Podcasts about Wuxi

Our guest is Alexandra Lee, a sophomore saber fencer at Princeton University and a rising star on the international stage. She recently helped Team USA win a gold medal at the Junior & Cadet World Championships in Wuxi, China — and even brought home an individual silver in women's saber as well. In this episode, we'll dive deep into Alexandra's journey, from standing atop the podium in Wuxi to balancing life as an Ivy League student-athlete, and learn what it takes to succeed in both elite fencing and rigorous academics. --First to 15: The Official Podcast of USA FencingHost: Bryan WendellCover art: Manna CreationsTheme music: Brian Sanyshyn

The three-day Qingming Festival holiday has seen a tourism boom with domestic attractions receiving 126 million visits, marking a year-on-year growth of 6.3 percent, according to the latest figures released by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism on Monday.为期三天的清明节假期迎来了旅游热潮。文化和旅游部周一发布的最新数据显示，国内旅游景区共接待游客 1.26 亿人次，同比增长 6.3%。These domestic travels generated tourism consumption of about 57.5 billion yuan ($7.87 billion) during the holiday — from Friday to Sunday, which is a 6.7 percent increase year-on-year.在本周五至周日的假期期间，这些国内游产生了约 575 亿元人民币（78.7 亿美元）的旅游消费，同比增长 6.7%。Qingming Festival, also known as Tomb-Sweeping Day, is the time for Chinese people to visit their ancestors' tombs and make ritual offerings. People usually go outside to enjoy spring views over the holiday as well.清明节，又称扫墓节，是中国人祭拜祖先坟墓并进行祭祀仪式的时节。人们通常也会在这个假期外出欣赏春日景色。According to a release by the ministry, a large number of people went to those tourist spots to honor revolutionary martyrs over the holiday. Destinations highlighting flower blossoms were also popular among travelers such as Henan's Luoyang and Jiangsu's Wuxi cities, which are famous for peony flowers and cherry blossoms respectively.根据文化和旅游部发布的消息，在这个假期，大量民众前往那些旅游景点缅怀革命烈士。以赏花为特色的旅游目的地也受到游客的欢迎，比如河南省的洛阳市和江苏省的无锡市，这两个城市分别以牡丹花和樱花而闻名。重点词汇：Qingming Festival：[ˌtʃɪŋˈmɪŋ ˈfestɪvl]，清明节tourism：[ˈtʊərɪzəm]，名词，意为 “旅游业；观光业；旅游活动”martyr：[ˈmɑːtə(r)]，名词，意为 “烈士；殉道者；殉教者；牺牲者；受难者”blossom：[ˈblɒsəm]，名词，意为 “花（尤指果树或灌木的花）”；动词，意为 “开花；变得更加健康（或自信、成功）”

TRACKLIST : Gelato 08 - Meanwhile Stiven Escarraga - I hate here (Pedro Campodonico remix) Lale & Cvtkvc - Vazda Baigø - Mind dub Figueras - Focus Annavoig - Sweet & menace Eiza - Non stop Fire Man - Any info Matthias Springer - Flowstone caves AN:TI - Lapka Type B. - Bedouin Chris Blum - Claudi

In this podcast, we spoke with Dr. George Wang, Vice President of Discovery and Preclinical Services at WuXi Biologics about the importance of identifying potential manufacturing, stability, and scalability challenges early to mitigate risks, reduce costs, and streamline drug development timelines. By evaluating factors such as solubility, stability, and manufacturability during initial candidate screening, companies can avoid costly setbacks later in the process. Advanced tools like high-throughput assays, computational modeling, and AI-based predictions are now essential for these evaluations. What Is Developability? Dr. Wang began by defining developability as the assessment of whether a drug candidate possesses the necessary attributes to be scaled up for production during Chemistry, Manufacturing, and Controls (CMC) development and, ultimately, for clinical trials and commercialization. He explained, “It's about identifying potential red flags early on—issues like aggregation, degradation, or manufacturing inefficiencies—that could derail a candidate further down the line.” Why Focus on Developability During Discovery? Traditionally, discovery efforts have focused on identifying antibodies with the highest efficacy and safety profiles. However, the increasing complexity of biologics, including bispecific antibodies and antibody-drug conjugates, has shifted industry focus. Dr. Wang emphasized the costly consequences of overlooking developability in the discovery phase. “Imagine investing millions into a molecule, only to discover insurmountable stability or manufacturability issues during development,” he said. “Performing these assessments early is like an insurance policy, mitigating risks and saving time and resources.” The Economic Case for Early Developability Assessments Dr. Wang highlighted the economic rationale for incorporating developability assessments during the initial discovery phase. “The cost of discovery is less than 1% of the total development cost. Spending a bit more upfront can save millions in reengineering or restarting development,” he noted. He also pointed out that superior developability attributes can provide a competitive edge, enabling faster clinical trial entry or product approval. Key Challenges and Industry Solutions Despite its benefits, the integration of developability assessments in discovery labs faces challenges. Labs often lack the tools, materials, and expertise required for systematic evaluations. “Developability attributes must be assessed using a robust combination of computational methods, analytical tools, and high-throughput assays, which many labs are not equipped to handle,” Dr. Wang explained. Companies like WuXi Biologics have stepped in to bridge this gap. “Our Discovery unit collaborates closely with our CMC team to identify and address developability issues early on,” said Dr. Wang. WuXi's “WuXiDEEP™,” platform has become a cornerstone of their success, helping fix more than 50 problematic molecules and guiding hundreds of projects through the development pipeline. A Stepwise Approach to Developability Dr. Wang outlined a stepwise approach to developability assessments, starting with high-throughput evaluations during the initial screening of hundreds of candidates. “We use computational analysis to identify red flags such as post-translational modification hotspots or aggregation risks,” he explained. Promising candidates then undergo more detailed assessments, requiring larger material quantities and lower-throughput methods. Even when issues arise, solutions like protein engineering can salvage candidates with strong biological functions. “It's not about discarding problem molecules outright but addressing and optimizing their developability profiles,” Dr. Wang emphasized. The Role of AI in Developability Assessments Artificial intelligence (AI) is playing an increasingly significant role in drug discovery, and Dr.

Morse code transcription: vvv vvv Scarlet tanager brings more visitors in two days than 30 years Woman, 24, found in the boot of a car named by police UK snow and ice warnings as weather forecast to turn colder Inheritance tax Big farmers protest as Starmer defends Budget Molly Mae Hague shocked by Tommy Fury split Newspaper headlines 1bn boost for buses and Italy style migrant deals Democratic Senators call for probe into Musks alleged contact with Putin UK Pizza Hut to raise funds after Budget tax hikes Zelensky says war will end sooner with Trump as president Eight dead after stabbing at Wuxi school in eastern China

Morse code transcription: vvv vvv Newspaper headlines 1bn boost for buses and Italy style migrant deals Democratic Senators call for probe into Musks alleged contact with Putin Eight dead after stabbing at Wuxi school in eastern China Molly Mae Hague shocked by Tommy Fury split Inheritance tax Big farmers protest as Starmer defends Budget UK Pizza Hut to raise funds after Budget tax hikes Woman, 24, found in the boot of a car named by police Scarlet tanager brings more visitors in two days than 30 years UK snow and ice warnings as weather forecast to turn colder Zelensky says war will end sooner with Trump as president

Morse code transcription: vvv vvv Woman, 24, found in the boot of a car named by police Newspaper headlines 1bn boost for buses and Italy style migrant deals Democratic Senators call for probe into Musks alleged contact with Putin Scarlet tanager brings more visitors in two days than 30 years Inheritance tax Big farmers protest as Starmer defends Budget Zelensky says war will end sooner with Trump as president UK snow and ice warnings as weather forecast to turn colder Molly Mae Hague shocked by Tommy Fury split Eight dead after stabbing at Wuxi school in eastern China UK Pizza Hut to raise funds after Budget tax hikes

Morse code transcription: vvv vvv Eight dead after stabbing at Wuxi school in eastern China UK snow and ice warnings as weather forecast to turn colder Scarlet tanager brings more visitors in two days than 30 years Inheritance tax Big farmers protest as Starmer defends Budget Newspaper headlines 1bn boost for buses and Italy style migrant deals Zelensky says war will end sooner with Trump as president Democratic Senators call for probe into Musks alleged contact with Putin UK Pizza Hut to raise funds after Budget tax hikes Molly Mae Hague shocked by Tommy Fury split Woman, 24, found in the boot of a car named by police

This Week in Skating is hosted by Gina Capellazzi, Daphne Backman and Matteo Morelli is a cooperative project between Figure Skaters Online and Ice-dance.com. New episodes are available every Tuesday.Website: https://www.thisweekinskating.comEmail: thisweekinskating@gmail.comFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/thisweekinskatingTwitter: https://www.twitter.com/thiswkinskatingInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinskatingThread: https://www.threads.net/@thisweekinskatingPatreon: patreon.com/ThisWeekinSkating------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Season 3: Episode 29 (Oct. 15, 2024)Show notes can now be found on our website: https://www.thisweekinskating.com/2024/10/show-notes-october-15-2024/Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/this-week-in-skating-podcast/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The cell and gene therapy sector may be on the road to recovery after being met with investment headwinds following the highs seen during the pandemic, according to data presented Monday at the 2024 Cell & Gene Meeting on the Mesa hosted by the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine. BioSpace News Editor Greg Slabodkin reports from Phoenix. Last week, news broke that WuXi AppTec and WuXi Biologics, two companies named in the BIOSECURE Act, are looking to unload facilities in the U.S. and abroad as uncertainty looms over their U.S. business prospects. As Eli Lilly resolves shortages of its GLP-1 blockbusters, the company remains confident in its massive lead, along with competitor Novo Nordisk, over other companies with weight loss drug candidates—GLP-1s or other modalities such as next-gen CB1 inhibitors—looking to compete in the lucrative space. Not only are both companies making deals to expand their pipelines beyond GLP-1s, Lilly and Novo are actively pursuing broader markets for their current diabetes and weight loss blockbusters. Meanwhile, Big Pharma's layoffs continue with announcements last week from Bayer, J&J and Pfizer.

The trio is BACK as they talk about the recent 3x3 events, from the Women's Series Final to the dominance of DeMarcus Cousins at the 3x3 World Tour in Wuxi and more!

Good morning from Pharma and Biotech daily: the podcast that gives you only what's important to hear in Pharma and Biotech world.CVS is laying off 2,900 employees as part of a cost-cutting plan and potential business breakup. Humana's Medicare Advantage star ratings have dropped significantly, impacting profits. Healthcare workers face burnout, while the payer-provider relationship is evolving. Mission Hospital in North Carolina is struggling after Hurricane Helene, and Steward CEO Ralph de la Torre is being sued by senators. Healthcare companies are urged to prioritize patient-centric experiences. The text also highlights upcoming healthcare conferences, telehealth trends, and insights into the relationship between providers and payers.The FDA has officially declared the end of the shortage of Zepbound and Mounjaro, putting pressure on companies selling compounded alternatives. Biopharma conferences in 2025 are important for showcasing clinical trial results. The FDA is set to make several key decisions in the fourth quarter, including approving a rival to a popular Pfizer heart drug. Roche plans to address an $8 billion sales gap due to biosimilar competition. Lilly is investing $4.5 billion in a "foundry" for advanced drug manufacturing. Additionally, there are resources available on topics such as AI in clinical research, genetic screening, gene therapy, and biosimilars. Other industry news includes potential sales of pharma units by Chinese company Wuxi, and the US's commitment to African manufacturing in HIV programs.Sanofi has sold the global rights to a rare autoimmune drug for cold agglutinin disease to Recordati in a potential $1 billion deal. Recordati will make an upfront payment of $825 million to Sanofi, with milestone payments of up to $250 million. Meanwhile, Novo's lowest dose of Wegovy remains on the FDA's drug shortage list. AbbVie has trimmed its full-year earnings guidance due to R&D milestone costs, following the success of its Parkinson's disease candidate Tavapadon. Relay Therapeutics is laying off 10% of its workforce to streamline its research organization. The pharma industry is prioritizing scaling GLP-1 manufacturing capacity to meet the demand for weight loss drugs. Lilly has ended its obesity drug shortage, while Novo continues to face shortages. WBL's proprietary library prep for cfDNA whole genome sequencing aims to enhance specificity, sensitivity, and data quality at low concentrations. In other news, BMS has received FDA approval for an Opdivo regimen in NSCLC and Bavarian Nordic's MPox shot shows antibody responses wane after 6 to 12 months.Dr. Matthew Schrag, a vascular neurologist at Vanderbilt University, is not prescribing the new Alzheimer's disease treatments, Kisunla and Leqembi, due to concerns over risks and costs. Schrag has a history of challenging prevailing science in Alzheimer's and has exposed instances of potential misconduct by researchers. In 2021, he raised allegations of data manipulation against Cassava Sciences, leading to ongoing scrutiny and calls for their phase 3 trials to be stopped. Despite distancing himself from the controversy, Schrag's findings have had a significant impact on the company. The article also discusses Roivant's unique approach to drug development, the latest advances in oncology research, and the challenges in navigating the path from preclinical studies to regulatory approval for gene therapies. The text highlights the importance of efficient therapeutic development processes and increasing diversity in clinical trials. Additionally, it provides links to resources on selecting clinical trial sites, unlocking partnerships for small biotech firms, and optimizing AAV manufacturing processes. The newsletter also includes updates on Medicare drug price talks, a groundbreaking trial for lung cancer treatment, and a map of a fruit fly's brain that has impressed neuroscientists.

