The Chinese History Podcast
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We are a group of Chinese history PhD students looking to make Chinese history more accessible to the general public. Our podcast will cover a broad range of topics in Chinese history or topics related to Chinese history in both the premodern and the modern periods. Our content will be composed of both interviews with scholars and individually narrated episodes on selected topics.
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Mar 3, 2023
Professor Pamela Crossley on History and Identity in Qing Imperial Ideology
The Qing Empire (1636-1912) ruled over one of the largest land empires in the world. Its territories encompassed not only what is considered today to be China proper and Manchuria, but also Tibet, Xinjiang, and Mongolia. Its subjects were composed of people belonging to different identities, of which Manchu, Han, Mongol, Tibetan, and later Uighur became the most important groups. As an empire that was composed of a small conquering elite, how did the Qing manage these different identities as its empire expanded and stabilized? What changes occurred over time? What legacy did the Qing leave on the Republic of China and the People's Republic of China in terms of how they dealt with ethnic minorities? To help answer these question, we invite Professor Pamela Crossley to talk to us about how history and identity were constructed and weaved into Qing imperial ideology.
Contributors
Pamela Crossley
Professor Pamela Crossley is the Charles and Elfriede Collis Professor of History at Dartmouth University. She specializes in the history of the Qing Empire and modern China, although her research interests also span Inner Asian history, global history, history of horsemanship in Eurasia, and imperial sources of modern identities. She is the author of eight books and numerous book chapters and peer-reviewed articles, and her book A Translucent Mirror is the winner of the Joseph Levenson Prize of the Association of Asian Studies. Additionally, she has also written commentaries for major newspapers and magazines.
Yiming Ha
Yiming Ha is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at the University of California, Los Angeles. His current research is on military mobilization and state-building in China between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries, focusing on how military institutions changed over time, how the state responded to these changes, the disconnect between the center and localities, and the broader implications that the military had on the state. His project highlights in particular the role of the Mongol Yuan in introducing an alternative form of military mobilization that radically transformed the Chinese state. He is also interested in military history, nomadic history, comparative Eurasian state-building, and the history of maritime interactions in early modern East Asia. He received his BA from UCLA and his MPhil from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
Credits
Episode no. 17
Release date: March 3, 2023
Recording location: Hanover, NH/Los Angeles, CA
Transcript (by Yiming Ha and Greg Sattler)
Bibliography courtesy of Prof. Crossley
Images
Cover Image: A page of the Pentaglot Dictionary (Yuzhi wuti qing wenjian 御製五體清文鑑), a dictionary of the major languages of the Qing compiled towards the later reign of Emperor Qianlong in the 18th century. The five languages are Manchu, Chinese, Mongolian, Tibetan, and Chagatai (now known as Uighur). (Image Source)
The Stele Commemorating the Victory over the Dzungars, erected by the Qianlong emperor either in the 1750s or 1760s to commemorate the Qing victory over the Dzungars in the Xinjiang region. The stele featured four languages. On the front side are inscriptions written in Classical Chinese (by the Qianlong emperor himself) and Manchu, while the reverse side features inscriptions in Mongolian and Tibetan. (Image Source)
The Capture of Tucheng, a painting commemorating a Qing victory during the Panthay Rebellion in Yunnan (1856-1873). Note the five colored banner that were flown by the Qing troops. The alternate version of this flag (with the colors rearranged) later became one of the early flags of the Republic of China, with each color representing an ethnic group. Red for the Han, yellow for the Manchus, blue for the Mongols, white for the Hui (Muslims), and black for the Tibetans. (Image Source)
References
Bovington, Goardner, "The History of the History of Xinjiang" in Twentieth-Century China, 26:.2 (April, 2001): 95-139.
Bulag, Uradyn The Mongols at China's Edge: History and the Politics of National Unity (2002, Rowman & Littlefield)
Crossley, "The Cycle of Inevitability in Imperial and Republican Identities in China" in Aviel Roshwald, ed, The Cambridge History of Nationhood and Nationalism: Volume One: Patterns and Trajectories over the Longue Durée (2022, Cambridge), 301-328.
Crossley, Helen F. Siu, Donald S., Sutton, ed., Empire at the Margins: Culture, Ehtnicity and Frontier in the Early Modern China (California, 2006)
Crossley, A Translucent Mirror: History and Identity in Qing Imeprial Ideology (1999, California).
Elliott, Mark, The Manchu Way: The Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial China (2002, Californai)
Perdue, Peter. C, ."Empire and Nation in Comparative Perspective: Frontier Administration in Eighteenth-Century China" in Journal of Early Modern History, 5:4 (2001, 282-304.
Jonathan D. Spence, Treason by the Book (2002, Viking).
Wu, Hung, "Emperor's Masquerade: 'Costume portraits' of Yongzheng and Qianlong" in Smithsonian Libraries, 1995, p. 25-41.
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Nov 28, 2022
The Maritime Kingdom of the Zheng Family: An Interview with Professor Xing Hang
The fall of Beijing in 1644 did not immediately put an end to the Ming Dynasty. For almost half a century, Ming pretenders and loyalists in the south warred with the Manchus. One of the most prominent Ming loyalist factions was the Zheng family regime based in Fujian and Taiwan. Founded by the pirate-merchant Zheng Zhilong, the enterprise reached new heights under his son Zheng Chenggong, better known as Koxinga, who is best known for driving the Dutch out of Taiwan. This regime carried out the pro-Ming, anti-Manchu banner until it was finally defeated by the Qing in 1683. Joining me to talk about this fascinating regime is Professor Xing Hang of Brandeis University. He will cover the history of the regime from its rise to its fall, how it became so powerful, how and why Koxinga took over Taiwan, as well as what Ming loyalism meant to the Zhengs.
Contributors
Xing Hang
Professor Xing Hang is an Associate Professor of History at Brandeis University and a scholar of China and of the East Asian maritime world. His first project is about the Zheng organization in Taiwan, its role in seventeenth century East Asian maritime trade, and how it defined its legitimacy, and he has published extensively on the topic. His research on this topic has also greatly informed his more recent project, which is on Chinese communities in Southeast Asia from the seventeenth century to the twenty-first centuries.
