3, 2023. In December 2023, the series was renewed for a second season which will be released in 2026.[3][4] During Japan's Edo period (17th century), half-white half-Japanese onna-musha (female warrior) Mizu (meaning water) quests for vengeance against four white men, one of whom is her father, who illegally remained in Japan during the closing of its borders by the Tokugawa shogunate.[5] Maya Erskine as Mizu, a female mixed-race blue-eyed bushi. Her experiences of discrimination as a mixed-race Japanese child have left her cold, bitter and vengeful. Forced by her mother to disguise herself as a boy so as not to be found, she chooses to maintain her disguise into adulthood to pursue her path of revenge more freely. George Takei as Seki, Princess Akemi's male tutor. He sympathizes with Akemi's situation and later takes steps to ensure her freedom. Masi Oka as Ringo, an optimistic, handless male cook who idolizes Mizu. Despite Mizu initially not wanting a companion, she later tolerates Ringo. He proves surprisingly helpful and loyal to Mizu. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as Master Eiji, a blind swordsmith who raised Mizu. He was the first person to show Mizu kindness, partially because he cannot see her; as a result, Mizu holds deep respect for him, referring to him as "Swordfather". Brenda Song as Princess Akemi, the pampered but strong-willed daughter of a nouveau riche lord. She is in love with Taigen and resents her father's control over her and seeks a life of independence. Darren Barnet as Taigen, a promising but arrogant male swordsman of humble origins. He is in love with Princess Akemi and harbors a strong resentment towards Mizu, which has lasted since their childhoods, and later seeks revenge after being humiliated in a duel which cuts off his engagement with Akemi. Randall Park as Heiji Shindo, Fowler's nominal jailor and accomplice. Kenneth Branagh as Abijah Fowler, an Irish smuggler who is allied with the Shogun, in secret defiance of Japan's Sakoku closed-door policies. He plans to overthrow the current Shogun and replace him with a leader who will open Japan to outside influence. Stephanie Hsu as Ise, a prostitute. Ming-Na Wen as Madame Kaji, a cunning and savvy madam. Harry Shum Jr. as Takayoshi, the Shogun's second son. Mark Dacascos as Bloodsoaked Chiaki, an assassin and the leader of the Four Fangs gang. Orli Mariko Green as Young Mizu Judah Green as Young Taigen Patrick Gallagher as Lord Daichi, Akemi's father. Ann Harada as Mama, Mizu's unnamed adoptive mother. Although Mizu initially believed she was her biological mother, it's later revealed she was merely her maid who was paid to care for her. Byron Mann as Mikio, a disgraced samurai who was married to Mizu. Dacascos, Gallagher, and series co-creator Amber Noizumi also voice additional minor characters. Other supporting voices are provided by Gedde Watanabe, Eric Bauza, Clyde Kusatsu, Keone Young, Brittany Ishibashi, Holly Chou, Marcus Choi, Matthew Yang King, Jane Wu, West Liang, Alain Uy, Takaaki Hirakawa, Sherry Cola, and Christine Ko.
After the national humiliation and subsequent economic turmoil caused by opening Japan to more foreign trade, the Bakufu desperately tried to regain a position of national authority. This culminated in the Ansei Purge initiated by the chief elder Ii Naosuke. However, the shogunate's tough actions would bring significant unexpected consequences.Support the Show.
Throughout the 1840s, various groups sought to find solutions to repeated violations of sakoku and questioned the ability of the shogunate to practically defend the country if there was an actual invasion. Many came to very different conclusions.Support the Show.
The Sakoku isolation policies were meant to keep the Japanese government insulated from dangerous foreign influence. However, its tendency toward restriction and xenophobia could not be easily balanced with the Bakufu's desire to continue governing the nation.Support the Show.
The forced isolation of the Edo Period was part of a larger strategy by the Bakufu to ensure the removal of any possible rivals. However, Japan greatly benefited from foreign import and foreign learning, in spite of the shogunate's insistence that the nation needed no such outside interference.Support the Show.
The reign of Tokugawa Iemitsu proved to be a stabilizing force in Japanese politics, as he defined the duties of the various office-holders throughout the Bakufu which helped make the Edo Shogunate the longest-lasting samurai government in Japanese history.Support the show
In this episode of the Books on Asia podcast, host Amy Chavez talks with author and translator Frederik L. Schodt, who has written/translated many books on Japan including The Osamu Tezuka Story, Manga, Manga!: The The World of Japanese Comics, The Astro Boy Essays, and My Heart Sutra: The World in 260 Characters (read our review).But the two books we're going to talk about today are his historical non-fiction books Professor Risley and the Imperial Japanese Troupe: How an American Acrobat Introduced Circus to Japan and Japan to the West, and Native American in the Land of the Shogun: Ranald MacDonald and the Opening of Japan. Both books, published by our sponsor Stone Bridge Press, are accounts of American men who pioneered US-Japan relations. Schodt talks about "Professor" Risley, an early acrobat of the mid-nineteenth century who starts his own circus that he takes to Japan. His trademark move involved juggling his two small sons with his feet. See an example of what is now known as the Risley Act in this video we found on Youtube:https://youtu.be/VkFIkXXyDVc?si=zXfmUyeW9QBrwM_oRisley later starts a Japanese circus that he takes touring around the world. The other book we discuss is Schodt's biography of Native American Ranald MacDonald, who makes his way to Japan during the Edo period and ends up not just teaching English but having a hand in negotiations with Commodore Perry and the opening of Japan.About the AuthorFrederik L. Schodt is a writer, translator, and conference interpreter based in the San Francisco Bay area. He has written widely on Japanese history, popular culture, and technology. His writings on manga, and his translations of them, helped trigger the current popularity of Japanese comics in the English-speaking world. He was awarded the Special Category of the Asahi Shimbun's prestigious Osamu Tezuka Culture Award, and in 2009, he was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette, for his work helping to promote Japan's popular culture overseas.You can find him at his Website, on Twitter(X) @fschodt and on Facebook.The Books on Asia Podcast is sponsored by Stone Bridge Press. Check out their books on Japan at the publisher's website. Amy Chavez, podcast host, is author of Amy's Guide to Best Behavior in Japan and The Widow, the Priest, and the Octopus Hunter: Discovering a Lost Way of Life on a Secluded Japanese Island.Subscribe to the Books on Asia podcast.
Dans notre deuxième chapitre de Soleil Rouge, nous plongeons au cœur du Japon du XVIe et XVIIe siècle, une époque où l'arrivée des Occidentaux et du christianisme telle une menace fantôme a provoqué des bouleversements profonds. Explorez les tensions grandissantes et découvrez la révolte chrétienne de Shimabara, un soulèvement extraordinaire qui a ébranlé le Pays du Soleil Levant. Dans la seconde moitié du chapitre, nous abordons la période du Sakoku, où le Japon a choisi de s'isoler du monde extérieur. Découvrez comment cette politique d'isolement a influencé le Japon et a forgé son identité unique, tout en maintenant l'empire fermé aux influences étrangères. Cette rencontre des mondes est un prélude captivant et nécessaire aux événements à venir dans notre histoire de Soleil Rouge. #RévolteDeShimabara #HistoireDuJapon #Sakoku ------------------------------------------------------ Le site d'Odyssia 2.0 pour retrouver tous les podcasts: https://podcast.ausha.co/odyssiapodcast Retrouvez-moi sur les réseaux sociaux : Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/Odyssia2.0 Twitter – https://twitter.com/Odyssiapodcast Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/odyssia2.0/ ------------------------------------------------------
Last time we spoke about the modernization efforts of Big Brother and Little Brother, aka China and Japan. Both nations went about the process of modernization in vastly different ways. Japan began its Meiji restoration, an incredible hyper modernization process done to thwart colonization by western powers. Yet China was hampered by hardline conservatives like Empress Dowager Cixi who sought instead to restore the Qing Dynasty's symbolic grandeur over technological innovations such as railways. China's greatest leaders like Zuo Zongtang, Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang did all they could to usher in some form of modernization. Li Hongzhang emerged as the champion of modernization efforts for China, but he kept butting heads with stubborn conservatives wishing instead to reclaim the Qing's former symbolic glory.. It would not only be the conservatives in China he would have to face, for the Empire of the Rising Sun was growing, and forcing China into the shade. #37 This episode is China & Japan & the Hermit Kingdom 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. In the early 1860's, before Emperor Meiji took to the throne, the Japanese sought to establish diplomatic relations with China. The Japanese regarded China as an enormous nation that could provide markets for their merchants, but more importantly, China could cooperate with Japan in the face of Western challenges. Who better to help thwart off the west, than Big Brother? In October of 1870, the Japanese official Date Munenari went to Tianjin to meet Li Hongzhang to see if they could open formal diplomatic relations. Li Hongzhang believed in the value of establishing relations with Japan and the importance for China to modernize and self-strengthen. Li Hongzhang admired Japan for preventing westerners from invading their nation and limiting the activities of westerners within her borders. The meeting was a cordial one, both sides saw common interest in working together to resist the west. In 1871 on September 13th, Li Hongzhang and Date Munenari signed the Friendship and Trade Treaty, the first diplomatic document between China and Japan in modern history. Li Hongzhang agreed that the two nations would not launch aggression against another and that if either nation were involved in a conflict with an outside power the other would come to their assistance. It sounded a lot like Pan-Asia unity was atleast on its way, but before the treaty could be ratified the Japanese tried to eliminate the clause to provide assistance and added a new clause, that Japan would be given most favored nation, thus giving Japan the same rights that the western nations had forced upon China, yes it was an unequal treaty clause. As you can imagine Li Hongzhang was greatly annoyed by this and delayed the ratification to try and get the Japanese to back down. By May of 1873 the Japanese yielded, accepting the mutual assistance clause and abandoned the most favored nation clause. Leaders of China and Japan than expressed that their nations shared common culture and were a common race “Tongwen, Tongzu - Dobun, Doshu” and thus they shared an interest in working together to respond to the threat of the west. When this treaty was signed, the Iwakura mission had not yet returned to Japan, but Emperor Meiji had assigned Japans foreign minister, Soejima Taneoimi to go to China to learn about her position on the issue of the Ryukyus and Taiwan. Japan had interests in them and knew this would lead to conflict with the Qing. Soejima was an expert on the Chinese classics and skilled at Chinese poetry. Thus when he went over and the Chinese hosts began to make it clear Japan was in a supplicant relationship with China because she held the Chinese emperor, Soejima used his knowledge to wedge Japan into a special position. He came to Tianjin and met with Li Hongzhang. Famously when they met, Li Hongzhang was in traditional clothing, while Soejima was in western attire and Li criticized him for this. Soejima then went to Beijing and waited several days trying to get an audience with high level Qing officials. The Qing were greatly angered by Japanese attempt to get most favored nation status in the treaty. Thus they were really trying to hammer in that Japan was the supplicant to China. Soejima was upset at the condescension with which he was treated. He quoted the Duke of Zhou stating to the Qing “If you treat [foreigners] as barbarians, they will be just that, but if you treat them as true gentlemen, they will indeed become true gentlemen.” Soejima was the first Japanese person in modern times to meet the Qing emperor. Prince Gong greeted him and told Soejima he would not have to kowtow before the emperor. The kowtow issue had actually been resolved because Western diplomats had made too many problems of it, by proxy Japan would not have to either. The Qing made an effort to show respect to Soejima by seeing him before other foreign diplomats and allowed him to bow just 3 times. Soejima was wine and dined by Li Hongzhang in Tianjin later, it was extremely cordial and there was goodwill between the men. Soejima's experience in China had him returning to Japan confident that China would not stop Japan from expanding her trading activities in the Ryukyus and China. Japan then prepared a legation staff to China and established a formal diplomatic office in Beijing with Mori Arinori as the ambassador. Li Hongzhang advocated that Beijing should establish a legation in Japan, arguing that if China had had a legation there they could have prevented Japan from attacking Taiwan in 1874. China's legation staff would arrive in Tokyo in december of 1877, again slow to the mark. Li Hongzhang was cautious about Japanese intentions now and in 1876 met with Mori Arinori. They shared concerns over Russian advances and Li Hongzhang suggested to Mori Arinori that their nations should cooperate on matters in Korea. Japan was focusing efforts to strengthen its northern island against possible Russian threats. They viewed Sakhalin, Manchuria and Korea to be regions of national security concern. While Japan worried about Russia encroaching on Hokkaido from the sea, China worried about Russia encroaching on its northeast region. Although the trans-siberian railway only began construction in 1891 their efforts to settle people across Siberia in preparation for its construction began much earlier. The Qing had not allowed non Manchu people to reside in their homeland of Manchuria since conquering the Ming dynasty centuries before. To strengthen resistance against Russia, in 1878 the Qing changed their immigration policy to allow and even encourage non-Manchu to come to Manchuria. Within a few years many migrants came from various parts of China to settle in Manchuria. Japan likewise was sending settlers to develop Hokkaido, but unlike Japan, the Qing had no real development plans to modernize manchuria. Soon after Hokkaido began being developed the Japanese next move was to gain control over the Ryukyu islands south of Japan's 4 main islands. This would be the first real tension between Japan and China. From 1862 to the mid 1870s Japan had concentrated on defense and thus things revolved around her 4 main islands. After the mid 1870s however, Japan gained in strength and began to expand their defensive perimeter. The Ryukyu, in Chinese “the Liuqui Kingdom” was led by indigenous peoples who oversaw the small islands stretching between Kyushu and Taiwan. The Ryukyu kingdom tried to fight for its independence by showing good will to both China and Japan and this brought Qing and Tokugawa presence. The Ryukyu kingdom maintained Chinese and Japanese emissaries who came regularly, but never at the same time. The Ryukyu kingdom paid tribute to China and traded with her, thus was influenced heavily by her. However culturally the Ryukyu were closer to Japan and Satsuma domain in particular had a large influence on her. From 1871 to 1874, Japan used a shipwreck incident involving some Ryukyu fisherman off the coast of Taiwan to strengthen her rights to govern the Ryukyu islands. In 1871 Ryukyu fisherman in 4 small boats got stuck in a typhoon sinking 1, shipwrecking 2 and 1 remained afloat. The survivors made their way ashore on Taiwan where 44 of them were killed by Taiwanese aboriginals. 