Last time we spoke about the rise of Chiang Kai-Shek. Chiang Kai-Shek had gradually become a rising star in the KMT. Dr Sun Yat-Sen saw some promise in the young man and took him under his wing soon making him something akin to his number 2. Aligning with Sun Yat-Sen, Chiang Kai-Shek helped consolidate KMT power in Guangzhou and played a crucial role in military campaigns, including the suppression of the Canton Merchants Association militia in 1924. Following Sun Yat-Sen's death in 1925, Chiang Kai-Shek navigated the KMT power vacuum that unfolded. When the Guangzhou Coup occurred, Chiang Kai-Shek managed to keep his head and began systematically eliminating or neutralizing his rivals. In the end he solidified his authority and led to the temporary stabilization of KMT-CCP relations, setting the stage for the Northern Expedition aimed at unifying China under KMT leadership.   #108 The Anti-Fengtian War Part 1: The Zhejiang-Fengtian War Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. In this episode we are going to be talking about a new warlord, well new-ish. When I had been introducing the individual warlords and their factions, I had to set a few aside, because they come later on in the warlord Era, one of them being Sun Chuanfang. Sun Chuanfang was born April 17th, 1885 in Fanzhen, of Tai'an county in Shandong province. He lost his father at a early age, and because he grew up in old troublesome Shandong, he was destined to face hardship. One of those hardships was the Boxer Rebellion, which provided much unrest, poverty and famine. His family was forced to flee famine many times before they settled in Jinan. Sun Chuanfang had a little sister who went on to marry Wang Yingkai, a rising officer in the Beiyang Army and a protege under Yuan Shikai. By being the brother in law, Sun Chuanfang received some financial aid and was given a proper education. Sun Chuanfang was quickly deemed talented and strong, so it was recommended he join the Beiyang Army training camp in 1902. Sun Chuanfang graduated in 1904 and was sent to Japan to train at the Tokyo Shimbu Gakko military preparatory school. Reminiscent of Chiang Kai-Shek's experience, Sun Chuanfang joined the Tongmenghui while studying in Japan.He would graduate 6th in his class and served in the IJA before returning to China in 1908. In 1909 he took the Army Civil Service Examination and ha exellent results, obtaining the status of an infantry juren. After this Sun Chuanfang was assigned to the 2nd army regiment of Ma Longbiao. Eventually he was recruited by Wang Zhanyuan who would become something of a mentor to him. During the Wuchang uprising, Sun Chuanfang was assigned to forces who went south to supress the revolutionaries. After the founding of the new republic, Sun Chuanfang took a station in Hubei. Sun Chuanfang rose through the ranks and by 1917 he was appointed commander of the 21st mixed brigade. After this he received a promotion to commander of the 1st Division. During the Anhui-Zhili War Sun Chuanfang was fighting under Wang Zhanyuan as they captured Wu Guangxin. After this Sun Chuanfang was awarded commander in chief over the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. In 1921, the governor of Hunan, Zhao Hengti, attempted to expand his rule to Hubai launching a small war known loosely as the Hunan-Hubei War. Zhao Hengti failed to expand his rule, but forced something of a political struggle upon Wang Zhanyuan who ended up resigning from his post. Wu Peifu then recommended Sun Chuanfang to became the commander of the 2nd division, working under him. During the 1st Zhili-Fengtian War of 1922. Sun Chuanfang officially became a member of the Zhili Clique and began publicly demanding the resignation of Xu Shichang, the current Anhui clique president. In June that year, Xu Shichang resigned and Li Yuanhong took his place. In 1923, Sun Chuanfang was appointed the Military Inspector of Fujian. He led his troops to Fujian and quickly seized control over the province. There he established the Fujian Army. In September of 1924, the Jiangsu-Zhejiang War broke out, a precursor to the 2nd Zhili-Fengtian War. Sun Chuanfang initially held back, but stated he was supporting Qi Xieyuan the governor of Jiangsu against Lu Yongxiang the governor of Zhejiang. When the opportunity opened up Sun Chuanfang invaded Zhejiang to defeat Lu Yongxiang, however during the greater war, the Zhili clique was defeated by the Fengtian forces. Wu Peifu went into exile, many of the remaining Zhili Warlords were tossed into a uneasy situation. For Sun Chuanfang it was a pretty awkward situation as he had just won a smaller war and established a powerbase in southeast China. With Wu Peifu gone, Sun Chuanfang was now one of the biggest Zhili warlords. The new chief executive, Duan Qirui appointed Sun Chuanfang as governor over Zhejiang, casting Qi Xieyuan to the wind. Duan Qirui was struggling to keep the peace across the board, thus he was trying to appease the more troublesome warlords with decent appointments, hoping they would be complacent and not stir up anymore trouble. But this is China's warlord Era, and trouble will be stirred.  Now Two episodes back I mentioned how Feng Yuxiang established his Guominjun, but he lacked funds and arms. Thus he got into bed with the KMT, and by proxy was introduced to Mr. Borodin representing the Soviets. The Soviets agreed to arm and fund his Guominjun as long as he provided the same reciprocity as the KMT, ie; allowing communists to join his ranks. Feng Yuxiang held a sphere of influence in the northwest of China. The new triumvirate between him, Duan Qirui and Zhang Zuolin was honestly a charade. Zhang Zuolin controlled the wealthy provinces of northeast China while Feng Yuxiang controlled the much poorer northwest. Zhang Zuolin was backed by the Japanese, he was essentially more of a conservative. Feng Yuxiang was seen as a radical politically, perhaps even a revolutionary and his backer was the Soviet Union. Duan Qirui was not even in the same league as either, having no real army anymore. Thus Zhang Zuolin was essentially the one calling the shots, it was an arrangement destined to fail.   After winning the second Zhili-Fengtian War, Zhang Zuolin began moving pieces across the chess board to consolidate his power. He first ordered the commander of his 5th army, Kan Chaoxi to lead two Fengtian Mixed Brigades, with some local troops, over to Rehe province to set up shop as its military-governor. The commander of the 2nd Fengtian army, Li Jinglin who was a Zhili native was ordered to serve as a sort of Zhili military affairs director. The Dogmeat General, Zhang Zongchang was given his first big break, Zhang Zuolin made him the commander in chief of suppressing bandits in Jiangsu, Shandong and Anhui. Duan Qirui then ordered the removal of Qi Xieyuan of the Zhili clique from his post as the inspector general of Jiangsu, Anhui and Jiangxi. He was to be replaced by our old friend Lu Yongxiang who would be an envoy to Jiangsu and Anhui. Thus Zhang Zongchang and Lu Yongxiang together marched south along the Shanghai-Nanjing line.    To face the incoming threat Qi Xieyuan banded together with Sun Chuanfang and they likewise marched to Suzhou by January 14th. On the 17th both armies began fighting between Danyang and Wuxi. Yet by the 25th Qi Xieyuan was decisively defeated. Qi Xieyuan fled to Shanghai before getting on a boat to go into exile in Japan. His so-called partner in crime Sun Chuanfang had not ponied up the same amount of troops as he did, choosing to hold back a bit. When Qi Xieyuan fled for Japan, all of his troops were snatched up by Sun Chuanfang. On February 3rd, Sun Chuanfang approached Zhang Zongchang to negotiate, and they signed the second Jiangsu-Zhejiang peace treaty. Under the terms the Zhili army agreed to retreat to Songjiang, the Fengtian army would retreat to Kunshan, while Shanghai would not station troops.    After what was known as the second Jiangsu-Zhejiang war, the Fengtian forces began to dramatically expand their control into the Yangtze River Valley. Zhang Zuolin dispatched 11 divisions to occupy Hebei, Shandong, Jiangsu, the Beijing-Fengtian Railway and the Jinpu Railway. Zhang Zuolin strong armed the Beiyang government to make his generals Li Jinglin, Zhang Zongchang, Jiang Dengxuan and Yang Yuting military inspectors over Hubei, Shandong, Anhui and Jiangsu respectively. This basically made the Yangtze River Valley under Fentgian control and connected them via rail to Zhang Zuolin's northeast power base. The agreement made with Sun Chuanfang to not deploy any troops in Shanghai seemed under threat. When prompted, the Fengtian leaders would claim they would never deploy troops in Shanghai, but to all it seemed like classic trickery.    In fact the Fengtian commanders had become quite arrogant and careless. Some of the generals were running opium operations in Nanshi and Zhabei. A regular inspection at Shanghai-Nanjing station showcased one of their drug runs and led to Fengtian soldiers performing a shoot out. Because of the incident, Duan Qirui ordered Lu Yongxiang and Zheng Qian to go over and investigate the situation. At the same time, Zhang Zongchang had deployed some troops in Shanghai to make sure the opium drug running went more smoothly. Zhang Zongchang ordered Cheng Guorui to figure out a solution to the issues and he was accompanied by Li Kuiyuan the director of the Fengtian Army's HQ in shanghai and Yuan Zhihe the Fengtian supply department director. Cheng Guorui and Li Kuiyuan quickly got into an argument and began drawing their guns upon each other in a shoot out. As reported by an eye witness "Yuan was seriously injured, Li fell to his death, Cheng jumped out of the window and injured his waist. At that time, the guards of each person were outside, and they opened fire on each other when they heard the sound, and the order was very chaotic." Thus Zhang Zongchang's efforts to smooth over the drug trafficking had done the very opposite, it made it much much more visible to the public. However Zhang Zuolin was really arrogant himself by this point and believed their Fengtian empire could get away with just about anything at this point, so he simply dispatched a division of troops to Songhu to make sure things ran smoother. Unfortunately he sent these forces to occupy garrisons that belongs to Sun Chuanfang. At the same time Fengtian forces led by Ding Xichun entered Nanjing.   It really seemed Zhang Zuolin got far too over confident. Apparently he began proclaiming "If I don't beat anyone in the next three to five years, no one will dare to beat me." Likewise his subordinate Yang Yuting mirrored his bosses sentiment, mouthing off to local warlords in Jiangsu. Jiang Dengxuan in Anhui began boasting "that he only brought one battalion with him" and Yang Yuting declared publicly "I went to Jiangsu this time with only more than ten entourages and a company of guards."    Meanwhile Li Jinglin and Zhangzong began to crack down on labour movements in Hubei and Shandong. There was a lot of unrest with workers, especially in Qingdao. Zhang Zongchang brutally suppressed any who would try to demonstrate or strike. A strict anti-labor and anti-communist movement was seen across the board in areas Fengtian controlled. Zhang Zongchang also cracked down on the remaining Zhili clique influence in the Yangtze River Valley. When the Fengtian replaced Qi Xieyuan with Lu Yongxiang as governor over Jiangsu, that lasted about a minute until they replaced Lu Yongxiang, who remember was an Anhui clique guy, with one of their own, Yang Yuting. His appointment was specifically to expand into neighbouring Zhejiang and Fujian provinces. These areas of course were being controlled by the last significant Zhili warlord, Sun Chuanfang. Sun Chuanfang had this to say about the situation "Zhang now dominates the Central Plains, controls the government, and covers the northeast and southeast. He is also planning to succeed Yuan Shikai and establish his own empire. He seduces powerful enemies outside and destroys public opinion inside. He is extremely cruel and does everything he can."   On October 11th of 1925, the governor of Zhejiang, Sun Chuanfang took matters into his own hands. He sent a telegram to the entire nation, opposing suppression efforts against Shanghai workers. He was taking a page out of Wu Peifu's playbook, to play upon the image of patriotism, making it seem you loved the people and were fighting for them. In reality this was a ploy to gather support and sympathy for what he was about to unleash. In early October, Sun Chuanfang began to hold secret meetings in Hangzhou with representatives of the Zhili clique of nearby provinces. The conversation was how to thwart the Fengtian from seizing all of their respective territories. They all came into an agreement, Sun Chuanfang would become their leader and he would lead his armies to attack Shanghai. This would be followed up by the Governor of Fujian, Zhou Yinren to lead his troops into Zhejiang to support Sun Chuanfang; the governor of Jiangxi Fang Benren would send his subordinate Deng Zhuoru also to help out in Zhejiang. Wang Pu the governor over southern Anhui, Chen Tiaoyuan the commander of the 4th Zhili division of Jiangsu and the retired warlods, Qi Xieyuan and Ma Lianjia would lend their forces as well. All together its said their forces were 200,000 strong.   After these meetings, Sun Chuanfang gathered the troops at Songjiang and Changxing calling for a “national day” on October the 10th and they performed a military parade. When Duan Qirui heard about this he sent Lu Zongyu to Hangzhou to try and mediate what was clearly turning into a dire situation. The mediation completely failed. Meanwhile Zhang Zuolin took notice and urgently summoned his 4 new governors, Li Jingling, Zhang Zongchang, Yang Yuting and Jiang Dengxuan. He was pulling them back to discuss how they should deal with this new emerging threat. However Zhang Zuolin was too late, for when the governors were enroute to meet with him, Sun Chuanfang made his move.   On October the 15th, Sun Chuanfang suddenly proclaimed himself the commander in chief of a 5 province coalition. The armies of Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangsu, Jiangxi and Anhui were now in alliance. Sun Chuanfang created 5 routes armies; the 1st route army was led by Chen Yi consisting of the 1st division of the Zhejiang army; the 2nd route was led by Xiu Hongxun, consisting of the 4th division. The 1st and 2nd route armies were responsible for attacking Shanghai from the Shanghai-Hangzhou line. The 4th Route army led by Lu Xiangting, consisting of the 2nd division of the Anhui army and 5th Route army led by Zhou Fengqi, consisting of the 2nd Division of the Zhejiang armywere responsible for attacking Suzhou from Changxing. Sun Chuanfang took command of the 3rd route army, leading down the middle. On the 11th of October Sun Chuanfang sent a telegram calling on all foreign nations with interests in Shanghai to send personnel to investigate what he claimed was Fengtian Army members abusing workers and peasants. This of course was a guise to launch his attack.   The Fengtian warlords were taken completely offguard by Sun Chuanfangs rapid offensive, they had all unfortunately been enroute north for a meeting with Zhang Zuolin and thus were on a passive footing. Basically the Fengtian army was in a type of snake like formation extending from Yuguan to Tianjing, Pukou, Nanjing and Shanghai. They were quite dispersed. Thus began what is known as the Zhejiang-Fengtian War. Yet to complicate things, this was actually a theater of a larger war known as the Anti-Fengtian War or Third Zhili-Fengtian War. There were other theaters such as the Guominjun-Fengtian War, involving Feng Yuxiang. The Anti-Fengtian War is pretty incoherent, thus I will try to compartmenalize it.    What should be known in regards to the Zhejiang-Fengtian war, is that the Fengtian forces had the threat of Feng Yuxiang to their rear. If the Fengtian diverted forces to thwart the Guominjun, this would disallow them to quell the southern threat of Sun Chuanfang. Because of this, on October 14th, Yang Yuting ordered his subordinate Xing Shillian to withdraw from the Shanghai area quickly explaining to him in a telegram "due to the Shanghai case, in order to maintain order, we had to adjust the army and declare martial law. Now that the Shanghai case has been resolved, the title of martial law commander should be cancelled, the troops should be withdrawn, and the Jiangsu Police Department should be moved to Shanghai to deter the enemy."   The next day, Yang Yuting invited Jiang Denxuan to Nanjing to figure out how they would withdraw their troops along the Shanghai-Nanjing and Tianjian-Pukou rail lines. He also told Jiang Dengxuan, that Sun Chuanfang would "Su would not invade Zhejiang, consider the elegance of our classmates and resolutely stop the war." So it seemed Yang Yuting, who was a classmate of Sun Chuanfang was under the belief their friendship would prevent an escalation. However Sun Chuanfang on that very same day sent out a telegram to the 5 provinces to attack the Fengtian clique. On the 16th, the 2nd route Army of Xiu Hongxun began occupying Shanghai as the 4th Route army of Lu Xiangting occupied Yixing. Both then began advancing towards Suzhou and Wuxi. Roughly an hour before Sun Chuanfangs forces seized Shanghai, there was a mass withdrawal of the Fengtian forces there.   Because the Fengtian forces had adopted a passive, even non-resistant stance towards Sun Chuanfangs offensive, they all retreated quickly upon seeing any troops. Sun Chuanfang's armies made quick and bloodless progress, however upon reaching Lingkou near Danyang on October the 18th, Xing Shilians men did not retreat. Sun Chuanfang's vanguard found themselves facing what seemed to be determined resistance, but in reality it was a rearguard as the Fengtian forces were trying to evacuate Zhejiang province. On that evening, Yang Yuting convened a meeting in Nanjing with the other commanders, whereupon news came to them of the major defeats their forces had incurred. General Chen Tiaoyuan leading the 4th and 10th Zhili divisions stormed Nanjing and ordered Yang Yuting to be arrested. However Yang Yuting managed to escape from the city under the pretext he was. . . taking a bath. Yes a single source I've been relying upon for this event stated that without any context… so in my head I am imagining the classic hollywood, running a bath of water and jumping out of a window scenario. Regardless Yang Yuting abandoned the Fengtian garrison at Nanjing, fording a river and jumping into a car. On the 19th most of the Fengtians 8th Division, including their commander General Ding Chunxi stationed at Nanjing who had not already fled were surrounded and disarmed by Zhili forces. The next day Sun Chuanfang arrived to Nanjing whereupon he ordered Xie Hongxun's division to ford the river to pursue the Fengtian forces fleeing towards Bengdu. On the 21st Ni Chaorong's leading a Anhui Brigade stationed around Sixian, took a car over to Huaiguan where he telegraphed Jiang Dengxuan to resign. Jiang Dengxuan looked on in misery at the doomed Fengtian forces, knowing full well he had not enough time, men or means to halt the enemies advance, so he fled Bengdu on the 23rd, effectively resigning. Most of the Fengtian forces at Bengdu fled for Xuzhou.   Despite the rather embarrasing retreat of the Nanjing to Bengdu lines, the Fengtian forces were not even close to being really defeated. On the 21st, the Dogmeat General led reinforcements to the battlefield who were now ready for an actual battle. Sun Chuanfangs men at this point occupied Bengbu and had stopped their advance. Unbeknownst to the Fengtian commanders, Sun Chuanfang had secret being negotiations with Wu Peifu. Wu Peifu had come out of his forced retirement in Hubei, and to the north Feng Yuxiang was also coordinating with the three. Sun Chuanfang thought he had secured both men in the mission of attacking Xuzhou, but both of them had failed to perform. Thus Sun Chuanfang found himself in a bit of a pickle at Bengbu.   Meanwhile on the 26th, Zhang Zongchang ordered troops from Xin'an to attack Haizhou. Zhili forces led by General Bai Baoshan were defeated there soundly. The Fengtian army then contuined south to attack Qingjiangpu. Zhili troops led by Ma Yuren tried to defend the city, but soon became encircled and forced to surrender. Sun Chuanfang ordered Zheng Junyan and Chen Diaoyuan to reinforce the eastern sector to try and halt the Fengtian advance. On the 1st of November, Zhang Zongchang launched a new attack upon the Jingdu road, using armored cars and white russian forces. This force was led by Zhang Zongchangs subordinate Shi Chongbin, who had ordered to recapture Suxian and Guzhen.   The frontline Anhui troops became terrified of what looked to them to be a foreign force and fled the battlefield from Rengqiao all the way east of Guzhen. At this point Lu Xiangting, deputy commander in chief under Sun Chuanfang, began demolishing the railway to hinder the Fengtian advance. He dispatched Chen Yi and Xie Hongxun's 2nd division to hook around the rear of the Fengtian army to try and cut their retreat. The White Russian army alongside Chinese of the Fengtian forces were advancing alone in a vangard whence they were attacked from two sides. They had no hope of breaking through, nor fleeing backwards and were forced to surrender. Over 300 White Russian troops were killed in the carnage. Shi Chongbin was captured at Xinqiao station and his 47th brigade of the Shandong Army was completely surrounded.   Zhang Zongchang then dispatched Chu Yupu to reinforce and support the 47th Brigade in an counterattack to try and break out, but it failed. On Novemer 3rd, the 47th Brigade were disarmed and surrendered. Seeing no hope of rescue, Chu Yupu took his troops to man a defensive line between Suxian and Jiagou. Sun Chuanfang now took advantage of the crumbling Fengtian situation and ordered the Zhili forces to surround Xuzhou. Zhang Zongchang mobilized everything the Fengtian had for a decisive battle, but disaster was striking elsewhere. It will be discussed more indepth next episode, but Feng Yuxiang entered the fray, attacking the Fengtian rear in Hubei and western Shandong. Zhang Zuolin realized the dreaded two front war had finally come and elected to pull back his strength. Zhang Zuolin ordered Zhang Zongchang to pull the men back into Shandong on the 6th. On the 7th Xing Shilian, Xu Kun, Bi Shucheng and other Fengtian commanders were retreating from Haizhou and Suqian to Tancheng and Taierzhuang. Chu Yupu and other troops retreated from Suxian and Xuzhou to Hanzhuang and Lincheng. On November 8, Sun Chuanfangs army finally occupied Xuzhou. On the 20th, Sun Chuanfang sent a public telegram to return to Hangzhou from Xuzhou. From then on, the five provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi and Fujian were divided by Sun Chuanfang. The Zhejiang-Fengtian War was also declared over   It was a very embarrassing defeat for the Fengtian Clique. Across the Shanghai-Nanjing defensive line, the Fengtian army suffered heavy losses, their entire the 8th division was captured, most of the 20th division was annhilated. It was said only Liu Yifei, the commander of the 44th Brigade of the 20th Division had led his troops to resist the Zhejiang Army for several hours on the way back from Shanghai. Because he was isolated and helpless, Liu Yifei was apparently forced to disguise himself as a monk to escape. When he fled back to Fengtiann,  Zhang Zuolin, said to Liu Yifei "You are back, great! I heard that you disguised yourself as a monk. Damn it! In Jiangnan, you were the only one who fought with Sun Chuanfang for eight hours. Others surrendered without firing a shot because their parents didn't give them the courage! Now I will organize another Type A brigade for you, which is a three-regiment system. Soldiers are being recruited and stationed in the Dongshanzui barracks. Train hard!"   Upon winning the Zhejiang-Fengtian War, Sun Chuanfang immediately called for a ceasefire, literally as he was entering Xuzhou. His top priority was to consolidate his gains, for he understood he had only served the Fengtian a bloody nose, as they were preoccupied with war in the north. Then Chen Tiaoyuan of Jiangsu sent a telegram publicly announcing his support nominating Sun Chuanfang to form a government in Nanjing leading the 5 provinces he had led during their war. To try and remedy the situation, the Beiyang government offered Sun Chuandfang the position of military inspector of Jiangsu, combining his military inspector titles over Zhejiang and Fujian. Thus Sun Chuanfang would legitimately rule 3 provinces. The warlords running Jiangxi and Anhui were no match at all for Sun Chuanfang, thus they would have to submit to him regardless. So unofficially Sun Chuanfang established a new sort of government in Nanjing ruling the 5 provinces. This would be the very peak of his career, but nothing is ever built to last.   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 Zhejiang-Fengtian War was honestly the result of Fengtian arrogance. Zhang Zuolin let his guard down, turned to his old banditry ways and unleashed his boys southeast, thinking no one would challenge them. Sun Chuanfang proved himself a very capable warlord and now he was a significant player in China's game of thrones.  

This Week in Skating is hosted by Gina Capellazzi, Daphne Backman and Matteo Morelli is a cooperative project between Figure Skaters Online and Ice-dance.com. New episodes are available every Tuesday.Website: http://www.thisweekinskating.comEmail: thisweekinskating@gmail.comFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/thisweekinskatingTwitter: https://www.twitter.com/thiswkinskatingInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinskatingThread: https://www.threads.net/@thisweekinskatingPatreon: patreon.com/ThisWeekinSkating----------------------------------------------------------------------------------May 15, 2024General Skating News Shoma Uno announced his retirement: Instagram/Press Conference/Olympics.com articleU.S. Figure Skating announced the 2024-25 U.S. Qualifying Season and International Events Schedule.Halifax, Nova Scotia to host 2024 Skate Canada International. Grenoble will host the 2024 Grand Prix and Junior Grand Prix FinalA new location is needed for the 2025 European ChampionshipsThe first Junior Grand Prix iin France has been moved to become the 7th & final event in Wuxi, China.Eric Radford, who is the Athletes Commission member of the ISU Council, has temporarily stepped down as a Council member for the period during which the appeal against the ISU in which he is named as an appellant is pending at CAS.”https://www.isu.org/inside-isu/isu-communications/communications/33778-isu-communication-2634/fileThe ISU released its list of proposals for the upcoming Congress in Las Vegas from June 8-14.U.S. Figure Skating released its 2023-24 Combined Report of Action, which was published after last month's Governing Council.Retirements/End of Partnerships/New PartnershipsJapan's Misato Komatsubara has announced the end of her competitive career.Adrienne Carhart has announced the end of her competitive careerTeam USA's Helena Carhart announced that Volodymyr Horovi has decided to his competitive career and will now focus on coaching.Georgia's Maria Kazakova announced the end of her partnership with Georgy Reviya.Team USA's Kristina Bland announced that she is stepping away from skating; Matthew Sperry will continue skating.Chloe Panetta and Flavien Giniaux are announced as a new pairs team for FranceOxana Vouillamoz and Tom Bouvart, who both previously represented France, announced they are a new pairs team for SwitzerlandOther NewsCongress okays Filipino citizenship for figure skater Alexander Korovin. Figure skating coach Slava Uchitel shared that a brick block has been added to the entrance of Philadelphia Skating Club & Humane Society in memory of Joshua Soto, a figure skater/ice dancer who was killed in November 2021 during a robbery.Three men were convicted in 2021 fatal shooting of 18-year-old figure skater Joshua Soto.1964 Olympic Champion, three-time ISU World Champion and five-time ISU European Champion Sjoukje Dijkstra of the Netherlands passed away at age 82 on May 2, 2024.Safe Sport Topics & Online Resources for skaters, parents and the figure skating community: Three-time Olympian Brendan Kerry of Australia has been sanctioned with permanent ineligibility (subject to appeal) by the U.S. Center for SafeSport for sexual misconduct involving a minor.Gymnasts for Change (Canada) will now be known as Athletes Empowered, and is advocating against abuse in all sports, at all levels. Event RecapNation's Cup Theatre on Ice international competition: Replay videos/ ISU International Adult Figure Skating Competition in Oberstdorf, Germany, May 12-17, 2024: Event info/schedule link, results page,free live streams by day (+ replays). Midori Ito won the Masters Elite Women III + IV Artistic Free Skating event, skating to “Aqua” by Ryuichi Sakamoto:Mexico Cup is May 16-18, 2024, in Queretaro, Mexico. Oceania International Figure Skating Competition, May 29-31, 2024, in Melbourne, Australia.Recent Interviews:Golden Skate's interview with Elizabeth Tkachenko & Alexei Kiliakov (Golden Skate)Nathan Chen: Pursuing Passions, New and Old (Yale University)Olympic Champion Nathan Chen graduates from Yale (People Magazine)Engaged Olympians Madison Chock & Evan Bates Share Their Top Wedding Planning Tips (Knot.com)Social Media Updates:Madison Chock, Nathan Chen and Vincent Zhou, #TeamUSA 2022 Olympic Gold Medalists honored at #GoldGala by Kristi Yamaguchi, Apolo Anton Ohno, Chloe Kim, and Shibutanis.Kristi's photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/C676A21O3RO/Madi's photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/C69DavORHc2/Shibutanis' photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/C67h2l7rQtV/Camden Pulkinen graduated from Columbia University on Monday, May 13 with a degree is Psychology.Alexe Gilles graduated from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.Congratulations to Carolane Soucisse and Shane Firus who got married on May 2 in Cancun, Mexico.Upcoming EventsMay 18: Marjorie Lajoie's Patinage Atypique: https://fondationautisteetmajeur.fundkyapp.com/fr/patinage-atypiqueJune 14-15, 2024: Diversify Ice's Skate Raiser Soul Chicago https://diversifyice.org/events/New at IDC: Morgan Matthew Pennington joined the team, solo dance interviews, photo shoots in LP, etc. 25 years!New at FSO: Photos from Ice Theatre of NY, Interviews with Lukas Britschgi and Hilbelink sisters.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/this-week-in-skating-podcast/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

On this week's Biotech Hangout, Chris Garabedian, Josh Schimmer, Tim Opler and John Maraganore discuss how it's been a big year for PIPEs and some of the controversy that has come along with it. The hosts also open up a discussion on supply and demand of venture capital and then pivots to Genentech ending its strategic collaboration with Adaptimmune. The group discusses other deals and financings of the week including Future Pak's proposal to acquire Vanda Pharmaceuticals, Sanofi's plans to divest Amuniz Pharmaceuticals and Regeneron enters venture investing with a $500 million fund. The hosts also discuss data readouts from Ultragenyx, Biohaven, Sage, Cerevel/Abbvie, Eli Lilly, Roche and Novartis. The show closes out with the latest on WuXi and the impact on biotech, Humira biosimilars grabbing huge market shares and Baker Brothers returns $10 billion to investors. *This episode aired on April 19, 2024.

Good morning from Pharma and Biotech daily: the podcast that gives you only what's important to hear in Pharma and Biotech world.This week's Commercialization Weekly highlights Bristol Myers' success with a Kras drug trial, Astrazeneca's FDA approval for a rare disease drug acquired from Alexion, FDA approval for Akebia's anemia pill after a previous rejection, and Acorda's bankruptcy filing. The FDA is also set to make decisions on expanding the use of two multiple myeloma cell therapies, a top-selling medicine, and Pfizer's gene therapy work. Risant Health has launched after Kaiser closed the acquisition of Geisinger, with plans to acquire more nonprofits. Surescripts is reportedly exploring a sale, with a private equity buyer being a potential option.Genmab acquired ProfoundBio for $1.8 billion, joining the trend of increased M&A activity in the development of antibody-drug conjugates. Paragon's hub-and-spoke biotech model resulted in another reverse merger with Oruka Therapeutics going public. Diagonal has raised $128 million to develop more efficient 'activator' antibody drugs. A dementia-focused venture capital firm is exploring new brain drugs beyond anti-amyloid therapies. Roivant reported positive immune drug data and announced share buyback plans.Genmab recently acquired the company ProfoundBio for $1.8 billion, expanding its presence in the antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) space with a focus on gynecologic cancers and solid tumors. Meanwhile, Diagonal Therapeutics secured $128 million in funding for their unique approach to developing agonist antibodies for rare diseases. In other news, Vanda Pharmaceuticals received FDA approval for their antipsychotic drug Fanapt for bipolar disorder, while Eli Lilly's diabetes treatment Mounjaro will be in short supply due to high demand.The text discusses the impact of tensions in U.S.-China research and development (R&D) relations on the Chinese antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) investment boom. With the departure of Chinese biotech company Wuxi from Bio, concerns over national security implications of U.S.-China R&D relationships are growing. The text also mentions the appointment of a new CEO at Lonza and Avenzo's pursuit of a licensing strategy with a new $150 million investment. Overall, the biopharma industry is experiencing significant developments in drug development, mergers and acquisitions, and regulatory decisions. Stay updated with Healthcare Dive for more insights into healthcare trends and news.Thank you for tuning in to Pharma and Biotech daily. Stay informed!

WuXi AppTec was once again in the news this week, with speculation that the China-based biotech allegedly handed a U.S. client's intellectual property over to the Chinese government without consent. Meanwhile, Lonza's $1.2 billion buy of a Roche biologics plant in California—one of the world's largest biologics manufacturing facilities by volume—bodes well for the CDMO market, and BMS pulls ahead of Amgen in the race to bring a fully approved KRAS inhibitor to market for patients with certain types of non-small cell lung cancer, acing a confirmatory Phase III trial for Krazati.

On this week's episode of Biotech Hangout, hosts Daphne Zohar, Brad Loncar, Tim Opler, Michal Preminger, Eric Schmidt and Yaron Werber discuss the latest biotech news, including commentary on the biotech sector performance in 2024 and a pharma R&D investment overview. The hosts cover the week's notable M&A, including AstraZeneca's acquisition of Amolyt plus Novartis' acquisition of IFM Due and a related discussion on option-to-buy deals. The group also discusses Ionis meeting the primary endpoint in its Phase 2 MASH trial and Madrigal's historic accelerated approval for NASH/MASH. Other topics include Eli Lilly's partnership with Amazon pharmacy to dispense prescription medicines and the impact of cutting out the middle man, as well as anticipated regulatory updates for Legend and 2Seventy Bio. The hosts weigh-in on the BioSecure Act that led BIO to cut ties with WuXi and the impact the bill may have on other Chinese CROs. The group also flagged recently reported Phase 2 data for Silence Therapeutics' Lp(a) therapy and Acadia's schizophrenia treatment pimavanserin fails Phase 3 study. *This episode aired on March 15, 2024.

On this week's episode of Biotech Hangout, hosts Brad Loncar, Josh Schimmer, Grace Colon, Chris Garabedian, and Eric Schmidt discuss the latest biotech industry news including M&A, regulatory news, pricing strategies, and progress within women's health and neurological disorders. The hosts cover data from Roche's IL-6 program, Biohaven's degrader program, followed by Crinetics' Phase 3 data in acromegaly. On the M&A front, the hosts discuss AstraZeneca's acquisition of Fusion Pharmaceuticals. The group also talks through Orchard Therapeutics' breakthrough $4.25 million drug, and the impact of high drug prices on the industry as a whole. They also weigh in on the BioSecure bill that caused WuXi to leave BIO, and the broader impact of this decision on the biotech sector. The group also discussed a new executive order and initiatives that serve to address disparities in research for women's health conditions. The hosts round out the show by discussing trends in early-stage investment, and the growing role of neurological conditions globally. *This episode aired on March 22, 2024.

Join us each week as we do a quick review of three compelling stories from the pharma world — one good, one bad and one ugly. Up this week: The good — Madrigal wins first FDA nod for NASH The bad — Acadia abandons plans to expand pimavanserin indications  The ugly — BIO backs BIOSECURE Act, boots WuXi

"The future has arrived, and it's here in Wuxi!" Driverless minibuses with sensors throughout, robotic arms that can easily lift 200 kilograms, and Xuelang town which links industries with the digital world — all these dazzling cutting-edge IoT technologies are here in Wuxi. Come and explore with #PotsideChats.

