The History of China - #200 - Special: Di Er Bai Ji!

Episode Date: September 20, 2020

It's our 200th(ish) episode! And so we take to the listeners to answer some of their burning questions about... Daoist gods... Islam in China... The Mandate of Heaven... sacrifices! ... the political expedience of murdering Mongol ambassadors... The Duke ... the names of emperors... technology transfers ... Korean empresses... and more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media Podcast. Hi everyone, this is Scott. If you want to learn about the world's oldest civilizations, find out how they were rediscovered, follow the story of Mark Antony and Cleopatra's descendants over ten generations, or take a deep dive into the Iron Age or the Hellenistic era, then check out the Ancient World Podcast. Available on all podcasting platforms or go to ancientworldpodcast.com. That's the Ancient World Podcast. Hello and welcome to the History of China.

Episode 200. Diabaiji. Oh my goodness, has it really been so long and so many episodes? Much like this year, 2020, where time has truly revealed itself to be the amorphous flat circle it really is, sometimes it feels like I've been making this show sense forever, and sometimes it's just flown by. In reality, it's been six years and ten months since I blindly took the plunge into the audio history medium back in mid-November of 2013. Since then, I've put out about 204 actual episodes on the main feed, not including the little update blurbs, along with 10 additional episodes of

sweet, sweet Mongol goodness. And that is totaled, and I'm just going to have to estimate here because I am definitely no mathologist, but I speak when recording at a clippy 160-170 words per minute on average, and the average episode runtime, including the longer and shorter ones, is probably about 40 to 45 minutes or so. So that's approximately 9,630 minutes of me just talking, or about 160 and a half hours. Or put another way, just shy of one entire week of me blathering on. All that has run me about 1,433,800 words, over 2,782 pages, or thereabouts, and has been listened to, as of this episode,

more than six and a half million times. Wow. I have no other word for it but just wow. In that time, the show has gone from me just barely stringing things together for an audience of pretty much just my mom, as well as my own tenuous hold on sanity after years and years in a pre-kindergarten ESL training center, to me having completed a master's degree and now working as a high school AP history teacher and having an audience of thousands each week. Moreover, you guys have bore with me through the ups and downs of the podcasting life and allowed me to

actually be able to rely on this show as a stable secondary income that I can look people in the eye and, yeah, actually tell them about. Yeah, I'm a podcaster. It's what I do. And yes, it can, sometimes, pay off. Even if it's about an extremely niche topic and not about sports or politics or doing DMT. Who knew, right? In fact, as of this past summer, I was able to use what I made from this show to avoid having to pick up my usual summer tutoring jobs, which would have been very difficult to get this year of all years, of course, and instead be able to focus on this project. And for that, I am eternally grateful to each and every one of you. Thanks to you all so much.

So we are 200 episodes in, and there is still just so much more to go. I can confidently say that as great as what we've done so far has been, the best is surely yet to come. There are actually a few projects lining up in the year to come that will be, I'm very sure, new and interesting to hopefully everyone, and will also allow me to expand access to cool new and even old materials and sources. I'm not quite ready to reveal more than that just yet, but trust me, it'll be great. You guys, and gals, have been great, and continue to be the greatest, kindest, and most supportive cohort of

listeners, group members, and fellow travelers on this audio silk road than I could ever have dared hope for. Cheers to you. Ganbei. Drink it all down. Here's to the next 100 episodes. And at this point, I'm sure there will be another 100 episodes. All right, have I patted myself on the back enough yet? Yeah? Okay, good, because now it's time for the main event. Your questions. As usual, I'm answering them in no particular order, basically just the order that they were sent, and then I happened to collate them. Theo M. asks, these gods work and how does it still work today in modern China? All right, thank you, Theo, and that is starting right in with a very interesting and very difficult question. Straight into the deep end we go. There it is. So let me just give a few disclaimers before moving forward.

As has been the case with just about every other belief system I've ever encountered or attempted to explain or discuss, I come at Taoism as a layperson, and I am therefore liable to screw up at least a few things. Feel free to email me about the things that I get wrong, but just know they're probably there. Secondly, if we're going to talk about Taoism, it's important to remember that it's not just one thing. There's theological Taoism, liturgical Taoism, philosophical Taoism, and with many different flavors of thought schools for each and every single one of those. I could not possibly hope to speak for all or even most or even probably some of them, so I'm just going

to do my best here. But you're specifically asking about the theistic aspect of the religio-philosophy, and in particular how the quote-unquote Taoist heaven is arranged, and that at least I can expand upon a bit. We might best describe Taoist theology as being at its core pantheistic, that is to say, God is everywhere and in all things, at least if we want to couch it in Judeo-Christian terms. The opening lines of the philosophy's seminal work, the Tao Te Ching, spell it out in no uncertain terms, and I quote, The way that can be traversed is not the enduring and unchanging way. The name that can be named is not the enduring and unchanging name. Conceived as of having no name, it is the originator of heaven and earth.

Conceived of with a name, it is the mother of all things. Always without desire we must be found, if its deepest mysteries we would sound. But if desire always within us be, its outer fringe is all that we shall see. Under these two aspects, it is really the same, but as development takes place, it receives the different names. Together, we call them the mystery. Where the mystery is deepest is the gate of all that is subtle and wonderful. All in the world know the beauty of the beautiful, and in doing this they have the idea of what ugliness is. They all know the skill of the skillful, and in doing this they have the

idea of what want of skill is. So it is that existence and nonexistence give birth the one to the idea of the other, that difficulty and ease produce the one and the idea of the other. That difficulty and ease produce the one and the idea of the other. That length and shortness fashion out of the one the figure of the other. The ideas of height and lowness arise from the contrast

of the one with the other. That the musical notes and tones become harmonious through the relation of one with another. And that being before and behind give the idea of one with another, and that being before and behind give the idea of one following another. Therefore, the sage manages affairs without doing anything, and conveys his instructions without the use of speech. All things spring up, and there is not

one which declines to show itself. They grow, and there is no claim made for the ownership. They go through the processes, and there is no expectation of a reward for the results. The work is accomplished, and there is no resting in it as an achievement. The work is done, but how no one can see. Tis this that makes the power not cease to be." End quote. So, you got all that, right? Yes? Well, if you answered yes, then you don't got it. Because the beginning of knowledge is the understanding that you understand nothing. And if you think you figured it out, you haven't.

The beginning of Taoism is that old platonic phrase that the wisest man alive truly knows, only that he knows nothing. Now you go sit under a waterfall in the back of a cave for a few years and meditate on that, young Padawan. Oh, you're still here? Well, alright, I'll go on. Essentially, the universe is one giant inseparable whole. A totality of both all and nothing, beginning and end, motion and stillness, and our feeble little meat brains will never, ever be able to comprehend its true nature. Just like the bacteria living in my gut will never be able to contemplate the physics of interstellar space travel or whatever.