12 fisherman survived and escaped aboard their last boat back to the Ryukyus. At this time Taiwan was under the control of Fujian province and the Japanese government demanded China compensate the fisherman. This inherently was also the Japanese government claiming the Ryukyu islands to belong to them. For two years the issue went unresolved and in 1874 Japan launched a punitive expedition led by Saigo Tsugumichi, the brother to the famous last Samurai Saigo Takamori. If you are interested in the story of Saigo by the way over at the Pacific War channel I have an episode dedicated to the Satsuma Rebellion, what inspired the film the Last Samurai, though that movie is sort of a mix between the Boshin War and the Satsuma rebellion, still good movie just not historically accurate. Well the Qing officials explained to the Japanese that the Taiwanese were not technically under Qing control and that the Ryukyu islands were actually under Qing jurisdiction. The Japanese expeditionary forces remained on Taiwan, intentionally to intimidate China. Soejima and the official Okubo Toshimichi went to China to discuss the issue and under pressure the Qing officials agreed to pay compensation to Japan for the Ryukyu sailors, but later stated they were unaware the payment would also provide Japan with support for her claim over the Ryukyu islands. Li Hongzhang was livid over this betrayal and stated that while the Europeans were at least honest in their negotiations, the Japanese were duplicitous. By the mid 1870's the Japanese and Chinese militaries both increased their presence in the Ryukyus. Then in 1879 during the process of abolishing the old feudal domains to replace them with prefectures, Japan officially recognized the Ryukyu islands as the prefecture we know today as Okinawa. Japan followed this up by ordering Okinawa to stop sending tribute to China. Now Li Hongzhang had supported relations with Japan, even with their incursions in Taiwan in 1874 and their swindle of treaty deals, but in 1880 China refused Japan's official proposal concerning the Ryukyus. China however did not follow this up militarily. The problems between China and Japan would only worsen and it would be Korea stuck in the middle. Japan's interests in Korea were both for security and economic. Of all the territories near Japan, Korea was the most significant strategic area. She was in the vortex of Russia, China and Japan. Korea had also been the crux of two military clashes between Japan and China in 661-663 and 1592-1598. Alongside that Korea had been the staging area for the failed Mongol invasions of Japan in 1274-1281. The German military adviser to Japan, Major Jacob Meckle stated that Korea was “a dagger thrust at the heart of Japan” and this had a profound effect on Japanese strategists. Japan was concerned other nations, like Russia, would use Korea as a base from which to attack Japan. Yet if Japan could establish a military presence on the peninsula, well that would prevent this from ever occurring. Historically Japan had dealt with Korea, better called the Joseon dynasty through the Tsushima islands and Pusan island. Both Korea and Japan took up isolationist policies and much like Nagisaki acted as Japan's open port for so long, Korea kept Pusan as its open port. During the Sakoku period, Japan gave the Tsushima domain the responsibility of dealing with Korea. There had always been limited trade between the two nations, but things certainly changed after Japan kicked off its Meiji restoration. Japan had looked to nations like Britain as an example of how to build a strong economy. This led Japanese officials to seek a relationship like Britain had when it came to economic activity. To manufacture products, sell it to its colonies and build up its own economy. Their idea for this was to import soybeans and wheat from Korea and sell Korea industrial products. Initially Japan's only major export was raw silk, so they decided to try exporting silk textiles. In late 1869 a Japanese representative from Tsushima was sent to Pusan to announce Japan was to have a new emperor, standard stuff. What was not standard however was in the letter sent to the Koreans the term for the Japanese emperor used the Ko character rather than Taikun. The Ko character was used to refer to the Qing emperor, implying the Joseon Dynasty's emperor was inferior. By using the Ko character for the Japanese emperor, Japan was trying to establish the same relationship. And so the Korean officials refused to receive the new representative and his mission as a result. The Koreans wanted to remain in the sinocentric world as tributaries to the Qing. This fiasco led to the legendary Seikanron debates, in which Saigo Takamori argued Japan should perform a punitive expedition against Korea, again if you want to hear more about that hilarious tale check out my Satsuma Rebellion episode on the Pacific War channel. Long story short, the Japanese leadership knew they were not yet strong enough to embark on such a venture so they blocked Saigo's motion. Now Japan did not simply give up on the Korean situation, they kept trying to send envoys to force Korea to recognize the equality between Japan and China. In the meantime in 1875, the steam gunboat Un'yo under the command of Inoue Yoshika was dispatched to survey the Korean coastal water. On the morning of September the 20th, Inoue put ashore a party on the island of Ganghwa to request water and provisions and here came a major conflict. Ganghwa had quite recently been the place of two major conflicts, a French expedition against Korea occurred in 1871 and an American expedition the same year. Thus the men manning the fortifications at Ganghwa were trigger happy with fresh memories of what foreign ships could do to them. When the Japanese came ashore, the Korean shore batteries fired upon the Un'yo. The Japanese as you might imagine were really pissed off and they quickly dispatched 32 men, 10 marines, 19 sailors and 3 officers to attack Yeongjong fort. The men landed near the eastern gate of the fortress and immediately white coated Joseon defenders began firing their antiquated matchlocks and some arrows down upon the Japanese. A Japanese sailor was wounded by a matchlock ball and another was hit in the groin by an arrow. The Japanese pressed their attack climbing over a wall to open the gates as their marines rushed into the fort. The Un'yo fired its 6.3 in and 5.5 in deck guns to support the assault. The Koreans tried to flee through their western gate only to run into 6 Japanese sailors who ambushed them. Kawamura Kwanshu, a Japanese officer present had this to say "they clambered down the steep bank on the south-eastern side, and in hopes of escaping to the opposite island … they stripped off their clothes and plunged into the sea. Unfortunately, the tide was high and too deep to wade across. Many of them hesitated and we fired on them without mercy ― 24 Koreans were killed on the rocks and many more drowned trying to swim to safety. Only six or seven were seen making it safely ashore on the distant island.” The commander of the fort, Yi Min-dok managed to escape as the Japanese plundered the fort which Kawamura tells us " We took 36 bronze cannons and a drum nearly 6 feet in diameter. In addition to this there were four drums three feet in diameter. Their trumpets were very like toy trumpets used by children in Japan. Their bows also were very like the Japanese. Their arrows were exactly like those in Japan. The swords were numerous, but they must have been bought in Japan. The guns were all matchlocks. Among the booty was a French book on gunnery translated into Chinese." Many Koreans were captured and they were forced to carry the plunder to the Un'yo as the Rising Sun flag was raised over the fort. The Japanese held the island awaiting a challenge from Korea, but none came. The next day the Un'yo returned to Japan leaving Yeongjong in ruins. The entire ordeal turned into an implicit threat to Korea, if they refused to recognize Japan's claim and open up relations Japan would use its military might. Within Japan, the Korea incidents had gone hand in hand with the Satsuma rebellion of 1877 to push the Japanese public to support military action in Korea. The Meiji leadership were under pressure, but they hoped to avoid conflict by resolving such problems through diplomacy. Li Hongzhang perceived that if Japan were to invade Korea, this might provoke Russia to respond and thus China also wanted to resolve such issues through diplomacy. The Qing dynasty officially held suzerainty over the Joseon Dynasty, thus they held the right to approve Korea's foreign policy decisions but not to interfere with her domestic affairs. For centuries China held this right, but did not exercise it. Then in 1875, Mori Arinori was sent to Beijing seeking Qing support to open trade between Japan and Korea. Mori Arinori met with the Qing office for general management of affairs concerning the various countries, what a mouthful, known as the Zongli Yamen. The Zongli Yamen officials stated while Korea was a Chinese dependency, China still could not interfere with her domestic affairs and thus could not demand she open up trade with Japan. So the next year Mori Arinori met with Li Hongzhang over the issue and both men sought a peaceful agreement. Mori Arinori advocated for Korea to be treated under international law as a sovereign state. Now Ito Hirobumi the rising political leader of Japan during this time believed progress could not be made opening Korea up by working with the Qing. He urged his colleagues that Japan should work with Korea directly instead. Korea at this time was going through some major changes as well. The young Emperor Gojong turned 21 years old in 1873 and replaced his father Yi Ha-eung who was the Heungseon Daewongun, basically a regent ruling the dynasty. His father was a conservative with a very simple foreign policy it went like this according to the American Historian Bruce Cummings “no treaties, no trade, no catholics, no west and no Japan”. Yes the Daewongun liked his isolationist policy and he was not wrong about doing so. By keeping Korea as bottled up as possible he was able to keep the western powers arguably out for quite some time. However the problem with this was while keeping the west out you were also hindering chances at modernization and an industrial revolution. Korea was known as the Hermit Kingdom and while she tried her best to keep the world out, the world eventually would come crashing in. When Gojong came into power in 1873, unlike his father he was much more willing to consider opening up and working with the Japanese. Now alongside Gojong was his wife, the famous Empress Myeongseong, also called Empress Min. She was born to the Yeoheung Min Clan in 1851. They were a noble clan who historically held high positions in the Joseon dynasty. She lost her father at age 7 and was raised by her mother and other Min relatives. When Gojong turned 15, his father sought a wife for him. He wanted someone with no close relatives so she could not harbor much political ambitions, but came from a noble lineage. He rejected many, until he found the orphaned Min who was beautiful and of ordinary level of education. She was married to Gojong and after Daewongun realized the empress had political ambitions. Daewongun had this to say of her “she was a woman of great determination and poise”, despite this he paid little mind to her and things moved on. Empress Min would quickly ruffle feathers so to speak. She showed herself to be very assertive and ambitious. She did not toss lavish parties for the nobles nor participated in the normal extravagant lifestyle, you know wine and dining, tea parties with the princes and princesses all that jazz you see in the Crown. No instead she spent a lot of her time self educating, reading books reserved for men. She studied history, science, politics, the works. By the age of 20 she began trying to play an active role in politics in spite of the Daewongun and other officials trying to stop her. She then bore child prematurely who died 4 days after birth. This prompted the Daewongun to state publicly that she was unable to bear a healthy male child, which became quite a public scandal. Queen Min even suspected her father in law had slipped her ginseng to cause her pregnancy issues. Daewongun proceeded to push his son to conceive a child through a concubine called Yi Gwi-in and she soon gave birth to Prince Wanhwa. Daewongun quickly tossed the title of crown prince upon the child and it looked like the jig was up for Empress Min. However Empress Min secretly began to form a powerful faction against the Daewongun. The faction included high officials, scholars, members of the Min Clan and they made a move to remove the Daewongun from power. Empress Min's adoptive older brother, Min Seung-Ho along with the Joseon court scholar Choe Ik-Hyeon formally impeached the Daewongun arguing that Gojong, then age 22 should rule in his own right. The royal council agreed to this and Daewongun was forced to retire. The second he was out of the picture, Empress Min banished Yi Gwi-in and her child to a village outside the capital and stripped them of royal titles. The child also died on january 12th of 1880. Now Empress Min had control over the Joseon court and quickly appointed trusted family members in high court positions to assert her dominant role as Queen consort. So yeah she was a firebrand of a woman, a very interesting character, I do apologize my knowledge of Korean history is limited, but I do recommend if you are into Korean tv series there are quite a few on her like Empress Myeongseong from 2001. Now just a few months after the Un'yo incident, Japan sent an emissary to Korea to push a treaty. It was the exact same type of situation Japan faced when Commodore Matthew Perry's blackships, gunboat diplomacy. King Gojong signed what became known as the Ganghwa Treaty: this opened up 3 Korean ports to Japan, one at Pusan right away, one Wonsan in 1880 and another at Inchon and 1883. The treaty was an unequal treaty, very much in the same light as the ones forced upon Japan by western nations. The treaty had ended the Joseon dynasties tributary status under the Qing dynasty now she was an independent state. The Chinese were now suspecting Japan sought a presence on the peninsula and Li Hongzhang openly expressed fears that Japan might develop territorial ambitions on the mainland. The Chinese and Japanese continued talks about cooperation against the West, especially Russia, but they were also now quite wary of another. Now Korea was not idle during all of this and her officials sought a way to secure her. King Gojong sent a mission to Japan headed by Kim Hong-jip. Kim Hong-jip was presented a plan by a Chinese diplomat named Huang Zunxian there called “a strategy for Korea”. It warned that if Korea was threatened by an empire like Russia, Korea should maintain friendly relations with Japan, China and seek an alliance with the United States to counterweight Russia. Kim reported this to King Gojong who was impressed with the plan. Then in 1880 following the Chinese advice King Gojong established diplomatic ties with the US. Negotiations began between all the nations in Tianjin and the Treaty of Peace, Amity, Commerce and navigation was signed by Korea and the US. However during the negotiations, issues rose up. The Chinese insisted that Korea was not independent and still a dependency of China. America firmly opposed such a thing, stating the new treaty should build upon the Treaty of Ganghwa which stipulated Korea as an independent state. A compromise was made between China and the US stipulating that Korea held a special status as a tributary state of China. Now as of 1879, China had given Li Hongzhang responsibility for relations with Korea. Li Hongzhang urged Korean officials to adopt China's self-strengthening program to do the same for their nation in response to foreign threats. Korea after all had just opened herself to the world and now would pursue modernization under a doctrine known as tongdo sogi “eastern wars and western machines”. To modernize Korea would incorporate western technology while trying to preserve her culture, it was much alike to the Meiji restoration. In 1881 Korea established the T'ongni kimu amun “office for extraordinary affairs” modeled on the Qing administrative structures. That same year a mission was sent to Japan to see their modernized factories, military, and education system. Korea then hired a Japanese military attache, Lt Horimoto Reizo to help create a modern army for Korea. This led to the Pyolgigun “special skills force”, where around 100 men of Korea's aristocracy were given Japanese military training. 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. Trouble was brewing between the Qing dynasty and the Empire of the Rising Sun. It seemed the Hermit Kingdom of Korea was a continuous source of conflict for the two empires, and perhaps might drag them into a war that would change the balance of power in Asia forever