关注公众号【Albert英语研习社】，0元报名《周一到周六 英语思维风暴营》直播大课，Albert带你巧用英语思维，轻松突破听说读写译。We've seen some out-of-this-world things in China, so, it never ceases to amaze us when something new emerges. This time it is a restaurant called HaiDiLao in Wuxi, China. The restaurant specializes in hotpots and has something unorthodox going on after meals. They have launched a shampooing service for their customers who prefer to wash the stench out of their hair. It is apparently part of a wider pivot into the beauty service industry by the giant hotpot chain. In the past, HaiDiLao restaurants started offering manicures, pedicures, and makeup services as a way of attracting new business. Who knows what they'll come up with next?主播：周邦琴Albert●没有名牌大学背景，没有英语专业背景●没有国外留学经历，没有英语生活环境●22岁成为500强公司全球员工英文讲师●24岁自学成为同声传译●25岁为瑞士联邦总统翻译

The recent wave of COVID-19 is now trending downward, with experts saying China's medical system and the public have coped with the fresh outbreak in an orderly and calm manner.新一波新冠疫情正呈现下降趋势，中国医疗系统和公众平稳有序应对近期疫情。Domestic infections occurred sporadically between February to early April, but began climbing in late April due to waning immunity among the population, according to the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.中国疾病预防控制中心表示，今年2月至4月上旬全国新冠病毒感染疫情局部零星散发，由于人口免疫力下降，4月下旬开始逐步上升。In its latest weekly update on the COVID-19 situation released on Sunday, the China CDC said that rate of increase of daily infections had slowed since late May and the overall COVID-19 epidemic nationwide is declining.6月11日，中国疾病预防控制中心发布最新全国新型冠状病毒感染疫情情况。报告显示，自5月下旬以来，每日新冠病毒感染疫情上升趋势减缓，全国范围内疫情总体呈现下降趋势。"The numbers of fever clinic visits, severe cases and deaths in May were higher than those in April, but much lower than those recorded during the previous wave of the epidemic that peaked in late 2022," said the China CDC.中国疾病预防控制中心表示：“与4月相比，5月发热门诊就诊量、重症和死亡病例有所增加，但总体水平较低，远低于去年年底疫情高峰时的情况。”Last month, the mainland reported a total of 2,777 serious COVID-19 cases and 164 related deaths, including three resulting directly from COVID-19 and the remainder linked to a combination of the virus and underlying diseases, it added.5月，全国31个省（自治区、直辖市）及新疆生产建设兵团报告新增重症病例2777例、死亡病例164例，死亡病例中有3例直接由新冠肺炎引起，其余为基础疾病合并新冠病毒感染引起。The XBB strain, and its descendants, is currently the dominant strain on the mainland, with its percentage among total infections rising from around 85 percent in early May to 92.4 percent in late May.XBB系列变异株为目前主要的流行株，XBB及其亚分支的占比逐渐增加，从月初的85%，增长到月末的92.4%。Tong Zhaohui, vice-president of Beijing Chaoyang Hospital Affiliated to Capital Medical University, said during a group interview on May 29 that his hospital did not experience a surge in patients recently and it is capable of guaranteeing normal operation.5月29日，首都医科大学附属北京朝阳医院副院长童朝晖在采访中表示，他所在的医院目前没有出现病人激增的情况，保持正常医疗秩序没问题。"Most reinfections have only exhibited mild symptoms and have recovered quickly, and few have suffered high fever," he said.童朝晖说:“大多数‘二阳'人群患者症状普遍较轻，患者恢复相对较快，较少出现持续高热的情况。”Zhang Wenhong, head of the infectious disease department at Fudan University's Huashan Hospital in Shanghai, said that the majority of infected patients during this wave of the outbreak suffered less severe symptoms than those infected during the previous wave. "Hospitals are able to handle them in a more effective manner, pushing down this wave's death rate to a very low level," he said during an interview with Paper.cn.上海复旦大学附属华山医院感染科主任张文宏在接受澎湃新闻采访时表示，与第一波疫情相比，第二波疫情中绝大多数患者的症状更轻，医院能够以更有效的方式应对疫情，并将死亡率控制在较低的范围内。He said that with waning immunity and viral mutations, it is likely that more waves of the epidemic will occur in the future, but China's local governments, and medical and disease control systems have already stepped up their preparedness. "The virus is not expected to exert a major impact on social and economic activities and there is no need to overreact," he said.张文宏称，随着免疫力下降和病毒突变，未来可能会发生更多的疫情，但中国地方政府和疾控系统已经做好充足的准备，病毒将不会对社会和经济生活产生重大影响，各方没有必要过度反应。Lyu Yi a resident of Wuxi, Jiangsu province, said that her father started showing symptoms such as coughing and fever three weeks ago and went to hospital to receive intravenous injections and medication.江苏无锡居民吕易(音译)表示，她的父亲三周前开始出现咳嗽和发烧等症状，前往医院接受静脉注射和药物治疗。"The hospital seemed to be in a normal state and the drugs that my father needed were readily available," Lyu said.吕易说：“医院看起来运转正常，我很容易就买到了父亲需要的药物。”"It was the first time that he got infected, so we felt a little bit anxious at first," she said. "But seeing that some of my colleagues and friends had all recovered from the infection recently, I soon calmed down," she said.吕易说：“因为这是父亲第一次感染，所以我们一开始有点焦虑。但是当我看到同事和朋友都康复时，我马上就平静下来了。”Decline英 /dɪˈklaɪn/美 /dɪˈklaɪn/n. 下降Infection英 /ɪnˈfekʃn/美 /ɪnˈfekʃn/n. 〈医〉传染,感染Symptom英 /ˈsɪmptəm/美 /ˈsɪmptəm/n.症状

Last time we spoke Cholera spread like a plague taking countless lives on either side of the conflict. The loss of so much life hurt the Xiang armies positions, and Zeng Guofan worried dearly for the life of his brother fighting at Yuhaitai. Zeng Guofan desperately tossed any men he could to help his brother and it proved effective as Li Xiucheng was forced to flee for the safety of Nanjing's walls. The EVA force lost Ward and gained Chinese Gordon as its leader. But it was to be a short lived command as Gordon and the British became outraged with their allies atrocities and slights against them and thus took back on the stance of neutrality. Yuhaitai was taken and now Nanjing was under siege by the Xiang army, it was only a matter of time for the Taiping to finally fall.   #35 This episode is The Taiping Rebellion part 12: The Fall of the Heavenly 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. The populace of Nanjing were terrified, with only two gates left open, provisions were becoming very limited and there was almost no way to get out. Roughly 30,000 people were inside the city, 10,000 of which were soldiers. After the fall of Suzhou to Li Hongzhang in December, Li Xiucheng returned to Nanjing pleading with the heavenly king, to simply abandon Nanjing and take the entire movement into Jiangxi province. The heavenly king was livid, saying Li Xiucheng lacked faith in the cause. Without much choice, Li Xiucheng began to prepare the city for a bitter siege. Meanwhile the heavenly king was becoming more and more paranoid and angry. His anger led him to cruelty and he began punishing the people in horrifying ways. For example the new crime of communicating with those outside the walls of the city saw people pounded to death between rocks or flayed alive in public. The people would have fled the city, but they knew the fate of what happened to those who did, as was the case when Anqing fell. By late December they heard the rumors about the fate of Suzhou thus sealing their fate to Nanjing. Zeng Guofan sent reports to his brother in spring of 1864 not to even let women and children escape the city, so their fear was well founded. Zeng Guofan justified this by stating, to force the Taiping to support the entire population within the city would accelerate their starvation.    With Chen Yucheng dead, Li Xiucheng spread too thinly, Hong Rengan found himself yet again thrust into the role of military commander. Hong Xiuquan told his cousin he had to go out of the city to rally troops from nearby territories to help relieve Nanjing. But it was not possible to head north or west, nor was it possible to traverse the river. Hong Rengan set out the day after Christmas of 1863. His first destination was Danyang around 50 miles east of Nanjing which was commanded by an uncle to the late Chen Yucheng. The commander told Hong Rengan he could not spare any troops to help Nanjing, so Hong Rengan continued on to Changzhou. While enroute he found out Li Hongzhang had taken the city, forcing him to winter in Danyang. When spring came, he took his force south into Zhejiang, where Hangzhou was still holding out. Back in 1861 when Hong Rengan went out to get recruits, the work was much easier. This was no longer the case, in the cities of Danyang and Huzhou he found people too afraid to leave their garrisons to go back to Nanjing. Meanwhile the Xiang army was exponentially growing, by 1864 Zeng Guofan had 120,000 troops, Zeng Guoquan 50,000, another 30,000 garrisoned Anhui, 13,000 moved around with Bao Chao and 10,000 were in the area between Anhui and Suzhou.    Li Hongzhang's Anhui army followed up its conquest of Suzhou by marching upon Nanjing from the east. They seized Changzhou and Wuxi with ease as Zuo Zongtang battled Taiping in Zhejiang province. All these armies would eventually converge upon Nanjing. Zeng Guoquan's forces managed to take the Fortress of Heaven on the Dragon's shoulder, pitting it against the Fortress of Earth. With the vantage point upon Dragon's shoulder the Xiang forces were able to create stockade camps at the Shence Gate and eastern Taiping Gate, thus cutting off the city completely. By the end of March, Hangzhou fell to Zuo Zongtang forcing its survivors to flee to Huzhou seeking refuge with Hong Rengan. With the loss of both Suzhou and Hangzhou, the Taiping no longer held any significant cities in the east. There were no more avenues for rescue for the Taiping capital, all that was left was a siege.   Zeng Guoquan's siege army was running dry on provisions, the devastation of the countryside was hitting his men as bad as it was the Taiping. Even though they held the Yangtze, by spring of 1864 there was no longer much food coming from it. His men ate rice gruel and basically nothing else. He confided to his secretary, “If we don't break this city in a month, our whole army is going to crumble to pieces.” Within Nanjing the garrisons first crop of wheat was breaking the surface in april. Zeng Guofans men atop forts and mountain lookouts could see within the city the crops growing with bitterness. They held into the early summer, but Beijing's patience was wearing thin and so were their stomachs. Zeng Guoquan wanted the glory of taking Nanjing for himself, so he resisted the advice of Li Hongzhang to come supplement his forces. Zeng Guofan was torn by this, he understood his brothers ambition, but it was terribly unwise. He wrote to his brother “Why must you have sole credit for conquering Nanjing? Why should one person be the most famous under heaven?” Li Hongzhang realized the family predicament and offered to save face for the Zengs by forming an excuse that he was unable to come help after all.   Zeng Guoquans siege had been enlarged, they built a 3 mile road for supplies through a bog, connecting the river to Yuhuatai. While on the surface it looked like the Xiang forces were loafing around, this was far from the truth, the real siege work was being done under the earth. They did not have large enough cannons to break the walls of Nanjing, so they had to tunnel and mine, the good old fashion way as they say. They would even have to tunnel under moats some 90 feet underground. Each tunnel was made hauling out dirt and rock by hand, but the spotters in Nanjing were always watching. A cool fact I did not know before writing this series, when sappers begin tunneling for long periods of time, the grass on the ground level above them turns brown leaving a kind of path the tunnellers are taking towards a wall. Spotters looked for this and for ventilation holes, after all if you are digging far you have to get air into the work space. Inside Nanjing Taiping sappers dug their own counter tunnels to thwart mines. They often did this by exploding their own mines, flushing gas into the tunnels or flooding them with boiling water or sewage. Imagine dying in a tunnel full of sewage, horrid. At one point a Xiang miner exploded a mine close enough to a wall, but the explosion failed to make a breach and the Taiping quickly went to work building more parts to the wall near it.   By June, the Xiang had mines exploded up in over 30 areas of the walls, but their results were nothing less that 4000 dead sappers. Then on July 3rd, after they captured the Fortress of Earth at the base of the Dragon's shoulder they had a vantage point so close to part of Nanjing's walls they could fire cannons over. Throughout the night and day they fired cannons into part of Nanjing thwarting the Taiping tunnelers while their own worked. The most ambitious tunnel yet was dug, around 70 yards out, digging at a rate of 15 feet per day. It lead to a part of Nanjing's walls 50 feet thick. The Taiping knew what was coming, but the bombardment never ceased, and even the noise from the cannons prevented spotters from figuring out precisely where the tunnel was. By the 15th of July Li Xiucheng was forced to launch a night sortie to try and attack the tunnel opening, but the Xiang army forced them right back into the city. Three days later the tunnel had just about reached its target for the explosives. Zeng Guoquan was impatient, pressured by Beijing, so he ordered his men to pack 6000 cloth sacks under the wall containing over 20 tons of gunpowder. The explosion went off at noon on the 19th, as 400 hand picked veterans crouching hiding on the ground to launch themselves through the breach. The explosive experts lit the fuse and waited, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 20, 30 the fuse took that long to travel the tunnel. Then a tremendous blast was heard forming a convulsion sending part of the wall to go up blasting outwards and skyward raining parts of the rubble everywhere killing tons of the 400 men hiding on the ground. When the smoke cleared, a 200 foot wide breach could be seen.   The Xiang forces sounded the drums and stormed down the Dragon's shoulder towards the breach screaming. The clambering over dead bodies and rumble surging forward, many of them holding maps of the inner city. The first troops to breach the hole specifically dodged the defenders rushing further into the city with maps in hand as they had the specific mission to rush to the palace of the Heavenly King to kill the self proclaimed brother of jesus. But Li Xiucheng beat them to their mission and he spirited away Hong Xiuquans son, before they could capture the would-be future monarch. When the Xiang troops entered the palace they found nothing but an eerie silence. Hong Xiuquan the heavenly king, the self proclaimed brother of Jesus was already dead.   Going back in time, to the spring of 1864, Li Xiucheng said to the heavenly king “There is no food in the whole city and many men and women are dying. I request a directive as to what should be done to put the people's mind at ease.” Starvation was hitting the people, but the heavenly king did not seem to pay any notice. Hong Xiuquan began to talk to Li Xiucheng about the 16th chapter of Exodus, how god would preserve the Taiping faithful, just as he preserved the children of Israel for 40 years as they wandered the desert, by scattering manna on the ground amidst the dew each morning. Beginning in 1862, Hong Xiuquan had begun ordering his subjects to emulate the lives of the israelites, storing 10 bushels of manna every year to see them through their times of trouble. What exactly manna is, hard to say, if you read the bible it says it was a small, white flower with the scent of coriander that tasted like honey. The Chinese Taiping bible describes it as “Tianlu and Ganlu” which means sweetened dew. Hong Xiuquan said to Li Xiucheng “everyone in the city should eat manna. This will keep them alive” he then issued an order “Bring some here, and after preparing it I shall partake of some first.” Li Xiucheng states “the Sovereign himself, in the open spaces of his palace, collected all sorts of weeds, which he made into a lump and sent out of the palace, demanding that everyone do likewise, without defaulting. He issued an edict ordering the people to act accordingly and everyone would have enough to eat.” Thus Hong Xiuquan began to eat the weeds he called manna within his palace.    In April of 1864 he began to fall ill with his 50th year of life. He seems to get better in may, but then becomes sick again. The cause of his illness is not understood, but Li Xiucheng account states “its from him eating manna, and when this man was ill he would not take remedies”. Hong Rengan account states “a lingering illness of 20 days took him”. Tiangui Fu the son of Hong Xiuquan said “my father succumbed to sickness”. On May 30th, Hong Xiuquan or one of his aides announces it is time for the Heavenly king to go to Heaven where he will request the Heavenly father and Heavenly Elder brother to send a celestial army to defend Nanjing. There is no grand funeral for the heavenly king. On June 1st he is wrapped in a shroud of yellow silk by his palace women and buried in the bare ground, which was the regular service for the Taiping. No coffins were necessary, because he was expected to rise soon to go to heaven. Hong Xiuquan had ordered coffins to be abandoned prior and that the word “death” to be taboo, because they were all going to ascend to heaven.    Five days after his death, his son Tiangui Fu takes his fathers throne. While the Qing forces are busy sieging the city, for 6 weeks the Young monarch reigns. He is basically at the mercy of Li Xiucheng and Hong Rengan. Li Xiucheng gives this account  “After the Young Sovereign came to the throne,there was no grain for the soldiers, and there was chaos in the armies. . . . The Sovereign was young and had no ability to make decisions, no one, civil or military, in the capital, could think of a solution.” When the explosion went off on July 19th and the slaughter and chaos began within the city, Tiangui Fu stood bewildered in his palace beside his 4 wives. They tried to grab him, to stop him from fleeing, but he broke away from them and ran into the crowds with his 2 younger brothers heading for Li Xiuchengs palace. They grabbed the nearest horses and their bodyguards clustered around them. During the chaos they try to escape through the different gates in turn, each time turned back. Li Xiucheng eventually finds the royal group and whisks them to a safe location. They hide for some time in an abandoned temple on the western side of the city, perched atop a hill from which they can see the Qing forces scattering into the city. The Young monarch and his comrade put on Hunanese clothing as a disguise, something that had been prepared weeks before. They seize the cover of darkness as the Xiang army are busy raping and plundering the city. Li Xiucheng bids a tearful farewell to the Young monarch as he and his small party charge through the breach Zeng Guoquans sappers made, with the sun against their backs they vanish. The horse of Li Xiucheng collapses and his guard leaves without him. Dazed and confused, Li Xiucheng climbs back to the abandoned temple on the hill. He wakes up to find peasants robbing him of his valuables, when he is left with nothing to take, they grab him and bring him to Zeng Guoquans forces.   No one knows where the Young monarch is, but Zeng Guoquan has Li Xiucheng in his hands and interrogates him. Without the leadership of Li Xiucheng the Taiping forces might linger on in the rest of the country to form some small kingdom, but they would never be able again to become a large movement. With the capture of Li Xiucheng, the Taiping rebellion was pretty much dead. Li Xiucheng writes a very lengthy confession before his execution. Before his death he begs the Qing officials to stop the slaughter of Nanjing, to spare the old Taiping veterans who had marched from Guangxi and Guangdong, to give them permission to go back home. “engage in some trade. If you are willing to spare them, everyone will hear of it, and everyone will be willing to submit.” He even provides his captors with some advice, to buy the best cannons from the foreigners, alongside efficient gun carriages and other weapons, so that the best Chinese craftsmen could reverse engineer them and teach the people of china how to make their own. “one craftsman can teach ten, ten can teach a hundred and everyone in our country will know. . . . To fight with the foreign devils the first thing is to buy cannon and get prepared early. It is certain that there will be a war with them.” “Our Heavenly Kingdom is finished . . . and this is because the former Heavenly King's span was ended. The fate of the people was hard, such a hard fate!”  Li Xiucheng speaks to his captors believing the Young Monarch is already dead, but Tiangui Fu was safe accompanied by a few hundred loyal soldiers. Tiangui Fu and his small force circle the shore of Lake Tai, fleeing for Huzhou where Hong Rengan commands a small Taiping garrison. Yet before talking about that I want to talk about the horrors that befall Nanjing.    The Xiang army's discipline broke at Nanjing, they were starving when they stormed the great city, filling their stomachs for the first time with food and the achievement of their ultimate goal, ending the war. After bitter years of campaigning, far away from their homelands, they began to break ranks and laid waste to the capital in an orgy of rape and plunder. Zeng Guofan issues proclamations forbidding troops from murdering civilians, rape of looting, but his commanders ignore this. The bloody occupation of Nanjing sees the fanatical death of many Taiping, refusing to surrender who fight to the bitter end. As Zeng Guofan reported to Beijing “On the 17th and 18th, Tseng Liang-Tso and others searched through the city for any rebels they could find, and in three days killed over 100,000 men. THe Ch'in-huai creek was filled with bodies. Half of the false wangs, chief generals, heavenly generals, and other heads were killed in battle, and the other half either drowned themselves in the dikes and ditches or else burned themselves. The whole of them numbered 3000 men. The fire in the city raged for 3 days and nights…Not one of the 100,000 rebels in Nanjing surrendered themselves when the city was taken but in many cases gathered together and burned themselves and passed away without repentance. Such a formidable band of rebels has been rarely known from ancient times to present”.   The slaughter of Nanjing was the combination of fanaticism from the Taiping and the policy of Zeng Guofan who was determined that the surrender from the veterans Guangxi/Guangdong Taiping was not to be accepted. His goal was the extermination of the whole movement, via the death of its core leadership. He wanted no residue of any successors to try and carry on the Taiping ideology. He performed a ruthless extermination, thus forcing many of the Taiping to fight to the very end or commit mass suicide. Zeng Guoquan's aides reported to him that mass looting, murder and rapes were occuring. Soldiers could be seen running off with gold, silver, furs, jade and any other valuables. At first soldiers burned palaces, but then they moved onto homes, eventually the entire city was aflame. Only when a heavy rainstorm occurred on July 25th did the fires go out. On the 26th, Zeng Guoquans secretary entered the city and was overwhelmed at the sight. All the male Taiping still alive were being used by the Xiang soldiers to carry loot or dig up buried treasure. It seemed like many of them were being set free to flee the city after, but many were also slaughtered after. Countless, elderly who could not perform labor were killed outright. Countless children lay dead in the streets alongside the old, as the secretary wrote in his diary “Children and toddlers, some not even two years old, had been hacked up or run through just for sport. There wasn't a single women left in the city under 40 years old.  Sometimes they had ten or twelve cuts on them, sometimes several times that. The sound of their weeping and moaning carried into the distance all around.” A female Taiping survivor named Huang Shuhua was 16 years of age during the capture of Nanjing. She had this to say about when the soldiers came. “They killed my two older brothers in the courtyard, then they went searching through the rooms of the house. One of the strong ones captured me and carried me out. My little brother tugged on his clothing, my mother threw herself down before him, weeping. He shouted angrily, ‘All rebel followers will be killed, no pardons—those are the general's orders!' Then he murdered my mother and my little brother. My eldest brother's wife came out, and he killed her too. Then he dragged me away, so I don't know what became of my other elder brother's wife. I was grief-stricken, sobbing and cursing at him, begging him to kill me quickly. But he only laughed at me. ‘You, I love,' he said. ‘You, I will not kill.' ” The soldier tied her up and took her aboard a boat back to his home in Hunan. The soldier was from the home county of Zeng Guofan, Xiangxiang. She would spend the rest of her life as the wife of a man who had murdered her entire family. She wrote down her story on two slips of paper one evening while traveling and when at an Inn she secretly slid the papers to someone at the inn before hanging herself.   Zeng Guofan took possession of Nanjing, arriving from Anqing on July 28th, 9 days after his brother's forces breached its walls. Apparently officers from his brothers forces took him around the city in a sedan chair, telling him tales of the battles fought and won, showing him the scenes of the destruction. Poetry, plays, banquettes, song and wine, celebrating was made by the victors. Soon honors would be poured over said victors from Beijing once Zeng Guofan sent news of the fall of the Taiping capital. Zeng Guofan sent inflated numbers of Taiping killed, as you may have noticed when I read those quotes, there was absolutely not 100,000 dead in Nanjing. He was inflating the glory of his family, that of his armies prowess, and he masking over the rape and plundering of the second capital of the dynasty. He was very careful with what information got out. When he came face to face with Li Xiucheng, he had direct orders from Beijing to send the man alive back to Beijing, instead he executed him where he was making sure to overlook the interrogation process himself so he could make sure the writing of Li Xiucheng was exactly the way he wanted it.    Now Hong Rengan was in Huzhou during the downfall of Nanjing, helplessly trying to find help for the capital. When news came that Nanjing had fallen and Li Xiucheng was dead, Hong Rengan found himself in possession of the Young monarch who fled to Huzhou for safety. At this time Huzhou was being attacked by Li Hongzhang's Anhui army and remnants of the EVA force. Not the Ever victorious army, no this was the Ever triumphant army. Basically the remnants of the EVA force were taken by some French officers who continued to work alongside the Qing. The roads to leading to Huzhou were strewn with corpses and severed heads to ward off the Qing/Anhui/EVA forces. The coalitionary forces are too much for the defenders of Huzhou who at the end of August of 1864 flee south. Hong Rengan intends to take the Young Monarch to Guangdong where the Taiping movement started. They rode for 3 months making it to the Meiling Pass, searching for safety. Their escapade left them in a mountainous country 15 miles northeast of a town called Stone Wall where they were finally attacked. Qing soldiers came upon them during the night before the Taiping loyalists could even mount their horses. Hong Rengan fled alone on foot wilding running through a forest where he is captured on October 9th. He is interrogated by the local Qing officials, where he tells them “The heavenly King was nine years older than I and gifted with extraordinary powers of intelligence. A glance at anything was all that was required to impress the subject on his memory. The uprising at Thistle mounted undoubted evidence of the display of divine power throughout those years,and despite the ultimate collapse of the Taiping movement, among those who have enjoyed the smiles of fortune for the longest time the Heavenly King stands pre-eminently forward,”. Hong Rengang is executed in Jiangxi's capital of Nanchang on November 23rd.    As for the Young Monarch, Tiangui Fu, he manages to slip away with 10 followers. His band crosses a small bridge and climbs a nearby hill to hide, but they are discovered by their Qing pursuers. Somehow Tiangui Fu manages to evade them, hiding out in the hills, afraid and alone. He shaves off his long hair and finds work with a local farmer pretending to be a man named Zhang from Hubei. After the harvest for that year, he travels onwards but is finally caught and arrested on October 25th by a Qing patrol. He throws himself at the mercy of the state, confessing “The old Heavenly King told me to study religious books, and would not allow me to study ancient books, which he said were all demonic. I managed, however, to read secretly thirty or more volumes, and still retain some recollection of their subjects and contents. The conquest of the empire was the ambition of the old Heavenly King, and I had no part in it.” He tells his captors if they release him, he will study the Confucian classics and try to gain the lowest degree, that of Licentiate. Instead the Young Monarch is executed on November 18th, a week before his 15th birthday. The Heavenly King is dead, the Young Monarch is dead, all the kings, north, south, east, west, flank, shield, loyal, brave and countless others are all dead.    The day Zeng Guofan took control of Nanjing was a triumph, not for the Qing dynasty but for him. He was at that moment the most powerful man in all of China. His Xiang army was dominant, he was that of a military dictator controlling the vast eastern and central parts of China. He was not fully under the Qing courts control, in fact the Qing relied upon him almost entirely to retain their own control. Until the Taiping menace was defeated, the Qing court watching his efforts without dread, once it was done that all changed. Rumors spread like wildfire, some said Zeng Guoquan told his brother the time was right to abandon the crumbling Qing dynasty and to start a new dynasty from his base in Nanjing. But Zeng Guofan did not do this. In truth, by the time Nanjing was under its last siege, Zeng Guofan began a process for disbanding his grand Xiang army and to relinquish his power. He sought to hold onto his positions as governor general over Anhui, Jiangsu and Jiangxi, and help rebuild Nanjing to its former glory. Many watched expected him to take his army and march upon Beijing, to rid China of the Manchu, but he sent his soldiers home. And thus Zeng Guofan remained a loyal subject, to a child emperor and the Empress Dowager Cixi.   If you are bewildered by this, you are most definitely not alone, countless historians and contemporary figures were confused. Zeng Guofan's ruthlessness and brilliance led him to possess basically unlimited power. All of his top ranking commanders were people he knew, they all had strong personal ties to him, their loyalty was set in stone. What could have possibly stopped him from taking over China? Well, according to his closest family members and friends, they say Zeng Guofan was a man wrecked by anxiety and depression. He was reluctant from the very beginning to be given command, quite uncertain of himself. He was a true scholar and sought nothing but to go back to his books and to lead a life of moral scholarship. He was deeply influenced by Confucian beliefs, but many also think he was influenced by the horrible levels of corruption, greed and incompetence he saw within the Qing bureaucracy. He was never heard to question the legitimacy of the Emperor, and being very devout to Confucianism, he probably really believed in the mandate of heaven. There are also those who point out, to such a brilliant mind, was ruling China a desirable thing? He say how tumultuous the era they lived in was, was it a good era to rule over? Perhaps his uncertainty about himself, left him thinking he could not live up to the task.    Regardless, the Xiang army demobilized in August of 1864, less than a month after the fall of Nanjing. In May he gave a notice for sick leave, which as he told his brother was just an excuse to go into hiding after the war was done. He wanted to escape all of his critics who were growing suspicious of his power. He recommended his brother should do the same, but it seems Zeng Guoquan resented this advice. Zeng Guoquan apparently was beginning to expand his economic powers and Zeng Guofan had this to write to his brother, “Military commanders who have usurped fiscal power have never brought anything but evil to the country and harm to their own families. Even if you, my brother, are a complete idiot, surely you cannot be ignorant that you have to distance yourself from power to avoid being slandered.” Well the Qing court went to work on Zeng Guoquan and his subordinates accusing them of corruption and usurpation. Likewise they hounded Zeng Guofan by proxy, and for the 8 years left of his life they tormented him, not allowing him to retire or pause from duties. Zeng Guofan's dreams of returning to scholarship, his homeland, a quiet life, would never come to be. In 1867 he wrote on the issue of his looming death “I would be happier there, than I am in this world”.   The estimates on the death toll of the Taiping Rebellion are simply impossible to gauge fully. If you go to wikipedia, or pick up any book they all fall on 20-30 million people. There were no reliable censuses at the time, the estimates are based mostly upon demographic projections on what the Chinese population should otherwise have been in later generations. In an American study performed in 1969, by the year of 1913, almost 50 years after the fall of Nanjing, China's population had yet to recover to its pre 1850 levels. In 1999 it is estimated the provinces hardest hit by the Taiping Rebellion, Anhui, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Hubei and Jiangxi suffered a population loss of around 87 million people between 1851-1864. Around 57 million of them dead from war, the rest never born due to decreased birthrates. The projection for the full scale of the war in all provinces is around 70 million dead with a total loss for the population at 100 million. As you might imagine there is a large amount of skepticism over such unbelievable numbers. Regardless the scars of the event were most definitely felt for decades as attested by countless travelers and inhabitants of China. It was frankly one of if not the deadliest civil war in human history.   What is rather incredible is the fact the Qing dynasty did not fall then. Don't get me wrong, it was a mortal wound, but the Qing dynasty would limp on for another 5 decades. Did the Qing dynasty win the war? Not entirely, its safer to say the efforts of Zeng Guofan, foreign intervention and the Qing defeated the Taiping movement. The Qing dynasty was basically put on life support by Zeng Guofan and foreign interests if you really think about it. The Opium wars linked the Qing dynasty to nations like Britain and France who had financial stakes in China and wanted the devil they knew rather than the Jesus they didn't to ensure the flow of unequal trade, see what I did there? Zeng Guofan, was simply in my opinion a strong conservative. I told you bits and pieces about his reluctance to work with foreigners and utilize their technology. He came around to it all of course, but he did so gradually and begrudgingly, there are countless tales of him butting heads over the issue. That issue being modernization, something his successor Li Hongzhang will become a champion of might I add. Zeng Guofan was devout to Confucianism and traditions, honestly he is a large part as to why the Taiping were unable to destroy much of Chinese culture. Zeng Guofan would be villainized by many as a traitor to his race, someone who held up the Manchu.   In the end China suffered immensely, this was after all occurring during the century of humiliation. I will end with this to say about the intertwining years of the Second Opium War and the Taiping Rebellion. These years were a time of chaos and change for Asia as a whole. China would end up slowly moving towards modernization, but another nation would take the opposite route and usher in hyper modernization. The balance of power in Asia was turning, leaving more room for conflict on an unprecedented scale.    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. Sheesh, 12 parts my god, would you believe it if I told you there was a lot more left out? Remember there were other rebellions like the Nian and Dungan, and perhaps given a audience desire I might talk about those as well.  