We see this philosophy play out time and again wherever scientists find some new apparent truth about the universe or its constituent elements. When we figure out the fundamental forces that create stuff like, you know, mass and gravity and the like, we discover that we've actually opened up this giant gaping hole in our understanding of how things actually work, and that we now have to explain it all away with these nebulous semi-magic phrases like dark energy and dark matter. And then when we peer down into the tiniest elements of particles that make up everything, we discover that, oh no, not only is all the stuff nothing more than just forces and vibrations, but it's actually all random in

a way that fundamentally breaks the way that we conventionally understand the way that anything and everything functions in reality. You know, quantum states and all that. And just like Daoism, if you say that you actually understand quantum physics, you really, really don't. The more we discover and come to understand, the more we find that we are really only at the beginning of the enduring path. And for all of our travels, we haven't even yet taken one step forward. But the stars keep spinning around their black holes, and the electrons keep flitting back and forth in their stable shells. Things just keep on working, even though more and more we can't really explain why. As they say, the work is done, but how, no one can see. Tis this that makes the power not cease to be.

But, alright, alright, alright, enough already. Enough of this meditative cosmic malarkey. You'll have plenty of time for that when you begin your seven years under the waterfall. I know that you said you wanted gods, the flashy stuff, Chinese Thor. Okay, fair enough. Let's get into that. In terms of Taoist pantheon, there are three at the very top, the Sanqing, or the three pure ones. This trinity are the representations of and the manifestations of the highest and purest forms of that primordial creative energy,

which is the basis of all other things. And each represents a manifestation of that creative energy, which is the basis of all other things, and each represents a manifestation of that creative force, a heavenly plane, and, at least for ease of operation, an embodied deity figure as well. Why not? The first of these is Yuan Shi Tian Zun, the primordial lord of heaven, also known as the Jade Pure One. He, well, it, resides in the aptly named Heaven of Jade Purity, and created the heavens and earth at the dawn of creation. Though he is, of course, himself eternal, formless, and without beginning or end, once upon a time he directly administered all the affairs of the heavens. But since then, he did what any good administrator ought to do. That's right, he delegated. In this case, he entrusted all those day ought to do. That's right, he delegated.

In this case, he entrusted all those day-to-day affairs to his loyal assistant, Yu Huang, or the Jade Emperor, who proved himself worthy for such a task after some 226,800,000 years of unfailing service to the crown as the Prince of Pure Felicity and Majestic Heavenly Lights and Ornaments. Quite the CV. Second in the Trinity is the Lingbao Tianzun, or the Heavenly Lord of Spiritual Treasures, also known as Shangqing, or the High Clear One. Shangqing is in charge of the realms and heavens of the immortals, such as Mount Kunlun and

Penglai Island, both mythical places long sought after by mortal emperors who later sought to find them and their undying denizens, thereby learning the secrets to gain immortality themselves, with pretty typically disastrous results. Shangqing was also associated with the yin and yang aspects of the universe, as well as presiding over time and calculating and dividing it into its appropriate epochs and eras. The third member of this highest trinity is Daoda Tianzun, the heavenly lord of the virtuous path, known as Tai Ching or the Grand Pure One. Tai Ching was the heavenly lord that most directly took interest in and interacted

with the mortal plane of existence and, of course, humanity itself. It is, in fact, an aspect of Tai Ching that came to be manifested as Lao Tzu on earth in order to found Taoism and teach it to mankind. From Renard, quote, there seems to have been a number of stages in the process of Laozi's eventual deification. First, the figure began as a teacher and writer whose imagery eventually blended with that of the Yellow Emperor when Laozi came to be identified as a confidant of royalty. Traditional accounts transformed him into a cultural hero whose mother conceived of him virginally. By the mid-2nd century CE, Laozi had become the deity who delivered to Zhang Daoling the revelation of a new religious faith, giving rise to the Celestial Master's school. His image was still not complete.

Next, perhaps, also around the 2nd or 3rd century CE, Laozi seems to have been identified as a creator god who also enters the world to rescue humanity from tribulation. Lao Tzu was now capable of incarnating himself, almost like Buddhist Bodhisattva. Not long thereafter, he joined the triad of the three pure ones, and finally Lao Tzu emerged as the chief divine person. Here we have one of the more interesting examples of apotheosis, or deification, in the history of religion. End quote. In terms of other deities in the Taoist pantheon, I mean, how much time you got? There are thousands. Village gods, city gods of walls and moats, kitchen gods, home gods, and moreover, even quite early on, the gods of Taoism were frequently conflated and included and vice versa with the other various traditions and beliefs collectively called

Chinese traditional folk religion. There are a few, however, that can pretty safely be included in addition to the three pure ones and the Jade Emperor. Xuan Tian Xiang Di, or the Emperor of Dark Heaven, is a subordinate of the Jade Emperor, who was dispatched to Earth to battle a band of renegade demon kings that were at one point running amok. Quote, His iconography shows him enthroned using a serpent and a turtle, leaders of the demons, as a footstool. End quote. A married pair of deities who ruled the east from Mount Kunlun are Shiwangmu,

or the Queen Mother of the West, and her consort, Duke Wang. City gods could, and of course therefore did, appoint spiritual secretaries to assist them in their supernatural administrations and defense of their appointed townships. Lower down than that, there are several groups that we could get into. The Eight Immortals are probably our best bet. They're a collection of both historical, three of them, and legendary, five of them, figures who function as the guardians of Taoism and of the heavens themselves. They are quasi-divine, having achieved immortality after having first been fully human. Apart from that, there is the war god, Wu Di, who's often conflated with one of the heroes of the Three Kingdoms, Guan Yu, in his officially canonized god form of Guan Di, which incidentally only officially became canon as of 1594

when the 14th Emperor of Ming, Wanli, issued a direct imperial edict to that effect. I don't know, I just kind of find it funny that it would rise to that sort of level of official attention. Oh yeah, no, Guan Yu, no, he's a god now. The emperor says so. In terms of how followers have and do interact with these deities and forces, there are two main ceremonies, the offering ritual, called jiao, and the merit ritual, gongde. The offering ritual is used to renew ties between the given god and the community performing it. Quote, the main officiant is the Taoist priest, Daoxi, a function typically transmitted within families. When he receives a request to celebrate an offering, the Daoxi convenys his assistance to perform the ritual. The celebration typically lasts 1, 2, 3, 5, or 10 days,

but arrangements, especially the preparation of the necessary paperwork, require a much longer time. While the offering is celebrated in the temple, a festival is performed in the streets outside, with processions. The statue of the local tutelary god is carried throughout the neighborhood, music and theatrical performances. In addition to this dual outer and inner aspect of the celebration, another important distinction is the one between the portions of the ritual that are public and those that are performed behind closed doors, in which only the priest and selected representatives of the community that are public and those that are performed behind closed doors, in which only the priest and selected representatives of the community can participate. The merit ritual,