Yiming Ha
Yiming Ha is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at the University of California, Los Angeles. His current research is on military mobilization and state-building in China between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries, focusing on how military institutions changed over time, how the state responded to these changes, the disconnect between the center and localities, and the broader implications that the military had on the state. His project highlights in particular the role of the Mongol Yuan in introducing an alternative form of military mobilization that radically transformed the Chinese state. He is also interested in military history, nomadic history, comparative Eurasian state-building, and the history of maritime interactions in early modern East Asia. He received his BA from UCLA and his MPhil from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
Credits
Episode no. 16
Release date: November 28, 2022
Recording location: Boston, MA/Los Angeles, CA
Transcript (proofread and punctuated by Lina Nie)
Bibliography courtesy of Prof. Hang
Images
Cover Image: Painting of Zheng Zhiling (in green robes) and his son Zheng Chenggong by Dutch painter Pieter van der Aa (Image Source)
17th century portrait of Zheng Chenggong, also known as Koxinga (Image Source)
Maximum extent of Koxinga's territories in the late 1650s/early 1660s. Red shows areas under his direct control, while orange shows his area of influence. (Image Source)
Birth rock of Koxinga, in Hirado, Japan. (Image Source)
Koxinga worshipped in a temple in Tainan. (Image Source)
References Andrade, Tonio. Lost Colony: The Untold Story of China's First Great Victory over the West. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011. Andrade, Tonio and Xing Hang, eds. Sea Rovers, Silver, and Samurai: Maritime East Asia in Global History, 1550-1700. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2019. Cheng Wei-chung. War, Trade and Piracy in the China Seas (1622-1683). Leiden: Brill, 2013. Clulow, Adam. The Company and the Shogun: The Dutch Encounter with Tokugawa Japan. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016. Ho, Daphon David. "Sealords Live in Vain: Fujian and the Making of a Maritime Frontier in Seventeenth-century China." PhD diss., UCSD, 2011. Keliher, Macabe. Out of China: Yu Yonghe's Tales of Formosa: A History of Seventeenth-century Taiwan. Taipei: SMC Publishing, 2003. Shephard, John R. Statecraft and Political Economy on the Taiwan Frontier, 1600-1800. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993. Struve, Lynn. The Southern Ming, 1644-1662. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984. Wills, Jr., John E. "Maritime China from Wang Chih to Shih Lang: Themes in Peripheral History." In From Ming to Ch'ing: Conquest, Region, and Continuity in Seventeenth-Century China, edited by Jonathan Spence and John Wills, 201-238. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981. Wong Young-tsu. China's Conquest of Taiwan in the Seventeenth Century: Victory at Full Moon. Singapore: Springer, 2017.
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Sep 20, 2022
Professor Maura Dykstra on Her New Book ”Uncertainty in the Empire of Routine: The Administrative Revolution of the Eighteenth-Century Qing State” (Governing China, Part 2)
Professor Maura Dykstra of Caltech joins us today to talk about her new book titled Uncertainty in the Empire of Routine: The Administrative Revolution of the Eighteenth-Century Qing State. According to the publisher, the book "investigates the administrative revolution of China’s eighteenth-century Qing state. It begins in the mid-seventeenth century with what seemed, at the time, to be straightforward policies to clean up the bureaucracy: a regulation about deadlines here, a requirement about reporting standards there. Over the course of a hundred years, the central court continued to demand more information from the provinces about local administrative activities. By the middle of the eighteenth century, unprecedented amounts of data about local offices throughout the empire existed.
The result of this information coup was a growing discourse of crisis and decline. Gathering data to ensure that officials were doing their jobs properly, it turned out, repeatedly exposed new issues requiring new forms of scrutiny. Slowly but surely, the thicket of imperial routines and standards binding together local offices, provincial superiors, and central ministries shifted the very epistemological foundations of the state. A vicious cycle arose whereby reporting protocols implemented to solve problems uncovered more problems, necessitating the collection of more information. At the very moment that the Qing knew more about itself than ever before, the central court became certain that it had entered an age of decline."
Contributors
Maura Dykstra
Professor Maura Dykstra is an Assistant Professor of History at Caltech. As a historian of Late Imperial China, her research interests are on bureaucratic, economic, and legal institutions of empire and their implications for political and social interactions in quotidian contexts. Professor Dykstra received her PhD from UCLA and was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard's Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies. In addition, she has held numerous residential fellowships and visiting positions in Europe and Asia. Starting in Fall of 2023, Professor Dykstra will begin a new position as Assistant Professor of Chinese History at Yale University.
Yiming Ha
Yiming Ha is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at the University of California, Los Angeles. His current research is on military mobilization and state-building in China between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries, focusing on how military institutions changed over time, how the state responded to these changes, the disconnect between the center and localities, and the broader implications that the military had on the state. His project highlights in particular the role of the Mongol Yuan in introducing an alternative form of military mobilization that radically transformed the Chinese state. He is also interested in military history, nomadic history, comparative Eurasian state-building, and the history of maritime interactions in early modern East Asia. He received his BA from UCLA and his MPhil from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
Credits
Episode No. 15
Release date: September 20, 2022
Recording location: Los Angeles, CA
Transcript
Bibliography courtesy of Professor Dykstra
Images
Cover Image: Cover of Professor Dykstra's book, which can be purchased directly from the publisher or from Amazon.
A 1771 prisoner's register from Ba County. Fig. 6 in the book with the following description: "Draft of a 1771 prisoner register produced by the Ba County magistrate." It is document 清 006-01-03710 in the Sichuan Provincial Archives' Ba County collection. Photo provided by Professor Dykstra. References Bartlett, Beatrice S. Monarchs and Ministers: The Grand Council in Mid-Ch’ing China,1723–1820. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991. Fitzgerald, Devin T. "The Ming Open Archive and the Global Reading of Early Modern China." Ph. D. diss. Harvard University, 2020. Hucker, Charles O. The Censorial System of Ming China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1966. Kuhn, Philip A. Origins of the Modern Chinese State. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003. Mokros, Emily. The Peking gazette in late imperial China: state news and political authority in late imperial China. University of Washington Press, 2020. Wu, Silas H. L. Communication and Imperial Control in China: The Evolution of the Palace Memorial System 1693–1735. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970. ———. “Transmission of Ming Memorials and the Evolution of the Transmission Network, 1368-1627.” T’oung Pao 54, no. 4–5 (January 1968): 275–87. Will, Pierre-Étienne. Official Handbooks and Anthologies for Officials in Imperial China: A Descriptive and Critical Bibliography. Brill, 2020. Zhang, Ting. Circulating the Code: print media and legal knowledge in Qing China. University of Washington Press, 2020.