Last time we spoke Hong Rengan, the cousin of the heavenly king made a long pilgrimage to get to Nanjing. When Hong Rengan finally made it to Nanjing, the heavenly king rejoiced and began showering him with titles. Hong Rengan soon became the Shield King, but this drew jealousy and resentment from the Loyal king Li Xiucheng. Hong Rengan quickly went to work restructuring the movement, making dramatic improvements and began a campaign to win over foreign support. A grand strategy was formed to break the encirclement of Nanjing and it succeeded in a grand fashion, bringing the Taiping closer to Shanghai where a large foreign community awaited. However rumors spread that the Taiping wished to attack Shanghai creating fear amongst the foreigners they sought to ally with. Could Hong Rengang turn the tides in favor for the Taiping? #30 This episode is The Taiping Rebellion part 7: Ward's Mercenaries & the Battle for Shanghai   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. Shanghai was not a typical Chinese city, it had a complicated division of jurisdictions such as the international city with each nation having its own military force and each foreign citizen was liable only to their nations authorities. Trading vessels came and left, exchanging not only cargoe but crews from all around the world. People from all walks of life came to Shanghai and much like Mos Eisley, “you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy”. Now in 1860, just 12 miles due west of Shanghai a group of irregular military men began to run drills in a muddy little village. There were around 200 Europeans and Americans in a unit, wearing a hodgepodge of uniforms. Some wore red coats and dark pants, typical British marine getup, other blue jackets with white bell bottoms, that of french sailors, others tattered fabrics of merchant crews. For weapons, many had colt revolvers others sharp repeating rifles and the reason they drilled was to capture the Taiping held town of Songjiang, 10 miles further away from Shanghai. Alongside Qingpu, Songjiang was a strategic walled town and a necessary stepping stone for one to invade Shanghai from Hangzhou or Suzhou. The motley crew of mercenaries were being paid for by a banker named Yang Fang at the incredibly high rate of 100 dollars per month per man. On top of their handsome salaries these men were promised rewards of a hundred thousand dollars if their unit was able to defeat the Taiping garrison at Songjiang alongside anything they could loot. The commander of this unit was an American named Frederick Townsend Ward. He was 29 years old, from Salem Massachusetts and had deep black eyes and a thatch of unruly raven like hair worn long over his ears.    Wards army was modeled on the so called filibusters, those American soldiers who frolicked in latin america in the 19th century. Ward was not drawn just by money but also the dream of establishing a new state to govern. Ward had been frustrated during his military career, he had failed to gain admission to West Point in 1846 and spent a year at Norwich university, a private military college in Vermont, without even graduating. His real military training came informally, in central america in 1852 when he enlisted with the infamous William Walker who led a small army of Americans to fight a civil war in Nicaragua to overthrow its government with the intent to form a new Yankee state. Ward fought hard for Walker, but left his camp to form his own, while Walker conquered Nicaragua and installed himself president in 1856. It was a short lived state to be sure, 4 years later the British captured Walker and arrested him for breaking neutrality laws. Meanwhile Ward traveled to Shanghai to launch his own venture against the Taiping, while his former mentor was executed by firing squads in Honduras.    The Taiping-Qing civil war was a fantastic opportunity for a would be filibuster and initially ward came to china to join the rebels and overthrow the Manchu. However upon making it to Shanghai, making contact with the Taiping proved difficult. Ward first found work aboard a french steamer named Confucius, hired by some wealthy Chinese merchants to protect them against Yangtze pirates. Eventually Ward and the captain of the Confucius found themselves employed by local military authorities, thus Ward ended up selling his sword to the Qing. They saw in him some leadership qualities and had him begin recruiting Europeans, Americans and Filipinos to create a mercenary force to defend the region outside Shanghai. His army was strictly illegal, a complete violation of the neutrality laws. His force of mostly deserters could not even be treated for wounds in Shanghai lest they be arrested.    Despite the small size of his force, the practically mythical belief in western arms being vastly superior led many of their enemies to simply surrender upon seeing a causasian opponent. Wards army was meant to be a spearhead for a 10,000 strong Qing force that followed behind it as they invaded garrisoned cities. Wards unit attacked Songjiang in april of 1860 and it did not go very well. With zero artillery to blast open the gates, Wards planned to sneak over the city walls under the cover of darkness using scaling ladders. Ward's men got so shit face drunk before their daring attack, that all their singing and swearing alarmed Songjiangs defenders when they approached. As they tried to climb, the Taiping cut them to pieces. After the failure ward sent men to purchase artillery pieces in Shanghai, managing to grab 2 pairs of half ton Napoleon field guns and Ward also procured a ton more men. Now he attacked Songjian again in July, this time with 500 troops, a great many being Filipino's. Under the cover of a fog, and less drunk the artillerymen bombarded the gate of Songjiang with 12 pound shells as the unit stormed the city. This assault proved to be a worse disaster than the last one. When they got through the outer gate, the found out the inner gate was undamaged. Thus Ward and his men were stuck in the wall, they couldn't get past the inner gate and could not bring their Napoleon cannons across the moat to hit it. The Taiping defenders were above them tossing stinkpots filled with burning sulfur all night long. Ward's men managed to budge the inner gate a couple of feet using bags of gunpowder, but they were being fired upon all the while. If it was not for their repeating rifles being so effective at close range, they probably would have not survived the night. Luckily they survived the night and soon their Qing backup showed up at dawn forcing the Taiping garrison to flee. Most of Wards 500 men were dead and all by 27 survivors were severely wounded.   It was a terrible victory, but the city was theirs and Ward set up his new HQ in a Confucian temple. With Songjiang as a base, he regrouped, recruited and set up a new offensive for August the 1st to hit Qingpu 10 miles northwest. It did not go well, turns out the Taiping in Qingpu had managed to assemble their own type of Ward army led by an English coastal pirate named Savage who rangled up several of his comrades along the Taiping to man some big guns. Wards Qing backup army also did not show up and during the fighting Ward took a bullet right through both of his cheeks. Wards extremely drunk lieutenant tossed the new recruits, made up of mostly greeks and italians to throw themselves at the walls of Qingpu again 2 weeks after the first failed attack, this time with the Qing backup showing up, but all they managed to do was stir up a Taiping garrison now reinforced to a whopping 50,000 men led by Li Xiucheng himself. Li led a surprise flanking attack that routed the Ward army, not only winning the battle for Qingpu but also threatening Songjiang as Li Xiucheng chased them all the way there. The Taiping harassed Songjians gates for over 2 weeks and the only saving grace for Ward was the fact Savage was alongside the Taiping and he got shot dead.    As we have seen, not all the foreigners were so hostile to the Taiping, Ward initially and Savage were willing to sell their swords to them. And in early july of 1860 as Ward had been preparing his attack on Songjiang, a small boat left Shanghai for the interior carrying 5 British and American missionaries who sought to contact the Taiping in Suzhou. One of them was Joseph Edkins and friend to James Legge, who was trying to find out if Hong Rengan had made it to Nanjing. The group ran into some Taiping units who told them Hong Rengan was the prime minister of Nanjing. The group were mortified when they got to Suzhou seeing the savagery committed there and as Griffith John described of seeing the ruined temples ““It is common to see the nose, chin, and hands cut off. The floors of these buildings are bestrewn with relics of helpless gods. Buddhist and Daoist, male and female. Some are cast into the canals, and are found floating down the stream mingled with the debris of rifled houses and the remains of the dead.” Li Xiucheng was in Suzhou at the time and he invited the missionaries for an audience. It was not a long meeting, but the missionaries found the man to be gentle, intelligent and he kept his soldiers well disciplined. They found themselves in agreement when it came to religious doctrine, but the missionaries knew the merchants of Shanghai cared for only one thing. Thus hey asked Li Xiucheng if he would allow the silk trade to continue under Taiping rule and Li Xiucheng replied that was exactly what the Taiping sought. Thus the group returned to Shanghai and countless newspapers in SHanghai began to publicize pro Taiping accounts. Edkins declared “They are revolutionists in the strictest sense of the term; both the work of slaughter and of plunder are carried on so far as is necessary to secure the end. These are evils which necessarily accompany such a movement, and are justifiable or otherwise in so far as the movement itself is so.” The idea the Taiping would be a state friendly to the west gained momentum. At the end of July, Edkins and Griffith returned to Suzhou for a second visit upon letters of invitation from Li Xiucheng and Hong Rengan.   This time they found an even warmer welcome, with Hong Rengan present draped in silk robes wearing an embroidered gold crown. Hong Rengan insisted they do not kowtow nor kneel as this was not the western fashion, but instead give him a hearty handshake, and he dismissed servants so they could talk informally. They talked of old times like old friends about missionary work, they prayed and sang hymns and talked of China's future. Hong Rengan said for his part all he wanted was to lead the Taiping towards a correct understanding of Christianity. The missionaries were delighted by all of this, a man they knew and worked with was in the seat of power and he wanted to bring real christianity to China. By November nearly all of the major missionary organizations in England joined together to sent a letter to the foreign minister calling for Britain to continue its strict policy of neutrality. In many ways the veil of the Taiping had finally been lifted and there gleamed a chance perhaps at some western support.    Now let us not forget, while the Taiping forces were launching this massive campaign to break the siege of their capital, the Qing were dealing with another campaign, the second opium war. Lord Elgin was writing back to Britain all the while and he had some interesting points to make. In one letter to Lord Russel in July of 1860 he wrote “We might annex the Empire if we were in the humour to take a second India into hand, or we might change the Dynasty if we knew where to find a better.” According to Putyatin, Elgin had privately said in his presence “Britain should recognize as Chinese Emperor one of the leaders of the rebel movement assuming he would agree to the favorable conditions of the Tianjin treaty.” He argued that it could give Britain the desired trade concessions, end conflict and perhaps prevent future wars. He took it a step further saying “if the capital of China were moved nearer to our military presence like Nanking … England could control the Chinese Empire with four gunboats.Let the north disappear or form a separate government, we don't have any trade interests there.”   Meanwhile his brother Bruce was anxious that the Taiping would still march on Shanghai. The two events were simultaneous, the war in the north with Elgins coalition marching upon Beijing and the loomed threat in Shanghai. Luckily for Bruce, Elgin showed up to Shanghai on June 29th of 1860 with a fleet of French and British gunboats. Bruce sighed with relief, surely his brother would look out for their interests in Shanghai. Yet the coalitionary forces had no intention of helping Bruce defend Shanghai, they were going to depart shortly to head north and hit Beijing. They departed and left a scant defensive force of a couple gunboats and some stray divisions of Sikh soldiers. The foreign community of Shanghai lamented they had been abandoned in their hour of need. Despite the work of the missionaries to present Hong Rengan as a friend and not foe, Bruce did not buy it. He assumed the missionaries were being duped, like he had been at the hands of the Qing. Despite his opinions of the Manchu, Bruce told those around him they were still the legitimate authority in China. Many tried to change Bruce's mind on the matter of the Taiping, but none succeeded.   In july of 1860 Bruce was brought a sealed letter addressed to the representatives of the US, France and Britain from Li Xiucheng. Bruce apparently refused to even open it. Then he received another letter, this time from Hong Rengan, but Bruce again refused to open it. These letters were fatally important, in the first Li Xiucheng notified the foreign authorities that the Taiping were on they way to Shanghai and intended to take possession of the Chinese held section of the city. He stated the Taiping had no quarrel whatsoever with their “foreign brethren” and pledged no harm to them nor their property. Any Taiping who harmed a foreigner would be put to death and he hoped the foreign representatives would call upon their people to stay indoors and hoist yellow flags above their doors to signify they were foreigners in said homes.    In the later afternoon of August 17th, the sky to the west of Shanghai suddenly grew dark with smoke. The next morning saw fleeing Qing soldiers rushing to the Shanghai gates pursued by Taiping cavalry. The British let in a few Qing in before they destroyed the bridge going across the moat. The Taiping advance guard surged forward as suddenly the British and French opened fire with their artillery. Alongside this, the Taiping were fired upon by a hodgepodge of differing muskets, rifles and such. The Taiping force was small, just a few thousand men, lightly armed with a few notable foreign mercenaries with them. The British and French gunners atop the walls, watched the Taiping hide behind buildings and other structures, with clear baffled faces. None of them shot back, then one Taiping detachment tried to advance forward waving Qing flags they had stolen, but they were shot at. Next another detachment rushed forward waving an enormous black flag that the Taiping used to drive reluctant troops with. One very lucky shell lobbed from half a mile smashed right in the middle of the unit flattening the flag bearer into the ground.   In a bewildered disarray the Taiping ran into houses for cover, but the wall artillerymen kept firing at them. As the night came upon them, word spread that Qing forces within Shanghai were executing Taiping POW's, prompting the British to demand they be surrendered over to them unmolested. Then the French frustrated it seems by the Taiping using all the houses for cover decided to simply start blowing them down with artillery. The next morning, French troops marched through the city firing their muskets at will. One eye witness reported to the North-China Herald “French soldiers were rushing frantically among the peaceful inhabitants of the place, murdering men, women and children, without the least discrimination. One man, was stabbed right through as he was enjoying his opium-pipe. A woman who had just given birth to a child, was bayoneted without the faintest provocation. Women were ravished and houses plundered by these ruthless marauders without restraint”. Another eye witness estimated the French left tens of thousands of Chinese homeless in the course of defending against 3000 lightly armed Taiping. The Taiping force retreated, but the suburbs of Shanghai burned for days as the Europeans claimed victory. The Taiping attack on Shanghai honestly did more to build sympathy for their cause, the news paper ran rampant stories about how the europeans fired upon a group who called themselves brethren and did not fight back.    Now we have not talked about a key player in all of this for awhile. On October 16th of 1860, General Zeng Guofan was in his HQ in Qimen of Anhui province sick out of his mind. He was vomiting heavily, suffering some bad heart palpitations, had a bad case of insomnia, just not doing all that great. At lunch he received a message that the emperor had fled to his hunting grounds in Manchuria and that the British and French armies were literally a few miles from Beijing. There was nothing he could do, he apparently broke down in tears feeling helpless. Zeng Guofan was stuck fighting a protracted rear action campaign against the farthest Taiping stronghold up the Yangtze river. Zhang Guoliang and He Chun were both dead, the siege camps around Nanjing were shattered. He knew he could do nothing to stop the european march on Beijing so he pulled himself together and focused on a task he actually could do something about.   Up until 1860, Zeng Guofan's Xiang army on the Yangtze played only a supporting role in the overall Qing campaign. Zhang Guoliang and He Chun's blockade of Nanjing was much more of a focus compared to that of Zeng Guofans offensives. Yet when victory seemed within grasp, Hong Rengan's daring plan was unleashed. The Taiping broke out of the encirclement and ran rampant marching east. In the leadership vacuum that ensued, Zeng Guofan's time had finally come. In June of 1860 Emperor Xianfeng appointed him as the governor general of Anhui, Jiangsu and Jiangxi the provinces most ravaged by the civil war. By late august the emperor named him imperial commissioner in charge of the military affairs in those 3 provinces and the new commander in chief of the Qing dynasty's forces in the Yangtze river valley. Boy oh boy the Chinese love bestowing so many titles on one person, that tradition just keeps living on. The frustrations of having to constantly provide for his Xiang army was beginning to ease as the desperate emperor had no one else to turn to. After years of scrambling to make his army's ends meet, while the Green Standard army enjoyed full funding and support, now Zeng Guofan was in charge of both military and civil administrations for the primary theater of war.    His years of service had shown him how ineffective the bureaucrats of the Qing government could be, how inexperienced and self-gratifying they could be, and he would not tolerate them to affect his campaign. He had refused orders in 1859 to chase down Shi Dakai into sichuan, and now in 1860 he was given new orders to abandon his campaign in Anhui and to rush over to instead protect Suzhou and Shanghai. He offered instead the excuse he did not have the forces necessary to help at the moment and would stay put where he was finishing his campaign. The strategy he was performing was one of encirclement. Now back in 1859 Zeng Guofan tried to explain to the Qing court that the dynasty was not facing one kind of rebel force, but rather 2. The roving bandits constantly moving, and the pretender bandits, those who actually sought to attack Beijing and take the dragon throne. Shi Dakai, the Nian rebels and numerous vagabond armies on horseback were roving bandits. The only way to fight roving bandits was to hold a position and try to blunt their momentum. But for the pretender bandits the most important being the Taiping with their capital in Nanjing, you could only defeat them by “severing their branches and leaves”. What he meant by this was you had to cut off their foraging armies, ie: their logistics, before crushing them. He pointed out that the Green stand army had failed to encircle Nanjing completely, there had always been a single pathway open. He argued Nanjing must be completely encircled and once that was met the Qing forces could gradually conquer the fortified cities along the Yangtze one by one. He sought to begin with the Brave Kings base of operations, Anqing in Anhui province. Anqing had been under Taiping control since 1853, and was the farthest stronghold up the Yangtze. It protected both the river and land approaches to Nanjing and thus was a major choke point. As long as it stood, the Taiping in Nanjing could not be properly sieged, Anqing had to be crushed.    Now this was not going to be any simple task, in 1860 Zeng Guofan had a force of 60,000 men while the Rebels had vastly more. Zeng Guofan could not contend with them in the open field. His intelligence reports indicated the Taiping were using irregular formations known as “crab formations”. This was a cluster of troops in the middle (the crabs body) and 5 lines reaching out on either side that could rapidly reconfigure itself as 2 columns, 4 columns or a crosslike configuration of 5 phalanxes, depending on the enemy. There was also the “hundred birds formation”, in which a large division would disintegrate into small clusters of 25 soldiers, each roaming freely, making it impossible for their enemies to figure out how large their force was. Then there was “crouching tiger”, usually applied to hill terrains where 10,000 troops would hide close to the ground in total silence and then ambush their enemy as they passed through a valley, suddenly leaping up like a tiger.   To defeat these innovative rebels, would require manipulation of the battlefield. In every engagement Zeng described the situation as being either a host or guest. The host always enjoyed the advantage, such as being defenders of a wall city. The same situation could be said of a fortified camp. If two armies were to meet in the open field, it was the first army to reach the site of battle that would be the host. Now having the weaker army, Zeng tried to ensure the Taiping would always be the guest, by trying to lure them into attacking his defensive works or if failing that to try and provoke them to make the first move. To that end he got his men to build up fortified camps always in close proximity to the Taiping in the hopes of drawing them in to make the first move. In June of 1860, when the Taiping were focused on their eastern campaign, Zeng Guofan had moved into Anhui from the west with his brother Zeng Guoquan who began a siege of Anqing. Guoquan had 10,000 Hunanese forces who pitched a camp near Anqing's walls, building high earth walls with 20 foot wide moats. The idea was simple, they protected their fronts to the city and their backs from Taiping relief forces. For further protection against relief forces, a 20,000 strong Manchu cavalry unit led by Duolonga was set up in Tongcheng, 40 miles north of Anqing while Zeng Guofan led naval forces to blockade the Yangtze river just a few miles below the city. In late July, Zeng took the rest of his forces, 30,000 men into the mountains south of Anhui where he formed his HQ in Qimen, which is in a valley around 60 miles southeast of Anqing.   However the summer of 1860 changed everything as the new war with the Europeans in the north erupted. Beijing sent orders on October 10th instructing him to send his best field commander, Bao Chao along with 3000 troops to help Prince Seng's banner forces fight the Europeans in the north, but Zeng Guofan believed without these men who would not be able to hold the encirclement of Anqing. It would take Bao Chao until January to reach the area of Beijing, far too late to be of help, thus Zeng reasoned it was useless. Alongside that, if the Taiping were allowed to break out of Anqing they could march upon Wuchang and threaten Hunan again. So Zeng cleverly sent word back to the Emperor asking him to choose another commander to come help in the north, and that message would take 2 weeks to get over to Beijing over 800 miles away thus earning him at least another 4 weeks time.   October was quite depressing and cold for Zeng Guofan. The Taiping in Anqing apparently had plentiful stores and could wait quite long for reinforcements. One of his most beloved commanders holding a garrison in the nearby town of Huizhou was overrun by Taiping raiders and reports indicated there were many Taiping forces encircling his base of Qimen. Then on November 6th, he received a letter from a colleague in the north, stating the Europeans had successfully invaded Beijing and burnt down the summer palace . Zeng wrote in his diary “I have no words to describe the depths of this pain,”. The eight banner army lost to the Europeans and now he was all alone commanding a breaking army, all he had left was this damn Anqing campaign. We will come back to the plight of Zeng Guofan soon, but now we will be venturing back to the Shanghai situation.   On August 21st, 2 days after his men were sent back from the walls of Shanghai by European grapeshot and shells, the Loyal King Li Xiucheng wrote a very angry letter to the British and American consuls there. “I came to Shanghai to make a treaty in order to see us connected together by trade and commerce. I did not come for the purpose of fighting with you.” Li Xiucheng accused the French of setting up a trap, stating a few of them had come to Suzhou earlier that year inviting the Taiping over to Shanghai to establish relations. He could not believe the French would be deluded by the Qing demons and betray them. He said he heard reports of the Qing sending large amounts of money to the French to defend Shanghai and it seemed they were sharing that money with the Americans and British since they opened fire on his men! He went on to say the event could be forgiven, in the case of his fellow protestants, but not the French, oh no there would be a day of reckoning for them when the Taiping took control of China. Yet he finished his angry letter swallowing his pride and said the Taiping still sought friendly relations with their christian brethren.    Though it was a letter from Li Xiucheng, in reality it was sentiment sent by Hong Rengan, whose entire strategy depended on gaining support from the British and Americans in Shanghai. They needed to buy steamships to control the Yangtze river. Yet Li Xiucheng hated Hong Rengan and began to talk within his inner circle about how foolish Hong Rengan was thinking the foreigners would ever help them. The unexpected conflict with them at Shanghai proved his point and thus a rift was widening more so between the 2 leaders. Hong Rengan for his part, blamed Li Xiucheng and not the foreigners, stating they must have heard of Li's belligerent attitude towards them before he showed up and thus they assumed he was going to attack. Despite the 2 men's bickering, they both knew Shanghai needed to be secured for its rich financial stores and to be a point of which the Taiping could purchase weapons from the west. It was now up to Hong Rengan to smooth things over with the foreigners.    A letter was sent to the foreigners of Shanghai stating they wanted to open up trade and that they had vast amounts of teas, silks and other desired goods. It asked why not make a treaty, perhaps with the United States? John Griffith went over to Nanjing and returned to Shanghai in December with an edict from the Heavenly King written in imperial vermillion ink on yellow satin, welcoming foreign missionaries to take up residence in Nanjing. An interesting gesture, given the British were so obsessed with having the same in Beijing only to be continuously thwarted by the Qing court. However the missionaries were reluctant to go, because no formal communications had been established between Nanjing and Shanghai, thus to go meant they would be at the mercy of the rebels. On December the 2nd, Lord Elgin returned to Shanghai in triumph after marching upon Beijing and getting Prince Gong to sign the treaty. He quickly learnt from his brother how the Taiping threatened the city. But the treaty had been signed with the Qing and the letters from Hong Rengan and the HEavenly king suggested the Taiping wanted no hostilities with the foreigners at Shanghai. Thus everyone expected no further conflict to occur and the European coalitionary forces that had marched on Beijing were disbanded and sent home. By the end of December, half the British forces were already returning to India and Britain with the others being stationed in Hong Kong, Tianjin and the Taku forts, just incase Beijing decided not to meet their end of the treaty terms yet again.    As for Shanghai, by the end of 1860, just 1200 British soldiers were left for the city and Elgin argued they were far too many. Elgin spent a good month in Shanghai before leaving China. Though his work with Beijing was over, he did have one last task before leaving, he wanted to gauge the possibility for Britain to form relations with the Taiping. The Taiping at this time controlled the riverway and thanks to the new treaty with the Qing, trade was finally open for business. Elgin was not too pleased to hear about the supposed defense that his brother erected against the Taiping. He was even more disgusted to find out about the damage caused by the French to the outer suburbs and population of Shanghai. Elgin tried to counsel his younger brother that the Taiping were not necessarily all bad, he said “as bad as the imperials and Taiping both are, the rebels might provide a brighter future. From what I have seen of the regions under their control, they exhibit honesty and power”. He also rebuked his brothers refusal to read the Taiping letters warning not to accede to any Qing requests for Britain to avoid contact with the rebels. “it will never do to come under any obligation not to communicate with them on the Yangtze. It would be wrong in principle … and impossible in practice.”    When winter came Elgin had to leave China, he had no time to make another voyage up the Yangtze, so he left orders for Rear admiral Hope to pay a visit to Nanjing to investigate if there might be a basis for relations between the rebels and Britain. Elgin knew it was a delicate situation, they had after all just signed a treaty with the Taipings enemy, thus he added a private note to Hope “at any rate it is clear that we must not become partisans in this civil war”. For his part General Hope after defeating the Manchu, was quite open to forming relations with the Taiping. Meanwhile the Taiping were consolidating their control over China's wealthy eastern province of Jiangsu. By September they controlled every county around Shanghai except for this under the protection of the foreigners. They were capitalizing on the people losing faith in the Manchu. They would make such proclamations as “The emperor of the Qing is the emperor of a lost country, and his ministers are all the ministers of a lost country. They extended their control over Jiangnan which encompassed the confluence of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui. Within Jiangsu province they held the capital, Suzhou along with the major cities of Wuxi and Danyang. They held Anqing, the capital of Anhui, and in Zhejiang they had the major trading city of Ningbo. 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. Hong Rengans efforts to gain foreign support were falling to pieces. Zeng Guofan was building up his army hoping to capture Anqing, a major stepping stone to take Nanjing. Who was going to win the battle for the east?  