meanwhile, is a funerary custom performed to ensure that the departed have not been kept in the netherworld, but instead will be allowed to depart and make their way into heaven. It is conducted in a similar fashion of the offering, with one of the main differences being that in place of a particular god, it is the deceased, either bodily or in the form of images, that is paraded through the streets to music, dancing, and very public, performative displays of mourning, to display just how meritorious and worthy the individual was in life, and how they therefore deserve to be allowed to move on. Again, certain elements are public, while others are only allowed for a select few insiders, such as the priests and the close family of the deceased. More informally, when

walking into many stores, restaurants, places of business, and even private homes of those who pay even token respect to such traditions, one can often see at or near the entrance a small shrine, often to get another god of the Taoist and traditional Chinese religious pantheon, Caixie, the god of money and wealth. Stacked around the small figure will virtually always be fresh fruits. Oranges are a perennial favorite. Coins, incense, and other small offerings to, you guessed it, try to entice Taisha to grant his boon onto the businesses or individuals. How seriously are rituals like this taken in this day and age? Well, of course, it depends on the individual. Some people are very devout, while others are much more of a,

eh, it's probably nothing, but, you know, what could it hurt, sort of a mentality. Often, there is, in the wider public, kind of a bet-hedging, eh, why not try to get all possible boons, thought process. Such as, for instance, my mother-in-law, who will pray to the local Buddhist temple in the morning, make offerings to a Taoist god in the afternoon, and then make sure that her house's furniture is all in alignment with feng shui principles that evening, all while, if asked, insisting that it's all just probably nonsense anyways, but what is the harm? And indeed, I have no comeback to her. What is the harm? Secha P. writes, how exactly Islam developed and spread in China since the Battle of Talus? As an Indonesian, Zheng He is famous here in helping

the spread of Islam, so I'm intrigued to know how Islam was developing in China prior to his expeditions. Secha brought up very presciently the Mongol dynasty and the Yuan, and so it's great that you did so in asking this set of questions, because they feature quite prominently in the spread of Islam in China. Now, as you know, Setia, Islam certainly had interactions with China centuries before Tamajin was ever clutching his blood clot in his hand, but it was very limited and very restricted, both culturally and geographically. The Battle of the Talus River, which we covered, holy crap, 101 episodes ago back in episode 99, took place in the year 751. But in spite of its flash and sparkle of a great big battle, it really had like next to no impact

on the broader Tang Chinese society. Heck, even the majority of the soldiers there at the battle weren't even actually Chinese, but instead foreign POWs and mercenaries serving as effectual proxies. Trans-Oxiana was, to put it bluntly, a bit far too remote and ancillary to the core of China to have almost anyone, even the historians of the era, take much note of this black turban tribe's surprise upset. They just didn't really care. A somewhat more permanent foothold that Islam came to have in China was as of the Tang Dynasty at the port of Guangzhou, which is where many tens of thousands of Persian, Arab, and Indian merchants came to reside on either a temporary or even permanent basis as a part of trade missions. Here again, though, the cultural and religious

inroads were pretty limited, owing to the fact that such peoples were largely confined to their own quarters of the city and not allowed to venture further into the empire whatsoever, much less allowed to spread their faith all willy-nilly. It's also worth remembering that the Tang Dynasty was still smack dab in the middle of China, still considering even Buddhism as being a suspicious barbarian foreign import that needed to be at times maybe accepted, but at other times contained and at other times still ruthlessly purged. So yeah, the Abrahamic faiths weren't exactly making too many inroads, no matter their vector. Rather, it's later on with the rise of Mongol power, and then its supremacy under the Yuan, that saw Islam come to hold something of a firmer

foothold within the Chinese empire. This was largely thanks to the large-scale importation of Persian, Khwarizmian, Arab, and other Central Asian Muslim officials, collectively known in Chinese as the Samudren, to act as the lieutenants and the day-to-day administrators of their Mongol overlords. As a sort of executive officer class of the Yuan, and in particular with their vaunted skills at being highly competent and often rather overzealous and therefore widely hated tax collectors and officials, the Samuren had significantly more and more frequent interaction with the Chinese populace directly and overall, and with many of them ultimately marrying Chinese women. As a matter of course, many of these marriages proved to be fruitful, and with many of them ultimately marrying Chinese women. As a matter

of course, many of these marriages proved to be fruitful, and many of the resultant children were raised as Muslims in the way of their forefathers. Yuan power over China managed to last just long enough that by its expulsion, these Muslim mixes were several generations deep into Chinese society, so much so that they could culturally and, yeah, even visually pass for one of the Han populace enough not to be immediately outed as someone, you know, not one of us. When faced with the option, such as it were, of either accompanying their now-ousted Mongol paymasters back into the harsh, sparse reality of Mongolia north of the Gobi, or staying on in China under their Chinese identity, well, for many, it wasn't a very difficult decision at all. They stayed on

in China. They became Chinese. Zheng He was, as you note, a famed and celebrated Muslim eunuch official who commanded the Ming treasure fleet between 1405 and 1433, and he was actually the great-great-great-grandson of Sa'id Adjal Shams al-Din Omar, a Khwarizmian who surrendered personally to Genghis Khan at Bukhara, and then served under the Mong Empire as a logistics officer, first under Genghis, and then under Mongka during his invasion of Sichuan, and was then made the first UN governor of Yunnan by Kublai following the defeat of the Kingdom of Dali in 1279. Zheng He's own father was named Ma Haji, strongly suggesting that he had made the pilgrimage to Mecca at some point in his life before he was killed and his son captured, castrated,

and then put into servitude by the Ming conquerors as of about 1381. 19th and 15th Amendments to the Compromise of 1877. From Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman. To Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. The Civil War and Reconstruction was a pivotal era in American history. I'm Rich. And I'm Tracy. And we're the hosts of a podcast that takes a deep dive into that era, when a war was fought to save the Union and to free the slaves. And when the work to rebuild the nation after that war was over turned into a struggle to guarantee liberty and justice

for all Americans. Look for The Civil War and Reconstruction wherever you find your podcasts. Matt P., or Mitka, asks, What is the PRC's relationship with the concept of the Mandate of Heaven? Did the early Chinese communists appeal to it to support their own rise to power? How about when they came into power? Have they tried to downplay it or delegitimize it, given that it gives permission for citizens to rebel? Is the Mandate of Heaven still popular among people in modern China?