Last time we spoke the Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace, Tianjing had finally fallen to the forces of Zeng Guofan and his Xiang army. Hong Xiuquan, the self proclaimed brother of Jesus was dead. All the remaining Taiping Kings and Hong's son were hunted down and executed. History's bloodiest civil war was over, claiming the lives of 20-30 million people. Yet this civil war was just one event amongst many simultaneously occurring in the Qing dynasty. Foreign encroachment and internal strife were breaking down the dynasty brick by brick. China was facing an uncomfortable situation, she had to modernize to survive against threats abroad and within. Another nation, just across the sea, faced the same cataclysm, but would undergo a vastly different approach. Henceforth the two nations, China Big Brother and Japan, little brother, would never be the same again. #36 This episode is China & Japan: Big Brother & Little Brother 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. Now I want to say this right off the bat, for those of you who are fans of my Youtube channel and have seen my content, you already know my background from the beginning was more so the history of Japan. It was in fact my love of Japanese history that led me to the history of China and I think that says something about these two nations. You simply cannot speak about one's history without the other. I could delve deeply into the opening of Japan, its turbulent Bakumatsu period, my personal favorite, the Boshin war, the Meiji restoration, the Satsuma rebellion, etc etc. But this podcast is about the Fall and Rise of China. While my personal channel deals with both nations trying to give an equal amount of narrative to explain both their developments, I want to try my very best to keep it to the hip so to say. If you want more details about the historic events of Japan from 1600-1890 or so, check out my personal channel or perhaps become a Patreon over at www.patreon.com/pacificwarchannel and scream at me to do some podcasts in depth on those subjects, I certainly would love to dabble more into it, like for example a podcast dedicated to the Shinsengumi, the samurai police who fought to the bitter end to defend the Tokugawa shogunate during its death throes, just an idea. The last time we spoke, I went over the end of the Taiping Rebellion, a momentous part of the history of Modern China. I literally sighed with relief upon completing that large series….then I stared at a blank page. Where do I even begin now? The first thing that came to my mind is how to explain what occurred to both China and Japan in the mid 19th century. Both nations were forced to modernize lest they become colonized by foreign powers. For China this was brutal, she was quite literally being carved up, but for Japan who had spent 265 years almost completely isolated under her Sakoku policy, she was opened up, went through hyper modernization and thwarted colonization as a result. Japan's story is quite different for numerous reasons, major ones being that she got the enormous benefit of seeing what was happening to China and learnt directly from China's predicament. After the west defeated China during the Opium Wars and Commodore Perry opened up Japan in 1853, Asia could no longer maintain a separate existence. Both nations were forced to begin the process of becoming part of the world. Japan had many natural advantages over China. She was made up of 4 islands, very compact, sea transportation was widely available, her communications did not have to link very far. China would only get its first telegraph in the 1880s, and it took their governmental communications nearly a month to travel from one end of the country to the other. Japan being an island had always felt vulnerable to dangers from the sea. This sense of danger prompted Japan to seek knowledge of the outside world to protect herself. Chinese leaders had to worry about enemies coming over land from multiple directions, thus they were less concerned about the seas. Japan, had isolated herself for 265 years, while China had become the literal pinnacle of civilization, hoarding the worlds silver. Thus as you can imagine Japanese leadership were not as confident as the Chinese who saw themselves on top of the world, and you know that saying or the game, king of the mountain? Well its hard to sometimes see people coming after you when your on top. Japan was also more homogeneous, whereas China had hundreds of differing people, Han, Manchu's, Mongols, Uighurs, Tibetans, etc. Unifying such people and maintaining domestic harmony was pretty much impossible. China was also undergoing a population boom in the 19th century alongside massive food shortages. This led to the terrible rebellions such as the Taiping Rebellion, I think we covered that one pretty well, the Nian Rebellion which we talked about a little bit, but of course there were others. So I think we all know now the Taiping Rebellion encompassed many issues ongoing in China. For the Nian rebellion, it occurred mostly in the north and was basically peasants banding together to survive. Natural disasters had taken a toll, food was scarce and when bad times come, especially in China, bandits begin to roam. To fight off the bandits the Nian formed militias, but as you might imagine the Qing saw this and freaked out. The main purpose of the Nian was survival and resisting taxation, something I personally can subscribe to haha. Inevitably the Nian looted and raided as a means to keep their group going on, clashing with bandits, the Qing and other rebel groups like the Taiping. Much like the Taiping, the Nian failed to topple the Qing dynasty and were quelled gradually through the Qing ruthless campaigns that used scorched earth tactics. The Nian also were in the north and thus faced the forces of Mongol general Senggelinqin. Seng defeated the Nian and killed their greatest leader Zhang Lexing in 1863 from which the never recovered. After the 2nd opium war was done, the Qing simply were more able to deal with the internal rebellions, and the Nian unfortunately were close to Beijing and not as formidable as the Taiping. Now while all that was going on, multiple muslim rebellions occurred. There was the Hui Muslim backed Panthay Rebellion in southwestern China, mostly in Yunnan province. Panthay is the Burmese word used by Burmese for Chinese muslims who arrived from Burma to Yunnan. They were fighting discrimination and like many other rebellions during this time, they saw the Manchu weakened as a result of the opium wars and decided there was an opportunity to become independent. By the way while I am referring to this as a quote muslim rebellion it was not at all exclusively muslim, many non-muslims joined them such as the Shan and Kachin people of Burma. Once the Taiping were dealt the Qing had a stronger hand south and gradually quelled them by 1868. To the northwest of China came the Dungan revolts led mostly by Hui muslim chinese in Shaanxi, Gansu and Ningxia provinces. These revolts raged from 1862-1877 and they began from conflicts between Hui and Han chinese. It was a terrible time leading to massacres, famines, massive migrations of people, plagues, simply awful stuff. In northwest China its estimated something like 21 million people died. Zuo Zongtang, a subordinate of Zeng Guofan rose to prominence and created his own army based on the Xiang model called the “chu army”. He largely was responsible for quelling the Dungan revolts. So ye China was dealing with a lot. The 1860's in general were a turning point for China and Japan. Both nations gained new governing structures and resumed official contacts with another for the first time in over 2 centuries. For Japan the 1860's were part of what is called the Bakumatsu period, its this very messy point in their history where the leadership of Japan was frantically trying to figure out how to save themselves from colonization. Over in China the 1860's leads us into a period known as the Tongzhi restoration named after the new emperor. The Taiping by the early 1860's were on a steady decline and this gave the Qing leadership finally a moment to try and rebuild national strength. For Japan this period saw the Shogun being overthrown in 1868, and this also led to a bitter war called the Boshin war of 1868-1869. One of my personal favorite wars by the way, I have an episode on it over on my personal channel the Pacific War channel if you want the full rundown and a ton of Chimbara film clips to give it flavor. To brutally summarize, there was a call to end the Tokugawa shogunate, they even gave the Tokugawa family a great severance package, but the Shogun did not go down without a fight. Loyal hans and the Shinsengumi fought to retain the SHogunate while the hans of Satsuma/Choshu and Tosa rose up and defeated them. After the shogunate was dissolved Japan went into the Meiji restoration, which I also have a full episode on sorry for the plug ins over at my Youtube. I perhaps will get into it later, but to summarize the Meiji restoration is the greatest feat of Modernization I would say in human history. Its a hyper modernization process where Japan took the very best aspects of the outside world, while trying to retain important parts of their own culture to mold Japan into a modern state. They were extremely successful and as a result achieved the number one goal of the Meiji restoration, thwarting colonization. The Japanese had resolutely responded to the challenges from the west. As for China, with the death of Emperor Xianfeng in 1861 came the enthronement of Emperor Tongzhi at the age of 5. The Qing leadership were eager to restore the social order that had been severely damaged by the Taiping Rebellion, the Second Opium War and countless other rebellions. Xianfeng who died at the age of 30 was considered a failed emperor and I mean I would have to strongly agree. The guy spent all his time getting high, messing with his harem and fled the capital, never returning to it. China had been left in a disastrous state, but with the defeat of the Taiping came new leadership. That leadership was not Emperor Tongzhi, but rather a mix of Prince Gong and Empress Dowager Cixi. The Empress Dowager proved to be very skilled in managing court politics and quickly became the dominant power during the Tongzhi period and that power would last basically until her death in 1908. Prince Gong and other officials realized that to cope with the foreigners, new skills and new technology, especially that of shipping and weaponry would be required. But many Qing officials remained focused on cultivating the moral qualities that they considered essential for national vitality. Empress Dowager Cixi and many Qing officials believed that the essence of China's problems stemmed from the loss of a true confucian spirit. To address this problem, they sought to restore the importance of the imperial examination system and to eliminate the major corrupt issue that had emerged, that of buying and selling offices. As I had pointed out in the Opium War series, while in the past the integrity of the Qing dynasty and the other dynasties before it lay in officials being appointed by the merits after taking the imperial examination, starting around the 19th century this kinda fell apart. Officials were gradually purchasing their appointments and other high ranking officials began selling appointments, such as the Cohong merchants who basically inherited an incredible debt upon taking their role and were expected to extort funds back to their backers. The Qing dynasty was extremely corrupt and would just keep getting worse and worse. Cixi valued the importance of symbolism and undertook the building of the new summer palace after it was burnt down during the 2nd opium war. Her name would infamously be attached to the building of the summer palace which was unbelievably expensive. Many accusations and myths for that matter would involve Cixi utilizing funds for necessities of the empire instead for the palace. Now in 1861, China launched a self-strengthening movement. This focused upon training troops, building their ships and producing their own weaponry. Self-strengthening movements were not new to China, they had been seen countless times such as when the Ming began seeking foreign aid to fend off the Qing invasion all the way back in the 16th century. Now as we saw during the end half of the Taiping rebellion series, Zeng Guofan tackled self-strengthening head on. One of Zeng Guofans scholar colleagues was a man named Feng Guifen who had sent him a series of essays in 1861 highlighting the issue of self-strengthening. Feng spent considerable time focusing on studying warfare against the Taiping, specifically in the east around Shanghai. He was very impressed by the western military technology present there and would often write to Zeng Guofan about it. Likewise Zeng Guofan wrote in his diaries about self-strengthening and how western technology could be used to defend China's sovereignty and territorial integrity. Zeng Guofan's second hand man, Li Hongzhang likewise wrote of self strengthening during this time period and identified how Western power lied upon their technology and that China must learn to construct the same machines they did. He advocated first to apply this to the military, but gradually it must also apply to industry at large. As we saw during the Taiping Rebellion, there was a large struggle by both the Qing and Taiping to get their hands on western arms. Zeng Guofan purchased many western arms for his Xiang army and the Qing famously employed the EVA forces. By 1860 the majority of Qing leadership types including the scholar class were aware they had to move with the times and study western technology. By 1861 China officially began a self