A journey through the 5000 years of history documented by one of the world's oldest continuous civilizations. For all the episodes for free, as well as additional content, please subscribe and/or visit http://thehistoryofchina.wordpress.com.
387 episodes transcribedThe Taiping's greatest summer curdles into its bloodiest autumn. Two months after the East King demands to be crowned Hong Xiuquan's equal, three of h...
The Taiping Army is riding high. Having finally broken two massive, three-year-long sieges over the course of a single summer, ultimate victory seems...
Three months after the biggest win of his life, Zeng Guofan tries to drown himself.Again.His fleet gets ambushed, split in half, & set ablaze by a 23-...
Zeng Guofan goes to war to defend a fixed universe – and nearly drowns proving how unfixed his own place in it actually is. Across a single year, Huna...
While the Northern Expedition dies in the freezing mud of Shandong, the Taiping's second strike — the Western Expedition — turns its sights on the pro...
The Taiping Army commits to one of its most audacious acts yet – an assault on the Qing throne itself, a thousand miles north in Beijing. To reach it,...
Finally pooled and stilled at Nanjing, in the afterglow of victory, the Taiping reflect on what they’ve become, and what they’ve yet to accomplish. In...
The Heavenly Host arrives at last before the walls of the South Capital. What follows is not a battle so much as a verdict – rendered in powder, fire,...
The Heavenly Host marches north out of Hunan. Ahead of them lies the spine of China itself – the mighty Yangtze; maker and breaker of dynasties. The t...
The Heavenly Host has arrived at the great provincial capital of Hunan - Changsha. The mighty bastion that will prove to be the first city on the long...
The army that marches north out of Quanzhou in June 1852 is not the same one that left Jintian 18 months prior. It has left its prime architect in an...
The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom has been proclaimed — but proclamations don't feed armies. As such, its Divine Host will enjoy all of 11 days before shee...
The God-Worshippers of Thistle Mountain managed to survive their first test — but now the world itself seems dead-set on finishing the job. When unpre...
The God-Worshippers of Thistle Mountain, under the dual leadership of Hong Xiuquan and Feng Yunshan, had gone from being a quirky, backwater oddity......
Amidst the ashes of the Opium War, a new flame is beginning to kindle – not in the halls of power, but in the distant, forgotten hills and mountains....
Even in the fallout of the Opium War, dreams endure—but what happens to a dream deferred? In Canton, one young man’s starry-eyed visions of success r...
TheKangxi Emperor’s Obsessive Pursuit ofGaldan Khanto the Endsof the EarthPresented: 02/28/2026audio-only cut (this is from my mic pick-up, so the hos...
The war is over. The treaty is signed, sealed, & delivered. Yet though the smoke has cleared, the haze of uncertainty over what - exactly - just happe...
The new envoy from London arrives at Qing's doorstep in August 1842 with a simple mandate: stop allowing Britain to be "humbugged" & finish the war El...
The Ransom of Canton.The lame-duck Superintendent watches helplessly as a triumvirate of Qing officials arrives to reverse every compromise his predec...