Is it still a standard for people to judge the ruling class by? So this is a question that comes up quite a bit, at least in my line of work, probably not in yours. And it is very understandable, especially given the propensity of a lot of both writers and news organizations to sort of toss in this idea to sound like they know a lot about how China works and how it 5,000 years of history, you know, yeah. But here's a couple of things. Number one, the Mandate of Heaven has no basis, philosophical, legal, popular, or otherwise, in either the People's Republic of China or the Republic of China before it at all. It is an imperial concept that was formally shoved into

the same ideological grave as the dragon throne itself with the overthrow of the Qing. It holds exactly the same weight as, say, the idea of the divine right of kings does for France or Germany today, which is to say, none at all, other than something to learn for a history exam. But that is actually almost beside the point. So let's get into part two of this answer. Number two, the mandate of heaven is badly understood by many Westerners, or at least heavily misconstrued. Is there a difference between those two phrases? I don't know. Anyways, even at its very moment of conception, the Duke of Zhou succeeding in his rebellion against the last corrupt King of Shang and

establishing the Zhou Dynasty, it was understood then and there as being a purely retroactive explanation and justification for having committed, and critically, succeeded in committing, that ultimate taboo, rebellion against one's lawful overlord. One cannot ahead of time say that they have claimed the mandate of heaven and then go and like try to take it. No, that's not how it works. Or like, I guess they could, but they'd likely have been laughed all the way to the execution block. It's understood that heaven conferred the right to rule only upon those who showed themselves, both in word and deed, to be the best for the task. It's a purely reactive idea, and I mean, beyond all that metaphysics, it's a purely rhetorical device.

What really gets to the heart of this idea, I'd say, is that the people have never needed to ask themselves, is the mandate of heaven gone from such and such a ruler? That's just not something that they have ever considered. Much less, oh, if the mandate of heaven is gone from X ruler, who is it conferred on now? No, that's just not how people function. People just don't think that way. In the midst of a dynastic overthrow or even a widespread rebellion that might end up failing, the people are too busy worrying about much more banal, basic things. Like, where's your next meal going to come from? Or are the Manchus going to ride over the hill and invade our town? Or are the pirates going to raid our coastal cities and, you know,

deprive us of valuable revenue? Or is the river going to flood this year? Or is there going to be a devastating plague this year? It's well worth noting that typically when you learn about this in like school and like the one and a half paragraphs that really even goes into this at all, it's often presented in this very mystical, magical way. That natural disasters are heaven's way of signaling its displeasure at the immorality of the imperial clan and blah, blah, blah, blah. But that's putting the cart entirely in front of the horse. All those bad things happen all the time they happen all the time everywhere bad things happen every year everywhere we can look at the u.s today and they mean like half of the country's on fire and 200 000 people have died from a disease bad things happen all the time the question is

is the government competent enough to deal with those perennial problems that always crop up effectively enough to not piss off everyone in the process? If the crops fail, has the government secured enough rice in emergency granaries to make sure that at least most people don't starve to death? Or has it decided to throw so many lavish feasts that they're all emptied? I mean, that's the real mandate. And one that the imperial government always had to at least tacitly understand. You might say that you're looking to the mandate of heaven, but really, you know, or at least you know if you know what's good for you,

that the only real mandate that matters is that of the people and exactly how much they're willing to put up with. In that very particular sense, at least, a sense of supreme executive authority deriving from the mandate of the masses and not some farcical aquatic ceremony, it is as real today as it has ever been. And the PRC continues to quietly understand that, while yes, at the same time, very much downplaying its significance as the ultimate driver of human events. The mandate of heaven is not some mystical, magical thing.

It really is just how much are the people willing to put up with, and do they see an effect of out if they're not willing to put up with it anymore. And of course, in being able to respond to the perennial emergent crises like a freak flooding of the Yellow River, or an invasion, or an unexpected outbreak of disease, effectively enough to retain the confidence of the people, enough at least,

that they don't come in with the torches and the pitchforks. Same as it ever was, same as it always shall be. As a minor break from the questions ian a writes uh hi chris i couldn't really think of a specific question for episode 200 but i wanted to tell you that in this current political and social miasma we are experiencing in the usa i find it comforting to hear about ancient people getting wiped out by m horsemen, resorting to cannibalism during sieges, and just dying horrible deaths in general and never knowing that someday a game show host would be president. We are all just little mice being eaten by the snake of history. Your podcast always helps me put that in perspective. Me too, Ian. Me too. I mean, thank you very much. That's probably the highest praise I could possibly

receive. It's just, you know what? As stressful or awful or dangerous or bad as the times we live in right now can very much seem and very much are, we are not the first to tread these waters. And sometimes it can be oddly meditative and even therapeutic to remember that. So I like the spirit that Ian put this comment in, and I hope that we're all taking things in due stride while also remembering to take good care of ourselves and our mental health and don't read too much about the bubonic plague in these times because ultimately that that's that's got to have some kind of consequence so you know intersperse that in with kittens and puppies and funny TikTok videos. This is not an endorsement of TikTok, by the way. Ramsey H. writes in,

Did Kublai use Persian engineers in China against the Song to take walled cities since his brother Hulagu could have sent them? Ah, Ramsey, you've got it backwards, my friend. Why send in the second best engineers when you already control the first-best, huh? Chinese combat and siege engineers were the ones who literally, and I mean literally, wrote the book on how to conduct effective city-based siege warfare against hardened targets. They had, after all, quite a few centuries of practice. So were the Mongols using Persians in China as they relentlessly pounded down the fortifications

of the Southern Song? Absolutely yes, but not as siege engineers. No, they had the Northern Chinese as well as the Khitan and Jurchen who'd picked up those techniques in the course of their own wars and conquests of the northern Song for that specific purpose. In fact, that had been one of Genghis Khan's early lessons when he'd come up against the walled cities, that his own people actually really sucked at sieges. I mean, remember that he just about drowned his own army trying to divert a river into the capital of Western Shaw his first go-round. What made him such a monumental success was that he was willing to stuff his pride and learn from that mistake, that he'd best leave it to the true experts of all things boomy and wall-defeating-y. That had been one of his real career strengths, the ability to recognize the worth and usefulness in others' talents that he lacked, and then employ them for his own ends. Which was a legacy carried down the

line, even unto his grandchildren, although unfortunately, at least for them, not long thereafter. Now, as for the Persians and other Western Asian imports into China, I mean, at least for them, not long thereafter. Now, as for the Persians and other Western Asian imports into China, I mean, I'm not saying there was like zero engineers deemed worthy of their ranks, but on the whole, they were deemed to have a different, but just as important skill set for the empire. They were deemed to be exceptional administrators, financiers, and of course, tax harvesters, a skill for which they became rather infamous across Yuan China with rapidity because, after all, there are very few people the people hate more than the taxman. Tim M. says, I've seen references to emperors

performing sacrifices like Feng and Shan, what exactly were they sacrificing? I can't imagine the son of heaven screaming at the censors, quick, grab the escaping sanctified pig. For a reasonably dutiful son of heaven, was he frequently doing what we'd now call religious or supernatural ceremonies? If so, how much time of this was taken up, and what sorts of things was he doing? Were officials doing any such ceremonies? Yeah, it is pretty interesting how we'll often hear about the sacrifices and veneration rituals, but far less the specific details of what they entailed. I agree, the term sacrifice certainly does conjure up images of very Greco-Roman-style animal sacrifices,