Last time we spoke Shi Dakai went into exile while performing a western expedition, riding out into an eventual oblivion. Hong Xiuquan fell into depression, paranoia and seclusion as he began to only trust his close family members and appointed them to grand positions despite the fact their skills might not be up to par. The Taiping kings were gone, now the new military leadership lay in the hands of Li Xiucheng and Chen Yucheng. The Nian rebels began to work closely with the Taiping to campaign against the Qing, but it was ultimately not working out. The taiping sought foreign support, but things simply were not going well on that front and they were gradually finding themselves being more and more isolated from allies to defeat the Qing.   #29 This episode is The Taiping Rebellion part 6: Rise of the Shield King Hong Rengan   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. Our old friend, the cousin to the Heavenly King, Hong Rengan had heard so much news over the years about his famous cousin and the Taiping. He decided to try and visit the Taiping capital of Tianjin. He left Hong Kong in may of 1858, traveling first to Canton which was at that time under British and French occupation, thus safe to him who was friends with missionaries. From there he set off northeast through Guangdong province along the riverways. For the most part, he ran into travelers trying to sell wares and Qing soldiers patrolling for bandits. He got to a junction at Nanxiong country and turned north upon an ancient stone road that led to the Meiling pass, the gateway dividing the southern part of the empire from the Yangtze valley. Beyond was Jiangxi province and beyond that Nanjing, or as I keep fumbling back and forth, Tianjin. He dressed as a peddler so he would be unremarkable to anyone, especially Qing troops and thus pass without incident. Once he entered Jiangxi he continued northeast along the Gan River where he came to the edge of the active war zone just outside the Taiping realm of control. Many Qing encampments were found along the way, many massive in size. Hong Rengan was able to attach himself quite easily to an outlying unit, joining them on their march eastward towards the porcelain producing city of Jingdezhen. There the Taiping attacked, forcing the Qing into a rout. Within the chaos Hong Rengan was lucky to escape the slaughter, escaping with only his clothes on his back.    After escaping the heated battle, he worked his way west for a time, away from the active fighting, then further north towards the Yangtze river towards Hubei province. This territory had been fought over for more than 5 years at this point, being conquered and reconquered by the Qing and Taiping. Countless cities he came across were empty, houses stripped of wood to make cooking fires for passing armies. Even in the more prosperous parts of the province, underpopulated farms were unable to muster enough hands to bring in the harvests. Hong Rengan eventually came across a Qing soldier. THe man told him he sought to purchase goods in the Qing held river town of Longping and then to sell the goods downriver in Nanjing to the rebels. The soldier seemed to have many contacts, thus Hong Rengan gave him a piece of gold leaf he had kept sewn safely into the fabric of his jacket and they partnered up.   While the soldier went to Longping to buy the goods, Hong Rengang waited for him in the city of Huangmei around 15 miles northeast with one of the soldiers contacts, a magistrate named Tan. Tan found Hong Rengan's intelligence and education so impressive he offered him a job on the spot as a secretary. It was quite a coveted job for an unemployed scholar,but Hong Rengan was still fixated on getting to Nanjing and gave Tan an ambiguous reply. The soldier did not seem to show up, leaving Hong Rengan with no way to get to Nanjing so he stayed with the magistrate for many months. Hong Rengan began to hear rumors about the Qing encircling the Taiping capital, strangling them into submission. Hong Rengan began to become anxious so he left Huangmei with a letter of introduction and a bit of money given to him by Tan.    Hong Rengan took back the mantle of a peddler, but in October a Qing patrol captured him, though they had no idea how valuable a bounty he truly was. He was kept a prisoner for several days, but in the end they simply let him go, sending him on his way to Longping where he found a secret house serving as a way station for Taiping refugees. In December of 1858, he crossed paths with Lord Elgin. From the secret house he heard that foreign ships had been spotted on the Yangtze on their way back to Shanghai. He ventured down the waterfront just in time to see Elgins small fleet at anchor and he soon become acquainted with Thomas Wade, Elgin's interpreter. Turns out he knew the man from Hong Kong and he tried to get board on one of the vessels to receive passage as far as Nanjing. He was unable to get the ride, but he did manage to get a letter delivered to Hong Kong addressed to some missionary friends letting them know he was alive and trying to get to Nanjing.    Some months later he found himself in Anhui province in the spring of 1859 where he finally found a Taiping patrol. When he told them his story, they took him for a Qing spy and sent him with armed guard to a garrison in Chentanghe. While under interrogation from the garrison commander, he opened a seam in his jacket providing a scrap of paper describing his family history. It was enough to convince the commander that he was indeed from the same village as the heavenly king. Thus the commander escorted him personally down the river on a Taiping vessel arriving in Nanjing on april 22nd of 1859, nearly a year after Hong Rengan began his journey.    Tianjin, was of course Nanjing, one of the greatest Chinese cities in its heyday, the secondary capital and former Ming capital. It was rich in temples, government offices, trading houses and such, a wide metropolis. It was now built for war, with countless fortifications and cannon placements everywhere. When the Taiping took it they burnt the Daoist and Buddhist monasteries, creating something of their own version of Jerusalem. In the Ming days, the city had a population in the millions, but now it seemed rather empty. The civilian residents were allowed to come and go and many had drifted off into the countryside. The Heavenly King's palace was incredible, there were drummers that flanked its main gate, a reception hall with lacquered wood carvings of dragons, walls inlaid with gold and nearly everything that touched the heavenly kings fingers, chopsticks, bowls, brushes and such were fashioned from gold. It is said his chamber pot was made out of silver, Trump would love that one. Behind the main hall lay the vast inner sanctum where Hong Xiuquan and his harem lived.   By the time Hong Rengan had come to Nanjing, Hong XIuquan had retreated from public life, spending his days behind the palace walls. Almost no one was allowed to meet with him, save for the women in his service. Hong Rengans reunion with his cousin, as he accounts it was bittersweet. It had been over 8 years since they last saw another and well…a lot had happened to say the least. Hong Rengan had heard the rumors that despite the weakness of the Manchu forces against the Europeans, Nanjing was almost encircled and being bled. The mass of Taiping armies had left the city marching in 3 separate armies on long range foraging expeditions, while the Qing forces concentrated all of their might to strangle Nanjing from its provisions. Hong XIuquan's seclusion from his active leadership role had hindered the Taiping. What Hong Xiuquan needed was an adviser, someone he could trust and that man was to be Hong Rengan.    Hong Xiuquan showered his cousin with titles and promoted him swiftly through the Taiping ranks. Little more than 2 weeks since his arrival, Hong Rengan earned the rank of king amongst the Taiping, even though this broke a promise Hong Xiuquan had made to not appoint anymore. Hong Rengangs title was “founder of the dynasty and loyal military adviser, the upholder of heaven and keeper of order in the court” he was henceforth known as the “shield king”. Hong Rengan joined the echelon of Taiping military officials and was in charge of the entire civil government of Nanjing. Basically he became Yang Xiuqing 2.0 and was only second to the heavenly king. His unexpected arrival seemed a sign from god for Hong Xiuquan, but as you would imagine a lot of jealousy and resentment emerged from the Taiping leaders. One particularly resentful man was Li Xiucheng who commanded the defenses of Nanjing. Li Xiucheng proved himself quite capable and a very trustworthy general, but he was not a king. To watch this other man come from out of nowhere and suddenly be promoted above him after so many years of loyal service, well anyone would be jealous. Li would actually gain the rank of King months later as the “loyal king”, but it seems it came too late and the jealousy over Hong Rengan only grew.    Hong Xiuquan was well aware of the dissatisfaction over Hong Rengan amongst his officers, so he called a full congregation of Taiping officials to honor the appointment of the Shield King. There he announced all matters in need of decision making were to be referred to the sole authority of the SHield King and as the crowd began to show audible disapproval Hong Rengan tried to turn down the appointment, but Hong Xiuquan whispered to him “all will be well, the wave that crashes with great force, soon spends itself and leaves peace”. Thus Hong Rengan accepted the official seal and began to preach to the crowd. He also began criticizing the policies made by the late Yang Xiuqing, offering improvements. In his own words about their reaction “They saw that I could stand in front of a multitude and hold forth flawlessly on doctrinal issues, and so they accepted me as their model of wisdom.”   It was clear to Hong Rengan that commanding the loyalty of the Taiping followers meant more than just giving them spiritual salvation; they also needed earthly rewards, such as the promises of a better state, and that of a better life. Hong Rengan sought a long lasting structure for the future Taiping government and society, for this he needed to weave together threads of Chinese tradition with his knowledge of the industrial societies of the west. He tried to infuse a prototype of ethnic nationalism that had not been seen in China since the Manchu conquered it. His first major proclamation served to fan the flames of ethnic resentment towards the Manchu calling the people to  “rejuvenate China and resist the northern barbarians, in order to wipe out the humiliations of two hundred years. We mouth their language … we live together with their members, and our people suffer from the vileness of the Manchu dogs.” The cause to get rid of the Manchu did not only resonate amongst the Taiping, but also many of those on the sidelines. And this was not limited to the Chinese, foreigners also took noticed to this fight against the tyranny of the Manchu. As one American in SHanghai put it  “Americans are too firmly attached to the principles on which their government was founded and has flourished, to refuse sympathy for a heroic people battling against foreign thraldom.”   Hong Rengan hashed out his vision of the new Taiping state in a document titled “a new work for the aid of government”. Now the traditional dynastic viewpoint had always been that CHina was the center of world civilizations and that barbarians were welcome come and trade, but they must acknowledge China's cultural superiority. Hong Rengan knew full well this annoyed foreigners and that foreign nations like Britain were both militarily powerful and very proud people. So he began to encourage not using the term barbarian and instead express ideas of “equality, friendship, harmony and affect”. Alongside this he thought the tributary model of diplomacy needed to be abandoned as a relic of the past with no use in the contemporary world. He argued that human beings were not willing to be considered inferior and that the foreigners in the past only performed the tributary customs out of force. The new China needed to establish friendly relations and long lasting respect from other nations.   Hong Rengans experience with foreigners in Hong Kong showed him China was merely one state among many with much to gain from studying other great powers in the 19th century. He also believed the christian religion was the key to the strength of western nations. He pointed out the Protestant nations of Britain, the US, Germany, the scandinavian nations were all the strongest and most prosperous followed by the slightly weaker French catholics and Orthodox Russians who held onto miracles and mysticism. By his reckoning, Islam or even worse Buddhism were unfiromly weak and nations who abided them found themselves colonized. He argued the Manchus were like Persia, where people accepted their slavelike status without complaint. The most powerful nation to Hong Rengang was Britain whose ruling he thought lasted more than a thousand years making it longer than any dynasty of China. He explained to the masses that Britains strength derived from the intelligence of its populace, a system of laws which China could and should emulate. But Hong Rengans greatest admiration was saved for the United States which was known as the “flowery flag country” to many of the CHinese, because of its flag. He called it “the most righteous and wealthy country of all, she does not encroach upon her neighboring countries. ” Well that last part certainly changed haha. He talked about American democracy, the notion that all people of virtue should have a say in choosing their leaders and setting policy. Hong Rengan began to list his western friends such as British missionary James Legge, the swedish missionary Theodore Hamsberg and countless americans he knew in Shanghai. He proposed to use his connections to help establish cooperation with the west. He proposed CHina tap into the global industrial economy, it was necessary to become strong. He pointed out that Siam had learnt from the west how to build steamships and thereby made itself a “nation of wealth and civilization”. Likewise Japan unlike the Qing rulers of China had opened themselves willings to foreign trade “and will certainly become skillful in the future”. Boy oh boy is that one ominous. This he argued was the path of a Taiping ruled China. Hong Rengans ideas in many ways were a vision of China as a modern industrial power. A lot of what he argues will be adopted by future Chinese leaders, some of whom were currently fighting the Taiping, such as Li Hongzhang. Now before anything could be down, the state needed to be founded and for that the war needed to be won.    To establish some central administration, financial and military authority, Hong Rengan needed the backing from military commanders. He could not expect support from Li Xuicheng so he began securing support from the other big heads such as Chen Yucheng. Chen Yucheng seemed quite willing to accept the new system Hong Rengan was advocating for. Shortly after taking the title of Shield King, Chen Yucheng and Li Xiucheng were also made kings; Chen became the Ying Wang and Li Zhong Wang; ie: the brave king and loyal king. These appointments were obviously done to placate any jealousy the generals might feel towards Hong Rengan. These men had been on their own for quite awhile and by no means eager to accept subordination under a newcomer. But for better or worse these 3 men were the top officials who would control Taiping politics and military strategy.    Now Li Xiucheng was very ambitious and was the one who sought the most self glory out of the Taiping leaders. His area of command was by his own design, that to protect Nanjing and he made every effort to place himself close to the heavenly king as his protector. Thus far he had managed to become the new Yang Xiuqing, but he did not like Hong Rengan nor was he open much to his ideas. Chen Yucheng on the other hand was more willing to accept a new political leadership role of Hong Rengan and would become his main supporter. Aside from his role as a commander in the field he also helped Hong Rengans governmental reorganization. Chen Yucheng became a member of Hong Rengans board for a newly organized state examinations. Hong Rengan wanted a government based on law and stressed therefore the need of education for the Taiping people.   One of Hong Rengans first proclamations was to revamp the examination. Interestingly to do this he advocated to blend confucian classics, the four books and 5 classics with the taiping christian texts. Though none of these texts survived, scholars assumed the general principles of the confucian work were revised heavily before being adopted. Hong Rengan wanted to carry on some of the imperial tradition; to formulate an elite that would be characterized not only by ranks and titles but also exempt from labor service. While the examinations and privileges of those who passed them looked similar to the imperial systems of before, the substance of the system was quite different. The imperial gentry was a statum that took its uniform based on the study of confucian classics, but Hong Rengan wanted a CHristian gentry. Thus the new examinations looked more so at qualifications for official service. At the same time Hong Rengan took the time to clarify “yes thats a good word”, the visions of Hong Xiuquan in a way that would make more sense in traditional christian literature. This was not just for the CHinese, but also for foreigners who were greatly weirded out by the fantasifull aspects of the Taiping doctrine. Hong Rengan was trying to have the Taiping version of christianity mesh more so with the protestant one so foreigners would accept it more.    Hong Rengan suggested that foreign missionaries and technical advisers be permitted to come to Nanjing. He was trying to establish some westernization and friendly relations with western powers and many missionaries would come to Nanjing such as T.P Crawford, J.L Holmes, J. Roberts and Hartwell of the American Baptists and Josiah Cox of the British Wesleyans. However the year 1860 brought with it an end to the Second Opium War and the signing of the treaty of Tianjin, thus the western powers had effectively tossed their lot in with the Qing. Hong Rengans hopes of gaining the western aid to defeat the Qing was snatched.    In the meantime, while Chen Yucheng proved a valuable ally to his cause, in the absence of having Li Xiucheng on his side, Hong Rengan was unable to overcome the resistance to his authority. Regardless he attempted to take a leading role in planning military campaigns; and his strategies were initially successful.    When Hong Xiuquan and his cousin spoke in their younger years they envisioned building a kingdom that did not include the north. Instead it set its foundation in Nanjing and reached down over the 7 southern provinces. It would abandon the larger expanse of the Qing dynasty for something more akin to the Ming. However when the Taiping took Nanjing, they tried to take the south and north failing in the process. Now the Taiping capital was in a dire situation, the had lost most of their southern territory that they acquired in the initial campaign. They still held the strategic city of Anqing upstream, but the Qing had retaken Zhenjiang. Qing forces had established encampments with 10s of thousands of soldiers guarding strategic points north and south of Nanjing keeping them firmly under siege. These encampments represented the leading forces of the Qing empire, the counterparts to Prince Seng's army in the north. The southern camp had dug in just 10 days after the fall of Nanjing to the Taiping and stood its ground almost continually ever since. Zhang Guoliang commanded the southern encampment and He Chun the north.   Zhang Guoliang's siege forces were too large to be easily scattered by the Taiping sorties from Nanjing. But at the same time Nanjing was too strong for the besiegers to mount an attack upon it. Thus a stalemate occured for a long time, peppered with Taiping victories in 1856 that did shatter the Qing siege, but then the Taiping internal collapse undid this. 3 years after the Qing rebuilt their ranks and commenced digging trenches below Nanjing that would stretch 45 miles with more than 100 guard camps along the length blocking access to the capital. He Chun and Zhang Guoliang prepared for what they thought would be the final assault to crush the rebel capital. Hong Rengan presented a bold plan to relieve Nanjing. The Taiping would send a small expeditionary force in a wide, sweeping arc beyond the rear guard of the Qing armies within Zhejiang province to attack its weakly defended capital Hangzhou. Hangzhou was 150 miles southeast of Nanjing and was the supply line supporting the southern Qing encampment. Now because He Chun and Zhang Guoliang concentrated all of their forces around Nanjing, there was little real defense left for Hangzhou, so they would be forced to transfer troops from the large encampments around Nanjing to lift a siege of the city.    As per Hong Rengans plan, they would recall two roving armies led by Chen Yucheng and the younger cousin of Li Xiucheng, known as the attending King who would return to Nanjing from their distant foraging campaigns. As soon as the Qing forces around Nanjing thinned out sufficiently, the expeditionary force at Hangzhou would secretly retreat as the combined armies of the Brave, loyal and attending King's would sweep in from 3 sides to crush the weakened Qing camps, thus raising the siege. Even Li Xiucheng agreed such a plan might break the siege, but he did question what lasting effect it might accomplish. He argued it would reconcentrate the Taiping forces in Nanjing where they had limited supplies, thus Hong Rengan laid out the full scope of his revised strategy for winning the war. The rice growing southern provinces, sichuan in the west and the Great Wall to the north were over 1000 miles from Nanjing, but to the east were grand and wealthy cities like Suzhou and Hangzhou who had access to the sea. It was to the east they should strike. Once they performed the siege lifting offensive they should turn east and conquer the cities between Nanjing and Suzhou in a swift and precise campaign. With access to the sea they could ensure supplies, arms, wealth and new recruits. If all went well they could get help from foreign allies and using the wealth taken from Suzhou and Hangzhou they could purchase perhaps 20 steam powered ships from the foreigners in shanghai. With such naval forces they could patrol the Yangtze unopposed and begin taking the southern coast along Fujian, Guangdong all the way to Hong Kong. From there they could march on Jiangxi, Hunan, Hubei and seize Hankow, solidifying the Taiping control over the entire Yangtze river valley and cutting the Qing empire effectively in 2. By consolidating the south, they could take Sichuan, Shaanxi and the original dream of Hong XIuquan and Hong Rengan would be complete. The former Ming empires borders would be theres and Beijing and the northern provinces would eventually be starved and wither away. The success of his grand plan depended heavily on the support of foreigners in Shanghai, but would they be open to it?   On February 10th of 1860, the Loyal King left Nanjing with 6000 handpicked men disguised in Qing uniforms stolen from slain enemies. The coordination between the Green Standard, Yung-Ying armies and local militias was so weak, the Loyal King's force managed to seize several garrison towns along their way before looping around to hit Hangzhou. They surprised the city on March 11th when hundreds of Taiping banners began to be erected around the great city indicating its was under siege. The main Taiping force battered the front gate of Hangzhou using sappers and tunnels and a hole was blasted by march 19th. Hell unleashed upon the city as its untrained militia routed fleeing to their homes in neighboring towns. The leaders of Hangzhou likewise abandoned their offices taking their bodyguards with them, with many also ransacking the city as they fled. Li Xiuchengs men fought against the local residents who stood their ground and the local women did as moral instructions proscribed, they began to kill themselves en masse. The women hanged themselves, poisoned themselves, stabbed themselves and threw themselves into wells to drown. The Manchu commander of Hangzhou fled with his troops back into the inner garrison holding out against the fierce Taiping invaders. Li's men were unable to break into the Manchu garrison after 6 days, so he abandoned the attack and began the retreat back to Nanjing. He had accomplished his objective and the plan would work out perfectly. Zhang Guoliang received reports of the attack on Hangzhou, without any clear indication of the size of the Taiping force. He shifted nearly a quarter of his total siege forces to relieve Hangzhou as a result while the Loyal King and his men took to their Qing disguises yet again easily slipping past Zhang Guoliangs men. Zhang's force arrived to Hangzhou to find no Taiping, nor any civil government, so they looted the city hahahaah.    By April the main Taiping armies of the Brave and Attending kings went to the outskirts of Nanjing and join up with the Loyal Kings forces to throw their combined weight on the weakest point of the southern QIng encampment. The southern camp fell apart in a rout as 100,000 Taiping overran them from 3 different directions. Li's cavalry smashed into the Qing rear lines crushing the men under their own defensive works. Thousands were cut down with their bodies left in the trenches they had dug. The waterways overflowed their banks raising corpses everywhere. The routed Qing dropped their weapons as they fled, but the Taiping pursued them for weeks cutting more and more down. Soon the Taiping overran the city of Danyang, 45 miles to the east of Nanjing. General He Chun committed suicide by eating raw opium and Zhang Guoliang drowned while trying to escape from Danyang. Thus in the central theater of the war, no more capable Qing commanders were left.   In the spring of 1860, suddenly the Taiping came out like a scourge from their capital marching to the east. Local militias fled before them, Jiangsu province was swarmed, countless cities fell without a fight. By mid may the Taiping captured Changzhou a few days later Wuxi. Then the Taiping plucked one of the greatest cities, Suzhou which held a population of 2 million, providing them with a vast source of new recruits and plunder. The Taiping's momentum was unbreakable, Suzhou simply opened the gates to them. For those who were in the path of the Taiping choices were always the same, be brave and fight to protect your homes, or cut your manchu queues and join them. Many peasants tried to appease both sides by growing their hair long on top when the Taiping took over, but kept their Manchu braid wound up underneath their long hair in case the Qing came back. Soon the Taiping spread past Jiangsu to Zhejiang forcing countless to flee to the protection of the international city of Shanghai. Yet rumors spread to those in Shanghai that an army of 100,000 Taiping was going to march upon Shanghai with a flotilla of 10,000 boats so large it would take 3 days to fully pass the river.   The treaty port of Shanghai held half a million Chinese inhabitants, a figure growing daily with refugees. Shanghai was divided into 4 sections; the east going to Jiangsu province; the south was the old Chinese city with a circular defensive wall 25 feet high governed by the Qing holding most of Shanghais population; to the north was the French and British concessions and to the east was the Suzhou creek where past that was the American concession. The foreign population numbered around 2000 settled people and shipping crews numbering another 2000 or so. The British dominated the community, seconded by the French, leaving the Americans a minority. It was not a beautiful city. Countless newcomers had grand visions of “an El dorado of wealth, hope and fortune, only to find a dirty, overcrowded settlement with “ill built houses reeking with impurities and fevers and vile stenches”. One missionary said of the city  “one of the filthiest in this world. I have seen nothing to be compared to it in dirt and filth, it surpasses everything.”   Shanghai had access to the sea and the Yangtze river making it an ideal point of trade for tea and silk from China's interior. Shanghai quite frankly was built specifically for the purpose of dominating the China trade. As the Taiping edged down the river, British authorities in Shanghai issued an injunction from trading with the rebels and fear set into the foreign community that their immensely profitable commerce was about to be destroyed. The top ranking British official in Shanghai was our old friend Frederick Bruce, the younger brother to Lord Elgin. After failing at his job to get the Qing to abide by their treaty, he left his brother to finish that work up as he took up the mantle to manage Shanghai. Because of his experiences he sought to walk a very fine line when it came to his new role and he was determined to remain neutral towards the civil war. He issued the trade injunction believing to even trade with the Taiping was breaking neutrality. He also simultaneously tried to avoid aiding the Qing, but Britain had interests with the Qing and the Qing knew how to twist an arm. The Qing had an official named Wu Xu who hounded Bruce for British support in defending Shanghai from a possible Taiping attack. Wu Xu warned if the Taiping took Shanghai, it would shut down all trade and the British would be cast out. Bruce began to hear rumors about horrible dealings in Hangzhou by the hands of Li Xiuchengs men and began to worry what might unfold in Shanghai.   It was not just the Taiping that were a threat, there were legions of renegade Qing forces who had taken up residence in Shanghai who had fled from Suzhou and Hangzhou. Bruce wrote  “the defeated imperialists have revenged themselves for their defeat by pillaging the defenceless villages on their line of retreat. The beaten troops, the victorious insurgents, and the vagabonds of the city itself, all join in plundering the wealthy and respectable inhabitants.” There were continuous false alarms being made that the Taiping were attacking Shanghai causing the city to become a powder keg. Weighing the options, Bruce decided it was Britain's moral duty to protect Shanghai, but not just the foreign settlements, also the Chinese city under the Qing civil governments control. He made it clear any British defense of Shanghai would strictly be limited to the city itself. Wu Xu tried to press Bruce that a preemptive British led force at Suzhou to halt the Taiping would be a good idea, but Bruce rejected this immediately. The French however heard reports that another French catholic missionary had been murdered by the Taiping, and they decided to rally a force of 3000 men to march on Suzhou, but Bruce was able to scuttle the mission. The British merchants began to hound Bruce to mount a sturdy defense of the city, but Bruce had to wait, probably months for Britain to give him permission to deploy defenses. Thus in the meantime Bruce began calling up volunteers, and only a handful of cannons were dragged together with a few hundred inexperienced men to man the walls to face if rumors were true, legend of Taiping.    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.  Hong Rengan went on a great pilgrimage to Nanjing and became the Shield King. His reforms were grand, but he drew ire from his fellow the Loyal King. Could Hong Rengan turn the movement around?  

