The Master of Demon Gorge: A Chinese History Podcast

A nation under attack by a superior foe. A desperate people suffering through a long season of privation, a time that tries men’s souls, and yet they remain resilient and determined. In their struggle for survival, they rely on that so-called “Arsenal of Democracy,” the United States of America. And, at a critical juncture in the war, a leader of their nation travels to Washington to address a joint session of Congress...I am, of course, talking about the visit by Madame Chiang Kai-shek (better known to the Chinese by her own name, Soong Mei-ling) to Capitol Hill in February 1943.Support the show

In my travels around Mainland China, I often heard a saying: "In the sky there is the Nine-Headed Bird, so on earth there is the man from Hubei."What does this saying mean, and where does it come from? It all has to do with the Ming Dynasty statesman Zhang Juzheng...Support the show

A century ago, in December 1922, a New York Times front page article confidently predicted that the next leader of China would be a military officer named Wu Peifu. The Times was wrong about this: General Wu turned out to be little more than a footnote in the great trends of modern Chinese history.But who was he? And how did he get into a position where such a prediction might have seemed plausible in the 1920s?Support the show

It was the Mongols who chose Beijing as the Chinese capital. After the Ming Dynasty overthrow the Mongols, though, the Chinese relocated their capital south to Nanjing. And yet just a few decades later, they moved it back to Beijing. Why?This is a "Game of Thrones" kind of story about fathers and sons and uncles and nephews, in particular the Jianwen Emperor, the nephew, and his uncle the Chengzu Emperor.Support the show

Of all the uncertainties and mysterious surrounding China's mythical founder, the Yellow Emperor, one is the name of his father's tribe. Ancient sources tell us it was called "youxiong," literally "have bears."Bears? What bears? What does it mean?Support the show

In 1728, Emperor Yongzheng complained that he couldn't understand officials hailing from the provinces of Guangdong and Fujian, where they spoke, respectively, Cantonese and Hokkien.Three hundred years later, we continue to struggle with the question of how dominant the lingua franca of Mandarin should be over more local languages. In the PRC, the current conflict is between Mandarin and Cantonese, and in Taiwan, Mandarin and Taiwanese Hokkien are spoken side by side.So what is Mandarin? How did it come about? How much does it actually resemble the language of ancient China? To what extent was the modern standardization process artificial? Would it matter if it was?And, finally, can the southern dialects actually claim greater antiquity and prestige?Support the show

How did Taiwan, a small island off the Chinese coast, become by far the most dominant player in the global semiconductor industry? How did a place that as of the mid-20th century was emphatically an economic backwater gain such a position?Much has been written about Morris Chang, the founder of TSMC, the largest of Taiwan's semiconductor manufacturers. But Chang had moved from China to the US in 1949 and enjoyed a life as a high-flying American businessman. How was it that he was persuaded to go to Taiwan to set up TSMC? And who convinced him?The answer is Sun Yunxuan, one of the key architects of Taiwan's economic miracle. This is his story.Support the show

Deterrence theory is well known in political science and particularly popular during the Cold War.In the annals of Chinese history, we find examples of a specific type of deterrence: making your enemy refrain from attacking by being clever and displaying your intellect for your enemy to see.Let's look at the famous cases of the Su Brothers, Li Bai, and Lin Xiangru.Support the show

During the Warring States era, when the genius inventor Lu Ban designs a new siege weapon for the Kingdom of Chu, the king decides to attack the much weaker Kingdom of Song. Hearing this, the pacifist philosopher Mozi rushes to the scene to try to persuade the king otherwise. What follows is possibly the earliest recorded table-top wargame in history...Support the show

Everyone has heard of Sunzi's "The Art of War." But did you know that it is only one of many treatises on warfare from ancient China?In fact, Sunzi's book has long been considered only the first of a list of seven texts considered required reading for students of warfare...Support the show