and then like reading the entrails or whatever. And to be sure, there was some of that. Chinese state sacrifice does begin, as many of these types of rituals do, in a very dark place indeed. It's well understood, for instance, that from the Shang period of the second millennium BCE all the way up through the Han, which finally formally abolished the practice, human sacrifice was a common form of offering worship, sustenance, and servants to both the gods, the earth itself, and just about as often one's own ancestors and departed kinsmen. In terms of human sacrifice, the condemned would typically be killed and then entombed with the deceased noble person in order to continue their legal service in the next world. Often, other useful, valuable animals, such as horses, would also be

included with the tomb items. Animal sacrifice was also common, as was the use of liquors and other wines. These would be offered up to the spirits in ritual bronze vessels known as ding, or cauldrons. The most famous of these are, of course, the jiu ding, or the nine tripod cauldrons, which, at least according to legends, were cast from the very first offer of tribute to the first king of Zhou from the various states of the nine realms upon his accession. And they were humongous, something like seven and a half tons each. How you were up on the royal ladder determined exactly how many of these ritual vessels you had access to to perform your particular sacrifices. Obviously, the more you could sacrifice, the better. Regular members of the aristocracy were given use between one and three ding,

state ministers up to five, rulers of vassal states seven, but only the crown prince and the king himself could use all nine ritual vessels at once. As you mentioned, the greatest of all sacrificial rituals, and the one least attempted, was the Feng and Shan sacrifices, conducted first at the summit of, and then on the plains below, Mount Tai. In a grand ceremony, the emperor, and at least once the empress, would ascend to the top of the mountain on foot to a specially constructed earthen altar. Having arrived, and assuming the gods didn't punish the emperor's insolence by sending forth bad weather, the sovereign would pay homage to the heavens by

bowing before it and then proclaiming his merits, accomplishments, and legitimacy to the almighty above. Thereafter, he would descend and conduct the Shan sacrifice, showing respect to the god of earth by clearing away the land at the foot of the slope. As for how involved the emperor himself was in the periodic rituals and offerings made to the various altars and ancestral temples, that usually depended very much on the individual emperor. Some were very much into doing it themselves, sometimes even a little too much, putting aside important matters of state business to focus on the more esoteric and spiritual aspects of their and their empire's life. Others you would almost call like atheistic in their personal disinterest

of such rituals. They could of course be bothered to oversee some of the big grand important ceremonies a few times a year, yeah, but otherwise they would let it fall to the ministers and the officials whose very jobs it was to oversee and conduct such ceremonies and rites in a timely and appropriate way. And yes, for anyone who's unclear, it was absolutely a full-on department of imperial government that was solely concerned with rituals and making sure that they were conducted properly. It was the Ministry of Rites. They took it seriously, even if the sovereign himself might not. The Feng and Chong sacrifice was the big kahuna of imperial rituals, formally declaring

to the gods themselves that you and you alone had pacified all under heaven and were thereby its sole and legitimate sovereign. But as one might well imagine, such a massive claim required some pretty massive evidence that you had, in fact, done the thing. As such, it was only ever conducted about a half dozen times across two and a half thousand years. For the more pedestrian and common types of sacrifices, particularly those to family ancestors and the deceased, we could look a little closer to home, even to some modern customs, to at least get an idea of what such rituals and sacrifices might have entailed. Many modern Chinese holidays still retain elements of their

traditional sacrificial elements. A clear example is the Dragon Boat Festival, or Duan Wujie, held on the fifth day of the fifth lunisolar month, which was considered an unlucky time of the year. Ceremonies included hanging fragrant plants like garlic, pomegranate flowers, and calamus above their home doors in order to drive off evil spirits, and more practically, biting and disease-carrying insects common during that time of year. Far more common today, though, is the practice of making zongzi, and then throwing at least one into a body of water, and then, of course, eating the rest yourself. This goes back, at least in story, to the tale of Qu Yuan, a famed poet and minister from the ancient warring states of Chu. When his king decided to ally Chu with the rising power of Qin, he banished Qu Yuan for treason

after Chu warned against this course of action and of Qin's inevitable treachery. Years later, when his prediction came to pass and Chu was conquered by Qin, ah, curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal. In despair, Qu Yuan drowned himself in the Miluo River. So beloved was he, though, by the people, that they raced out in boats to save him, but when they couldn't find his body, they resolved to drop in balls of rice, zongzi, into the river, so the fish might eat those and leave his body alone. Another great little story of a holiday retaining elements of a sacrifice is of the Mid-Autumn Festival, Zhongxiujian. Specifically conducted on the full

moon day of the 8th lunar month, typically late September to early October, it's a harvest festival very much in the vein of, you know, Thanksgiving, Sukkot, Anam, Merchan, and even Halloween. But one curious aspect of the Chinese festival is the yearly arrival of that dessert confection that everyone pretends to like, mooncakes. Like boxes of fruitcake gifted and re-gifted from Christmas, mooncakes are the mid-autumn must-have that you will almost never see anyone actually eat. This is because they are basically lye-filled hockey pucks. And yes, yes, I know, I've got a few die-hard mooncake stands out there. Don't at me.

Anyways, the story goes that mooncakes are such an ineffable and undying aspect of the holiday because they were a favorite confection of the ancient beauty Tang'e, who saved the people from an eternity of living under the tyranny of her husband and hero Archer, who shot nine out of ten suns out of the sky when they all wanted to rise at once, Huoyi. As a reward, Huoyi was given by the gods a pill of immortality, but when he became a super jerk, Tang'e stole it and then, to make sure that Hui could not pursue her to recover the immortality pill, flew to the moon. As such, moon cakes are made and then offered up to Tang'e as a thanks for going to live on the moon forever after. One last little example of sacrifice is a part of modern Chinese rituals and

holidays, and one a lot closer to home for most people than ancient tales of drowned poets and moon goddesses, is Qingmingjie, or Tomb Sweeping Festival. It's held in the first week of April, and it is when families will go and honor their ancestors and family members by cleaning off and otherwise caring for the family tomb, which is situated often up on a mountainside somewhere. This also involves making sure that the dearly departed have everything that they might need to be living large in the afterlife. Everything from money, to their favorite books, to to sports cars to condos. The food does tend to be real and laid out in an appealing manner before the tomb with an empty chair that they might sit and eat their fill. As for the other things, they're all brought in effigy,

as paper representations that, by being burnt, are then carried up to the heavens and made real for the spirits and ancestors. It's all very sweet and happy and sad at the same time for everyone involved. Though in this past year, I read an article out of Singapore that had me laughing out loud at just the most maybe Singaporean thing I've ever read. Apparently, authorities there in the Lion City had enacted a campaign to try to get people to burn their spirit money and spirit gifts only in specifically designated bins.