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Aug 21, 2022
The Ming Bureaucracy and its Practices: A Conversation with Professor Chelsea Wang (Governing China, Part 1)
China has a long bureaucratic history and tradition, and the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) was no exception. The Ming was one of the largest empires in the world at the time and it established a large and complex bureaucracy to govern it. In this episode, Professor. Chelsea Wang talks to us about some of the bureaucratic practices, which might seem strange to us today, that the Ming employed to keep the empire running.
Governing China is a new series that explores the various bureaucratic institutions and administrative policies that the various Chinese dynasties employed to govern their empires.
Contributors
Chelsea Wang
Professor Chelsea Wang is an Assistant Professor of History at Claremont McKenna College. As a historian of late imperial China, Professor Wang’s research focuses on the intersection between communication and governance in premodern empires. Her current manuscript project is titled Logistics of Empire: Governance and Spatial Friction in Ming China, 1368-1644, and it examines how the Ming dynasty maintained control over its vast territories using certain administrative practices that modern observers often find counterintuitive and strange.
Yiming Ha
Yiming Ha is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at the University of California, Los Angeles. His current research is on military mobilization and state-building in China between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries, focusing on how military institutions changed over time, how the state responded to these changes, the disconnect between the center and localities, and the broader implications that the military had on the state. His project highlights in particular the role of the Mongol Yuan in introducing an alternative form of military mobilization that radically transformed the Chinese state. He is also interested in military history, nomadic history, comparative Eurasian state-building, and the history of maritime interactions in early modern East Asia. He received his BA from UCLA and his MPhil from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
Credits
Episode No. 14
Release date: August 21, 2022
Recording location: Vancouver, Canada/Los Angeles, CA
Transcript
Bibliography courtesy of Professor Wang
Images
Cover Image: Section of a Ming officials' handbook showing a map of territorial government offices in Zhejiang province (Image Courtesy of Harvard-Yenching Library's Digital Collections)
Structure of the Ming bureaucracy (Image Source)
Conceptual map of the Ming territorial bureaucracy (Image by Professor Wang)
Deadlines for newly appointed officials to arrive at their locations of service. The red star indicates the location of Beijing, the imperial capital (Image by Professor Wang. Please do not cite or circulate without permission)
A memorial reproduced in a Ming literary collection. This memorial, written by the controversial Grand Secretary Zhang Juzheng and addressed to the Wanli emperor, contains information about Zhang's speed of travel when he returned to Huguang province to bury his recently deceased father (Image Courtesy of Harvard-Yenching Library's Digital Collections)
Section of a Ming officials' handbook showing information about individual administrative units in Zhejiang province. The text contains information about each prefecture's tax quota, subordinate counties, distance from Beijing, and arrival deadlines for officials traveling from Beijing (Image Courtesy of Harvard-Yenching Library's Digital Collections)
References
Dardess, John W. Ming China, 1368-1644: A Concise History of a Resilient Empire. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2012.
Guo Hong 郭红 and Jin Runcheng 靳润成. Zhongguo xingzheng quhua tongshi: Mingdai Juan 中国行政区划通史: 明代卷. Shanghai: Fudan daxue chubanshe, 2007.
Hucker, Charles O. “Governmental Organization of the Ming Dynasty.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 21 (1958): 1–66.
Nimick, Thomas G. Local Administration in Ming China: The Changing Role of Magistrates, Prefects, and Provincial Officials. Minneapolis: Society for Ming Studies, 2008.
Schneewind, Sarah. “Pavilions to Celebrate Honest Officials: An Authenticity Dilemma in Fifteenth-Century China.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 65, no. 1-2 (2022): 164–213.
Shen Bin 申斌. “Mingdai Guanwenshu jiegou jiedu yu xingzheng liucheng fuyuan: yi Shandong jinghuilu de zuanxiu wei li” 明代官文书结构解读与行政流程复原—以《山东经会录》的纂修为例. Anhui shifan daxue xuebao: renwen shehui kexue ban 44, no. 6 (2016): 749–56.
Wang, Chelsea Zi. “Dilemmas of Empire: Movement, Communication, and Information Management in Ming China, 1368-1644,” PhD diss., Columbia University, 2017.
Yu Jindong 余劲东 and Zhou Zhongliang 周中梁. “Mingdai chaojin kaocha chengxian zhi yanjiu: yi Tongma bian wei zhongxin de tantao” 明代朝觐考察程限之研究——以《铜马编》为中心的探讨. Lishi jiaoxue wenti (2015): 26, 69–73.
Zhang, Ying. Confucian Image Politics: Masculine Morality in Seventeenth-Century China. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2017.
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Jul 31, 2022
The Ming in the Southwest: Conquest, Rule, and Legacy
In 1381, Ming armies marched into Yunnan and Guizhou and within a year had deposed the Mongol Yuan's Prince of Liang, who had been enfeoffed there by the Yuan court. The Hongwu's emperor's decision to annex Yunnan and Guizhou and establish Ming administration there was unusual, for before the Mongols conquered it in the mid-1250s, the area had never been under the control of a China-based empire. It was more Southeast Asian in character than it was Chinese in character. Yet for decades, the scholarly community has neglected the study of the southwest. In this episode, Sean Cronan will discuss the Ming's rule in the region, how the early Ming court reshaped the interstate environment of Southwest China and Upper Mainland Southeast Asia, as well as some of the legacies that the early Ming left on the region.
Contributors
Sean Cronan
Sean Cronan is a Ph.D. student at the University of California, Berkeley. His work focuses on East and Southeast Asian diplomatic encounters from the thirteenth to eighteenth centuries, tracing the development of new shared diplomatic norms following the Mongol conquests of Eurasia, as well as how rulers and scholar-officials in the Ming (1368- 1644) and Qing Dynasties (1644-1911) institutionalized and challenged these new norms. He explores how ideas of multipolarity, regime legitimacy, and the makeup of the interstate order came under debate throughout the Mongol Empire, Ming China, the Qing Empire, Chosŏn Korea, Dai Viet (Northern Vietnam), Japan, the Ayutthaya Kingdom of Thailand, the Pagan Kingdom of Burma, and beyond. He works with sources in Chinese (literary Sinitic), Japanese, Thai, Burmese, Manchu, and Dutch.