Mr. Benson Tam, Founder & CEO of Venturous Group, spoke on 31 August 2022 about Venturous' business, strategy, roadmap to IPO and the opportunity to invest in our Series B. Including CLP Group, which is one of the largest investor-owned power businesses in Asia Pacific and acting as our Series B lead investor, Venturous has already raised more than US$20 million for this round.As China's first Citytech™ Group, Venturous is a first mover with a commanding market presence in the Smart City market in China, valued at US$4 trillion. Furthermore, Venturous' unique IBO (invest, build and operate) business model also allows us to scale quickly, safely and systematically towards our own IPO in 5-8 years. Last but not least, we continue to work closely with our strategic partners such as iSoftStone, Arup and CLP, as well as city governments from Wuxi and Tianjin, to create new businesses and opportunities.

Last time we spoke tension was brewing within the Taiping capital between the the heavenly king and his subordinate kings. The Foreigners were debating who would win the civil war for China and who would be the best bet for trade. The new Yung-Ying armies, such as the Xiang army of Zeng Guofan began to encircle Nanjing in an effort to strangle the Taiping. Within the Taiping capital, conflict finally broke out and Yang Xiuqing was murdered by his comrade King Wei Changhui. When Shi Dakai found out he demanded blood, leading to Wei Changhui's death and almost his own, but he fled Nanjing, taking a large army with him to campaign in exile. Now Hong Xiuquan fell into a depression and fell into seclusion, who would lead the movement now that the great taiping kings were all gone? #28 This episode is The Taiping Rebellion part 5: Out with the old kings, in with the new   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.   With Shi Dakai's departure, Hong was put in quite a pickle, as one of his commanders, General Li said “morale declined and there was no unified policy. Each went his own way. The Sovereign did not place complete confidence in anyone. He had been frightened by the East, North and Flank Kings and dared not trust other ministers, but placed all his trust in members of his own clan”. Thus the Taiping fortune had turned dramatically, the period of swift campaigns and sweeping victories had ended. They would not be able to exploit the blitzkrieg like momentum they once held. Now the Qing provincial armies would organize and begin the process of wrestling back control over vital and strategic territories in the upper Yangtze valley. Hong Xiuquan was alone in Nanjing with none of his original comrades to pick up the much needed leadership roles. As bad as Yang XIuqing had been, he was at least effective as an organizer and strategist.    On the other side of the coin, the Qing were unable to take advantage of all the Taiping upheaval. Their main besieging camps around Nanjing were smashed in 1856 and they faced two other large threats. The first ws another rebellion taking place in northern CHina, that of the Nian rebellion. The Nian rebellion was severing lines of communications from north to south making it extremely difficult to coordinate against the Taiping. The second was of course the second Opium war which threatened the eastern coast and cut off contact with the sea, effectively leaving local regional commanders in the south and center of China to have to formulate their own strategies against the Taiping. The financial records show at this time Emperor Xianfengs treasuries were significantly reduced. The Qing court had begun suspending orders for silk and porcelain and these sort of goods were necessary to showcase imperial glory. Alongside this, weddings and funeral stipends for Manchu Banner troops were canceled, golden bells, buddhist statues and other items made of gold, silver and such were melted down to make coins. The Qing court forced officials to reduce staff, canceled repairs to palace buildings and by 1857 some Imperial Banner families had reached starvation levels of just a few pounds of relief grain per month. The Emperor was allowing his Banner troops to use their own banks and rice stores in an attempt to shield military personnel from the effects of inflation. Despite the economic hard times, and enemies left right and center, the Qing armies could have crushed the Taiping altogether during this turbulent time, had it not been for the Qing leaders insistence on the policy of having veteran Taiping troops executed if captured without exception. There was really little incentive to stop serving the Taiping.   Now Hong Xiuquan did not stop at just placing his two brothers in high positions. There was Hong's sister, his wife Lai and his children, the 8 sons of his eldest brother, 2 from his second eldest brother. Hong also had 8 daughters from various consorts, many of whom were married. Hong also had a dozen or so cousins, the Hong family had roots in Guangdong and Guangxi and many had made the trek from Thistle mountain to Nanjing. Now that Yang was dead, Hong was able to do things with less scrutiny, thus he began to extend his family as he saw fit. Hong's palace was run entirely by women under his general supervision. Allegedly 2000 women worked for him divided into 3 categories, female ministers and bureaucrats, maids and attendants and the women of his immediate family. That last group included consorts of which according to his son Tiangui, Hong Xiuquan had 88 consorts in Nanjing. Tiangui was around 9 years old in 1857 is told he is too old to remain in the palace and is forced to live in an outer palace and given 4 wives. He is forbidden from seeing his mother or sisters, bound by stern rules set forth by his father. Hong Xiuquan dictated at four, his sons are no longer allowed close contact with their older sisters; at seven, they can no longer sleep in their mothers' or other consorts' beds; they must also stay ten feet or more away from their sisters, and learn to bathe themselves; by nine they should not even see their grandmothers. Their sisters' separation from their brothers is similar: after five, they must never be touched by their brothers, and after nine they stay entirely with the women and are not meant to see even their younger brothers any more. In 1857, a year after the assasination ordeal, Hong Xiuquan issued the only official publication of the time known as “poems by the heavenly father”. They show us how Hong Xiuquan concerned himself with maintaining order and harmony among his hundreds of concubines and maids in his giant harem. He then explained “heavenly principles” admonishing his women to please their master and to follow his ordained rules. The mixture of fantastic ideas and fanatical beliefs in these writing to his women showcase the decline of the heavenly king. He was so concerned with having his own personal religious experience, that to ascent to heaven, rather than focus on the Taiping revolution. Whatever governmental structure existed was handled by Hong Xiuquans family rather than him, most at the hands of Hong Rengfa/Rengfu. Later on when one of the leading Taiping commanders, General Li Xiucheng is captured by Zeng Guofan he tells him “In Nanjing there was no one at court to carry on the government, the morale of the soldiers and people was broken and troubled. The military leaders were greatly displeased with the Hong brothers as both men were deficient in talent and had no plans”.   Yet the Hong clan did not seem to have anyone who could pull everything together. Hong Renfa and Renfu were said to be “deficient in talent and military tactics. THey were obstinately bent on carrying out their own views, and were obsessed with the notion that Heaven would support them in everything”. Shi Dakai was the last real hope for the revolution and when he left he also took with a significant part of the military and some of the best commanders. When the Qing court received news of Shi Dakai's departure they instructed Zeng Guofan to invite Shi Dakai into the fold. Shi Dakai refused to surrender to the Qing and instead marched his army through Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Fujian and then westward into Hunan. From Hunan he tried to gain entry to Sichuan. Shi Dakai had thus conducted a ceaseless and exhausting campaign across 15 different provinces over a distance of more than 6000 miles, seeking first a permanent base, and then it became more of a game of survival. Countless troops got sick, died or deserted. By June, Shi Dakai found himself cornered, helpless and exhausted, so he simply walked into the encampment of the commanding Qing general pursuing him and gave himself up. He hoped by forfeiting his life he could have 2000 other Taiping veterans be pardoned. He prepared for all of this by having having his 5 wives commit suicide and his drowned, to save them from the inevitable shame and agony they would have faced at the hands of the Qing troops. He was interrogated for over 6 months by Luo Bingzhang who had directed the defenses at Changsha which killed the west king. Shi Dakai was executed slowly via dismemberment and his 2000 of his most loyal followers who had been held under guard at a local temple were slaughtered. Though Shi Dakai had assumed new titles and gave many to his commanders, he never promulgated any new political programs, nor did he have any grand purpose for his military campaign, and thus he was more of a military adventurer rather than a revolutionary leader in the end.   Shi's forces would remain a threat to the Qing and Zeng Guofan's Hunan forces. Shi had permitted many of his men to leave for home and the Taiping who went back to Guangxi province would survive to the end of the rebellion, slaughtering many more Qing. Shi also continuously recruiting as he marched his forces, in 1858 Shi's forces were said to be several hundred thousand strong before Zeng Guofans armies decimated them. Shi Dakai's force was quite the diversionary campaign, forcing Zeng Guofan to dispatch many of his best commanders to deal with him, but he was never distracted from his main target, the Taiping stronghold of Nanjing. Initially when the Qing ordered Zeng Guofan to march into Sichuan to stop Shi's invasion of the provin, he refused the follow the Qing strategy. He argued with the Qing court stating the difference between the rebels who occupied and developed strategic areas for economic bases, ie: the main Taiping force in the lower Yangtze versus what he called the “roaming bandits” who never settled down. Those roamers were Shi Dakai and the Nian rebels. The real threat he insisted was the Taiping in Nanjing and Anhwei and they must be dealt with first. The Qing government…well they had no real way to coerce Zeng Guofan at this point and just followed his advice.    Meanwhile in Nanjing, Hong Xiuquan's choice to appoint his own kin as officials was backfiring. He had made this appointment in the hopes of re-establishing a working organization. However the proliferation of titles contributed to disorganization and chaos. He had appointed Meng De'en as chief of staff. Meng had been a member of the administrative staff and Taiping documents indicate he was an official responsible for providing women for the heavenly king's harem but had no experience in military matters. And despite his nominal role in the central administration and his new military authority he really held no real influence over either the courts or the armies. Alongside this Hong's brothers were using their positions to amass wealth and live lives of luxury. So the field commanders became the only ones making actually military decisions. The attitudes of these commanders towards the new appoints in Nanjing can be seen strongly be the remarks of Li Xiucheng who again as a prisoner under Zeng Guofan wrote “there was no one at court to carry on the government, the morale of the soldiers and people was broken and troubled”. From his perspective, the military leaders were very dissatisfied with the Hong brothers and distrustful of Meng who in his words “was a great favorite of the heavenly king and had not been outside the capital. He alongside his second in command Li Kaifang were both men without ability and moreover kept in hand by the Hong brothers”.   Its easy to see the Taiping were in a major crisis and Li Xiucheng wrote one passage that shows us that it could have very well fallen to pieces by 1858. “The feeling of the people has undergone a great change. Government affairs were in disorder, and each man was pursuing his own course. The sovereign had become mistrustful of others. The affairs between the kings had so alarmed him that he was distrustful of ministers of other surnames and put his confidence in his own family and relations. There was a unanimous desire at this time to separate. However, they did not dare to separate on their own, since they had heard that whenever the Qing generals and soldiers capture Guangxi men they decapitated them, not sparing a single one. Hence they banded closely together instead of dispersing. Had the Qing dynasty been willing at this early date to spare Guangxi men, a breakup would have taken place long ago”. A very revealing passage to be sure. The inability of the Hong brothers and Meng De'en to manage military campaigns forced Hong Xiuquan to give the military leaders a free hand and he even created new titles and positions for them within the Taiping hierarchy. The first two important men to emerge in 1856 were Chen Yucheng and Li Xiucheng who received the titles of second chief commandant and deputy commandant. Left to their own by the useless Taiping court, they were forced to make their own strategic decisions and coordinate based on their need for self preservation.    The military situation for the Taiping was critical. Control over the Yangtze had been lost to Zeng Guofan's Xiang army and with it came the loss of transportation for military supplies and provisions. In december of 1856, Wuhan had been recovered by the Qing which threatened Taiping control over the south Yangtze areas. The 2 Taiping commander thus came together in January of 1857 at a conference in Anqing to figure out how to coordinate a campaign. This led to a joint strategy to strengthen the Taiping military position in the Yangtze area. Now neither commander had played a large role in the Taiping campaigns prior to taking Nanjing. Chen Yucheng was too young to take an active role during the march from Guangxi to Nanjing. At Nanjing he was appointed to the rank of corps superintendent in charge of provisions for the Taiping left fourth army, to be blunt it was a desk job. By 1854 he petitioned for combat duty and got his wish in june that year to occupy Wuchang. He distinguished himself as the 38th commander then the 13 senior secretary commanding the Taiping rear 13th army and front 4th army of river troops. His military achievements and personal bravery earned him fame amongst the Taiping, and he also became well known to the Qing who targeted him as an important Taiping commander.   Li Xiucheng was a fellow villager of Chen Yucheng. He did fight during the march from Guangxi to Nanjing, but was not promoted to important military positions until later on. At Nanjing he became an assistant to another Taiping leader, Hu I-Kuang before receiving an appointment by Yang Xuiqing as a new corps general and later corps superintendents leading troops in 1853. Before the power struggle, Li had been sent with other Taiping officers to Chenchiang in Guangxi. After the power struggle Li was in command at Tongcheng in Anhwei and found himself in quite a struggle. He had a small force of less than 3000 men in a city isolated by Qing forces, he was surrounded, by his own account by over 10,000 Qing troops in over a 100 camps. To break out of this terrible position, Li cooperated with Chen Yucheng and collaborated with a Nian rebel force.    I have not spoken too much about the Nian, but at this time the area of northern Anhwei along the borders of Henan, Shandong and Jiangsu were under their control. They had started as groups of local corps formed during all the disarray of the 1840's and 1850's. They rose up to defend their villages against local bandits and raids from neighboring forces. By the mid 1850's these groups banded together into a regional force held together by a secret society affiliation and by support from some local gentry clans. They held a formidable cavalry force and used a system of defense in depth, allowing them to perform campaigns into neighboring areas. They were anti-Qing and thus rebels, making it easy for them to cooperate with the Taiping when possible. Honestly I am contemplating writing an episode on the Nian rebellion and on many of the other lesser known rebellions of the 19th century, but my god there are many and its easy to become sidetracked. Who knows maybe at some point I will have to make a patreon to produce exclusive content, wink wink, anyone who might be interested in such things let me know, comment on my private channel, the pacific war channel or catch me in the KNG discord perhaps, really want to hear from you guys and gals what you want to hear more about.   There does not seem to be significant coordination between the Nian and Taiping prior to this, and perhaps that can be explained by a simple difference in goals of the two movements. The Nian were a local rebel group that had little program nor major political purpose beyond control and exploitation of the area their forces dominated. They did not hold the ambition to establish a new dynasty, let alone some sort of proto-marxist revolution like the Taiping sought. The Taiping for their part had little interest in local bandit or rebel groups who were unwilling to submit to the Taiping faith. At the start of the Taiping rebellion in Guangxi province they had already alienated many secret society and bandit groups who were quasi interested in the Taiping cause. Yang Xiuqing in Nanjing did little to change this policy. But after the breakdown of centralized command in Nanjing, men like Li Xuicheng who held purely military interests to heart saw joint action with groups like the Nian.   Thus the first significant joint action between the Taiping and Nian came about in early 1856 when the Nian leader Li Chaozhou from southern Huai area joined up with Li Xiucheng to perform a campaign in Chenchiang. When Li's position was in crisis at Tongcheng he quickly tried to establish contact with Li Chaozhou the southern Nian leader, but also the northern Nian leader Zhang Luoxing. Zhang pledged collaboration with the Taiping forces under Li Xiucheng, claiming the Nian forces under his control to be a million strong. This forced the Qing in northern Anhwei to go on the defensive easing the pressure upon Li Xiuchang. The military alliance also raised Li Xiuchangs status amongst the Taiping, earning him a promotion in rank. The joint military campaign led to a number of cities in the Huai area to be taken between 1857 and 1859. But this cooperation remained purley on a military basis and would not last. It never extended beyond the Huai area and even within the area it was quite nominal in scale as a result of the Nian not having any real political structure. The Nian were more of a federation of autonomous communal units and the incapability with the Taiping ideology made any further integration impossible. The southern Nian leaders such as Li Chaozhou who had been the chief collaborators with Li Xiucheng could not be trusted for very long. They were not Guangxi men like Li Xiucheng, and thus could surrender to the Qing and keep their heads, which they eventually did. The cities they were defending were handed over much to Li Xiuchengs despair.    Li ascribed their surrender to be a result of undisciplined troops stating “Li Chaozhous troops were a disorderly lot; they were constantly troubling the people and plundering any city that was taken, and when this could not be effected they vented their rage on the peoples themselves. Li chastised the assistant generals of the districts until he was ashamed to meet me and finally sent his submission to the Qing”. Li was also dissatisfied with the northern Nian leader Zhang Luoxing who according to him “His men were only interested in promotions but not in serving when called”. Li was angered by the lack of cooperation or to be more blunt the fact the Nian's disobeyed Taiping directions as to why the Taiping campaigns failed. However the push to perform joint actions led to Taiping victories in the central Yangtze area which most definitely helped their cause.   For one thing the joint actions led the Nian to hit Qing supply lines which further contributed to a major victory over the Qing at Tongcheng on february 24th of 1857. After this victory the Taiping leaders pursued the retreating Qing forces northwards alongside their Nian allies. But then many Nian forces attempted a western campaign and lost ground in Hubei. There were 2 major thrusts made in April and september of 1857 and then april and may of 1858, but both were frustrated by the Xiang army and other Qing forces. The Nian began a general retreat back into northern Anhwei which was their economic base. Meanwhile Li Xiucheng acquired a base closer to Nanjing establishing supply lines and from then on took on a key role defending the Nanjing region.    Though the Taiping/Nian joint operations slowed the advance of the Xiang army in Hunan, Zeng Guofan's strategic plan still proved itself and his forces slowly but surely advanced in the Yangtze area. In may of 1858 contingents of the Xiang army recovered the city of JiuJiang which was the last remaining Taiping strategic base in the center of the Yangtze area. It was a vital base that provided them with resources from the provinces of Jiangxi and Hunan as well as a major recruitment point. From Jiujiang, Zeng Guofans army could prepare to march into Anhwei. Zeng Guofan also sought to advance forces into the upper Yangtze area to strangle the Taiping, while other Qing forces rebuilt the camps that were surrounding Nanjing in 1856. The northern and southern blockading camps were rebuilt in 1857 under the command of the Manchu generals He Chun and Zhang Guoliang. By the end of 1857 their forces were marching upon the city of Chenchiang which the Taiping had been holding since 1853.   To face the new threat, a Taiping military conference was held and alongside Li Xiucheng and Chen Yucheng a number of other Taiping generals gained prominence. Two of the most important were Yang Fuqing and Li Shixian. Yang was actually a cousin of Yang Xiuqing who escaped the slaughter by being in Jiangxi province performing a military campaign. Li Shixian wsa a cousin of Li Xiucheng and fought under him, until 1858 when he assumed his own command campaigning in southern Anhwei. The Taiping government depended on the loyalty of these key generals rather than any efforts made by Meng De'en and other useless Taiping administrators within Nanjing. In August of 1858 when the Qing began to strangle Nanjing, Hong Xiuquan gave the military commanders new titles and assignments. Now ever since the Yong'an campaign way back when, the Taiping military was more or less divided as such: the forward army, rear army, central army and left army. Chen Yucheng was appointed chief general of the forward army, which originally had been Feng Yunshans title; Li Xiucheng became chief general of the rear army; Yang Fuqing became the chief general of the center army, but was forced to share this position with Meng De'en who somehow was going to command men from Nanjing; and last Li Shixian was made chief general of the left army previously held by Shi Dakai.   At the conference Li Xiucheng called for unified action, here is some of what he said in his own words “I then wrote to the garrison generals of the different places, calling on all officers of the Heavenly dynasty to hold a council of war on an appointed day at Ts'ung-yang near Anqing. The generals and officers of the various places responded to my call…we each took an oath that we would support each other and agreed to join forces in the conflict before us”. The result of the conference led Chen Yucheng to march upon Shuch'eng, luzhou, chuzhou, then to link up with Li Xiucheng at the Anhwei-Jiangsu border to hit the Qing forces at Wuxi and Pukou dealing a complete defeat to the northern Qing camp trying to strangle Nanjing. The Taiping broke the northern half of the Qing blockading forces ending a large threat to Nanjing.   However these forces the Taiping defeated at the northern blockade were regular Qing forces. Fresh from that victory the Taiping now had to face the Xiang army who were marching into Anhwei. These forces were being led by Li Xubin who was accompanied by Zeng Guofans brother, Zeng Guohua. Their Xiang army was threatening the entire Taiping position in Anhwei and to face it Chen Yucheng rushed his army over to its defense, followed by Li Xiucheng. A major battle occurred on November 15th of 1858, resulting in the complete annihilation of the Xiang force and the deaths of Li Xubin and Zeng Guohua. Thus the Taiping control over Anhwei remained firm and Zeng Guofan suffered a terrible setback. Chen Yucheng and Li Xiucheng quickly recaptured all the lost territories in Anhwei and parted ways. Chen Yucheng chose to establish a base in the northern and western parts of Anhwei around Anqing, while Li Xiucheng took the eastern section closer to Nanjing.    Because Li Xiucheng was closer to Nanjing he was able to assert more control and began to introduce some order to the chaotic Taiping capital. According to his own account Li Xiucheng requested of the heavenly king ‘to select men according to talent, enact laws for the relief of the people, promulgate strict decrees, renovate court discipline, enforce rewards and punishments, treat the people with compassion, reduce taxes in grain and money”. Apparently the only response he got was a demotion, though he was soon promoted right back. A demotion really did nothing to affect any of the field generals actual power as they were basically the only ones doing anything. Later in 1858 when Nanjing was yet again under siege, Li Xiucheng went to Nanjing where he claimed he succeeded in re-establishing order and control. He convinced the heavenly king that to save Tianjin, they must collect forces outside for its relief. Each of the leaders continued thus to hold their own areas of supply, until messengers from Nanjing showed up demanding their armies come help break another blockade against Nanjing at the cities of Chianpu and Pukou.    Now during the years of 1856 to 1859, the Taiping were firmly on the defensive. Their military actions were almost always done by commanders working amongst themselves without any regard for the Nanjing government. These commanders thought in military terms and were no longer really concerned with the Taiping ideology, thus their revolutionary purpose was dying. This also resulted in each commander becoming shortsighted and their focus shifted simply to their own respective regions. They only coordinated with each other during times of immediate threat and had proven themselves capable of defeating not just the regular Qing forces, but that of Zeng Guofan. No attempt was made by the Taiping leaders to regain the initiative and the disintegration of central control was crumbling Nanjing. Transporting supplies to Nanjing had become an issue as Zeng Guofan began attacking riverways, especially along the Yangtze. Earlier, Tianjin enjoyed dominion over the Yangtze river and supplies poured in from 50-100 miles away inland. Yet by 1856 the Yangtze and other lakes were severed from Tianjin, and this resulted in a large loss for communication and the supply network. Even though the Taiping held numerous important cities on the banks of the Yangtze, the waterway itself was denied to them.   The general decline of the Taiping became quite apparent to foreign observers, between the years of 1857 and 1859 only one significant foreign mission would journey up the Yangtze and it was led by Lord Elgin. Yes if you remember from our Second Opium War series, Elgin tried to go up the Yangtze to navigate the commercial prospects of the region and to investigate the political situation. Elgin departed from the new treaty port of Hankou which was in the hands of the Qing and the furthest up the Yangtze river. Elgin wanted to test if the Chinese authorities would respect the status of the British flag under the new treaty of Tianjin, but it was also a chance to investigate the Taiping. Elgin had only heard rumors in SHanghai about the rebels and he wanted to gauge them first hand. As Elgin wrote to the foreign secretary “As we have seen fit to affect neutrality between the Emperor of China and the rebels. We could not, of course, without absurdity, require him to give us rights and protection in places actually occupied by a Power which we treat with the same respect as his own.” When Elgin could see from the bridge of his ship, the Furious and a few inland excursions, it looked like the civil war was more devastating than any rumors in SHanghai led one to believe. He reported this about the state of the city of Zhenjiang “I never before saw such a scene of desolation. heaps of ruins, intersected by a few straggling streets.“[We] might have imagined ourselves in Pompeii. We walked along deserted streets, between roofless houses, and walls overgrown with rank, tangled weeds; heaps of rubbish blocked up the thoroughfares, but they obstructed nobody.In order to save repetition I may here observe, once for all, that with certain differences of degree, this was the condition of every city which I visited on my voyage up and down the Yang-tze.”   Elgins first direct contact with the Taiping came in the form of a cannonball that roared over the deck of his ship as they passed by Nanjing on November 20th. Elgin did not expect hostilities and thought they would merely pass by unmolested. In response he sent a few gunships back downriver to hammer the rebel forts. The Taiping then sent messengers offering an apology for firing upon Elgins ships and asked for aid in fighting the Qing dynasty. A month later on Christmas day of 1858, as Elgins fleet was passing the city of Anqing on their way back to Shanghai he received a letter from Hong Xiuquan inviting him to join the Taiping in their divine mission to destroy the Manchu. “The Father and the Elder Brother led me to rule the Heavenly Kingdom, to sweep away and exterminate the devilish spirits, bestowing on me great honor. Foreign younger brothers of the western ocean, listen to my words. Join us in doing service to the Father and Elder Brother and extinguishing the stinking reptiles.” There were many attempts at communication and trade. Many individual Taiping commanders sent letters expressing hope to procure foreign rifles and cannons, but the British continuously stated they were abiding by a neutrality stance. Many of the Taiping tried to appeal to the British on the basis of their shared religion. “are both sons of the Heavenly Father, God, and are both younger brothers of the Heavenly Elder Brother, Jesus. Our feelings towards each other are like those of brothers, and our friendship is as intimate as that of two brothers of the same parentage.” The shared christianity between the two remained a sticky situation. There were many in Britain who pointed out the need to help the Christians in China. At a time when Britain and France were at war with the Qing, it seemed like there was quite a rationale for simply allying with the Taiping. But there were two major obstacles in the way, the first being the principle of neutrality. If they helped the Taiping, they may lose any relations they had left with the Qing. The second issue was that it was hard to understand if the Taiping were really christian or not. Multiple missionaries tried to investigate this matter and they were not convinced. It also did not help that the Heavenly King began sending the foreigners a manifesto demanding their come pay their respects to him as god's son.   The foreigners in the end would have little sympathy for the Taiping cause and it would actually lead to them contributing to the Qing side of the war in the end. The rationale for this was to secure the treaties they signed with the Qing and quite honestly, the Taiping did not look like they were going to win the war by the late 1850s. But were the Taiping defeated? Many would argue this is not the case, they could have reorganized and revamped their revolutionary purpose, and in 1859 a man arrived to Nanjing to do just that.   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 Taiping found new leadership figures in Li Xiucheng and Chen Yucheng. The Nian rebels proved valuable allies initially, but in the end it simply was not working out. The Taiping desperately needed foreign support but were burning those bridges.   