strengthening movement which can be seen to have three phases the first going from around 1861-1872, the second from 1872-1885 and the third from 1885-1895. The first phase focused on training of troops, building ships and the production of arms. With support from Prince Gong, Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang, Zuo Zongtang and other officials began major projects. Zeng Guofan established a arsenal in Shanghai, Li Hongzhang built one in Nanjing and Tianjin and Zuo Zongtang built a dockyard at Fuzhou. The arsenals were created with help from foreign advisors and administrators who also set up schools for the study of specific sciences like mechanics. The Qing government likewise created the “Tongwen Guan” “school of combined learning” in Beijing. The purpose of the school was initially to teach foreign languages, but it would gradually expand course curriculum towards astronomy, mathematics, chemistry, medicine and so on. The school would begin a transformative process and lead to the construction of similar schools. Li Hongzhang for example would go on to create language schools in shanghai, Guangzhou and Fuzhou pioneering western studies. Zeng, Li and Zuo initially used foreign workers to build up their factories and arms, until their own native chinese could learn the skills necessary to replicate the processes. At Li Hongzhangs Jiangnan arsenal they began producing Remington breech loading rifles. They began production in 1871 and by 1873 produced 4200 rifles. The rifles were expensive to make and inferior to actual remington arms, but it was a start. The naval dockyards at Fuzhou amongst others had a much more difficult job ahead of them. By the time they began producing ships, they turned out to be twice as expensive than simply purchasing ships from Britain. This led China to purchase more ships to meet the demand and by the 1880s China would be purchasing and creating more ships than Japan. Also in the 1880s Li Hongzhang established the CHina Merchants steam navigation company to help China create its own commercial shipping, something necessary for modern trade. Another big process of modernization in the 19th century was of course, trains. Chinese laborers famously traveled to north american to help build the great railroad systems in both the United States and Canada. This prompted Qing officials to advocate for the same thing in China, famous figures like Lin Zexu and Hong Rengang called for this. However the hardline conservative types, most notably Empress Dowager Cixi were very reluctant about steam engine technology and that of trains. There were various reasons they were wary over railroad development. In 1865 a British merchant built a 600 meter long railroad outside Xuanwu Gate in Beijing to demonstrate the technology to the Qing imperial court. The courts reactions was mixed, they were certainly impressed by its functionality, but also found it very noisy and strange, so they had it quickly dismantled. It would not be until 1876 when the first railroad was established known as the Woosung road. It went from the American concession in Shanghai to Woosung, present day Zhabei district. It was built by Jardine Matheson & co, the nefarious company that had sunk its teeth into China since the first days of opium smuggling began under it. The construction of the railroad was done without approval from the Qing government and thus would get dismantled the next year. Then in 1881 another railway was created, the Kaiping Tramway and Imperial Railways of north china. British engineer Claude William Kinder spearhead the project with the support of Li Hongzhang, creating a line from Tangshan to Xugezhuang. It would expand eventually to Tianjin in 1888 and Shanhaiguan by 1894. It got the name Guanneiwai railway and was met with multiple attempts by conservative Qing officials to be dismantled. Famously Empress Dowager Cixi fought against Li Hongzhang who persisted to tell her railways were necessary to advance China. She was against their construction because she believed their noise would disturb the emperors tombs. Li Hongzhang tried everything he could to get her on board and at one point she tried to compromise with him asking if the train carts could be horse drawn instead. Yet despite her rather hilarious attempts to thwart railway construction by the 1890s great railways were created to link up eastern and central China. Now over in Japan, after the Boshin War was over, Japan famously sent a mission out to the west known as the Iwakura Mission of 1871-1873. The purpose of the mission was to study the most important aspects of the west from the most powerful nations. The diplomats and students that went on the mission would become key leaders in the new Meiji government of Japan driving the restoration. China also performed its own Iwakura Mission, but it was not as large in scale, and those who went on it did not exactly end up being the great drivers of modernization like their Japanese counterparts were. Three years before the Iwakura mission, a Chinese delegation known as the Burlingame Mission arrived in the United States. The delegation extended its journey to Britain, France, Prussia, Russia and visited smaller nations briefly before returning to China in 1870. The purpose of the delegation was to investigate how westerners conducted diplomacy so the Qing could figure out a means to get rid of the unequal treaties. It was the very same reason the Japanese would send their Iwakura mission. Anson Burlingame, a US minister and envoy to Beijing was appointed by the Qing to lead the delegation. Around 30 members attended the mission, and in 1870 Burlingame died of Pneumonia forcing two of the Chinese delegates, Zhigang and Sun Jiagu to take the reins of it. They met with heads of state, visited factories, shipyards, mines, all things big industry. They got to see electricity, machinery many scientific wonders, but also the plight of their own people. Yes they got to witness the conditions Chinese workers went through on the railways in places like California. They saw Chinese going into mines and not coming back out. This prompted some delegates to ask the question “why do Christian missionaries who do such good work in China, bully Chinese workers in California?”. The delegate Zhigang would publish some of these observations in a book giving very harrowing accounts. Another delegate, Zeng Jize, the eldest son of Zeng Guofan came back with extremely positive opinions of everything he saw in the west and was met with harsh criticism from conservative officials for being too sympathetic towards foreign customs. Li Hongzhang and other officials however grabbed the delegates when they got back to China, extremely eager to hear all about what they had seen. Li Hongzhang was particularly interested in the political and economic aspects of the west. Empress Dowager Cixi personally met with some delegates when they got back asking questions about things happening aboard. Even the conservative types were gravely concerned with how things were moving in the west. But the end result did not lead to a Meiji restoration. While Japanese leaders were investing in industry and infrastructure, Chinese leaders were looking to restore their national spirit instead. Its hard to blame the Qing leaders, unlike Japan who largely avoided conflict with the west, though there were a few fights in Satsuma against the British for example, well the Qing was like an old boxer who just got KO'd a few times too many. The opium wars and internal rebellions had destroyed the Chinese public's faith in their government, the fabric of the mandate of heaven was unraveling. So instead of putting all the money into industry, many projects were enacted to re-envigorate the grandeur of the Qing.As I had said, the Empress Dowager Cixi famously invested incredible sums of money to renovate the Summer Palace in Beijing. Infamously she took funds intended for modernizing the navy and used them to build a marble boat pavilion at the summer palace. Li Hongzhang believed in addition to the factories, arsenals and shipyards, China needed to update its school system and wanted to send students abroad just like Japan was doing. He also advocated that the civil service exams should offer technical knowledge alongside the cultural knowledge and he was met with large scale protest. By 1885 conservatives in Beijing began cracking down on the modernization. So while Chinese students stayed for the most part in China, Japan sent countless aboard to learn everything they could from the west. Now the Iwakura mission that went to the west also came to China on its way back. After witnessing 15 nations and all their wonders, they came to Shanghai where they spent 3 days. They were hosted by the Shanghai official Chen Fuxun and they were shocked by what they saw in the city. That shock was at the lack of change, the travelers who had grown up in a world where China was Big Brother were shocked that big brother seemed to have fallen behind. Kume Kunitake, the chief chronicler of the voyage said this of his first impressions of Shanghai “There are no sewers, and urine flows along the streets. Amid all this, the inhabitants seem quite unconcerned.” Believing that the Japanese were harboring illusions about Chinese sophistication based on the past, he tried to correct the view of his countrymen who “regarded every Chinese to be a refined gentleman well versed in literature and the arts. Thus [in Japan] the custom still persists of holding any curios, calligraphy, paintings, poetry or literature from China in high esteem. . . . Under the Qing dynasty, learning has been stagnant in China.” The members of the Iwakura mission had all studied history and knew of the great Tang dynasty and the greatest of China, but now in 1873 they thought there was very little to learn from her anymore. They shared a kinship with China, wished she could resist the western encroachments and remain a great civilization, but it looked to them China had no great leadership. China, Japan and even Korea had young emperors, but only Emperor Meiji would acquire real authority. In China emperor Tongzhi took the throne at 5, but it was Cixi who really ran the show. In Korea Emperor Gojong took the throne at the age of 12 in 1864, but his father Taewongun really held the power. Both Gojong and Tongzhi would be hampered by their relatives and isolated from advisors who might educate them on western advances. Emperor Meiji meanwhile was tutored by senior advisers starting in 1868 preparing him for his role in leadership. Lack of leadership led to a lack of ability to reign in certain aspects of modernization necessary for progress. In Japan key individuals working with Emperor Meiji grabbed the reigns of foreign affairs gradually dismantling the unequal treaties the west had forced upon Japan. The key individual in China who would undertake foreign affairs was Li Hongzhang who was for the most part doing everything on his own initiative and had to fight off conservatives. In Japan, foreign affairs specialists emerged, but this was not the case in China. Even emperor Meiji himself took an interest to learn about foreign affairs. Japan hired many western specialists in all aspects of governmental bureaucracy to help train the Japanese. When Chinese officials went to Japan in 1877 to set up a legation, they were astonished to find the Japanese bureaucracy for foreign affairs, unlike that in China had completely adopted European procedures and protocols. One of the Iwakura missions delegates was a man named Ito Hirobumi and he would serve in the foreign office before becoming prime minister in 1885. He studied in England, learning quickly that Japan was weaker than her and that Japan needed to learn from her to become strong. With his ability to speak english, Ito became the key man responsible for negotiations with other nations. He was to be Li Hongzhangs Japanese counterpart, and helped negotiate the Treaty of Tianjin in 1858 with Li. Both men would have a special relationship that was long lasting. The first time Chinese and Japanese officials met after two centuries was when the Senzaimaru arrived in Shanghai in 1862. The officials were strangers without precedents, they had no idea how to move forward. The Japanese members of the first Senzaimaru trip were carefully selected for their ability not only to learn about potential markets for Japanese goods, but also to investigate the political situation so Japan could open formal relations with China. 51 Japanese took part on the mission which lasted 2 months. The highest Chinese official in Shanghai, was our old friend Wu Xu. Since no Chinese were in Japan prior to notify about the mission, they literally just showed up to Shanghai and this certainly perplexed Wu Xu as to what he should do. Wu Xu reported the delegations arrival to Beijing but received a reply with no clear directions, thus he acted with caution. The Dutch helped the two sides speak and assured Wu Xu that the Japanese were reliable traders and this prompted Wu Xu to accept selling their goods. The Japanese brought things they already knew the Chinese market most likely desired, sea products, lacquerware, paper fans, nothing too fancy. Trade was slow, no treaties or relations were established, but the Japanese gathered great intelligence on the status of the Qing dynasty. They had not yet recovered from the Taiping Rebellion, to the Japanese China looked like chaos. They were shocked by the poverty, filth, the lack of hygiene. They were disappointed to find what their ancestors considered the greatest civilization seemed to be in rubles. They were outraged to find out how mistreated the Chinese were at the hands of westerners. They thought westerners extremely arrogant, mistreating Chinese like slaves in their own country it was so shameful. They worried what the British and French had done to the Chinese during the Opium Wars might come to Japan and indeed the British made a minor attack in Satsuma in 1863 and Choshu in 1864 raising concerns. 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. China and Japan went through their own processes of modernization, which were dramatically different to say the least. Li Hongzhang was emerging at the forefront and he desperately was trying to help China modernize, but he was but one man amongst many.
Episode published 31/08/22In episode #44 of Living Proof, Dan Aspel and Christie Marr speak to both Don Zagier and Silke Zagier. Don is a widely respected number theorist and currently and currently "Retired Scientific Member and Director" of the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in Bonn. This summer he has been involved in two INI programmes: K-theory, algebraic cycles and motivic homotopy theory and New connections in number theory and physics. Silke, meanwhile, is an experienced administrator and historian of mathematics. Topics covered include their individual life stories, as well as the realities of being a married, travelling couple within the world of academia.00:00 - Introduction00:48 - Welcome01:20 - Involvement in two consecutive INI programmes, travelling together as part of an academic career06:30 - Being the partner of an INI visitor, the potential for bringing young children12:20 - How to earn a significant academic reputation ("I just kept getting older and older... and people look up to you because you're still there!")14:20: Enthusiasm, and the motto "modular forms are everywhere"16:35: Adjusting to post-pandemic working, the challenges of delayed programmes at INI18:20: Highlight of an INI visit: to work with such a variety of people, and to visit other institutions (see Talks elsewhere)24:58: Silke's research into the history of Japanese mathematics during the country's "sakoku" period.