Yiming Ha
Yiming Ha is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at the University of California, Los Angeles. His current research is on military mobilization and state-building in China between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries, focusing on how military institutions changed over time, how the state responded to these changes, the disconnect between the center and localities, and the broader implications that the military had on the state. His project highlights in particular the role of the Mongol Yuan in introducing an alternative form of military mobilization that radically transformed the Chinese state. He is also interested in military history, nomadic history, comparative Eurasian state-building, and the history of maritime interactions in early modern East Asia. He received his BA from UCLA and his MPhil from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
Credits
Episode No. 13
Release date: July 31, 2022
Recording location: Los Angeles/Berkeley, CA
Transcript
Bibliography courtesy of Sean Cronan
Images
Cover Image: A Buddhist monastery in Xishuangbanna (Sipsongpanna), located in Yunnan at the border with Laos and Myanmar. Note the distinct Southeast Asian style architecture. In Ming times this area was called Cheli 車里 and a native official ruled here on behalf of the Ming court. Today it is classified as an autonomous region for the Dai/Tai ethnic group. (Image Source)
https://i.imgur.com/tn3BrKI.jpg
A 1636 Ming map of Yunnan, from the Zhifang dayitong zhi 職方大一統志. Due to the large file size, it cannot be uploaded here. Please click on the link above to view it. The yellow rectangle denotes the location of Kunming, the prefectural seat of Yunnan. Red squares represent major settlements.
Map of the Möeng Maaw Empire at its greatest extent in 1398. . Areas in red were either governed by a Sa clan appointee or had long been conquered and integrated into the Maaw administrative structure. Areas in yellow were seized by more recent conquest or held only loosely. Map courtesy of Sean Cronan. Please do not cite or circulate.
A Yuan seal granted to the native official of Cheli. (Image Source)
References
Daniels, Christian. “The Mongol-Yuan in Yunnan and ProtoTai/Tai Polities during the 13th-14th Centuries.” Journal of the Siam Society, 106 (2018), 201-243.
Daniels, Christian and Jianxiong Ma, eds. The Transformation of Yunnan in Ming China: from the Dali Kingdom to Imperial Province. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2020.
Fernquest, Jon. “Crucible of War: Burma and the Ming in the Tai Frontier Zone (1382-1454).” SOAS Bulletin of Burma Research, 4:2 (2006), 27-90.
Giersch, Charles Patterson. Asian Borderlands: The Transformation of Qing China's Yunnan Frontier. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006.
Herman, John E. Amid the Clouds and Mist China’s Colonization of Guizhou, 1200–1700. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2007.
Robinson, David M. In the Shadow of the Mongol Empire: Ming China and Eurasia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020.
Yang, Bin. Between Winds and Clouds: The Making of Yunnan (Second Century BCE to Twentieth Century CE). New York: Columbia University Press, 2009.
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Jun 25, 2022
Professor Joanna Waley-Cohen on New Qing History
Since the 1990s, the New Qing History school has loomed large in the study of the Qing dynasty. It has greatly informed not only the study of the Qing but study of other dynasties as well. Yet what exactly is New Qing History? What is "new" about it? How did it come into being? How was it received in China and the West? To answer these questions, we talked to Professor Joanna Waley-Cohen of NYU, one of the leading scholars of the Qing dynasty.
Contributors
Joanna Waley-Cohen
Professor Joanna Waley-Cohen is the Provost for NYU Shanghai and Julius Silver Professor of History at New York University. Her research interests include early modern Chinese history, especially the Qing dynasty; China and the West; and Chinese imperial culture, particularly in the Qianlong era; warfare in China and Inner Asia; and Chinese culinary history, and she has authored several books and articles on these topics. In addition, Professor Waley-Cohen has received many honors, including archival and postdoctoral fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, Goddard and Presidential Fellowships from NYU, and an Olin Fellowship in Military and Strategic History from Yale.
Yiming Ha
Yiming Ha is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at the University of California, Los Angeles. His current research is on military mobilization and state-building in China between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries, focusing on how military institutions changed over time, how the state responded to these changes, the disconnect between the center and localities, and the broader implications that the military had on the state. His project highlights in particular the role of the Mongol Yuan in introducing an alternative form of military mobilization that radically transformed the Chinese state. He is also interested in military history, nomadic history, comparative Eurasian state-building, and the history of maritime interactions in early modern East Asia. He received his BA from UCLA and his MPhil from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
Credits
Episode no. 12
Release date: June 25, 2022
Recording location: Los Angeles, CA/New York, NY
Transcript
Bibliography courtesy of Professor Waley-Cohen
Images
Cover Image: The Qianlong Emperor, who reigned from 1735 to 1796. After he abdicated, he continued to retain power as retired emperor until his death in 1799. He is the longest-reigning monarch in Chinese history and one of the longest in the world (Image Source).
The headquarters of the First Historical Archives in Beijing, which houses documents from the Qing. The opening of this archive and access to the Manchu-language documents held within helped give birth to New Qing History. (Image Source)
A copy of a Qing-era civil service examination answer sheet. Note the Manchu script on the seal. Currently held in UCLA Library Special Collections (Photo by Yiming).
The Putuo Zongcheng Temple, a Buddhist temple in the Qing's Rehe Summer Resort (in today's Chengde, Hebei province). The temple was built between 1767 and 1771 by the Qianlong Emperor and was a replica of the Potala Palace in Lhasa. It is a fusion of Tibetan and Chinese architectural styles and is one of the most famous landmarks in the Chengde Summer Resort. (Image Source)
A painting of a European-style palace constructed by the Jesuits for the Qing emperors in the Old Summer Palace (Yuanmingyuan). Note the fusion of Chinese and European styles. The Old Summer Palace was looted and burned by Anglo-French forces in 1860. The twelve bronze head statutes in front of the building have mostly been repatriated back to China, although some are in the hands of private collectors. (Image Source)
The Qianlong Emperor commissioned a series of artwork commemorating the "Ten Great Campaigns" of his reign. This particular piece of artwork depicts the Battle of Thọ Xương River in 1788, when the Qing invaded Vietnam. These artworks were collaborative pieces between Chinese and Jesuit painters. (Image Source)
References
Patricia Berger, Empire of Emptiness: Buddhist Art and Political Authority in Qing China. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2003.
Pamela K. Crossley, A Translucent Mirror: History and Identity in Qing Imperial Ideology. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.
Mark C. Elliott, The Manchu Way: The Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001.
Johan Elverskog, Our Great Qing: The Mongols, Buddhists, and the State in Late Imperial China. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2006.
Philippe Foret, Mapping Chengde: The Qing Landscape Enterprise. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2000.