Which is, to be fair, a perfectly laudable effort to try to minimize the amount of ash and pollution that such an event tends to cause. However, they were trying to affect compliance by threatening that only those sacrifices made in the appropriate receptacles, which I believe they referred to as spirit banks, would actually make their way up to heaven. And if you ignored the regulation, your granddad up in heaven wouldn't get his yearly spirit cash infusion, and that would be entirely on you. I don't know, I just love to laugh at the idea of even in 2020 trying to bureaucratize the afterlife. It's just so extremely Chinese.

Tem M says, was everyone in sight truly murdering Mongol ambassadors? What are the sources and how reliable are they? Did Mongols attack many states without a claim that they offed Mongols first? I recall hearing once that the Romans, when they declared a war, always said that it was because of the other guy's wrongs. How convenient that it seems that at least two Mongol conquests had totally just shivved these poor pitiable ambassadors, leaving bereaved girlfriends in Canada. Now that you mention it, it really does seem rather convenient, doesn't it? But let's take a look at these instances one by one. The first big whoopsie-daisy was that of the governor of Bukhara in Khwarizmia against the trade caravans sent out by Genghis Khan to the Khwarazmian Shah. And then that was

compounded by the audacity of the Shah just thumbing his nose at the Lord of the Mongols when he expressed outrage at what had happened. It seems to me that this was the result of a couple of huge miscalculations, which will crop up time and time again when we're talking about the Mongols. First off, way underestimating the power of the Mongols, which on paper is actually totally understandable. They're this tiny band of, like, goat herders on the edge of the world. Dingus who? The Shah of Khwarezm was this undefeated, self-made rising star with a massive army who hadn't once met a foe that he couldn't just grind into powder. Of course, he's going to act cocky as all get out.

Secondly is the style of Mongol quote-unquote diplomacy. I'm firmly in the camp that really they knew exactly what they were doing the whole time. Mongol diplomats were sent specifically in, I believe, to goad and irk the monarchs that they met with. The style of their language and just the constant beard tweaking, I don't think simply can be some accident of step diplomacy meeting the civilized world, or, you know, that old lark of the Mongols didn't understand the idea of peace without submission, or whatever. Come on, they knew what they were doing. They absolutely must have known. Temujin had also instilled in his warriors this unshakable belief that they were effectively invincible and untouchable. To even think about death in Mongol culture was taboo.

It just wasn't a possibility that they allowed to enter into their minds. Now, I myself, I can't really get into that mindset, but imagine someone who can and who can really transcend the idea of even death being a possibility. You're going to make decisions that maybe a possibility, you're going to make decisions that maybe a normal person is not going to make. So, yeah, like, why wouldn't you act all haughty and arrogant? You can't even touch a hair on my head, and even if you do, you'd only be bringing down on yourself more trouble than you could possibly imagine. And, I mean, think about it. In the long term, it totally worked, right? When the hammer came down, when these emissaries were slaughtered, and then the consequences came, the unthinkable slaughter that engulfed anywhere that so much as yanked a hair from a Mongol envoy's beard,

well, it spread, by golly. And gee whiz, they started to get themselves killed a whole lot less, didn't they? By the time the European envoys were reaching the court of the great Khan, they'd heard enough to know that if the Khan offers to send some diplomats back to Europe, find any way to wave them off, because no one wanted to bring that kind of heat down on Christendom. Now, as for Southern Song, oh man, what can I really say, but they were just exceptionally good at diplomatically shooting themselves in the foot at just about every single opportunity that presented itself. And I view Southern Song in terms of its offensive military capabilities and especially its foreign relations as the Deputy Barney Fife of Chinese dynasties.

Please, good God, only give him one bullet and make sure he keeps it in his shirt pocket where he can't hurt anyone, most likely himself. And I mean, like, as for the Japanese, well, they just really seemed like they were spoiling for a fight. Like, really, really were begging to get invaded, and then got insanely lucky with the weather. Twice. Chow H. asks, On a scale from the An Lushan Rebellion to repeatedly lighting signal towers to amuse your concubine, how hilarious was John Wayne's portrayal of Genghis Khan in the 1956 film The Conqueror? It's a good question, and I have a simple answer,

which is that I rate the Duke's stint as the Khan of Khans as 5 out of 5 possible slain ambassadors and award it the coveted Golden Head of the Governor of Bukhara. Tem M M writes, What's in a name? Up through the southern song, you've been using the posthumous short temple name to refer to emperors like Emperor Wu. What have you been using to refer to Yuan emperors? Has it been their first names?

Do I gather correctly that from the Ming on they're referred to as the Ere-Name Emperor? If that's so, why the change? And will that mean that they stop changing their error names to match changed conditions? History isn't black and white, yet too often it's presented as such. Grey History The French Revolution is a long-form history podcast dedicated to exploring the ambiguities and nuances of the past. By contrasting both the experiences of contemporaries and the conclusions of historians, Grey History dives into the detail and unpacks one of the most important and disputed events in human history.

From a revolution based on hope and liberty, to its descent into the infamous reign of terror, there's plenty to discuss, and plenty of grey to explore. One can't understand the modern world without understanding the French Revolution. So if you're looking for your next long-form, binge-worthy history podcast, one recommended by universities and loved by enthusiasts, then check out Grey History The French Revolution today, or simply search for The French Revolution. Short answer, Tim, is yes. To basically everything. But let me explain further. Yes, the style change to emperor names happens a couple of times. From the Han dynasty through

the Sui, standard convention uses the short form of the sovereign's posthumous name. So, for instance, Emperor Wu, Hui, Yang, etc. This is with the exception, typically, of the dynastic founders, like Liu Bang of Han, who gets the special moniker of Gaozu to signify that he is the founder. By the time of the Tang Dynasty, though, posthumous names had become so repetitive, and let's face it, long, that they no longer really could effectively do their job of properly differentiating the monarchs out from one another so easily. So again, Li Yuan gets to be the Tang Gaozu in the history books, but his successor, Li Xiamen's full posthumous name is Wenwu Dasheng Dagwang Xiaohuangdi,

or the learned martial great sage Vasphilia Emperor of Tang, which is a mouthful regardless of the language. We could boil that down to the short name, Emperor Wen of Tang. But yeah, then he just joins the two dozen or so other Emperor Wens. I mean, it's confusing, right? So therefore, they just start going by their temple names, what they were referred to in their family ancestral temples after they died, from the Tang dynasty down through the Yuan. Temple names were not some new invention, mind you. They had been

common practice since the Shang in order to give deceased monarchs. But in any case, this is where we get all the Zhu and Zong imperial names. Now, as I said, the Yuan emperors mostly got and are were frequently referred to by their temple names as well. So Kublai is Yuan Shizu. Genghis Khan was posthumously given the name Taizu. Ogedei is Yuan Taizong. And the last Yuan emperor, Togon Temur, is Huizong. They've also got imperial posthumous names. Kublai, for instance, is the Shengde Shenggong Wenwu Huangdi, or the saintly, miraculous, cultured, and martial emperor of Great Yuan. Instead, though, I, and this is a personal choice by me, I decided that I was just going to stick using their given Mongol names.