Last time we spoke, Sun Kewang, Li Dingguo and Emperor Yongli formed a sort of trinity that was chipping away at the Qing dynasty. Each man had his talents and combined they proved a formidable foe, but divided would they fall. Sun Kewang's jealousy led him to butt heads with Li Dingguo undermining all the success they had made. When Sun Kewang was defeated a part of the trinity was gone and the forces of Li Dingguo and Emperor Yongli could not hope to stand against the Qing invaders as they marched into Yunnan. Emperor Yongli took flight to Burma forcing Li Dingguo to spend years trying to rescue him from the Burmese while fighting off the looming Qing menace. In the end even Li Dingguo could not stop the inevitable as he and Emperor Yongli fell. Now the Qing can face their last looming menace, the King of Taiwan, Koxinga. This episode is Koxinga & the revolt of the three feudatories Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on the history of asia and much more so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. I have repeatedly said his name, in the west we know him as Koxinga, his actual name being Zheng Chenggong. It would be his marine forces that would fight the Qing Dynasty until the bitter end. He was born with the name Zheng Sen in 1624, in Hirado Japan, to Zheng Zhilong a chinese merchant and a Japanese woman named Tagawa Matsu. When Zheng was 7 years old, his father had business interests in Quanzhou and the family moved to Fujian province. His father would end up becoming one of the richest men in China and an Admiral under the Ming Dynasty. Zheng Zhilong operated a pirate fleet of over 800 ships along the coast from Japan to Vietnam. The Ming appointed him “admiral of the coastal seas” and he basically was tasked with repeling other pirates and the Dutch East Indies Company. The fruits of his labor wound him up grabbing over 60% of Fujian province land. Zheng Sen would pass the imperial examination at the age of 14 in 1638 becoming one of 12 Linshansheng of Nan'an. Linshansheng basically means the best of the best as students go. In Nan'an, Zheng married the niece of a Ming official named Dong Yangxian who was a Jinshi, meaning he held the highest imperial exam degree, so basically Zheng was brushing shoulders with giants so to say. In 1644 he studied at the imperial Nanking University. When the Qing captured Beijing, Zheng's father, Zheng Zhilong continued to serve the Ming moving to Nanjing, then after the capture of Nanjing in 1645 accepted an offer to serve as commander in chief of the Ming forces working under the Prince of Tang in Fuzhou. It seems the war of resistance had gone to terribly for Zheng Zhilong because he became a turncoat in 1646, intentionally leaving the Zhejiang pass unguarded and allowed the Qing to capture Fuzhou. Zheng Zhilong defected to the Qing, but the Zheng army's control lay firmly in his brothers and sons hands. That son, Zheng Sen refused to defect to the Qing and would take most of the Zheng army with him, causing problems. As for his wife Tagawa Matsu, it is alleged the Qing went to Anhai where she was residing in a castle, which I found particularly interesting since this is during the Sakoku period and it was illegal for Japanese to leave the country. Anyways its alleged the Qing marched upon the castle where she was and raped and or killed her. Other stories state she committed suicide while resisting the Qing. Regardless of the implications of her death, the Qing knew they could not trust Zheng Zhilong and would have him put under house arrest for many years until they executed him in 1661. It is said in 1646, while Zheng Sen was busy fighting off the Qing he managed to return to Quanzhou where he discovered his mother had been murdered or committed suicide because of the Qing and thus rebellion was firmly placed in his heart. I cant really get into it but there is an entire mythos around lady Tagawa and multiple perceptions on her and her legacy. When the Qing took Beijing and gave their head shaving proclamation, Zheng Sen refused and it is said his will was “as strong and firm as a mountain”. As I had said the Zheng army did not all follow Zheng Zhilong and defect with the Qing, many would follow Zheng Sen. Soon Zheng Sen recruited more followers and organized allied armies in Nan'an Guangdong. When Emperor Hongguang took the mantle, Zheng Sen flocked over to him in Nanking. When Emperor Hongguang was defeated and executed, Emperor Longwu rose up with support from Zheng's father. Emperor Longwu established himself in Fuzhou and the natural defenses of Fujian allowed him to remain safe for some time. Emperor Longwu granted Zheng Sen the name Chenggong and the title of Koxinga “lord of the Imperial Surname”. In 1646 Koxinga led the Ming armies to resist the Qing, much to his fathers displeasure who wished for a more defensive stance. When the Qing finally broke into Fujian, as I mentioned Zheng Zhilong literally opened the door to them, leaving Emperor Longwu isolated agaisnt the Qing. After the Emperor Longwu was defeated and executed, the Qing approached Zheng Zhilong and got him to defect and secretly appointed him governor of Fujian and Guangdong. Despite the betrayal of his father, Koxinga chose to fight on and led Zheng Zhilong's marine forces to attack Tong'an, Haicheng, Zhangfu and captured Quanzhou and Minan. Because the Qing never placed much emphasis on naval matters, Koxinga's naval forces basically could pick and choose at will where to do amphibious assaults providing him with many successful raids. Zheng Zhilong would send letters to his son asking him to defect to the Qing like he did, but they were to no avail and Koxinga pledged his allegiance to the only remaining claimant to the throne the Emperor of flight Yongli. Before Koxinga could get to Emperor Yongli he as you guessed it began the process of fleeing and this basically resulted in Koxinga never being able to link up with him. As a result Koxinga chose to concentrate on the southeast coast of China where he could safely move via his naval forces. Koxinga's army soon established its base of operations in Kinmen and Xiamen. Using his base of Kinmen and Xiamen, Koxinga established a marine trade network and the anti-Qing forces grew quickly. By 1652 Koxinga led a force of 100,000 to attack Haicheng, Changtai, Zhangzhou, Zhangfu amongst other places. He also greatly benefitted by working alongside the Daxi army. In 1653 Koxinga tried to coordinate with Li Dingguo's army in Guangxi and deployed his navy southwards towards Chaozhou. The following year Li and Koxinga agreed to meet in Guangdong and attack Xinhui together, but this plan never came to fruition. Koxinga's forces simply took too long to get there and Li Dingguo's army was defeated and he had to retreat to Guangxi. In 1655, Koxinga attacked the coastal area of Fujian defeating several Qing armies. Koxinga and Li then planned a northern campaign where they would coordinate rear and frontal attacks upon the Qing. In may of 1656, the Qing sent Prince Jidu to attack Koxinga's territory. Jidu's forces attacked Kinmen island, Koxinga's main base for training his troops. However a storm at sea battered the Qing ships and as a result they lost the battle against the Kinmen island. This also weakened Qing naval forces in the Fujian coastal area, opening many places for attacks by Koxinga. Then in 1658 the Qing armies carried large offensives against Li Dingguo in the southwestern area, prompting Koxinga to strike at the coastal areas in Zhejiang to try and relieve Li Dingguo's forces. However Koxinga's navy was hit by a hurricane at sea and they were forced to withdraw. This did not stop Koxinga from sending a large army to Zhoushan however, where he sought a base of operations to stage a siege of Nanjing. Koxinga however was quite eager and publicly proclaimed his intent to siege Nanjing, giving the Qing ample time and reason to prepare stronger defenses there. In 1659 Koxinga marched north alongside his colleague Zhang Huangyan capturing Guazhou and Zhenjing before they would besiege Nanjing. They sprang through the Yangtze River with their navy igniting resistance everywhere they went against the Qing. Koxinga's naval operations in the Yangtze River would hinder Qing supply routes and effectively were starving Beijing out, stressing the hell out of the Qing court. If it is to be believed, an account by a French missionary in Beijing reported they court considered packing up and going back to Manchuria because of what was essential a naval blockade of Beijing. Things got so bad in Beijing the French missionary states the populace of Beijing was waiting to see who would win the siege of Nanjing and were looking to join that said winner. The Qing were reportedly terrified of Koxinga's “iron troops” who were rumored to be invincible. The siege of Nanjing shocked the Qing, but Koxinga became cocky and in his arrogance he took his enemy lightly. He publicly announced to the populace all they had to do was to join his cause and that he would occupy Nanjing in short time. Koxinga believed that by taking Nanjing he could firmly blockade the grand canal and starve out Beijing forcing them to pack up and run back to Manchuria, if the sources I talked about before are to be believed, it looks like his plan was working. Lang Tingzuo the governor trapped in Nanjing began to negotiate with Koxinga and Zhang, but in truth he was biding time for the Qing forces to come to the rescue. Despite Koxinga's best efforts besieging Nanjing, the city was never completely encircled and thus able to obtain supplies and reinforcements in the form of the Qing General Liang Huafeng. After 3 weeks of the siege, suddenly General Liang and his army burst out the gates of Nanjing in a cavalry charge as the Ming forces were busy partying and they were smashed. The entire Ming army fell into disarray and began to retreat back to their ships and Koxinga was forced to withdraw back to Xiamen. Meanwhile his colleague Zhang had taken a ton of their forces to hit Anhui and was now left high and dry. Zhang's army was eventually and completely collapsed, but the commander was able to escape to Tiantai where he tried to form another resistance in the mountain range. He would fail to produce anything and by 1664 was captured and executed by the Qing. Koxinga had lost half his land army, his colleague and many other officers because of his arrogant attack on Nanjing. It seems Koxinga suffered tremendous psychological damage from the major defeat and the loss of so many members of his family. He was known to be quite mentally unstable and had a horrible temper and tendency to order executions at a whim. A Dutch doctor named Christian Beyer who treated him believed he may have been suffering from Syphilis, some other contemporaries believed his mentality was the result of his Japanese upbringing in the form of “samurai ideals on bravery” like laughing to showcase his anger and being prone to quick violence. According to Dr Li Yengyue, he stated Koxinga most likely suffered from depressive insanity. At this time Li Dingguo's forces were being pushed further southwest and quite simply, the situation did not look good to say the least. This led Koxinga to gather all his officials in secret and tell them he now intended to occupy Taiwan and establish a base there from which they could all settle with their families in safety. He said that perhaps there they could unite all those who were loyal to the Ming and one day they would launch an attack on the Qing and fight the enemy without having to worry about the lives of their families. Thus when the Qing marched upon his stronghold of Xiamen in 1660, Koxinga instead of offering battle sailed off with over 400 war junks and 25,000 troops to Taiwan. Before the departure Koxinga had received a map of Taiwan from a Chinese merchant named He Bin who worked for the Dutch East India company. It was also during this time when Koxinga had the family of one of his admirals named Shi Lang killed because the admiral allegedly was planning to defect to the Qing, though some sources say he simply had disobeyed an order, sheesh. Regardless after the murder of his family admiral Shi Lang promptly sailed off to defect to the Qing. The Qing were very happy to receive Shi Lang as he held extensive naval experience and had a network of contacts in major trading ports all over east asia. He would become absolutely instrumental to the Qing naval buildup and would emerge late into this story and he held a blood feud with the Zheng family henceforth. Now the Chinese merchant who gave Koxinga the map, guided the Koxinga's naval force to land on Wei Island and Haliao Island, thereby avoiding the artillery placements within the channel of Taiwan. Koxinga's forces managed to land at Pengdu Taiwan in 1661 and Koxinga soon led his forces to attack Dutch colonists proclaiming to them "Hitherto this island had always belonged to China, and the Dutch had doubtless been permitted to live there, seeing that the Chinese did not require it for themselves; but requiring it now, it was only fair that Dutch strangers, who came from far regions, should give way to the masters of the island.". They marched to Leurmeng where they fought small groups of Taiwanese aborigines and Dutch resistance. In the bay of Lakjemuyse 3 Dutch ships attacked and destroyed several of Koxinga's junks, but then one of his junks got a lucky shot off exploding a gunpowder supply aboard the Dutch flagship Hector sinking her. The 2 other Dutch warships, were not enough to fight off the large force of junks and had to flee. Here is an abridged account given by Frederick Coyett, the colonial governor of Dutch held Taiwan about Koxinga's landing. The forces of Koxinga showed up armed with bows and arrows, others had shields and swords. Everyone was wearing coats of iron scales (by the way there is an artist rendition of the soldiers by a contemporary named Georg Franz Muller, worth checking out it looks awesome). The armor allowed for complete protection from a rifle bullet and allowed the wearer great mobility. Their archers were their best troops and their skill was so great it nearly eclipsed that of riflemen. They used shield men to form human walls and Koxinga had 2 companies of “black boys”, many of whom were former Dutch slaves that knew how to use rifles and muskets. They proved quite effective marksmen and caused a lot of harm to the Dutch in Taiwan. As Koxinga's force charged in rows of 12 men and when they were near enough sent 3 volleys of fire uniformly. The storm of arrows that came forth upon the dutch seemed to darken the sky (a herodotus moment). The Dutch expected their return fire to send the enemy fleeing, but they did not, in fact the Chinese held firm against them and in short time the Dutch realized to their horror that Koxinga sent a squadron behind them and they attacked from the rear. While the Dutch proved courageous at the beginning of the battle, now they were stricken with fear and many Dutch riflemen tossed their rifles without even firing them and began to run. As they faltered and fled, the Chinese saw the disorder and pressed their attack more vigorously. The Chinese force charged and cut down the Dutch and the battle raged on until the Dutch captain Thomas Bedell and 180 of his men were slain. After defeating the Dutch force when they landed, Koxinga laid siege to the main fortress, Fort Zeelandia using some of his 100 cannons on hand. They outnumbered the garrison there 20 to 1 and the bombardment demolished the roof of the Dutch governors residence. The Dutch return fired from bastion forts killing hundreds of Koxinga's men. Koxinga's cannons proved ineffective against the walls, the Dutch governor wrote that after viewing the alignment of the Chinese cannons, he noticed they were placed quite badly, were unprotected and easy to hit with their own cannons. In the end the Chinese cannons only did some light damage to a few houses. Koxinga was shocked and enraged by the lack of damage to the fortresses walls and decided to give up the bombardment and simply to being starving the Dutch out. On April 4th Koxinga sent his army to besiege the smaller fortress of Fort Provintia, catching its commander Jacob Valentyn and his 140 men, completely off guard. Valentyn had to surrender without putting up much of a fight. By late May, news of the Siege of Fort Zeelandia reached Jakarta and the Dutch East India Company dispatched 12 ships with 700 soldiers to relieve the fort. The relief force ran into Koxinga's naval blockade and they engaged in battle. However Koxinga had hundreds of war junks and as the Dutch ships tried to fire upon them their aim ended up being too high. Basically of the height difference between the Chinese war junks and Dutch ships, this made aiming the cannons difficult as they cant pivot downwards, so you have to rely upon distance calculations and that in turn is not easy when the enemy knows to just close in on you and are firing upon you. Some of the smaller Dutch ships tried to lure some of the Chinese war junks into a narrow strait with a feigned withdrawal. But as they were doing so, the wind suddenly seized on them, and with only paddles available the Chinese caught up to them and massacred their crews with pikes. It is also alleged the Chinese caught many Dutch lobed grenades using nets and tossed them right back at them, that sounds like a nasty game of hot potato. The Dutch flagship Koukercken was hit by a Chinese cannon after running around and quickly sunk. Another Dutch ship hit ashore and the crew had to run for their lives for Fort Zeelandia. The remaining Dutch fleet eventually scattered and withdrew, all in all they took 130 casualties. By December Koxinga was given reports that the garrison of Fort Zeelandia was losing morale and thus he decided to launch another large offensive, but was repelled again by superior Dutch cannons. By January 12th of 1662, Koxingas fleet began to help bombard the fort as his ground forces assaulted. With supplies running out and no sign of reinforcements, Governor Coyett hoisted the white flag and began to negotiate terms of surrender, finalizing them by february 1st. By February the 9th the Dutch left Taiwan and were allowed to take their personal belongings and provisions. Now this siege was honestly a pretty horrible affair aside from the normal war actions. Prisoners on both sides were subjected to some rather gruesome torture. A Dutch physician allegedly carried out a vivisection on a Chinese prisoner and there were reports that the Chinese amputated noses, ears, limbs and genitals of Dutch prisoners. Apparently the Chinese would stuff their mouths with amputated genitals and send the corpses back to Fort Zeelandia, some really messed up stuff. One Dutch prisoner, a missionary named Antonius Hambroek was sent as an envoy to Fort Zeelandia to ask for their surrender, if he failed he was to be killed. Hambroek went to the Fort where 2 of his daughters were residing and urged everyone to surrender, but they did not and thus he came back to Koxinga's camp and was promptly beheaded. Another one of Hambroeks daughters had been captured prior to the siege and Koxinga made her a concubine. Other Dutch women and children that were captured prior to the siege were enslaved and sold to Chinese soldiers. 