Jonathan S. Hay, Shitao: Painting and Modernity in Early Qing China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Ho Ping-ti, “The Significance of the Ch’ing Period in Chinese History,” Journal of Asian Studies 26.2 (1967): 189-95
Ho Ping-ti, “In Defense of Sinicization: A Rebuttal of Evelyn Rawski’s `Reenvisioning the Qing,’” Journal of Asian Studies 57.1 (1998): 123-55.
Laura Hostetler, Qing Colonial Enterprise: Ethnography and Cartography in Early Modern China. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.
Susan Mann, Precious Records: Women in China’s Long Eighteenth Century. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997.
James P. Millward, Beyond the Pass: Economy, Ethnicity, and Empire in Qing Central Asia, 1759-1864. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998.
Ronald C. Po, The Blue Frontier: Maritime Vision and Power in the Qing Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018.
Evelyn S. Rawski, The Last Emperors: A Social History of Qing Imperial Institutions. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.
Evelyn S. Rawski, “Presidential Address: Reenvisioning the Qing: The Significance of the Qing Period in Chinese History,” Journal of Asian Studies 55.4 (1996): 829-50.
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May 1, 2022
Wang Yangming and the School of Mind: An Interview with Professor George L. Israel
Wang Yangming 王陽明 (born Wang Shouren 王守仁, 1472-1529) is one of the most famous pre-modern Chinese intellectuals and the founder of the School of Mind (心學) of Neo-Confucianism, which was hugely influential in the later half of the Ming Dynasty. In addition to being philosopher, he was also an accomplished statesman, military leader, and calligrapher. In this episode, we speak with Professor George L. Israel, an expert on the study of Wang Yangming, who will introduce us to Wang's life and career, his thoughts and tenants, and his reception in the Ming and the Qing, as well as in neighboring Korea and Japan, and how Wang is viewed in China today.
We apologize for some audio issues with this recording.
Contributors
Professor George L. Israel
Professor George L. Israel is a Professor of History at Middle Georgia State University. His research is primarily on Ming intellectual history and Neo-Confucianism, with a particular focus on the famous Ming Neo-Confucian philosopher Wang Yangming, and he has published extensively about that subject in both English and Chinese.
Yiming Ha
Yiming Ha is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at the University of California, Los Angeles. His current research is on military mobilization and state-building in China between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries, focusing on how military institutions changed over time, how the state responded to these changes, the disconnect between the center and localities, and the broader implications that the military had on the state. His project highlights in particular the role of the Mongol Yuan in introducing an alternative form of military mobilization that radically transformed the Chinese state. He is also interested in military history, nomadic history, comparative Eurasian state-building, and the history of maritime interactions in early modern East Asia. He received his BA from UCLA and his MPhil from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
Credits
Episode no. 11
Release date: May 1, 2022
Recording location: Los Angeles, CA/Macon, GA
Transcript
Bibliography courtesy of Professor Israel
Images
Cover Image: An official portrait of Wang Yangming (Image Source)
Grand Hall of Wang Yangming's former residence in Shaoxing (Image Source)
Wang Yangming's tomb at Shaoxing (Image Source)
A copy of Wang Yangming's calligraphy, currently held at Princeton University (Image Source)
References
Bresciani, Umberto. Reinventing Confucianism: The New Confucian Movement. Taipei: Taipei Ricci Institute, 2001.
Ching, Julia. The Records of Ming Scholars. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1987.
Chow, Kai-wing. The Rise of Confucian Ritualism in Late Imperial China: Ethics, Classics, and Lineage Discourse. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994.
Chung, So-yi. “Korean Yangming Learning.” In Dao Companion to Korean Confucian Philosophy, 253-284. Edited by Young-chan Ro. Springer, 2019.
Israel, George L. Studying Wang Yangming: History of a Sinological Field. Kindle Direct Publishing, 2022.
____. “The Renaissance of Wang Yangming Studies in the People’s Republic of China.” Philosophy East and West 66, no. 3 (Jul. 2019): 1001-1019.
Jiao Kun 焦堃. Yangming xinxue yu Mingdai neige zhengzhi 陽明心學與明代内閣政治 (The Yangming school of mind and the politics of the grand secretariat during the Ming dynasty). Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 2021.
Ogyū Shigehiro 荻生茂博. “The Construction of ‘Modern Yōmeigaku’ in Meiji Japan and Its Impact on China.” Translated, with an introduction, by Barry D. Steben. East Asian History no. 20 (December 2000): 83–120.
Qian Ming 錢明. Wang Yangming ji qi xuepai lun kao 王陽明及其學派論考 (Verification of theories of Wang Yangming and his school of thought). Beijing: Renmin Chubanshe, 2009.
Zhang Kunjiang 張崑將. Yangmingxue zai dongya: quanshi, jiaoliu yu xingdong 陽明學在東亞:詮釋, 交流與行動 (Yangming learning in East Asia: interpretation, exchange, and action). Taipei: Guoli Taiwan Daxue Chuban Zhongxin, 2011.
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Apr 3, 2022
Diplomacy, War, and Interstate Order in the Late 13th century East Asia: A Reconsideration of the Mongol Invasions of Japan
The two Mongol-Yuan invasions of Japan (1274 and 1281) were important events in Japanese history. The two typhoons that destroyed the Mongol fleet, known as "divine wind," (shinpū 神風, better known today as kamikaze) would forever be etched into Japanese historical memory, directly influencing the so-called kamikaze suicide bombers of World War II. Most scholarship on the topic has focused primarily on the military aspect, but before and after the invasions there was also an intense diplomatic effort behind the scenes involving the Mongol-Yuan, Kamakura Japan, and Koryŏ Korea in an attempt to integrate Japan peacefully into the Mongol world order. In this episode, Greg speaks to USC PhD candidate Lina Nie about her dissertation research on this diplomatic effort. Lina will share with us some new perspectives on why the Mongols wanted to engage and ultimately invade Japan, what the diplomatic negotiations can tell us about the interstate order of East Asia during that time, and how her research both complements existing scholarship and adds a new layer in our understanding of the Mongol invasions of Japan.
Contributors
Lina Nie
Lina Nie is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at the University of Southern California. She graduated from the Hong Kong University with double majors in Chinese History and Japanese Studies and received her MA from Harvard University. Her research interests are on maritime, diplomatic, military, and cultural exchanges among China, Korea, and Japan. She is also interested in global history and comparative history in a broader geographical context that goes beyond East Asia. Her Japanese article discussing the traditions of Japanese culture won the second runner-up in the annual essay contest held by the Japanese Consulate General in New England in 2017.