This was a purely stylistic choice on my part, in large part to emphasize their otherness, even as they lorded over, and at least in part began to assimilate, into the Sinosphere over the course of the 14th century. But then again, I shouldn't be beating myself up over this, and really I don't. All of these, in fact, are stylistic shorthands. Otherwise, again, we'd just be referring to them all by their 8, 9, 10 long wordful titles, which is just exhausting.

Okay, so, and then finally, we get to the changeover once again, beginning with the Ming and lasting through the Qing, in which we start referring to the emperors by their era names rather than posthumous or temple names. Once again, this largely has to do with trying to avoid too much redundancy and confusion between the more than 500 Chinese emperors. It's made possible to try to make this stylistic change in the Ming and beyond because the emperors and their governments at long last decided that every emperor should only reign over a single era, which would thereafter be changed only upon their death and the accession of a new successor. Prior to that, era calendars were a confusing mess. Emperor Wu of Han's 54 years on the throne, for instance, had 11 different reign

eras ranging from one to six years in length each. Li Zong of Southern Song had eight eras. Gao Zong of Tang had an incredible 14 reign eras in just 33 years. But by the Ming, it was one for one, emperors to eras, making it easy enough to associate the sovereign with the calendar period, which was a practice, incidentally, that was emulated by Imperial Japan as well. CalS asks us, we know about Chinese contributions to Europe via the Silk Road. What goods or ideas transferred west to east? Well, guys, pre-Enlightenment, I am embarrassed to say that in terms of science and technology, the list is pretty damn short.

There was glass, and along with it optics such as lenses, glass mirrors, astronomical theories and observations, watches and clocks, some exotic furs from like the Americas, and who can forget the ever-popular beaver pelt. Post-Enlightenment, it gets a little better. We've got things like germ theory, eventually particle and atomic theory, scientific method, modern medicine, and then significantly later, we get a whole bunch of opium from British India. But on the whole, it's pretty much back-loaded onto the last couple centuries, and before that, not very much at all. Why is that? Why is it so one-way in so many respects? Well, number one, European tends to overestimate its own importance in world affairs based on its current primacy. But of course, that's not a

one-way street either. China has long and largely regarded itself not only as the font of all true culture and civilization, but also more or less entirely self-sufficient for much of its imperial run. Being geographically isolated from much of the rest of the world for so long, it tended to view foreign trade as a luxury, or even as a pittance to be accepted out of sheer high-handed benevolence with those poor, benighted barbarian regions elsewhere in the world. Trade missions were therefore officially regarded and referred to as tributary missions from foreign slash barbarian kings who would present the son of heaven with whatever little trinkets they might have on offer, and the emperor would then, in his infinite magnanimity, shower them with the fruits

and gifts of true civilization. One of the only items that pre-modern China truly required and desired from the western world was precious metals, especially the silver that European empires like the Spanish were able to exploit from its Central and South American colonies beginning in the 16th century. One of the most amazing and emblematic messages in world, much less Chinese history, is the official correspondence between the Qianlong Emperor and King George III of England as of 1793, in the course of one of the truly great diplomatic debacles of the age, the ill-fated McCartney Expedition. George III, and yes, it is that very same, you'll be back, George, wished to expand English trade further with Qing China, and requested that, to that end, the British be allowed to set up a port

of their very own within Chinese territory, which they would control and trade from, being up until this point strictly restricted only to special regions of a single Canton port in the south, aka Guangzhou. Anyways, here's a part of what Qianlong winds up writing back to King George, and just see if you can catch a whiff of superiority. Quote, You, O King, live beyond the confines of many seas. Nevertheless, impelled by your humble desire to partake of the benefits of our civilization, you have dispatched a mission respectfully bearing your memorial. Your envoy has crossed the seas and paid his respects at my court on the anniversary of my birthday. To show your devotion,

you have also sent offerings of your country's produce. I have perused the memorial. The earnest terms in which it is couched reveal a respectful humility on your part, which is highly praiseworthy. In consideration of the fact that your ambassador and his deputy have come a long way with your memorial and tribute, I have shown them high favor and allowed them to be introduced into my presence. To manifest my indulgence, I have entertained them at a banquet and made them numerous gifts. Swaying the wide world, I have but one aim in view, namely, to maintain a perfect governance, and to fulfill the duties of the state. Strange and costly objects do not interest me. If I have commanded that the tribute offerings sent

by you, O king, are to be accepted, this was solely in consideration for the spirit which prompted you to dispatch them from afar. Our dynasty's majestic virtue has penetrated unto every country, unto heaven, and kings of all nations that have offered their costly tribute by land and sea. As your ambassador can see for himself, we possess all things. I set no value on objects strange or ingenious, and have no use for your country's manufacturers. This, then, is my answer to your request

to appoint a representative at my court, a request contrary to our dynastic usage, which would only result in inconvenience to yourself. It behooves you, O King, to respect my sentiments and to display even greater devotion and loyalty in the future, so that, by perpetual submission to our throne, you may secure peace and prosperity for your country hereafter. Besides making gifts, of which I enclose an inventory, to each member of your mission, I confer upon you, O King, valuable presents in excess of the number usually bestowed upon such occasions, including silks and curios, a list of which is likewise enclosed. Do you reverently

receive them and take note of my tender goodwill towards you? A special mandate? And quote, I mean, really, you can just feel little Georgie Porgy's head being tenderly padded like a lost little puppy even 230 years later. My god. Caroline P. asks us, I want to hear about Empress Key, or at least as much of her as is known, and I'd like to know more about Tal Tal. Was Tang Qixi as much of an, insert insult here, as he was portrayed in the TV series? I know the TV series Empress Qi was fiction, and to its credit, the producers actually say it's fiction at the end of the last episode, but as always, I'd like to know which parts weren't. I'm pretty sure Ki wasn't Xena, warrior princess, Wonder Woman she's portrayed as.