38 years of Dutch rule over Taiwan had ended and Koxinga would use Taiwan as a military base for Ming loyalists. The Taiwanese aboriginals played both sides during the conflict. For example when Koxinga's men landed in Taiwan one tribal alliance known as the Kingdom of Middag invited Koxingas subordinate Chen Ze and his men to eat and rest with them only to kill them all in their sleep, allegedly 1500 soldiers. This was followed up by an ambush attack that would cost Koxinga the lives of 700 soldiers. More and more tribal attacks mounted and the brutality pushed Koxinga to offer the aboriginals amnesty and to help get rid of the Dutch. Many of the aboriginals were delighted by the chance to rid themselves of the Dutch and began to hunt Dutch colonists down, helped execute Dutch prisoners and burnt Dutch books used to educate them. Koxinga then rewarded the aboriginals with Ming clothes, made feasts for them, gave them countless gifts such as tobacco, farming tools and oxen and taught them new farming techniques. Koxinga had a large problem after his major victory, Taiwan's population was estimated to be no greater than 100,000, yet he brought with him almost 30,000 soldiers and their families, so food was going to run out and very quick. Thus Koxinga set to institute a tuntian policy, that being that soldiers would serve a dual role, that of warrior and farmer. All the rich and fertile lands the Dutch held were immediately cut up and distrubed to his higher ranking officers. Much of the aboriginal held territory on the eastern half of Taiwan would also be distributed to Koxinga's men and I would imagine that was a bloody ordeal taking the land. Then Koxinga set his eyes on piracy performing raids against several locations near Taiwan such as the Philippines and even demanded the Spanish colonial government pay him tribute, threatening to attack Manila if they did not comply. The Spanish refused to pay any tribute and instead prepared the defenses of Manila. Koxinga's naval force raided several coastal towns in the Philippines but before he could perform any real sort of invasion, in June of 1662 Koxinga suddenly died of malaria. Koxinga's son Zheng Jing succeeded his father and became King of Tungning. Zheng wanted to continue his fathers planned invasion of the Philippines, but it turns out his fathers little war against the Dutch did not go unnoticed by the Qing. Back on the mainland, after Koxinga left and sailed for Taiwan, the Qing began to reimplemented the Haijin “sea ban” in 1647. The Haijin had been used in the past mostly to target Japanese piracy. Basically it was an attempt to force all sea trade coming in to be under strict regulation handled by Ming officials. The limited sea trade was to be “tributary missions” between the Ming dynasty and their vassals, such as Korea. Any private foreign trade was punishable by death and as you can imagine all this led up to was an increase in piracy and the formation of many smugglers along the eastern coast of china. The entire idea was to starve out Taiwan by denying them trade with the eastern coast of China. But when the Haijin was reimplemented it led to entire communities along the eatern Chinese coast to be uprooted from their native place and they were being deprived of their means of livelihood. So many communities simply had to get up and settle somewhere else where they could. This sent many coastal areas into chaos. This ironically led countless amounts of refugees from the eastern chinese coast to flee to Taiwan. Then in 1663 the Qing formed an alliance with the Dutch East India Company against the Ming loyalists in Fujian and Taiwan. The Dutch for their part sought the alliance simply to recapture Taiwan. In October of 1663 a combined fleet of Qing and Dutch attacked and captured Xiamen and Kinmen from the Ming loyalists. Then in 1664 the combined fleet attacked Zheng Jing's navy but ended up losing because it was simply to immense. One of the Qing admirals, a certain Shi Lang, remember that guy, yeah he like I said held a blood grudge against Zheng's family, well he advised the Qing that the Dutch were only aiding them so they could recapture Taiwan. He said that they did not really require the Dutch naval aid and that he could lead the Qing navy to take Taiwan back on his own. Thus the alliance fell apart. The Dutch who were probably very pissed off now then began raiding the Zhoushan Islands where they looted relics and killed Monks at a buddhist complex at Putuoshan in 1665, pretty mean thing to do. Zheng Jing's navy attacked them for this, capturing and executing 34 Dutch sailors. In 1672 Zheng Jing would attack the Dutch again, managing to ambush the Dutch ship Cuylenburg in 1672 off the coast of northeastern Taiwan. So a bit of a long lasting war between the Dutch and Ming loyalists remains in the background. Now from the offset of his enthronement, Zheng Jing actually attempted to reconcile with the Qing, he sought to make Taiwan an autonomous state. Yet he refused their demands that he shave his head in the Manchu fashion nor would he pay tribute to the Qing dynasty. The Qing's response initially as I had mentioned was a policy of trying to starve Taiwan out using the Haijin. This sent the populace of the southeastern coast into chaos and Zheng Jing continued to raid as the Qing really could not stop his larger navy. The Haijin like I said earlier had a disastrous and ironic effect. Soon there was a giant influx of the populace fleeing for Taiwan. Seeing the opportunity, Zheng promoted the immigration heavily and began proclaiming tons of promises and major opportunities for anyone who wished to immigrate to his kingdom. The enticement of land ownership and cultivation in exchange for military service suited many of the immigrant peasants quite fine, I mean for most there was simply no choice. And it was not just peasants who came, a ton of Ming loyalists used the opportunity to flee the mainland from persecution as well. All of this led to quite an enormous boom for Taiwan. A ton of reforms came into effect to meet the needs of the growing populace, agricultural, education, trade, industry and so on. Zheng's main advisor, Chen Yonghua also helped introduce the deliberate cultivation of sugar cane and other cash crops which was further traded with Europeans who helped bring over machinery for mass sugar refining. The sugar economy allowed Taiwan to become economically self-sufficient and a booming relationship sprang with the British. Its funny how the British swoop in and steal all former Dutch things isnt it haha? The Qing tried to thwart all of this with the more intensive Haijin edict, but it only made the situation worse. It was not just Taiwan that was a thorn in their side, the head shaving order had caused a great influx of the populace to emigrate to other places than Taiwan, such as Jakarta and the Philippines. The Haijin and brief Qing-Dutch naval alliance had caused Zheng Jing to intensively exploit the lands of Taiwan and as you might guess this meant running into conflict with the aboriginals. The brutality grew gradually and Zheng's kingdom would put down many aboriginal rebellions against his land grabbing and taxes. A series of conflicts with the Saisiyat people in particular left them absolutely decimated and they lost most of their land to Zheng's kingdom. Zheng Jing's kingdom enjoyed a maritime trade network with the european colonies in the Pacific, Japan and SouthEast Asia. Now for over 19 years, Zheng tried to negotiate a peace with the now Kangxi emperor, as Emperor Shunzhi died of smallpox in 1661. Despite the peace talks, Zheng never gave up the cause of restoring the Ming Dynasty and one last hooray would occur. Going back to the mainland, when the Qing finally broke the last leaders of the South Ming regime, Li Dingguo, Sun Kewang and Emperor Yongli, they had managed to do this using a lot of Han chinese. It was only logical that they would install more and more Han Chinese to govern the territories that they conquered. Yet by installing certain Han and defected former Ming loyalists in parts of the realm with varying levels of authority led to a few warlords emerging. One was Shang Kexi, a former Ming general who defected very early on in 1634 and one of the most powerful generals to do so. He was given the title “pingnan wang” “prince who pacifies the south” and helped conquer the southern province of Guangdong. When the task was finished he was made governor of Guangdong holding full civil and military authority. By 1673, Shang Kexi was very old and asked permission from Emperor Kangxi to retire and go back to his homeland of Liaodong. Permission was granted and his son Shang Zhixin would take up the mantle of Prince of Pingnan. However, Shang Zhixin and his father would soon be embroiled into a revolt by the actions of others as we will soon see. Geng Zhongming was a Ming general who served under the Ming warlord Mao Wenlong “the sea king” if you listened to some earlier episodes. Well Geng Zhongming alongside Kong Youde ended up defecting to the Qing and aided in their conquest of the south. Geng Zhongming eventually died and his son Geng Jimao inherited his title of Jingnan Prince (which also means prince of pacifying the south just like pingnang wang) and aided in hunting down Li Dingguo and pacifying the southeast of China. Geng Jimao managed to get both his sons Geng Jingzhong and Zhaozhong to become court attendants under the Qing emperor Shunzhi and married Aisin Gioro women. His son Geng Jingzhong would inherit his fathers titles including the governorship of Fujian province and would become a warlord in Fujian which held a strong naval force. Wu Sangui who we know quite well was the Ming General who literally opened the door for the Qing to help destroy the forces of Li Zicheng, but this also led to the Qing taking Beijing. Now Wu's career was a lengthy one, he helped defeat Li Zicheng who executed over 38 members of Wu's family, so a large grudge there. For his service against Li, Wu was given the “Qin wang” Prince of Blood title and helped fight the Daxi army in the south alongside Shang Kexi. Wu had the absolutely horrifying job of pacifying Sichuan against the hordes of differing bandit armies and South Ming loyalists. Then Wu became instrumental in the fight against Sun, Li and Yongli eventually defeating them and bringing the far reaches of Yunnan under the Qing yolk. Now the Qing were uncomfortable placing Manchu bannermen so far away in Yunnan or Guizhou and thus the job was given to Wu. He was given the title of Pingxi Wang “Prince who pacifies the West” and control over Yunnan and Guizhou. Wu was granted permission by Emperor Shunzhi to appoint and promote his own officials as well as being given the rare privilege to have first dibs on warhorses before other Qing armies. By that point because of the war against Li Dingguo, Wu already had a large army at his control, around 60,000 men. The Qing were very wary of Wu, but his rule of Yunnan had thus far caused no headaches. Wu inevitably became a semi-independent warlord because of the great distance. All the money he received from taxation within Yunnan and that funds he received from Beijing were spent to expand his military primarily, guess why? So lets just summarize all of this. As a result of their great aid to the Qing defeating the South Ming regime, basically most of south China was handed over to 3 defected Ming generals. Basically they were awarded large fiefdoms within the Qing dynasty. Wu Sangui was granted governorship of Yunnan and Guizhou. Shang Kexi got Guangdong and Geng Zhongming got Fujian. Each man had their own military force and control over the taxation and other civil administration of their respective fiefs. In the 1660's each man began to ask for Qing government subsidies to keep them loyal, averaging around 10 million taels of silver annually. Wu spent several million taels of silver building up his military, up to an estimated third of the Qing governments revenue from taxes. Geng Zhongming was quite a tyrant in his fiefdom and extorted the populace quite harshly before dying upon which his fiefdom fell to his son Geng Jimao and then to his son Geng Jingzhong as I mentioned. Shang Kexi ran a similar tyranny to Geng Zhongming in Guangdong and the combined 3 fiefs emptied the Qing treasury quite quickly. Another large issue was each man simply assumed and expected his feudaltory would be handed down to his offspring, but that was to be decided by the Qing Emperor not them.When Emperor Kangxi took the throne the 3 fief provinces had become financial burdens on the Qing government and their growing autonomous control of each province were becoming a major threat to the Qing dynasty. In 1673, Shang Kexi sent a memorial to Emperor Kangxi stating “I am already 70 years old and have become weak. I hope I can be allowed to go back to Liaodong, my home place, to spend my old age. In the past I was granted land and houses in Liaodong. I hope that your Majesty will grant the land and houses to me again. I will take some officers and soldiers and old people who have been under me, 4394 households all together, to go back with me. There are 24,375 men and women in all. I hope the department concerned will provide food for all these people on their way to Liaodong”. Emperor Kangxi replied “Since you sailed from the island to submit to our dynasty, you have worked very hard and established great contributions. You have garrisoned in Guangdong Province for many years. I know from your memorial that you are already 70 years old. You want to go back to Liaodong. You are very sincere in your memorial. From this I can see that you are respectful and submissive and have the overall interest at heart. I am very pleased about that. Now Guangdong Province has been pacified. I will order the Kings in charge of government affairs, court officials and the officials of the Ministry of Revenue and the Ministry of Defense to discuss how to arrange the migration and settlement of the officers and men under you. I will let you know when they have made a decision.”. Oh but there will of course be a catch, for 2 weeks later Emperor Kangxi received another letter ““In the memorial presented by Shang KeXi to Your Majesty he says that he is already old and ill. He asked Your Majesty's permission to let his son Shang Zhi Xin to succeed his title of King of Pingnan. But now Shang KeXi is still alive. There is no precedent that the son can succeed his father's title when his father is still alive. So it is not necessary to consider whether or not to allow his son to succeed his title.”