Greg Sattler
Gregory Sattler is a Ph.D. student in the Department of History at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research focuses on sea merchants in East Asia from the ninth to thirteenth centuries, with a particular consideration of their place in society, their trade networks, and their relationships with government officials. Gregory has recently published an article titled “The Ideological Underpinnings of Private Trade in East Asia, ca. 800–1127” (Journal of Asian Humanities at Kyushu University 6) and he is currently working on two additional manuscripts. He has received degrees in Taiwan and Japan, and is a proficient speaker of both Chinese and Japanese.
Credits
Episode no. 10
Release date: April 3, 2022
Recording location: Los Angeles, CA
Transcript
Bibliography courtesy of Lina Nie
Images
Cover Image: The famous battle scene depicting the samurai Takezaki Suenaga escaping the Mongol forces. (Image Source)
Map of the two Mongol invasions. (Image Source)
A 1266 letter Khubilai sent to Japan. (Image Source)
Japanese samurai boarding a Yuan ship during the 1281 invasion. (Image Source)
References
Andrade, Tonio. The Gunpowder Age: China, Military Innovation, and the Rise of the West in World History. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2016.
Conlan, Thomas. In Little Need of Divine Intervention: Takezaki Suenaga’s Scrolls of the Mongol Invasions of Japan. Ithaca: Cornell University, 2001.
Fukuokashi maizō bunka zai 福岡市埋蔵文化財年報. Ed. Fukuokaken Kyoiku Iinkai福岡県教育委員会, vol. 274, 2019.
Kamakura ibun鎌倉遺文. Ed. Takeuchi Rizō竹内理三. Tokyo: Tōkyōdō Shuppan, 2008.
Cambridge History of Japan: Medieval Japan (vol. 3), eds. John Hall, Marius Jansen, Madoka Kanai, and Denis Twitchett. Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1990.
Kim Gu 金坵. Chipojip 止浦集. Han’guk munjip ch’onggan 韓國文集叢刊. Seoul: Minjok Munhwa Ch’ujinhoe, 1991.
Kuraki kaitei iseki hakkutsu chōsa gaihō 倉木崎海底遺跡発掘調査概報. Ed. Ukenson Kyoiku Iinkai宇検村教育委員会. 1993.
Mass, Jeffery. Yoritomo and the Founding of the Kamakura Bakufu. Stanford: Stanford University Press 1995.
Robinson, David. Empire’s Twilight: Northeast Asia Under the Mongols. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Yenching Monograph, 2009.
Cambridge History of China vol.6: Alien Regimes and Border States, eds. Herbert Franke and Denis Twitchett. Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1994.
Rossabi, Morris. Khubilai Khan: His Life and Times. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009.
Shultz, Edward. Generals and Scholars: Military Rule in Medieval Korea. Honolulu: University of Hwaii Press. 2000.
Wang, Sixiang. “What Tang Taizong Could Not Do: The Korean Surrender of 1259 and the Imperial Tradition.” T'oung Pao (2018), pp.338-383.
Yamauchi Shinji 山内晋次. Nichisō bōeki to iō no michi 日宋貿易と「硫黄の道」.Tokyo: Yamakawa Shuppansha, 2009.
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Mar 13, 2022
Rediscovering and Reconnecting: The Intellectual Exchange of Hui Muslims in the 19th and 20th Centuries
In the study of 19th and 20th century Chinese history, there is often focus on the intense Christian missionary activities happening in China. Yet at the same time, members of China's Hui (or Sino-Muslim) community were also beginning to reconnect with their co-religionists overseas. Armed with knowledge of Arabic, Persian, and Urdu and trained in Western orientalist discourses in new religious schools overseas, these Hui scholars began to "rediscover" aspects of Islam and in the process rewrite the history of Islam in China both for audiences within China and for a non-Chinese audience overseas. In this episode, we are joined by Professor Nile Green of UCLA to talk about how and why these exchanges took place and some of the implications of these exchanges.
Please also be sure to check out Professor Green's podcast "Akbar's Chamber" for monthly episodes on the history of Islam. Available on Apple Podcasts and all other major podcast platforms.
Contributors
Professor Nile Green
Professor Nile Green is a Professor of History and the Ibn Khaldun Endowed Chair in World History at UCLA. He works on the Islamic history of Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe, publishing numerous monographs and articles and editing seven books on a wide range of topics related to the history of Islam. His recent research interest is on the global history of Islam and Muslims, focusing on intellectual and technological interchange between Asia and Europe; Muslim global travel writings; the transnational genealogy of Afghan modernism; and the world history of 'Islamic' printing. He was a founding director of UCLA's Program on Central Asia and serves on many association and editorial boards. He is also the host of Akbar’s Chamber, a podcast that offers a non-political, non-sectarian and non-partisan space for exploring the past and present of Islam.
Yiming Ha
Yiming Ha is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at the University of California, Los Angeles. His current research is on military mobilization and state-building in China between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries, focusing on how military institutions changed over time, how the state responded to these changes, the disconnect between the center and localities, and the broader implications that the military had on the state. His project highlights in particular the role of the Mongol Yuan in introducing an alternative form of military mobilization that radically transformed the Chinese state. He is also interested in military history, nomadic history, comparative Eurasian state-building, and the history of maritime interactions in early modern East Asia. He received his BA from UCLA and his MPhil from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
Credits
Episode no. 9
Release date: March 13, 2022
Recording location: Los Angeles, CA
Bibliography courtesy of Professor Green
Images
Cover Image: Masjid at the Aligarh Muslim University (formerly Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College) in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India. It was founded by Sir Thomas Arnold and was (and still is) a major center of Islamic learning (Image Source).
A view of the Darul Uloom Nadwatul Ulama in Lucknow, India, an Islamic seminary where Hai Weiliang* studied (Image Source).
Sir Thomas Walker Arnold (1864-1930), a renowned British orientalist and Islamic scholar who wrote the famous The Preaching of Islam and The Encyclopedia of Islam. He founded the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College (now Aligarh Muslim University) and taught Syed Sulaiman Nadvi, who was the teacher of Hai Weiliang (Image Source).
Syed Sulaiman Nadvi (1884-1953), the teacher and educational patron of Hai Weiliang (Image Source).
* Sadly, no pictures of Hai Weiliang can be found.
References
Green, Nile. How Asia Found Herself: A Story of Intercultural Understanding. New Haven: Yale University Press, forthcoming 2022.
