S02E01 Reintroducing the Chinese Revolutions Podcast This is a rambling episode pushed out to get the ball rolling, getting this podcast going again. The next big thing on the agenda is the Boxer Rebellion. We'll do some episodes in the run up to the Boxer Rebellion, and then we'll spend some good time on the next major revolutionary inflection point before the Qing Dynasty is taken out with the garbage. The Boxer Rebellion is going to illustrate the problems of the people and the political classes of China, both with sclerotic domestic conditions and intrusive, oppressive foreign intervention ..read more

S01E40 Fast Forwarding to the End of the Taiping Rebellion In this episode, I take a rambling skim through several chapters of Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom. There is a lot of content I want to get to, other than the blow by blow of the Taiping Rebellion. I'm fast forwarding to the end of this one so we can get through it and get on to other revolutions. We'll still be doing things with this book, because it has a lot of material related to the period after the Taiping Rebellion, but the emphasis will be on what comes after, rather than the Taiping Rebellion. If You'd Like to Support the ..read more

S01E39 Taiping Rebellion: Siege of Anqing, On the Edge of a Knife Some points of review on where we left the Taiping Rebellion story. We're getting back into the Taiping Rebellion. We'll be following the story of Zeng Guofan most closely. For Zeng Guofan, dogged determination and luck keep him in the game. If You'd Like to Support the Podcast Subscribe, share, leave a rating. Give once, give monthly at www.buymeacoffee.com/crpodcast Subscribe to the substack newsletter at https://chineserevolutions.substack.com/ Also... Please reach out at chineserevolutions@gmail.com and let me know what yo ..read more

S01E38 We're Back! Thoughts on the Future of the Podcast We're back from break! While I've been away, I've still been doing reading on China and thinking about the podcast, thinking about how to keep moving it forward. I'll probably move to a more modular approach: 2-3 episodes on a topic, a person, an event. Episodes to tie the narrative together. Also a lot on international context, the world in which Chinese revolutionaries are seeking to reconstitute the Chinese state. Lately I've been reading Street Without Joy by Bernard Fall, covering the French go at having a Vietnam War in the ea ..read more

S01E31 Taiping Rebellion: Zeng Guofan Starts Attacking In this episode, we go over the organization of Zeng Guofan's army and the first few years of his campaigns against the Taiping rebels. We are following the book Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War by Stephen R. Platt for this episode. Motivating the Army Zeng Guofan's army recruited in Hunan had local loyalties, but not a strong attachment to the emperor. The soldiers were well paid to shore up their personal motivation to fight well and not steal from locals in areas they moved thr ..read more

S01E36 Taiping Rebellion: Other Foreign Visitors to the Taiping In this episode, we look at more of the visitors to Hong Rengan, effective foreign minister for the Taiping. First is Griffith John, a Welsh missionary. He came on a factfinding mission to see what Nanjing was like under the Taiping. He thought the Taiping were very wrong, religiously speaking, but he thought he saw an opportunity for missionary work, were they to win the war. Yung Wing, an American-educated young Chinese man, came to look at the part of China held by the Taiping and ultimately used the opportunity to get access t ..read more

S01E35 Taiping Rebellion: Issachar Roberts In the present look at Hong Rengan in the Taiping hierarchy, we are looking at some of the foreigners who drifted over to the Taiping side. This episode focuses on eccentric loose cannon missionary Issachar Roberts. In this episode, we see an example of how the Taiping were a little "too Chinese" to make a successful revolution: they focused too much on maintaining the appearance of being a traditional Chinese dynasty to fully digest useful foreign ideas, science, and technology. Issachar Roberts went in thinking he was going to be a mentor to the lea ..read more

S01E28 Taiping Rebellion: Unequal Treaties and Modernizing China This week, we're talking about how the unequal treaties forced on China during the Second Opium War further clarified anti-imperialism as a driver in later Chinese revolutions. Foreign powers readily turned to force to push things along in China whenever dialogue got stuck. Force had worked before, and they thought force was the only language that the Chinese consistently understood. Foreign Powers' Neutrality in Taiping Rebellion Conflict Part of this episode will follow Lord Elgin's travels up and down the Yangtze River. Britis ..read more

S01E27 Taiping Rebellion: Second Opium War-Storming the Dagu Forts As part of the ongoing series on the Taiping Rebellion, we're taking a look at the storming of the Dagu Forts, which guarded the waterway approaching Beijing. While the civil war between official Qing forces and Taiping rebels was going on, the foreign powers decided to push their own issues with the Qing government. Of interest to us is how this reduced the prestige and authority of the Qing Dynasty. While the Taiping Rebellion ultimately failed, it advanced the specific understanding of later revolutionaries who would overthr ..read more

S01E32 Taiping Rebellion: Zeng Guofan Perfects His Strategy In this episode, we see Zeng Guofan start to get a grip on the task of fighting the Taiping Rebellion. He has to balance between the political necessities of showing his troops that fighting far from home is a way to protect home and achieving strategic results for the emperor. Zeng Guofan additionally is promoted to regular positions in the Qing hierarchy that give him control over competing regular army units and local militias and sources of supplies for his troops. Old Chinese saying, “When the general is outside the capital, the ..read more