. Emperor Kangxi agreed to this with some stipulations about numbers of military personnel and such. Then in July of 1673, Wu Sangui asked to be permitted to retire just like Shang Kexi and to be able to “settle down in some place”, the Emperor said he would speak to the court to arrange the migration. Then a week later, Geng Jingzhong asked the exact same thing and the Emperor said he would speak to the court. The court was divided on the issue, and against the majority in the court Emperor Kangxi decided to allow each man to have their wish. Wu Sangui was going to be given land in Guizhou, but he frantically sent word to Emperor Kangxi that he required a larger land because his officers families were many. It was a bit audacious and curious that Wu Sangui began with “settle down in some place” and turned it into “oh but I really need a much bigger place than that”, it was like he was asking for something he knew he could not have. It turns out, Wu Sangui had assumed when he asked permission to retire that the Qing court would instead try everything they could to persuade him not to retire and to stay in Yunnan. That way they might give him even more autonomy and money thus enabling him to continue building his autonomous state even more. When the emperor said yes to his request it must have been a real shock and to make matters worse for Wu, the emperor immediately began the process of migrating him and his men so he freaked out. So in 1673, Wu Sangui cut off his provinces connections to the Qing dynasty and began a rebellion under the banner of “Fǎn qīng fùmíng” “oppose the qing and restore the ming”. He was supported by his son Wu Shifan and other Ming loyalists in Yunnan, soon they all cut off their Manchu queues and he sent loyal commanders to garrison strategic passes into Yunnan. The provincial governor of Yunnan Zhu Guo Zhi refused to join him and so Wu had him assassinated. By 1678 Wu would declare a new dynasty, here we go again meme, giving himself the title King of Zhou and Great Marshal of the Expedition Army. And thus the Zhou dynasty was born. Wu Sangui ordered all of his followers to cut their Manchu queues and for all the banners to be white, and issued white military uniforms. The next order of business was sending word to Shang Kexi the Prince of Pingnan and Geng Jingzhong the Prince of Jingnan asking them to join the rebellion. Wu Sangui sent his loyal general Ma Bao to command a vanguard and march on Guiyang, the capital of Guizhou. All of Guizhou surrendered without a fight. Soon word got out of the rebellion and the colossal failure of Guizhou to defend itself. Emperor Kangxi immediately ordered the migration of Shang Kexi and Geng Jingzhong to be stopped and began to rally his army to meet the new threat. Generals from multiple provinces were assembled and estimates range quite a lot. Some say 500,000 some say up to a million troops, with the majority being Han Chinese of the Green Standard army were mustered. Emperor Kangxi promised any general who brought him Wu Sangui's head would receive all the titles which Wu had held and any general that brought the heads of Wu's generals would receive whatever titles those generals held, pretty big incentive. Emperor Kangxi also arrested and executed one of Wu Sangui's sons who unfortunately was still in Beijing at the time named Wu Yingxiong. Wu Sangui's army set out of Guizhou and attacked Yuanzhou of Hunan province. Next Chenzhou, then his army split up taking Hengzhou, Lizhou, Yuezhou and Changsha. Most of the governors simply fled for their lives. Then Wu's army marched into Hubei province attacking Yichang, Xiangyang, Yunyang where he defeated multiple armies. Emperor Kangxi furiously ordered some of his generals to rush to Wuchang as it was strategically important and had to be defended. The southern Qing forces had not been prepared to face the well trained army of Wu Sangui and were falling like dominoes. To make matters worse many rallied to Wu Sangui's cause, such as Sun Yanling, a general in Guangxi. Soon Wu's army was in Sichuan causing havoc, everywhere Wu's army went there were either military defeats for the Qing, retreats or defections. Then in March of 1674 Geng Jingzhong began a rebellion in Fujian declaring himself Grand General of All the Armies. Soon his forces took Yanping, Shaowu, Funing, Jianning and Tingzhou. Then Geng Jingzhong and Wu Sangui managed to form an agreement that they should combine forces and hit Jiangxi province together. At the same time Geng Jingzhong sent an envoy to our old friend Zheng Jing the king of Taiwan to come join the party by attacking prefectures and counties across the coast. Soon Geng Jingzhongs forces took Jiangshan, Pingyang, Wenzhou, Yueqing, Tiantai, Xianju and Chengxian. He defeated countless armies, rallied many to his cause and earned many defectors amassing an army of 100,000. Then he set out to attack Shaoxing, Ningpo, Huangyan, Jinhua before marching into Jiangxi province. From there Geng and wu took Guangxin, Jianchang, Raozhou, Kaihua, Shouchang, Chun'an, Huizhou, Wuyuan and Qimen. Thus his forces had hit the provinces of Fujian, Jiangxi, Zhejiang and Anhui. The Southeast of China was in utter chaos. Meanwhile Shang Kexi notified Emperor Kangxi of Geng Jingzhong's rebellion early. Shang Kexi was loosely related to Geng Jingzhong, his son Shang Zhixin's wife was Geng's younger sister. Now that Geng Jingzhong was rebelling, he knew people would suspect he was going to rebel, but he did not want to. I mean hell the guy is 70 years old, he just wanted to retire. So he asked Emperor Kangxi if he could prove his loyalty by protecting Guangdong Province from the rebels and give his life in doing so. The Emperor was moved by this and ordered more units and money be made available to Shang Kexi for the task. Now remember, Shang Kexi was also the guy who got the confirmation that his son Shang Zhixin would inherit all he had, titles and all. When Wu Sangui began the rebellion, Emperor Kangxi was 20 years old and Wu assumed he was a “green horn” IE: a incompetant young man with no real experience and thus a push over. But very soon Wu Sangui would be facing the full might of the entire Qing Dynasty and he certainly began to regret his decision to rebel. When his army reached Lizhou he got word that the Emperor had executed his son Wu Yingxiong and his grandson. Allegedly he was eating a meal when a messenger told him this and he exclaimed “The young emperor is so capable! I am doomed to fail”. An odd quote to say the least given the circumstances, but thats how one of my sources put it….I'd rather think he'd shout in grief or something. Emperor Kangxi dispatched many Generals to help Shang Kexi attack the rebels occupying Yuezhou as Wu Sangui set up defenses there and sent expeditionary forces to march into Jiangxi province. The expeditionary forces took Nankang, Duchang and then Wu Sangui sent more expeditionary forces out of Changsha to hit Pingxiang, Anfu, Shanggao and Xinchang. Emperor Kangxi responded by throwing titles out to countless officials ordering them to suppress all the rebel forces spreading like wildfire, honestly I can't list the mount of Princes that spring up. Countless Qing generals and governors fought and died to the rebel armies. By january of 1675 Emperor Kangxi ordered Grand General Yuele positioned in Yuanzhou to recapture Changsha. Yuele led his forces to take Nanchang, Shanggao, Xinchang, Donxiang, Wannian, Anren and Xincheng defeating countless rebels. When his force made it to Pingxiang they were repelled. At this point Wu Sangui ordered his men to build wooden fortresses to defend cities without natural defenses and to build log barriers to thwart cavalry, log obstacles in the rivers to thwart naval forces and traps everywhere. Then Wu Sangui told his troops he was going to cross the Yangtze River and break the dike near Jingzhou to immerse the city in water. While this was to occur he ordered some subordinates to attack Yunyang, Junzhou and Nanzhang. In 1676 Wu Sangui's forces approached Guangdong and Shang Kexi was seriously ill leaving his son Shang Zhixin in charge of the defense. Many forces defected to Wu Sangui and allegedly in an effort to save his father, Shang Zhixin defected and became a grand general in Wu's army. Ironically and rather tragically it seems the surrender broke Shang Kexi's heart and he died. In December Shang Zhixin regretted his defection so much he sent a secret envoy to Emperor Kangxi begging to be allowed to defect back over to the Qing and Emperor Kangxi accepted him with open arms right back. Quite a few rebel generals began to defect back to the Qing and the Emperor kept a policy of extreme leniency hoping to win many over without bloodshed. These were after all his subjects and the emperor understood the need to avoid bloodshed whenever possible. Wu Sangui sent forces to attack Ji'an while Yuele made a second attempt attacking Pingxiang. Yuele's forces had destroyed 12 enemy fortresses and killed more than 10,000 rebels before the rebel commander of Pingxiang fled. After taking Pingxiang, Yuele marched on Liling and Liuyang before finally attacking his tasked objective Changsha. Meanwhile Emperor Kangxi also dispatched forces into Zhejiang Province to attack Geng Jingzhong. In 1676 they attacked Wenzhou fighting fiercely and taking multiple fortresses. Despite a fierce month long siege, Wenzhou withstood the Qing and thus they bypassed it to march into Fujian province taking Jiangshan first. Meanwhile Zheng Jing's force arrived at Xinghua Bay to attack Fuzhou, but Geng Jingzhong was at the end of his resources and ended up asking permission to defect to Emperor Kangxi. He asked Emperor Kangxi permission to show his newfound loyalty by attacking Zheng Jing's invading force at Fuzhou. Emperor Kangxi accepted the offer and said he could resume his title of King of Jingnan if he was successful. The forces of Geng Jingzhong, heavily supported by the Qing army sent initially to defeat him mind you, easily defeated Zheng Jing's force sending him packing back to Taiwan. A real game of thrones. By 1677 Wu Sangui's army were facing stalemates all over the place and Yuele successfully captured Changsha. Then Ji'an fell as many of Wu's men simply retreated. By 1678 Yuele recovered Pinjiang and Xiangyin defeating countless rebels and accepting many surrenders. Then Wu Sangui sent one of his most formidable generals Ma Bao to attack Yongxing and he died in battle failing to take the city. Wu Sangui was 67 years old, 6 years had passed since he began the rebellion. The vast territory he had taken in its peak was declining rapidly. His army was greatly weakened, but despite all of this many of his officials pleaded to him that he should officially declare himself emperor. So he proclaimed his reign title as Zhaowu meaning “demonstrating great military power” of the Zhou Dynasty in march, I guess go big or go home right. He made Hengzhou of Hunan Province the new capital and like all the rest before him began issuing titles and so forth. Then in august he was stricken with dysentery and was so ill he apparently could barely speak. He ordered his son Wu Shifan to come to Hengzhou, and by September 11th he was dead. Wu Shifan decided to take the mantle and chose the title reign of Honghua. When Emperor Kangxi got news of Wu Sangui's death it was like a shark smelling blood in the water and he sent all his armies to crash upon Hunan, apparently the Emperor even considered leading the army he was that eager. Wu Shifan's forces fled for their lives when the Qing armies marched into Hubei, disarray was soon rampant. Soon Yuele's troops marched into Hunan and attacked Wugang which had a fairly stout defense of 20,000 troops. The battle was bloody, Wugangs commander was killed, his troops soon routed and the city fell. The rebel army's morale was low, the Qing took Yuezhou, Changde, Hangzhou. It got to a point where the Qing faced more issues with logistics than they did in the actual fighting of the enemy. By 1680 the provinces of Hunan, Guizhou, Guangxi and Sichuan fell back to the Qing and Wu Shifan fled to Kunming. Once Wu Shifan was pressed into a corner in Yunnan province the Qing General Zhao Liangdong formed a 3 pronged attack strategy to hit Yunnan. The attack would be performed by Cai Yurong, Zhang Tai and Laita Giyesu. They each marched through Hunan, Guangxi and Sichuan respectfully taking territory as they did. Wu Shifan had no reinforcements and was greatly outnumbered. The Qing generals entered Yunnan and Kunming was besieged for months, but it still held firm. General Zhao Liang proposed they cut Wu Shifans supply route on Kunming lake and this provided quick results. The generals then led a fierce attack upon the city. But before they could capture Wu Shifan he had committed suicide. They decapitated his corpse and sent it back to Beijing. There lies just one more small story to end the tale. All the way back in 1674 Geng Jingzhong as we know sent an envoy to Taiwan to ask the help of Zheng Jing. Zheng Jing sailed to Siming, the south part of Xiamen in southeast Fujian province. His army then captured Tong'an and marched north to attack Quanzhou which was defended by Geng Jingzhongs army. Geng Jingzhongs men fled the scene after a quick battle and Zheng captured Quanzhou. From there he took Chaozhou, defeating more of Geng Jingzhong's troops, making an enemy out of him. Then in 1675 Geng Jingzhong made peace with Zheng Jing, it seems it was all a misunderstanding and they began to collude. But in 1676 Geng Jingzhong surrendered to the Qing and personally asked to be tasked with defeating Zheng Jing, so perhaps there was something more personal going on between the 2. Well Zheng Jing began the new found war between them by besieging Quanzhou again. The siege lasted 2 months but he was unable to take it. Zheng Jing lifted the siege and instead attacked Fuzhou, but by now Qing forces were crashing into Fujian province. The forces fought for various cities such as Quanzhou, Tingzhou and Zhangzhou. In 1677 Zheng Jing laid siege again for a 3rd time to Quanzhou, but the Qing in the meantime had taken 10 counties back and were overwhelming Zheng Jings armies. He lifted the siege yet again and fled back to Siming, and by 1678 a Qing envoy showed up demanding his surrender. Emperor Kangxi followed this up by sending naval forces to Fujian to attack Kinmen island. Enroute a Qing naval force led by Wan Zhengse attacked Haitan island. During the ensuing battle 16 of Zheng Jing's ships were destroyed with more than 3000 soldiers drowned. Zheng Jing's admiral at the scene, Zhu Tiangui had to flee and Wan Zhengse pursued them. Soon Meizhou island, Nanri island, Pinghai county and Chongwu county were seized by the Qing naval forces. Then land forces and Wan Zhengse consolidated and attacked Zheng Jings forces in Xiamen. They smashed his army there, Zheng Jing tried to flee to Kinmen, but the Qing attacked it simultaneously forcing him to sail all the way back to Taiwan. In 1781 shortly after arriving in Tainan, Zheng Jing died of dissipation on march 17th. Zheng Jing's eldest and illegitimate son Zheng Kezang was appointed as Supervisor of the state. Now Zheng Kezang was the next in line to take the throne, but this is where that “illegitimate” part comes up. Two political hungry officials hated Zheng Kezang, Feng Xifan the head of the bodyguards and Liu Guoxuan a high ranking military officer. Upon Zheng Jing's death they both began to slandere Zheng Kezang as not being a biological son of Zheng Jing in front of the Queen Dowager Dong. They then launched a coup with the help of Zheng Jing's brother Zheng Cong against Zheng Kezang, killing him and installing his 12 year old little brother Zheng Keshuang on the throne. Some real game of thrones shit. Meanwhile Emperor Kangxi and the Qing court heard about the coup and that a 12 year old emperor was just placed upon the throne and he realized the time was ripe to attack the politically divided and certainly weak island of Taiwan. Then a Qing court official recommended our old friend Shi Lang, the man who had a blood feud with Zheng's family, to command the entire Qing navy against Taiwan. Thus Shi Lang was made commander in chief of the naval force and ordered to take the Pengdu Islands and then Taiwan. Shi Lang rallied 20,000 crack troops and 300 warships for an invasion of Pengdu. Shi Lang also took the time to purchase a number of Dutch made cannons for his bigger ships. Liu Guoxuan of Taiwan knew the Qing would attack Pengdu first and sent a large force there to prepare it's defenses. In june of 1683 Shi Lang's navy sailed out of Tongshan