Benite, Zvi Ben-Dor. The Dao of Muhammad: A Cultural History of Muslims in Late Imperial China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2005.
Benite, Zvi Ben-Dor. “Taking ʿAbduh to China: Chinese-Egyptian Intellectual Contact in the Early Twentieth Century.” In James Gelvin and Nile Green (eds.), Global Muslims in the Age of Steam and Print, edited by James Gelvin and Nile Green, 249-267. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014.
Chen, John. “‘Just Like Old Friends’: The Significance of Southeast Asia to Modern Chinese Islam.” SOJOURN: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia 31, no. 3 (2016): 685–742.
Chen, John. “Islam’s Loneliest Cosmopolitan: Badr al-Din Hai Weiliang, the Lucknow-Cairo Connection, and the Circumscription of Islamic Transnationalism.” ReOrient: The Journal of Critical Muslim Studies 3/2 (2018): 121-139.
Chung, Tan & Ravni Thakur (eds). Across the Himalayan Gap: An Indian Quest for Understanding China. New Delhi: Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, 1998.
Henning, Stefan. “God’s Translator: Qu’ran Translation and the Struggle over a Written National Language in 1930s China.” Modern China 41, no. 6 (2015): 631-655.
Jahn, Karl. China in der islamischen Geschichtsschreibung. Vienna: Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1971.
Lipman, Jonathan N. Familiar Strangers: A History of Muslims in Northwest China. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997.
Mao, Yufeng. “A Muslim Vision for the Chinese Nation: Chinese Pilgrimage Missions to Mecca during World War II.” The Journal of Asian Studies 70, no. 2 (2011): 373–395.
Murata, Sachiko. “The Muslim Appropriate of Confucian Thought in Eighteenth-Century China.” Comparative Islamic Studies 7, no. 1-2 (2012): 13–22.
O’Sullivan, Michael. “Vernacular Capitalism and Intellectual History in a Gujarati Account of China, 1860–68.” The Journal of Asian Studies 80, no. 2 (2021): 267–292.
Park, Hyunhee. Mapping the Chinese and Islamic Worlds: Cross-Cultural Exchange in Pre-Modern Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Petersen, Kristian. Interpreting Islam in China: Pilgrimage, Scripture, and Language in the Han Kitab. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.
Sen, Tansen. India, China, and the World: A Connected History. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017.
Thum, Rian. The Sacred Routes of Uyghur History. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2014.
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Feb 13, 2022
Sino-Japanese Diplomatic Encounters from the 1st to the 9th Century
In this prequel to our first interview, UCLA Ph.D. student Greg Sattler talks about the diplomatic/tribute embassies that peoples and polities from the Japanese Archipelago dispatched to China from the 1st to the 9th centuries. While Japanese tribute embassies to China mainly evoke the missions that Japan dispatched to Tang China in the 8th and 9th centuries, diplomacy between China and Japan had been going on well before then. Greg talks about the evidence for these earlier embassies, why they happened, the role of the Korean Peninsula in facilitating exchange, why the Japanese decided to dispatched embassies to learn from Tang China, and why these embassies stopped in the late 9th century.
Contributors
Greg Sattler
Gregory Sattler is a Ph.D. student in the Department of History at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research focuses on sea merchants in East Asia from the ninth to thirteenth centuries, with a particular consideration of their place in society, their trade networks, and their relationships with government officials. Gregory has recently published an article titled “The Ideological Underpinnings of Private Trade in East Asia, ca. 800–1127” (Journal of Asian Humanities at Kyushu University 6) and he is currently working on two additional manuscripts. He has received degrees in Taiwan and Japan, and is a proficient speaker of both Chinese and Japanese.
Yiming Ha
Yiming Ha is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at the University of California, Los Angeles. His current research is on military mobilization and state-building in China between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries, focusing on how military institutions changed over time, how the state responded to these changes, the disconnect between the center and localities, and the broader implications that the military had on the state. His project highlights in particular the role of the Mongol Yuan in introducing an alternative form of military mobilization that radically transformed the Chinese state. He is also interested in military history, nomadic history, comparative Eurasian state-building, and the history of maritime interactions in early modern East Asia. He received his BA from UCLA and his MPhil from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
Credits
Episode no. 8
Release date: February 13, 2022
Recording location: Los Angeles, CA
Transcript
Bibliography courtesy of Greg
Images
Cover Image: A 6th century Chinese depiction of a Wa (Wo) envoy from Japan (Image Source).
The golden seal, discovered in Kyushu, bearing the same inscriptions as one described in Chinese textual sources that was bestowed upon a Wa (Wo) embassy by Emperor Guangwu of Eastern Han in 57 CE (Image Source).
Bronze mirrors (Shinjū-kyō) uncovered in Japan. These mirrors are referenced in Chinese historical sources as gifts to the embassy of Himiko (Image Source).
A model of the type of ships that the Japanese dispatched to Tang China (Image Source).
References
Barnes, Gina L. State Formation in Japan: Essays on Yayoi and Kofun Period Archaeology. London: Routledge Curzon, 2003.
Fogel, Joshua A. Japanese Historiography and the Gold Seal of 57 CE: Relic, Text, Object, Fake. Leiden: Brill, 2013.
Holcombe, Charles. The Genesis of East Asia, 221 BC-AD 907. University of Hawai‘i Press, 2001.
Kidder, Edward J. Himiko and Japan's Elusive Chiefdom of Yamatai: Archaeology, History, and Mythology. University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2007.
Saeki, Arikiyo. Treatise on the People of Wa in the Chronicle of the Kingdom of Wei: The World's Earliest Written Text on Japan. Trans. Joshua A. Fogel. Portland: Merwin Asia, 2018.
Sui shu 隋書. Comp. Wei Zheng 魏徵. 85 vols. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/隋書.
Suzuki Yasutami 鈴木靖民. “Wa to Chōsen Sankoku to Kaya” 倭と朝鮮三国と加耶. In Nihon kodai kōryūshi nyūmon 日本古代交流史入門, ed. Suzuki Yasutami 鈴木靖民, Kaneko Shūichi 金子修一, Tanaka Fumio 田中史生, and Ri Sonshi 李成市. Bensei Shuppan, 2017.
Wang, Zhenping. Ambassadors from the Islands of Immortals: China-Japan Relations in the Han-Tang Period. University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2005.
Wang, Zhenping. Tang China in Multi-Polar Asia: A History of Diplomacy and War. University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2013.