英语新闻｜核酸采样点变身“发热诊疗站”，网友点赞！The Suzhou government in Jiangsu province has been praised recently by many Chinese netizens for being the first city in the country to transform nucleic acid sampling stations into fever clinics, which can provide fever and pain medications to people in need.近日，江苏苏州成为全国第一个将核酸采样点改造为“发热诊疗站”的城市，为有需要的人提供退烧药和止痛药，网友纷纷点赞称，“值得推广”！ Compared with those queuing for hours at hospitals, people visiting roadside fever clinics can finish the whole medical process in about 10 minutes. They can use their health insurance to get fever and pain medications, which are in short supply at the moment across the country.据悉，市民可以不用去医院排几小时的队，在路边的发热诊疗站只需10分钟就能完成全科医生诊疗、开具处方、配药的过程。市民在发热诊疗站还可以使用医保购买退烧药和止痛药这类目前在全国范围内短缺的药物。Cao Qiaolu, deputy director of Gusu District Community Health Management Center, said that the fever clinic enables residents to get help within a 15-minute walking distance. The clinichas doctors and pharmacists, and is equipped with oxygen concentrators.苏州姑苏区社区卫生管理中心副主任曹巧璐介绍，发热诊疗站使居民能够在15分钟的步行距离内就获得帮助。诊所配备了医生和药剂师，还提供了氧气机等设备。As of Sunday, Suzhou had established 1,035 roadside fever clinics. Neighboring city Wuxi has also established 1,519 similar fever clinics. As of Saturday, more than 16,000 people have visited the fever clinics, and more such clinics are under renovation and will be put into use soon.截至18日，苏州已经设立了1035个发热诊疗站。邻近城市无锡也建立了1519个类似的发热诊疗站。截至17日，已有超过16000人到发热诊疗站就诊，更多此类诊所正在装修中，不久后将投入使用。Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu province, has also rolled out similar measures to relieve the medication shortage. Nanjing's Jiangning district has sent 16 buses upgraded to treat fever to residential communities and local companies since Monday. All of its 154 residential community medical centers have opened fever clinics. Patients visiting the bus willbe offered a three-day dose pack, so that they don't have to queue in the hospital.江苏省会南京也推出了类似措施，以缓解用药压力。南京市江宁区从19日开始，向居民社区和当地公司派出了16辆升级版的“发热诊疗巴士”。同时，154个居民社区医疗中心都开设了发热门诊。每位到访巴士的病人将获得三天的药物，避免了在医院排队的需要。Meanwhile, medications are becoming more available and accessible. Since Monday, Nanjing has provided 2 million fever medicine pills to local residents. A customer may purchase six pills each time at one of the 153 pharmacies selling fever medicine across the city.除此之外，药物难买的情况也正在好转。自19日以来，南京已向当地居民提供了200万粒发烧药。顾客每次可以在全市153家销售退烧药的任意一家药店购买，每个顾客限购6粒。Similar measures have also been introduced in cities of Shandong province. In Taierzhuang district of Zaozhuang, some testing sites have also been working as temporary fever clinics since Sunday.山东省各城市也推出了类似的措施。在枣庄市台儿庄区，自18日起，一些检测点也开始作为临时发热诊疗站工作。Chengwu county of Heze has upgraded 56 testing stations into fever treatment service stations to provide diagnosis and medicine. Each station has one doctor and one nurse on duty, and keeps medicines in stock.菏泽市成武县也已将56个检测点升级为发热诊疗站，提供诊断治疗和药物。每个站都有一名医生和一名护士值班，并备有药品。Medication英 [ˌmedɪˈkeɪʃn] 美 [ˌmedɪˈkeɪʃ(ə)n]n.药物Pharmacist 英 [ˈfɑːməsɪst] 美 [ˈfɑːrməsɪst]n.药剂师Diagnosis英 [ˌdaɪəɡˈnəʊsɪs] 美 [ˌdaɪəɡˈnoʊsɪs]n.诊断

Suzhou and Boston-based Harbour BioMed recently shifted strategy, divesting its site in Suzhou to WuXi in a bid to be “more focused, efficient and nimble” to emerge stronger post-pandemic, says the company founder, chairman and CEO Jinsong Wang in an extensive interview.

Let's explore the intricacies of one of the most legendary moves in all of Kung Fu Panda's China: the Wuxi Finger Hold.

A freight train service now links Central Asia with China's Jiangsu Province. A train carrying more than 1,000 tonnes of goods departed from Wuxi city on Saturday.

In Folge 5 reisen Angie Suarez und Tom Friedli zu deren Familie nach Manta. In China wünschen sich Mathias Manser und seine Frau Sharon ein Geschwisterchen für ihren Sohn. Endlich «Ja sagen»: Der Papierkrieg ist überstanden, Andrea Götz darf ihre venezolanische Liebe Pedro Dugarte heiraten. In Ecuador besuchen Tom Friedli und Angie Suarez mit Carlita deren Grossmutter. Wie immer kocht diese mit viel Leidenschaft für die ganze Familie. Auch dieses Mal tischt sie ihre Spezialität auf: Schweinskopf. Tom ist klar – nur wenn er mitisst, verliert er die Gunst der Schwiegermutter nicht. Diese sagt über ihn: «Für mich wäre Tom nichts, aber für Angie ist er perfekt.» Später macht die Patchworkfamilie eine Velotour aufs Land. Als das Gespräch auf das Thema Hochzeit kommt, wird Tom von seinen Gefühlen übermannt. Er weiss, Angie ist die Frau seines Lebens. Mathias Manser und seine chinesische Frau Sharon bereiten in Wuxi ganz spezielle Geschenke für Weihnachten vor: Karten mit dem Fussabdruck des kleinen Jonathan. Dabei denken sie auch über ihre Familienplanung nach. Doch ob der Wunsch nach einem Geschwisterchen für Jonathan in Erfüllung geht, steht noch in den Sternen. Andrea Götz und Pedro Dugarte können nach langem Papierkrieg endlich zusammen in der Schweiz leben. Jetzt sind sie im Hochzeitsfieber, müssen Ringe auswählen, und Andrea holt ihr weisses Kleid, das bereits in Kolumbien hätte zum Einsatz kommen sollen, wieder hervor. Am grossen Tag selbst ist der Stresspegel hoch. Andrea und ihre Freundinnen realisieren, dass eine Hochzeitsfrisur keine einfache Sache ist. Angesichts der Trauung, die in deutscher Sprache vollzogen wird, rät Andrea ihrem künftigen Mann: «Sag heute einfach zu allem ja». Für Brigitte Howard und ihren Mann Jay hat in der Schweiz ein neues Leben angefangen. Jay, der Native American, hat noch nie ausserhalb der USA gelebt. Doch Jay ist überzeugt: «Wo immer wir sind, wir bringen es zum Laufen!» Hauptsache ist, dass sie beide zusammen sind. Und der Befund des Arztes gibt dem Paar neue Hoffnung.

In der vierten Folge lernt Mona Vetsch in Ecuador Tom und Angie und ihre aussergewöhnliche Geschichte kennen. Für Mathias und Sharon wird der Weihnachtsmarkt in Wuxi zum Stresstest. Jay und Brigitte hoffen, dass er seine Krankheit überwindet und sich in der Schweiz gut einlebt. «Für mich ist damals eine Welt zusammengebrochen», sagt Tom Friedli, als ihm seine Traumfrau Angie Suarez am Telefon sagte, dass sie schwanger sei. Ihre Liebe brauchte einen zweiten Anlauf. Ein paar Jahre später kamen die beiden doch noch zusammen. Tom wusste, der Schlüssel zu Angies Herz führt über ihre Tochter Carlita. Heute sind sie eine glückliche Patchworkfamilie und führen gemeinsam ein Hotel direkt am Strand in Ecuador. «Sie ist ganz anders als ich. Deshalb habe ich sie geheiratet», sagt Mathias Manser von seiner Frau Sharon. Das Paar lebt in der chinesischen Stadt Wuxi und ihr gemeinsames Hobby ist Backen. Als sie auf dem Weihnachtsmarkt ihre Backwaren verkaufen, wird das zum Stresstest. Sharons Temperament prallt mit der Gelassenheit von Mathias zusammen. «Ich glaube, unser Schöpfer will nicht, dass ich schon sterbe.» Das sagt der Native American Jay Howard angesichts seiner Krebserkrankung. Weil Brigitte näher bei ihren Töchtern sein will, sind sie aus Montana in die Schweiz gezogen. In Langenthal wollen sie ihren Lebensabend verbringen. Für Jay ist das Einleben nicht einfach, zum ersten Mal lebt er ausserhalb seiner Heimat, den USA. Hier versteht er die Sprache nicht und ist von Brigitte abhängig. «Es ist das beste Weihnachtsgeschenk überhaupt», das sagt Andrea Götz, als sie das langersehnte Heiratsvisum am 24. Dezember im Briefkasten findet. Eineinhalb Jahre haben sie und Pedro Dugarte aus Kolumbien dafür gekämpft, dass sie ein gemeinsames Leben führen können. Nun hat der Papierkrieg endlich ein Ende und der Weg ist frei, um zu heiraten.

I took a weekend trip to Wuxi, the most notable part of the trip being the discomfort of the transportation and the nice fella who worked in Wuxi's youth hostel. With hushed voices, we covered a number of controversial topics. Twitter: @SMKYpodcast https://smkypodcast.blogspot.com

Panasonic's sprawling manufacturing plant in Wuxi, China would hardly be the place you would think where the company would work to develop a plan to reduce the emissions to zero.  As its highest emitting plant in the country, it wasn't easy or complete.  It took six years and is on-going.  Learn how they did it. 

From spectacular landscapes with jutting mountains rising straight out of the river to dragon boat rides down the canal to towns where people came thronging out to the dock to welcome us, central China was magical. We were able to get a glimpse into commune life and were taught much about how handicrafts were made via methods that were handed down over hundreds of years. I have a Patreon page! Please check it out. If you make a small pledge you'll get to see photos and clips from my journals and hear a bit more about some of the stories. This is a fun way that I can share visuals with you. Check it out HERE. Or at patreon.com/dianathebard If you want to hear more on any particular subject, or if you want to ask a question or simply connect, you can find me on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/dianathebard or email me at bardofhudson@gmail.com --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

The 318-key Radisson Collection Hotel, Wuxi is situated in the city's Xishan district #RadissonCollection #RadissonCollectionHotelWuxi #hotelsinChina #Xishandistrict #SunanShuofangInternationalAirport #WuxiRailwayStation #LakesideCity #GaryYe #MikeZhang #RadissonHotelGroup #newhotel #hozpitality https://www.hozpitality.com/radisson_hotel_group/read-article/5899_radisson-collection-unveils-chic-new-hotel-in-wuxi-china-s-enchanting-lakeside-c.html

Great Renewable Energy and EV Stocks. Stocks covered include Sumitomo Metal Mining, Wuxi Lead Intelligent Equipment, Aptiv plc., Infineon, Brookfield Renewable Partners, Atlantica Sustainable Infrastructure, and NextEra Energy. Excerpts from: “The investment opportunity offered by electric vehicles,” “3 Alternative Energy Stocks to Buy Amid Investment Concerns”, “3 High-Yield Renewable Energy Stocks to Buy Right Now” PODCAST: Great Renewable Energy and EV Stocks Transcript & Links, Episode 65, August 27, 2021 Hello, Ron Robins here. Welcome to podcast episode 65 published on August 27, titled “Great Renewable Energy and EV Stocks.”  Presented by Investing for the Soul, investingforthesoul.com is your site for vital global ethical and sustainable investing news, commentary, information, and resources. Remember that you can find a full transcript, links to content – including stock symbols, quotes, and bonus material – at this episode's podcast page. It's located at investingforthesoul.com/podcasts. Now, just a reminder. I do not evaluate any of the stocks or funds mentioned in this podcast. Also, I receive no compensation from anyone or entity covered in these podcasts. Incidentally, if any terms are unfamiliar to you, simply Google them. ------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Great Renewable Energy and EV Stocks I'm beginning with something a little different. The article is titled The investment opportunity offered by electric vehicles by Juliet Schooling-Latter. It's a UK perspective that appeared on whatinvestment.co.uk. Here are some quotes from the article and comments on the companies covered. Quote. “Very much a global trend, a recent report indicated the number of EVs will grow from 11m on the road now to 145m in 2030.1 This, in turn, will boost various segments of the market. Here are four stocks… from Elite-rated fund managers looking to tap into this drive. 1) Sumitomo Metal Mining. Stock pick at Baillie Gifford Japan Trust Sumitomo Metal Mining is a top-10 holding in the Baillie Gifford Japan Trust. Manager Andy Brown says the firm has exposure to nickel and copper extraction, both integral to the EV industry in terms of the cars themselves and the batteries used to power them. He says: ‘They have a materials business, and this is where they make a component called lithium nickel oxide. This feeds into the cathodes of electric batteries and major customers for this business are Tesla and Toyota. We believe it has fantastic growth prospects.' 2) Wuxi Lead Intelligent Equipment. Stock pick at Ninety One Global Environment Wuxi Lead Intelligent Equipment predominantly designs, manufactures and sells battery production equipment and services to leading EV battery manufacturers in China. The firm is a holding in the Ninety One Global Environmental Fund. Manager Deirdre Cooper says: ‘Sustainable decarbonisation will require a rapid transition towards a greener, lower-carbon transport system. Wuxi is directly exposed to one of the largest EV markets in the world and, as such, is at the forefront of decarbonisation. ‘It is also expanding sales internationally, with new customers such as Northvolt.' 3) Aptiv plc. Stock pick at Rathbone Global Sustainability fund Did you know there are more than 8,000 connection points inside a typical EV? If any go wrong it can range from a minor to major inconvenience. Aptiv provides fuse connectors that ensure the battery will disconnect if a spike in current reaches a potentially dangerous level, thus eliminating a potentially catastrophic event.2 The firm is a holding in the Rathbone Global Sustainability Fund. Manager David Harrison says: ‘We've held Aptiv in the fund since we launched. It is kind of the nerve centre of an electric vehicle. ‘We think it's well-placed for the long run and has a management team that is very forward-thinking.' 4) Infineon. Stock pick at Liontrust Sustainable Future Global Growth fund This German manufacturer is playing a key role in providing the chips for auto safety systems as semiconductor content in cars and other forms of transport continues to grow. Liontrust Sustainable Future Global Growth manager Peter Michaelis says: ‘Infineon is the market leader in the chips that power the semiconductors within electric vehicles. ‘The company completed its acquisition of Cypress Semiconductor Corporation in April 2020, which it said is a landmark step in its strategic development towards offering ‘the industry's most comprehensive portfolio for linking the real with the digital world and shaping digitalisation'.'' End quotes. 1Source: Clean Technica – report from International Energy Agency 2Source: aptiv.com ------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Great Renewable Energy and EV Stocks Now turning our attention back to alternative energy stocks is this article titled 3 Alternative Energy Stocks to Buy Amid Investment Concerns by Aparajita Dutta. Found on Yahoo! Finance. Quote. “Wind energy, the largest source of renewable electricity generation in the United States, continues to make noticeable progress. The amount of new wind capacity installed in 2020 was more than three times the amount installed in 2010. This makes us optimistic on alternative energy stocks' growth prospects. Also, increasing scope of the electric vehicle market is expected to boost the prospects of U.S. renewable stocks. However, the United States is lagging its Asian and European counterparts in terms of investments in hydrogen market, despite this market's ample growth opportunities. The forerunners in the U.S. alternative energy industry are TotalEnergies SE (TTE), Equinor ASA (EQNR) and Chesapeake Energy (CHK).” End quote. ------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Great Renewable Energy and EV Stocks In a similar vein is this article by three analysts who appear regularly in this podcast. The article is titled 3 High-Yield Renewable Energy Stocks to Buy Right Now and is by Travis Hoium, Howard Smith, and Daniel Foelber Here are some quotes from the article. Each analyst comments on the company they're recommending. “The theme with all of these companies is that they're big, diverse renewable energy asset owners with long-term contracts to sell electricity to utilities or other end customers and that fuels their dividends. As long as the renewable energy industry continues to grow and there are assets to buy at attractive yields, these are great dividend stocks to buy and hold… they're our best high-yield renewable energy stocks today… 1) Travis Hoium recommends Brookfield Renewable Partners (NYSE: BEP) The best long-term business in renewable energy has proven to be asset ownership. Renewable energy projects usually come with 10-25 year contracts to sell electricity to utilities, businesses, or homeowners. That allows owners to finance them with debt and equity, and in this case, in the form of dividend-paying stocks.  Brookfield Renewable Partners is one of the industry's biggest renewable energy asset owners with 21,000 megawatts of projects around the world. The company aims to generate annualized returns of 12% to 15% through organic growth in distributions of 5% to 9% and some price appreciation in the stock… In the last year and a half, dividends paid are down partly because of a split of Brookfield Renewable Partners and Brookfield Renewable Corporation (NASDAQ: BEPC) stock and a 3-for-2 stock split. Without those events, dividends per share would be steadily higher, continuing a decade-long trend.  As steady as dividend growth has been from a company like Brookfield Renewable Partners, there are also risks for renewable energy projects that shouldn't go overlooked. Right now, hydro assets are underperforming expectations because of drought conditions around the world, especially in Brazil… On the flip side, less rain and more sun could mean solar projects outperform expectations long term, so there's value in being a diverse and large asset owner.  I think the stability and know-how of Brookfield Renewable Partners makes it a great long-term dividend stock.  2) Howard Smith picks Atlantica Sustainable Infrastructure (NASDAQ: AY) More and more companies in a wide range of industries are signing power purchase agreements with renewable energy generators to power their facilities and ensure products can be made and sold sustainably. Companies like Atlantica Sustainable Infrastructure that own or invest in that power generation are benefiting and growing from this movement. And those benefits are being shared with investors in the form of a high-yielding dividend.  Atlantica… aims to pay shareholders 80% of generated cash. And it has been consistent growing those dividend payments in the past. Its quarterly dividend has increased by 65% in the past four years. That growth should continue as cash available for distribution increased by 12.9% in the first half of 2021.  Atlantica's business is spread among North America, South America, and the Europe, Middle East, and Africa region… Almost 75% of Atlantica's revenue came from its renewables sector in 2020. And 2021 is starting out strong. The company's continued investments in renewable energy assets have driven its megawatts in operation to grow 30% in the first half of 2021 compared to 2020's first half.  The stock looks inexpensive from a price-to-free cash flow perspective, compared to peers with similar strategies.  With a dividend yielding over 4.3%, now looks to be a good time to buy Atlantica. 3) Daniel Foelber likes NextEra Energy (NYSE: NEE) NextEra Energy just had an impressive quarter. Its portfolio consists of natural gas, solar, wind, and other assets, giving it diverse revenue streams that allow it to weather the ebbs and flows of the energy market. Its established presence as Florida's leading utility -- through Florida Power & Light and Gulf Power -- provides the bulk of its revenue and net income. A strong foundation from this profitable business paired with access to inexpensive debt has allowed NextEra to grow its renewable energy investments, mainly through its NextEra Energy Resources division. Today, the company is the largest producer of wind and solar energy in the U.S. NextEra's head start in the energy transition gives it a leg up over other utilities since it has had time to build relationships, fill out its supply chain, refine its logistics, and tackle a variety of projects in different markets… NextEra's long-term game plan is to generate predictable revenue (mostly from renewables) via long-term contracts and distribute a portion of earnings to investors through a dividend… Earlier this year, the company raised its quarterly dividend to $0.385 per share, representing a 1.9% annual yield at the time of this writing.” End quotes. ------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Great Renewable Energy and EV Stocks Honorable Mentions Article 1. Bain to Start Long-Short Hedge Fund Focused on Green Investing by Nishant Kumar and Melissa Karsh, on Yahoo! Finance. Quote “Bain Capital is starting a hedge fund to bet on and against companies based on sustainable-investing criteria as part of the alternative asset manager's roughly $3 billion public-equities business.” End quote. Now, the ability to go short in a green fund is a new idea. Article 2. My Top Renewable-Energy Stock to Buy in August by Matthew DiLallo. Quote “Brookfield (Renewable) (NYSE: BEP) (NYSE: BEPC) is increasingly becoming the partner of choice for companies that want to reduce their carbon footprint.” End quote. ------------------------------------------------------------- Ending Comment Well, these are my top news stories with their stock and fund tips -- for this podcast: “Great Renewable Energy and EV Stocks.“ To get all the links, stock symbols, or to read the transcript of this podcast -- and more -- go to investingforthesoul.com/podcasts and scroll down to this episode. Also, be sure to click the like and subscribe buttons in Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or wherever you download or listen to this podcast. And please click the share buttons to share this podcast with your friends and family. Let's promote a better post COVID world through ethical and sustainable investing! Contact me if you have any questions. Stay well and healthy—and conscious about the ethical and sustainable values of your investments! Thank you for listening. Talk to you next on September 10. Bye for now. © 2021 Ron Robins, Investing for the Soul.