and captured a few small islands along the way to Pengdu. Now Shi Lang divided his force into smaller fleets before engaging the enemy. He sent one detachment to slip around the planned naval battle and land covertly near Liu Guoxuan's base on Pengdu. Liu Guoxuan was no fool however and placed numerous cannons and troops along the beaches to thwart such attacks. On June 16th the battle of Pengdu commenced and many of Liu Guoxuan's larger ships targeted the smaller fleets of Shi Lang encircled them. Seeing this unfold Shi Lang took his flagship personally in to break up the encirclements. As the battle raged, a stray arrow hit Shi Lang in the eye spraying blood everywhere, but Shi Lang fought on. Shi Lang managed to break an encirclement killing 3000 enemy soldiers and by June 18th captured Hujing island, just southwest of Pendu island proper and Tongpanyu island to its southwest. On June 22nd, Shi Lang organized multiple simultaneous attacks to throw the enemy off balance. He sent 50 warships to hit Jilongyu and Sijiaoshan situated on the west of Pengdu island. Another 50 warships to hit Niuxinwan Bay to attract the enemy's attention as he sailed off personally with 56 warships right through the center to hit Pengdu island proper. The enemy sent all their warships out to meet his separate forces and from 7am to 5pm they fought. The Qing managed to outflank and break the enemies formation, but they fought on tenaciously. In the end the Qing won a battle of attrition as they had significantly more ammunition than the rebel navy whom was forced to resort to boarding ships and melee fighting. Many rebel leaders chose not to surrender and went down fighting to the end in a blaze of gunfire and glory. Over 194 enemy warships were destroyed, more than 12,000 enemy soldiers were killed. Seeing he was going to lose the battle, Liu Guoxuan took his fastest ship and fled back to Taiwan. Shi Lang's detachment that slipped past the battle landed ashore and were met with an onslaught of cannons and arrows from the beaches. However the Qing warships began to tip the scale in firepower breaking open pockets for amphibious assaults and soon the Qing soldiers were breaking through towards Liu Guoxuans base. The Qing defeated the garrison at the base and raised the Qing banner triumphantly. On july 15th, Zheng Keshuang sent envoys to Pengdu island to offer terms of surrender to Shi Lang. By August Shi Lang accepted their surrender in Taiwan and on August 18th, Zheng Keshuang and all his officers and officials shaved their heads in the Manchu style. They all then positioned themselves to face the direction of Beijing and bowed, Taiwan was now part of the Qing empire. Shi Lang was granted by Emperor Kangxi the title of General of Jinghai, Jinghai meaning “pacifying the sea”. Zheng Keshuang and his highest officials were escorted to Beijing and Zheng Keshuang was granted the title duke of Haicheng 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 Qing war for unification was over, of course there would be countless rebellions during the reign of the Qing dynasty, but as for the threat of a Ming takeover that was not a thing of the past. A brand new world was emerging however, as the 19th century was soon rolling in and with it much much more devious trouble. For the century of humiliation was mere decades from commencing its ugly start. 9500
Starting from June 10th, overseas tourists will be allowed back into Japan!!! Well ... kind of. A very limited number of groups chaperoned under very specific schedules will be able to enjoy tightly controlled tour packages. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Japan was throwing all its weight into reaching a lofty goal of having 60 million overseas tourists yearly - close to double the 31 million visitors it let in during pre-pandemic 2019. But with the current uncertainty surrounding where the pandemic might be heading next, it seems more than half of the Japanese population remains opposed to opening the borders to tourists. How are the tours supposed to work, and who can actually enter the country, and what do the guys think about it all? Listen now to find out!Sponsors:Bearfoot BarLocated in downtown Sapporo, walking distance from the subway station. There are variety of Japanese made craft bottled beers. A range of whiskeys and basic cocktails also available. Burgers and pub style snacks. Friendly English and Japanese speaking staff. https://www.facebook.com/bearfootbarThe Red HouseLocated in the heart of Rusutsu Ski Resort, just cross the main road and it's behind the Seicomart Convenience store. The restaurant features a mix of Japanese, Asian fusion, and western Style dishes, including shabu-shabu with wagyu beef and Hokkaido wagyu beef steak. Open winter and summer, 12-3pm for lunch, 5-9pm for dinner, with prices ranging from under Yen 1000 to about Yen 5000. https://theredhouse.jp/Rusutsu LodgesOpen all year round. Located 5 minutes walk to the main Rusutsu Ski Resort Gondola. There are Japanese, Western, and apartment style rooms with breakfast packages available. There's a Japanese sento (public bath), two convenience stores less than a minute walk, ski room and tune up tables, plenty of free parking space, and summer BBQ packages available. Check out the website for more information and availability. http://rusutsulodges.comHokkaido GuideEstablished over 10 years ago, written by locals for locals and international tourists. The guide contains information on all types of businesses and locations around Hokkaido. There's information regarding all things Hokkaido such as sightseeing, nightlife, events, services, food and restaurants, entertainment, outdoor activities, and more. Currently offered in English and Thai, advertising space available. Check out website for everything you need to know about this beautiful prefecture. https://hokkaidoguide.comUse our Buzzsprout affiliate link to start your podcast today!Website:https://www.voicesinjapan.com/Follow us and check out our other content:https://twitter.com/voicesinjapanhttps://www.facebook.com/voicesinjapan/https://www.instagram.com/voicesinjapan/Get in touch:voicesinjapan@gmail.comSupport the show
In the year 1853, Japan is an isolationist, feudal society. By 1877, she's a modern nation, with a centralized government and burgeoning national industry. This process, called the Meiji Restoration, is one of the most remarkable national transformations in all of history. But how does it happen? In this episode, Dan discusses the first part of the story. We'll start out with the Tokugawa Shogunate and its policy of Sakoku – isolation. Then we'll talk about the Japanese experience in the 19th century, and how American Commodore Matthew Perry's expedition changes Japan, and the world, forever. Dan's new interview with Ben from The History Voyager: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4EVcbeJhWQtnlp36jJI2L4 SUBSCRIBE TO RELEVANT HISTORY, AND NEVER MISS AN EPISODE! Relevant History Patreon: https://bit.ly/3vLeSpF Subscribe on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/38bzOvo Subscribe on Apple Music (iTunes): https://apple.co/2SQnw4q Subscribe on Google Music: https://bit.ly/30hUTRD RSS feed: https://bit.ly/2R0Iosz Relevant History on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3eRhdtk Relevant History on Facebook: https://bit.ly/2Qk05mm Relevant History SubscribeStar: https://www.subscribestar.com/relevant-history Official website: https://bit.ly/3btvha4 Episode transcript: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQ_LZO-uyQSprOn-mKgPzYoULDrTkU0-ahVlGzkRqVEs8xTEHOv_mvZnrNelvy_Bq2EpIioDwlodo0g/pub Music credit: Sergey Cheremisinov - Black Swan
Craig and Justin speak about the history and economics behind the Meiji Restoration. After 214 years of Sakoku, Japan was opened up by Commodore Matthew C Perry ushering in a new Era. The Meiji Restoration was the rapid modernization of Tokugawa Japan into the modern Era. The Tokugawa Shogunate system wouldnot survive the Bakumatsu period and would fall as a result of the Boshin war. The Samurai would make a last stand during the Satsuma Rebellion. The incredible industrialization of Japan under Emperor Meiji would change all aspects of Japan and would lead to the creation of the Empire of Japan.
Tokugawa Japan underwent a isolationist period known as "Sakoku" (closed country) for 214 years. Yet how "isolated" was it truly? Here you will learn about when and how the first Europeans made contact with Japan. What the Shimbara Rebellion was, how the Tokugawa Shogunate operated and traded at Dejima with the Portuguese and Dutch. Which European nations tried to open up Japan. How Commodore Matthew C Perry eventually was the one to open Japan up and how Japan viewed the world during its Sakoku period. What would occur after is the Meiji Revolution, the rapid modernization of Tokugawa Japan into the Meiji Era.
Craig and Justin speak about the history and economics behind the Sakoku period of Japan and the many attempts by foreigners to open it up. Tokugawa Japan underwent a isolationist period known as "Sakoku" (closed country) for 214 years. Yet how "isolated" was it truly? Here you will learn about when and how the first Europeans made contact with Japan. What the Shimbara Rebellion was, how the Tokugawa Shogunate operated and traded at Dejima with the Portuguese and Dutch. Which European nations tried to open up Japan. How Commodore Matthew C Perry eventually was the one to open Japan up and how Japan viewed the world during its Sakoku period.
This week, we're taking a look at the foreign policy of Edo Japan by starting a deep dive into a complex case study: the tale of the 10 prisoners of Nanbu domain!
"Marine Style" flask with octopus, Aegean Civilisation of Crete, the Late Minoan Bronze Age from c. 1500-1450 BC Throughout the world and throughout time, people and cultures have both revered and feared this eight-limbed, legendary Cephalopod - the octopus. We’ll look at the mythology and folklore of the octopus, their physiology and behaviour; which all strengthen their reputation as symbols of strength, intelligence and mystery. We’ll look at artworks by Japanese master Hokusai, resin artist Keng Lye, potter Tammy Garcia and illustrator Esther Van Hulsen. Plus I make takoyaki - round octopus pancake balls! Show Notes: 00:00-01:45 Intros 01:45-06:30 Octopus background history, myths, characteristics, origins, ancient history, 06:30-16:00 art, late minoan marine style flask, tammy garcia, Hokusai, Esther Van Hulsen, Keng Lye 16:00-19:15 Intelligence of the octopus, Octopolis, Octlantis, escape artists, anatomy, physiology, sex lives and child rearing 19:15-20:40 Jean Painleve octopus short films 20:40-25.25 Takoyaki and Michiru!!! 25:25-27:25 Closing 27:25-28:07 Cringey jingle Blackware pottery with octopus motifs by potter Tammy Garcia A block print depicting the folklore tale of Akkorokamui from Hokkiado, Japan, date and artist unknown Hokusai’s 1814 shunga print, its Japanese title is Tako to Ama, translated to English as Girl Diver and Octopuses and also widely known in English as Dream of the Fisherman's Wife from Shingu Gallery retouched singular image of Hokusai’s 1814 shunga print, Tako to Ama Octopuses as depicted by artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi from the story of Princess Tamatori and the Dragon King. Illustration by Esther van Hulsen made with ink extracted from a 95 million year old octopus fossil by paleontologist Jørn Hurum. The piece is exhibited together with the fossil in the Natural History Museum in Oslo, Norway. 95 million year old octopus fossil found in 2009 and it’s ink, extracted by paleontologist Jørn Hurum and then . The piece is exhibited together with the fossil in the Natural History Museum in Oslo, Norway. ink as used in Esther Van Hulsen’s octopus illustration as seen above. Singapore based artist Keng Lye’s resin and acrylic 3-D octopus on an enamel plate Takoyaki ingredients Cooked octopus Takoyaki - first batch I used the Japan Centre recipe for Takoyaki: Ingredients batter: 200g flour, 2 eggs , 450ml water, pinch of dashi stock fillings: 100g fresh boiled octopus, chopped , 1 bunch spring onion, chopped red pickled ginger , tempura flakes toppings: takoyaki sauce, japanese mayonnaise , aosa powdered seaweed (or aonori) , katsuobushi, bonito flakes How To Prepare 1. Start by creating the batter. Grab a large bowl and mix together 2 eggs, 200g of flour, 450ml of water and a little dashi stock. Set this aside. If you have the ready-made okonomiyaki flour, follow the directions for making the batter and you’re good to go. 2. Place your takoyaki plate on the gas stove on medium heat and heat up a small amount of oil in each hole. 3. Cut up your octopus into small pieces. Place a piece of octopus in each of the semi-circular holes, and then fill up each hole to the top with the batter mix. You can even overflow the batter out of the hole to make it easier to flip them later. 4. Now you can add the chopped spring onion, red pickled ginger and tempura flakes to each hole. The amount you add is up to you, but only a small amount of each will give enough flavour. 5. Once the takoyaki are about half cooked, about 1-2 minutes, you will need to flip them over. The best way to do this is to use a small wooden skewer to poke the outside of the batter and flip it over within the hole. This takes a bit of practice to get done smoothly so keep trying if you are making a mess. 6. You can usually only flip each takoyaki about three quarters of the way round so allow it to cook a little more before flipping it again. By now, all your takoyaki should be round so keep rotating them in the holes to make sure that they cook evenly on all sides. This will take about 3-4 minutes until golden brown on the outside. 7. Place a few takoyaki on a plate and smother them with loads of takoyaki sauce and Japanese mayonnaise. Then sprinkle a bit of powdered seaweed and some bonito flakes on top and enjoy. Allow to cool slightly and enjoy hot. Takoyaki - second batch Liguria Polpo salad Greco Octopus salad
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Japan's Sakoku period, two centuries when the country deliberately isolated itself from the Western world. Sakoku began with a series of edicts in the 1630s which restricted the rights of Japanese to leave their country and expelled most of the Europeans living there. For the next two hundred years, Dutch traders were the only Westerners free to live in Japan. It was not until 1858 and the gunboat diplomacy of the American Commodore Matthew Perry that Japan's international isolation finally ended. Although historians used to think of Japan as completely isolated from external influence during this period, recent scholarship suggests that Japanese society was far less isolated from European ideas during this period than previously thought. With: Richard Bowring Emeritus Professor of Japanese Studies at the University of Cambridge Andrew Cobbing Associate Professor of History at the University of Nottingham Rebekah Clements Research Fellow of Queens' College and Research Associate at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge. Producer: Thomas Morris.
Japan's self imposed "isolation", known as "sakoku", was ostensibly in effect from the 1630's to the 1850's. Despite the view that Japan was completely isolated and walled off from the rest of the world, there was considerable international trade and activity happening throughout the period. This is part two of two. Support this podcast: Shop Amazon.com, suport the podcast: http://amzn.to/wnDX2j Samurai Archives Bookstore: http://astore.amazon.com/samurai-20 Samurai Archives Shop (T-Shirts, etc) http://www.cafepress.com/samuraiarchives Contact Us: Twitter @SamuraiArchives https://twitter.com/#!/samuraiarchives Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Samurai-Archives/104533213984 Samurai Archives podcast blog: http://www.samuraipodcast.com Samurai Archives Forum: http://www.japanhistoryforum.com
Japan’s self imposed “isolation”, known as “sakoku”, was ostensibly in effect from the 1630’s to the 1850’s. Despite the view that Japan was completely isolated and walled off from the rest of the world, there was considerable international trade and activity happening throughout the period. This is part one of two. Support this podcast: Shop Amazon.com, suport the podcast: http://amzn.to/wnDX2j Samurai Archives Bookstore: http://astore.amazon.com/samurai-20 Samurai Archives Shop (T-Shirts, etc) http://www.cafepress.com/samuraiarchives Contact Us: Twitter @SamuraiArchives https://twitter.com/#!/samuraiarchives Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Samurai-Archives/104533213984 Samurai Archives podcast blog: http://www.samuraipodcast.com Samurai Archives Forum: http://www.japanhistoryforum.com
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