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Jan 29, 2022
New Narratives on the Late Ming Military: An Interview with Professor Kenneth Swope
For a long time, Ray Huang's influential book 1587: A Year of No Significance has colored our imagination of the Late Ming, painting the Ming as a state that was stagnant and in decline. Traditional historiography usually focuses on the poor finances of the Ming state, its inability to pay troops, its poor military performance against the peasant rebels and the Manchus, and its factionalism. While all these are true to an extent, more recent scholarships have also uncovered another side to the late Ming - one of military success and military innovation. Professor Kenneth Swope, an expert on Ming military history and author of numerous monographs and articles on the topic, joins us to talk about these new narratives of the late Ming's successes and failures.
Contributors
Professor Kenneth Swope
Professor Kenneth Swope is a Professor of History & Senior Fellow of the Dale Center for the Study of War & Society at the University of Southern Mississippi. He is an expert on Chinese milita…
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Jan 12, 2022
Feeding and Supplying the World’s Largest City: The Environmental Impact of Northern Song Kaifeng
The Northern Song (960-1127) capital city of Kaifeng (also known as Bianjing or Dongjing) was the largest city in the medieval world. Its population surpassed the previous capitals of Chang'an and Luoyang and dwarfed contemporary world cities such as Baghdad and Constantinople. At its peak, Kaifeng boasted a population of well over a million people and was home to hundreds of thousands of soldiers. It was also the central node of vast transportation network consisting of rivers, canals, and roads and as a result became a huge commercial center. It's wealth and prosperity has been immortalized in the famous painting Qingming shanghe tu (清明上河圖), which offers various depictions of daily life in the bustling city. Yet at what cost was this prosperity achieved? How was this vast city supplied? How did Kaifeng's consumption, and by extension the Northern Song's rapid economic and technological development as whole, impact the environment and change ecological features? And in our o…
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Dec 26, 2021
The Mongol-Yuan Conquest of the Southern Song
We hope everyone had a good Christmas! In this episode, Yiming Ha will give an introduction to the forty-four year war between the Mongol-Yuan and the Southern Song. This was one of the longest wars the Mongols had to fight against an adversary and the Southern Song was among the states that put up the longest resistance against the Mongols. This topic is covered very extensively in Chinese language scholarship, but has not received too much detailed attention in English language scholarship. Yiming will talk about the general course of the war, some of the major engagements, the kind of weapons that were used, and some of the implications that this war had on other Mongol conquests and campaigns in Eurasia. Note: There is a mistake at 12:09 - when Yiming said November, it should actually be December.
Contributors
Yiming Ha
Yiming Ha is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at the University of California, Los Angeles. His current research is on military mobilization and st…
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Dec 12, 2021
The Tributary System and Chosŏn-Ming Relations: A Conversation with Professor Sixiang Wang
In our previous episodes, the term "tributary system" has come up a few times, yet we've never had the opportunity to explain what exactly it is. To better shed light on this topic, and as part of our exploration of Chinese diplomacy, we interviewed Professor Sixiang Wang, an Assistant Professor of Korean history at UCLA who specializes in the diplomatic relationship between Chosŏn Korea and Ming China and Early Modern East Asia. In this episode, Professor Wang will first explain what the tributary system is as a historiographical concept and how it is often used to view China's diplomatic engagement with the outside world, before giving us a more detailed look into the diplomacy between Chosŏn and Ming and how this diplomatic interaction complicates the simple narrative of the tributary system.
P.S. Don't forget to check out this awesome podcast on the steppe nomads at Nomads and Empires!
Contributors
Sixiang Wang
Sixiang Wang is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Asian…
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Nov 27, 2021
King Kwong Wong on Koryŏ Korea Under Mongol-Yuan Domination
In 1231, Mongol forces invaded the Korean Peninsula, beginning almost three decades of warfare against the Koryŏ Kingdom. In 1258, the Koryŏ court finally surrendered and the kingdom became a part of the Mongol Empire. King Kwong Wong, an independent scholar who specializes in the relationship between the Mongol-Yuan and Koryŏ, joins us to give a brief look into this fascinating period in Korean history. He will talk about why Koryŏ surrendered to the Mongol-Yuan, how the Mongols integrated Koryŏ into their empire, what that relationship came to look like, and how Koryŏ dealt with the fall of the Mongols in the second half of the fourteenth century.
Contributors:
King Kwong Wong
King Kwong Wong is an independent scholar who received his Master's Degree in Chinese History from the University of Southern California. He is now working as a part-time lecturer at the Hong Kong University's School of Professional and Continuing Education. His research focuses on Koryŏ Korea during…
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Nov 25, 2021
New Perspectives on the Zheng He Voyages: A Conversation with Sean Cronan
In this episode, Sean talks about some of the new scholarships and perspectives on the famous Zheng He voyages. Zheng He is widely known to history as the eunuch admiral who led several large-scale voyages to Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean. For many Chinese, the story of Zheng He and his travels to the Indian Ocean (鄭和下西洋) is often seen as a symbol of China's friendship and diplomatic and commercial engagement with Southeast Asian, the Indian Ocean, and east African polities. For many in the West, Zheng He's voyages represent a period in time when China dominated the maritime world. But for both Chinese and Western audiences, the end of the voyages in the 1430s marked the end of China's engagement with the maritime world and is often viewed as the Ming's turn towards isolationism. However, new scholarships have emerged challenging this narrative. Sean discusses how these scholarships have led us to reevaluate the Zheng He voyages and what we can learn about the early Min…
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Oct 31, 2021
The Rise of Merchants: Maritime Sea Trade in East Asia in the 10th to 12th centuries
In our very first episode, Greg talks about some aspects of his research on the growing role of Chinese merchants in the East Asian sea trade between the 10th to 12th centuries. Diplomacy from the 7th to 9th centuries was dominated by official embassies that neighboring states dispatched to the Sui-Tang courts, but after the fall of the Tang dynasty in the early 10th century, private merchants from southeastern China began to dominate the maritime trading routes to Japan, Korean, and Southeast Asia. Greg shares with us some information about why that came to be, where these merchants came from, where they show up in the textual records, and some of the implications that this had for Sino-Japanese relations.
We apologize for some of the audio quality in this episode. We are just starting out and we are working to improve our audio quality!
Contributors:
Greg Sattler
Gregory Sattler is a Ph.D. student in the Department of History at the University of California, Los Angeles. His rese…
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