Just in time for some back-to-school action here in Wuxi, China - it's the Echo Chamber again! Join us with our special guest DJ - BWall! A D-Fi protégé who has really come into his own, taking on the challenge of DJing on the international school staff circuit. (niche, we know). This week we should be back on track with weekly episodes again, now that we have some routine and reliable internet back in our lives.

Nanjing, Suzhou and other cities in the Yangtze River Delta announce striking policy changes related to household registration; controversial chatbot business Xiaoice gains unicorn status after its latest funding round; and Beijing pledges more support for trade despite June exports soaring SPECIAL OFFER To enjoy 7-day complimentary access to caixinglobal.com and the English Caixin app visit this link: https://www.caixinglobal.com/institutional-activity/?code=J3XVJC

The story of Wuxi in China and Toyokawa in Japan, its sister city. In February, Toyokawa sent masks to help fight coronavirus in Wuxi. Now Wuxi is returning the favor. This is the way it's supposed to work: with resources going to the place of greatest need. And it helps us understand something about how the global economy might eventually recover.

Schottland hat den World Cup in Wuxi gewonnen. Im Halbfinale setzten sich John Higgins und Stephen Maguire schon gegen China 1 durch, nur um im Finale das zweite Team Chinas zu besiegen und den Siegerscheck von 200.000 Dollar einzustreichen. Das Turnier insgesamt war der Auftakt in die Saiso 2019/2020, auch wenn jetzt vier Wochen verstreichen werden, bis das nächste Turnier ansteht. John Higgins und Stephen Maguire waren das stärkste Team während dieser sieben Tage von Wuxi, das sah man nach wenigen Tagen schon recht deutlich. Sie waren auch das Team mit den bekanntesten Namen bzw. den Spielern, die sich schon die größten Meriten auf der Tour verdient hatten. Im Finale ließen sie ihren chinesischen Kontrahenten dann auch keine Chance. Christian Oehmicke und Andreas Thies lassen das Finalwochenende noch mal Revue passieren. Sie sprechen über den Stellenwert dieses Turniers und wer überraschen konnte. Ein Team, das einen hervorragenden Eindruck hinterlassen hatte, war Belgien. Luca Brecel und der junge Ben Mertens sorgten für viel Alarm während der Woche. Euch gefällt dieser Podcast oder ihr habt Kritik, Fragen oder Anregungen? Dann freuen wir uns, wenn wir von euch hören. Lasst uns gerne bei iTunes eine Rezension und ein bisschen Feedback da. Schreibt uns, was ihr gut oder auch schlecht findet, oder welche Themen wir eurer Meinung nach mal in einer Sendung behandeln sollten. Du möchtest deinen Podcast auch kostenlos hosten und damit Geld verdienen? Dann schaue auf www.kostenlos-hosten.de und informiere dich. Dort erhältst du alle Informationen zu unseren kostenlosen Podcast-Hosting-Angeboten.

Ein Spieltag ist in der Vorrunde des World Cup in Wuxi noch zu spielen. Ein Spieltag, in dem in zwei Gruppen noch Entscheidungen herbeigeführt werden können und ein Spieltag, in dem in zwei Gruppen schon die Entscheidungen gefallen sind. Wer ins Viertelfinale einzieht und wer die Heimreise nach der Vorrunde antreten kann. Die deutsche Mannschaft rund um Simon Lichtenberg und Lukas Kleckers hatte vor diesem Spieltag schon die klare Vorgabe, möglichst beide Duelle klar gewinnen zu müssen. Gegen Thailand gab es aber ein 1-4, dass die Chancen auf ein Weiterkommen zunichte machte. Deutschland kann nur noch eine bessere Platzierung als den letzten Platz in der Gruppe anstreben. Das Viertelfinale ist nicht mehr möglich. In der Gruppe B geht es am spannendsten zu. Hier können noch fünf Mannschaften das Viertelfinale erreichen. Die größte Enttäuschung sind hier sicher die Nordiren um Mark Allen, die derzeit auf Platz 9 weilen. In Gruppe C und D ist die Messe schon gelesen. Hier geht es nur noch um die Platzierungen, aber Schottland und Belgien in Gruppe C und China B und Wales in Gruppe D sind schon qualifiziert. Andreas Thies und Experte Christian Oehmicke aus der Sendung Total Clearance schauen auf die Matches von Tag 4 in Wuxi. Euch gefällt dieser Podcast oder ihr habt Kritik, Fragen oder Anregungen? Dann freuen wir uns, wenn wir von euch hören. Lasst uns gerne bei iTunes eine Rezension und ein bisschen Feedback da. Schreibt uns, was ihr gut oder auch schlecht findet, oder welche Themen wir eurer Meinung nach mal in einer Sendung behandeln sollten.   Du möchtest deinen Podcast auch kostenlos hosten und damit Geld verdienen? Dann schaue auf www.kostenlos-hosten.de und informiere dich. Dort erhältst du alle Informationen zu unseren kostenlosen Podcast-Hosting-Angeboten.

Der World Cup in Wuxi ist in zwei von vier Gruppen auch noch nach dem dritten Spieltag spannend. In zwei Gruppen hat sich die Spreu bereits vom Weizen getrennt und die Viertelfinalteilnehmer stehen so gut wie fest. Andreas Thies und Experte Christian Oehmicke sprechen über die Ergebnisse des dritten Spieltags. Das deutsche Team um Lukas Kleckers und Simon Lichtenberg musste bislang zwei Niederlagen einstecken. An Tag drei schlug aber ihre große Stunde. Sie gewannen gegen Norwegen mit 3-2 und erhielten sich die Mini-Chance auf Platz 2 in der Gruppe A und den Einzug ins Viertelfinale. Natürlich muss dafür noch einiges passieren, unter anderem ein Sieg gegen das favorisierte Thailand, aber bislang hält sich die deutsche Auswahl wacker. In Gruppe B ist nach der überraschenden 1-4 Niederlage von Nordirland gegen Irland auf einmal alles offen. Zwei Punkte trennen den Ersten England vom Fünften Iran, so dass an den letzten beiden Spieltagen der Vorrunde noch alles passieren kann. In der Gruppe C und D dagegen stehen die Viertelfinalteilnehmer so gut wie fest. Schottland und Belgien in Gruppe C sowie China 2 und Wales in Gruppe D ziehen einsam ihre Kreise. Euch gefällt dieser Podcast oder ihr habt Kritik, Fragen oder Anregungen? Dann freuen wir uns, wenn wir von euch hören. Lasst uns gerne bei iTunes eine Rezension und ein bisschen Feedback da. Schreibt uns, was ihr gut oder auch schlecht findet, oder welche Themen wir eurer Meinung nach mal in einer Sendung behandeln sollten. Du möchtest deinen Podcast auch kostenlos hosten und damit Geld verdienen? Dann schaue auf www.kostenlos-hosten.de und informiere dich. Dort erhältst du alle Informationen zu unseren kostenlosen Podcast-Hosting-Angeboten.

Der World Cup in Wuxi ist ein Mannschaftsevent für 24 Zweierteams. Es wird in vier Sechsergruppen gespielt, die beiden ersten Mannschaften ziehen in die K.O-Runde ein, in der dann ab dem Viertelfinale der Sieger weiterkommt. Auch ein deutsches Team ist am Start. Simon Lichtenberg ist in dieser Saison noch auf der Profitour unterwegs. Lukas Kleckers hatte in den beiden letzten Saisons vergeblich darum gekämpft, auf der Main Tour zu bleiben. In der Q-School scheiterte er knapp, so dass ihm derzeit nur diese Turniere bleiben, um sich auf der ganz großen Bühne zeigen zu können. Kleckers und Lichtenberg bekamen es nach ihrer Auftaktniederlage gegen China mit Polen zu tun. Adam Stefanow und Kacper Filipiak erwiesen sich bei diesem Match als die knapp stärkeren und gewannen mit 3-2. Es wäre mehr drin gewesen, wie auch unser Experte Christian Oehmicke zu berichten weiß. Er bespricht mit Andreas Thies die Ergebnisse von Tag 2. Die großen Favoriten hielten sich schadlos. Wales, China 1 und Schottland cruisen derzeit durch ihre Gruppen. Euch gefällt dieser Podcast oder ihr habt Kritik, Fragen oder Anregungen? Dann freuen wir uns, wenn wir von euch hören. Lasst uns gerne bei iTunes eine Rezension und ein bisschen Feedback da. Schreibt uns, was ihr gut oder auch schlecht findet, oder welche Themen wir eurer Meinung nach mal in einer Sendung behandeln sollten. Du möchtest deinen Podcast auch kostenlos hosten und damit Geld verdienen? Dann schaue auf www.kostenlos-hosten.de und informiere dich. Dort erhältst du alle Informationen zu unseren kostenlosen Podcast-Hosting-Angeboten.

Der Snooker World Cup in Wuxi ist an Tag 1 überwiegend mit Favoritensiegen gestartet. Eine Überraschung gab es, die Andreas Thies und Christian Oehmicke in ihrem Recap besprechen. Die deutsche Mannschaft von Simon Lichtenberg und Lukas Kleckers musste zum Auftakt gegen den Turnierfavoriten China 1 ran. China hat als Titelverteidiger die Möglichkeit, zwei Mannschaften zu benennen. Die Mannschaft 1 ist mit Deutschland in einer Gruppe. Gegen Ding Junhui und Yan Bingtao waren die beiden deutschen Spieler chancenlos. Vor allen Dingen Ding Junhui ließ immer wieder seine Klasse aufblitzen. Am Ende stand nur ein Framegewinn für Lukas Kleckers. Die Überraschung des Tages lieferte Norwegen, die sich mit 3-2 in der deutschen Gruppe gegen Thailand durchsetzen konnten. Auch der Iran konnte überraschen. Gegen Irland und die beiden Veteranen Ken Doherty und Feargal O'Brien kamen die Iraner Hossein Vafaei und Soheil Vahedi zu einem 3-2 Sieg. Euch gefällt dieser Podcast oder ihr habt Kritik, Fragen oder Anregungen? Dann freuen wir uns, wenn wir von euch hören. Lasst uns gerne bei iTunes eine Rezension und ein bisschen Feedback da. Schreibt uns, was ihr gut oder auch schlecht findet, oder welche Themen wir eurer Meinung nach mal in einer Sendung behandeln sollten. Du möchtest deinen Podcast auch kostenlos hosten und damit Geld verdienen? Dann schaue auf www.kostenlos-hosten.de und informiere dich. Dort erhältst du alle Informationen zu unseren kostenlosen Podcast-Hosting-Angeboten.

Mit dem World Cup in Wuxi wird die Snooker-Saison 2019/ 2020 im Turniermodus eröffnet. Die ersten Qualifikationen sind schon gespielt, aber Wuxi lockt mit hohem Preisgeld einige, wenn nicht alle Topspieler früher aus dem Sommerurlaub zurück. Es ist ein Mannschaftsturnier, das seit 2011 wieder ausgetragen wird. In China messen sich insgesamt 24 Mannschaften um insgesamt 800.000 Dollar Preisgeld. Gespielt wird in Zweierteams. In vier Sechsergruppen spielt jeder gegen jeden, die ersten zwei Teams qualifizieren sich für das Viertelfinale, wo es dann im K.O.-Modus weitergeht. Gespielt werden zwei Einzelframes, dann ein Doppelframe, dann wieder zwei Einzelframes. Wer als erstes Team drei Frames gewinnt, hat gewonnen. Es werden alle 5 Frames ausgespielt. China kann mit zwei Teams antreten, da sie Titelverteidiger sind. Auch ein deutsches Team ist am Start. Simona Lichtenberg und Lukas Kleckers gehen in der Gruppe A an den Start und hoffen, den Favoriten in der Gruppe, China A und Thailand, ein Bein stellen zu können. Andreas Thies und Christian Oehmicke schauen auf das Turnier voraus. Euch gefällt dieser Podcast oder ihr habt Kritik, Fragen oder Anregungen? Dann freuen wir uns, wenn wir von euch hören. Lasst uns gerne bei iTunes eine Rezension und ein bisschen Feedback da. Schreibt uns, was ihr gut oder auch schlecht findet, oder welche Themen wir eurer Meinung nach mal in einer Sendung behandeln sollten. Du möchtest deinen Podcast auch kostenlos hosten und damit Geld verdienen? Dann schaue auf www.kostenlos-hosten.de und informiere dich. Dort erhältst du alle Informationen zu unseren kostenlosen Podcast-Hosting-Angeboten.

Time for Fan Mail Friday, where we'll be answering your questions and dropping some knowledge and feedback to help you kick the weekend off right. Let's cut to it! In this episode: If you listened to our recent episode with Darya Rose, you understand the importance of creating good habits without having to fall back on willpower. But where do you begin? More feedback on jealousy in response to the actress whose boyfriend has trouble with her romantic scenes, and advice given by another listener. While listening to our most recent episode with Susan Winter about breakups, a listener who recently went through a breakup was prompted to write in for advice about getting back into the dating game. The catch: she has HSV and dreads the responsibility of telling potential new partners. A casual relationship had to hit the brakes because your partner's mother passed away. It's a few months later and you want to pick up where you left off. How do you know if the other person's ready -- and what should you do if they're not? [For reference, Kimberly Seltzer talks about covert contracts a bit here.] If the married person you're having an affair with stops having sex with you because they've discovered you watch porn, there may be other issues at play here. You probably already know what our advice is going to be here, but come along for the ride anyway, won't you? Shoutouts to Jeremy Ashton from the HATponics crew and the CHS Lions Powers of Hope team who build aquaponics systems in Jamaica to help deaf kids grow food, and Meredith from her crazy dad in Wuxi! Have any questions, comments, or stories you'd like to share with us? Drop us a line at friday@theartofcharm.com! Does your business have an Internet presence? Now save a whopping 50% on new webhosting packages here with HostGator by using coupon code CHARM! Find out more about the team who makes The Art of Charm podcast here! Show notes at http://theartofcharm.com/fmf96/ HELP US SPREAD THE WORD! If you dig the show, please subscribe in iTunes and write us a review! This is what helps us stand out from the crowd and help people find the credible advice they need. Review the show in iTunes! We rely on it! http://www.theartofcharm.com/mobilereview Stay Charming!

This is Special English. I'm Mark Griffiths in Beijing. Here is the news. China has issued a guidance to ensure the entire poor population in rural China has access to basic medical care services that is close to the national average level. The guideline has been released by 15 central government departments. It says the government will mobilize various social resources and take more precise measures to support the development of healthcare services in poor areas. The healthcare-related poverty alleviation project is part of a national strategy to ensure that all people living below the poverty line in China climb out by 2020. An estimated 56 million people in China lived in poverty in the rural areas as of last year. Around 44 percent of them became impoverished due to healthcare related expenses. The poverty line stands at 2,800 yuan, roughly 425 U.S. dollars, per person per year. A joint investigation will be launched nationwide to look into major factors that are responsible for rural poverty. The investigation will be carried out by health workers at grassroots levels, and will cover all households that fell into poverty due to healthcare expenses. The investigation will be completed in July, and a record will be created for each family. A report will be filed to the central government, based on the investigation results. The move aims to help the authorities to provide financial aid to the poor accordingly. This is Special English. China's new supercomputing system, the Sunway-TaihuLight, has become the world's fastest computer at the International Supercomputing Conference in Germany. The National Supercomputing Center has also been unveiled in Wuxi in east China's Jiangsu Province. The new-generation supercomputer is installed in a 1,000-square-meter computer room at the center. With processing capacity of 125 Petaflops per second, it is the first supercomputer to achieve speeds in excess of 100 Petaflops per second. This means that the supercomputer is able to perform quadrillions of calculations per second at peak performance. The capability of the supercomputer is provided by a China-developed many-core CPU chip, which measures just 25 square centimeters. Scientists say it would take 7 billion people using electronic calculators 32 years, or 2 million desktop computers working together for one minute, to do the same calculation the supercomputer can solve in just 60 seconds. The supercomputer is composed of almost 41,000 processors. In addition to its faster speed, the supercomputer is much more energy-efficient than its predecessor, the Tianhe-2. The Tianhe-2 remained the world's fastest supercomputer for the past six years. Using the new supercomputer, one watt of electricity supports 6 billion calculations, cutting power consumption by two-thirds, compared with that of its predecessor. Aided by the supercomputer's data storage and processing capabilities, a telescope can detect radio signals from tens of billions of light years away. The application of supercomputer-based marine wave modeling is aiding the safeguarding of marine shipping by providing high-resolution ocean surface images and ocean forecasts. In the life science and industrial spheres, supercomputers have greatly accelerated China's pace in developing medicine, new materials and advanced manufacturing. You're listening to Special English. I'm Mark Griffiths in Beijing. Preferences for employment in Chinese college graduates have been changing in recent years as the country undergoes transformations in its economic and industrial structure. A recent survey found that knowledge-intensive industries including information, education and healthcare are hiring more college graduates, while labor-intensive industries, including architecture and manufacturing, are losing their appeal to job hunters. The survey, entitled College Graduates' Employment Annual Report, polled more than 250,000 college students who graduated last year. Experts say that industrial upgrading has resulted in the need for workers with higher education. For example, information technology is leading the current industrial upgrade in China and has become an engine of economic growth. As a result, the proportion of graduates who chose to work in media, information and telecommunication rose two percentage points last year, compared with 2010. Experts say the employment preference serves as a barometer, helping decision-makers to differentiate fast-developing emerging industries from those that are declining or facing challenges. The report also found that small and medium-sized private companies and enterprises, as employers, are gaining increasing favor from college graduates, compared with State-owned enterprises or their transnational counterparts. It said that the employment rate of college graduates has remained stable despite the slowing economy. This is Special English. Like in the United States, knowledge of robots will likely become an integral part of school education in China in the near future, if some forward-thinking technology firms have their way. Already, STEM, an acronym for science, technology, engineering and mathematics, is part of an inter-disciplinary approach that marks school education in developed countries. The United States is the leader in this respect. The US government allocated 240 million US dollars of funds last year to promote STEM-centric education. The total investment in this sector has so far reached 1 billion dollars. Sui Shaolong is chief operating officer of RoboTerra, an educational robotics company located in Silicon Valley in the US. Sui said that compared with the traditional education model, school education that includes robotics in the curriculum allows students to learn how to analyze and solve problems. Building or assembling a robot strengthens students' skills and sharpens their thinking ability in terms of space and structure. He said designing and writing the robot's programs helps to develop students' logical thinking ability; and team work enhances their interpersonal communication and the ability to cooperate. RoboTerra has already provided one-stop solutions for robot-based curricula and STEM-centric education in dozens of schools in Chinese cities including Beijing and Shanghai. You're listening to Special English. I'm Mark Griffiths in Beijing. You can access the program by logging on to newsplusradio.cn. You can also find us on our Apple Podcast. If you have any comments or suggestions, please let us know by e-mailing us at mansuyingyu@cri.com.cn. That's mansuyingyu@cri.com.cn. Now the news continues. While excavators dismantled the synthetic surface of the playground at the Baiyunlu campus of Beijing No.2 Experimental Primary School, a group of parents carried out checks at the site, despite the noise of machinery, the swirling dust and the stench of plastic debris. Like the surface of the playground, the parents' trust in the school and local educational authority has been shredded as a result of a recent health scare related to the facility. That's according to one parent, the mother of a fourth-grader at the school, who preferred not to be named. She is one of dozens of parents who claim their children were poisoned by toxic substances emitted by a synthetic running track built last year. They cited a range of symptoms including nosebleeds, coughs and skin allergies that have affected at least 40 students since April. She said removing the running surface is easy but she doubts whether the authorities are determined to dig deep enough to uncover the real reasons for the controversy and find those who should be held accountable. The claims followed a number of incidents in which students were found t obe feeling unwell after exposure to potentially toxic artificial sports fields at schools in at least 15 cities across China. However, on June 14, the Beijing Municipal Education Commission announced that a follow-up air quality test conducted by the China National Environmental Monitoring Center indicated that the campus facilities adhered to the quality standards for national environmental monitoring and synthetic playgrounds. Six parents' representatives witnessed the tests, along with a third-party notary agency. However, some parents remained skeptical about the results. The Beijing Education Commission has ordered an inspection into all synthetic sports fields in Beijing's schools. It has suspended construction of new playgrounds until new guidelines are released. This is Special English. A dog meat festival in Southwest China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region has been held as before, but the scale has been greatly reduced, thanks to the local government's pledge to take action against public slaughter of dogs. Peter Li, a China policy specialist at Humane Society International, has visited the festival in Yulin County for the past three years. He said the atmosphere there this year was more peaceful than previous festival. Li said he hardly saw any abuse or slaughtering in the street, and it is neither a nightmare nor a festival. In response to Hong Kong legislator Michael Tien Puk-sun's petition to end the festival, the local government promised to ban dog slaughter in public and to check the health certificates of dogs transported from outside. Food safety and the problem of stolen pet dogs are the major objections against the annual event. The festival is held in the county around the summer solstice, a day on the Chinese lunar calendar after which the hottest days of the year are expected. In recent years, the festival has been shrinking in scale due to pressure both domestic and from abroad. According to Humane Society International, a notorious dog slaughtering peak was seen around 2012 and 2013, when more than 10,000 dogs were killed in three days. The number dropped to 2,000 last year. Ever since the festival became a lightning rod for criticisms in 2012, the local government has said little beyond reiterating that there is no "organized festival" and it's just a local people's gathering event. A local publicity official also said that dog meat is a valid food choice in the local area, but not a habit as some activists put it. The official said the local government has made efforts to address public concerns over food security and the safety of pet dogs. However, he said that there is no legal basis to forbid people from eating the animal's meat. You're listening to Special English. I'm Mark Griffiths in Beijing. （全文见周六微信。）