It's a South Korean show, so of course they glorify the South Korean woman in UN court. And I've just got to say, Caroline, thank you very much for bringing up Togon Temur's wife, because I'll admit I was at risk of sort of losing her in the pell-mell of the end of the Yuan Dynasty. And she deserves far better than that. So here's what I can tell you, and most of this comes from the Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Women by Lily Xiaohong Li and Sue Wiles. The woman, who would be Empress Qi, or or phoneticized in Chinese as Qi and known in

Mongolian as Ojeh Kutun came from the family of a prominent official and general of Shinzo, Gaoli, which was in what is today Korea. As was common practice at the time, as a condition of Korean subjugation every three years or in some instances it said one year. It was expected that they would send a shipment of the most beautiful and talented young girls to serve as entertainers and servants to Dadu. Quote, while it was usual for the Korean state to send an annual compliment of women to the Mongol court's servants, these women of lowly origin were never admitted to the palace, in accordance with a vow said to have been made by Kublai Khan that, quote,

Korean women shall not participate with our sons and grandsons in the affairs of the imperial ancestral temple, end quote. In spite of this apparent prohibition, Gi was selected for service within the palace based on her good looks, keen wit, and skill in attending others, by none other than the representative of the household of the Empress, Tamadar. Her role would be quite the prestigious one, quote, to serve as a maid of honor attending the table of Emperor Togon Temur. The two managed to hit it off quite quickly. They were both around similar age, 13 or 14 at the time, and she soon was promoted to the rank of imperial consort. This kind of overt favoritism, and likely a goodly dose of racism beside, caused Togon Temur's empress, Danashiri,

of the Ungirad, the clan which had been the clan where empresses come from from time immemorial, virtually. As a result of this, Gae was frequently insulted and even beaten by the elder empress and her servants.

Until, that is, Danashiri's younger brother, Tangquishi, I don't know if I'm getting there, but Tang Qishi, Tang Qishi, was implicated in plotting rebellion against the emperor. So, this is part of your question. How big of a jerk was Tang Qishi? I can't really say. Nobody can, because the histories that I've found on the guy have almost nothing to say on him other than that he was part of a plot and was found out and subsequently executed. That leaves plenty of room there to jazz it up for a TV series for sure. But we also have to

remember that he is actually supposed to be Guy's younger brother. So we're talking like a kid who's like somewhere between 10 and 13 years old. Not exactly some mustache twilling supervillain. Anyways, Dhanushiri foolishly tries to intervene on her condemned brother's behalf to spare him the death penalty and was therefore herself implicated in the plot. Xu Shiduan writes of this, quote, It is said that she tried to protect her younger brother, who was to be executed as a co-conspirator by spreading her skirt over him, end quote. As a punishment, she was thereafter banished into exile from Dadu, and then a year or so later,

given a vial of poison and ordered to drink it on down, which he did somewhere between 1335 and 1337. This left a vacancy in the court of Togentemur, which he seemed only too happy to fill almost immediately with gi, whom he shortly thereafter attempted to install as empress. This was met with extreme pushback from the court, however, as tradition stipulated that non-Ungerad women could not become an emperor's principal empress. Haugen-Temur backed down and installed instead Bayan-Khoyun as his empress, though this seems to have been purely for political expedience. In 1339, at the age of 18 or 19, consort- Gi gave birth to what would prove to be her only son, Aishiridhara, who would later be Emperor Zhaozong of Northern Yuan. As she had fulfilled her duty in producing a male heir, she was, by tradition, thereafter appointed as second empress and given her own private residence, Xingsheng Palace.

Enter, stage left, the young and rising star, Toktoa, a.k.a. Totuo, a.k.a. Taltal, nephew of the great Mongol hero Bayan of the Merkid and the empress Bayankuta's brother. Between 1342 and 1343, he'd won great renown and become known as one of the Grand Historians of China for leading the effort to complete the compilations of the Liao, Jin, and Song dynasties for posterity. Following that, he'd tried to divert the Yongding River to facilitate improved water transport to the capital, but that effort had failed. He was allowed to go into retirement following this debacle, but was later reinstated as of 1349 as chancellor when his would-be replacement, Berkebüke, proved unable to meet the many challenges facing the increasingly harried

Yuan imperial court. In 1351, after proving unable to rein in the activities of the pirate lord Fang Guozhen, Toghtoa tried again with his river-moving plans, this time the Yellow River itself, which proved a success this time, although a costly one. The overall ill will and unrest of the populace, caused at least in part by this massive forced labor project, caused many throughout the regions to join up with the Red Turban movement that even now gripped the central reaches of the Riverlands. Toctowai and Empress Kii were no great friends of one another, and although they had supported each other in certain of their past endeavors, when it came to the question of the heir apparent, they couldn't have been further apart. This caused a great political and personal rift to grow between them,

beginning in 1353 with the birth of Empress Bayan's own son, who would, it turns out, die two years later, and culminating in 1355 when Guy was able to successfully implicate Toghtoa on corruption charges sufficient to warrant his demotion and exile from the capital. Only then was her son, Ayushiridara, able to officially invest as the crown prince. While in exile in Yunnan, Togtoa was poisoned by assassins sent by a court rival, Hama, in January of 1356. In addition to her own greatly improved lifestyle, Empress Gi's family back home in Korea likewise received great boons from the throne. Gi's father, Gi Dao, or Qi Zhao, was posthumously enthifed as the Prince of Zhong'an, and many of her still

building kinsmen likewise received special imperial dispensation, which they'd go on to rather infamously abuse. In fact, eventually, the King of Korea, growing sick of their ongoing shenanigans, ordered the entire Qi family executed in 1363, for which the Empress demanded that her son take vengeance with 10,000 soldiers. This proved to be a fool's errand, though, and the entire Yuan force was defeated and routed, with just 17 horsemen surviving to make the return trip. Empress Bayon died in 1365, leading Togon Temur to finally get around to formally ennobling Gi. She was noted far and wide and throughout the histories as again and again showing her virtuous nature, feeding the hungry, showing the proper deference to ancestors and family, and otherwise greatly enhancing the overall image and prestige of Korean women among the Yuan court.

It's not known what happened to Empress Yi with the overthrow of the Yuan dynasty in 1368 by the Ming forces of Zhu Yuanzhang, but it's assumed that she fled along with her husband's son and the rest of the Mongol court north to Mongolia, where she died shortly thereafter due to harsh conditions. This has been such a fun thing to write and I'm so glad to be able to do it. The questions that you guys bring to me are so cool and so amazing. I love to read them all and research them, and hopefully the answers that I've given back to you are something even approaching what you were hoping for. Once again, I want to express my sincere thanks to each and every one of you listening and who have listened and who will

continue to listen. And of course, especially to those who contribute and make this a financially viable thing for me to do. 200 episodes, people. That's a big deal. At least to me, that's a big deal. And the fact that I can look ahead and see at least another hundred and know that I'm going to have people there with me who will follow along and be active participants and community members. That's absolutely what keeps me going. This part is absolutely unwritten and unscripted. This is just how I feel.

So once again, thank you all so much. From the bottom of my heart, I look forward to seeing you again in episode 201, just as I look forward to seeing you again in episode 301. So, let's keep going. And as always, thanks for listening. 400 years ago, a trio of tiny kingdoms were perched on some damp islands off the coast of Europe. Within three short centuries, these islands would become the centre of an empire which ruled a quarter of the globe and on which the sun never set. I'm Samuel Hume,

a historian of the British Empire, and my podcast Pax Britannica follows the people and events that built that empire into a global superpower. Learn the history of the British Empire by listening to Pax Britannica everywhere you find your podcasts, or go to pod.link slash pax.