The Making of Modern China

Trailer: The Making of Modern China

Wed, 31 Dec 2025 23:00:00 +0000

Between 1793 and 1916, the Qing empire meets Western traders and their guns, rebellion at home and Japan, and tries to change fast enough to survive.

S1 Episode 1 - "The Kneeling Question"

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

In September 1793, at the emperor's summer retreat at Chengde, Lord Macartney, the first British ambassador ever sent to China, is told he must kneel three times and touch his head to the ground nine times before the Qianlong Emperor, and he refuses. The episode follows Macartney and the twelve year old page George Staunton, the only Briton in the party learning Chinese, from the government's instructions and the long voyage to the morning of the audience, and asks what Britain wanted and why a bow mattered so much to both sides. It leans heavily on the embassy's own British accounts; the court is heard only through a few of its orders about the envoys.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1793-1834/e1/

Sources

Hosea Ballou Morse, The Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to China, 1635-1834, Volume II (1926), pp. 212-214, 214-216, 216-217, 217-219, 219-221, 222-224, 232-233, 233-234, 234-236, 236-237, 237-238, 238-240, 240-241, 241-243, 243-244, 244-246, 246-247, https://archive.org/details/chroniclesofeast0000hose_h7m0
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume I: The Period of Conflict, 1834-1860 (1910), p. 62-63, https://archive.org/details/internationalrel01mors
John Barrow, Travels in China (1804), p. 195-197, https://archive.org/details/b22012928
Sir George Staunton, An Authentic Account of an Embassy from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China, Volume II (1797), pp. 130-132, 135-137, https://archive.org/details/authenticaccount02stau
Stephen R. Platt, Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age (2018), pp. 12-16, 16-18, 18-20, 20-21, 21-23, 23-24, 24-26, 26-27, 27-29, 31-32, 32-34, 34-36, 37-39, 160-162
William T. Rowe, China's Last Empire: The Great Qing (2009), p. 145-147

S1 Episode 2 - "No Need of Your Manufactures"

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 01:00:00 +0000

The Qianlong Emperor, eighty two years old and on the throne for nearly sixty years, has to answer the British, and his answer to every request Macartney brings is no. The episode follows the emperor's verdict and Macartney's long overland journey south, and gives full airtime to the season's first great question: was the refusal the blindness of an empire that could not see the modern world coming, or the considered policy of a confident and well informed court. It hears the court in its own edicts alongside Macartney's account.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1793-1834/e2/

Sources

Hosea Ballou Morse, The Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to China, 1635-1834, Volume II (1926), pp. 219-221, 224-225, 225-227, 227-228, 228-229, 232-233, 234-236, 238-240, 244-246, 247-249, 249-250, 250-251, 251-253, https://archive.org/details/chroniclesofeast0000hose_h7m0
John Barrow, Travels in China (1804), pp. 119-121, 195-197, https://archive.org/details/b22012928
Stephen R. Platt, Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age (2018), pp. 12-16, 18-20, 32-34, 34-36, 36-37, 37-39, 39-40, 40-42, 46-48, 214-216
William T. Rowe, China's Last Empire: The Great Qing (2009), p. 145-147

S1 Episode 3 - "One Port, A Few Firms"

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 02:00:00 +0000

Every ship from the West must trade at Canton, through a customs chief called the Hoppo and a handful of licensed Chinese firms, the hong merchants, who answer for every foreigner and every debt. The episode follows James Flint, the Englishman who broke the rules in 1759 by sailing north to complain to the emperor, and then Shy Kinqua, a hong merchant ruined by his debts to the foreigners, to show how the Canton system worked and who paid when it failed. It leans almost entirely on the East India Company's own records; the hong merchants are heard only through what the Company wrote about them.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1793-1834/e3/

Sources

Hosea Ballou Morse, The Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to China, 1635-1834, Volume II (1926), pp. 227-228, 228-229, 247-249, 251-253, 255-257, 260-261, 261-263, 263-265, 270-271, 271-273, 277-279, 279-280, 297-299, 299-300, 300-302, https://archive.org/details/chroniclesofeast0000hose_h7m0
Hosea Ballou Morse, The Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to China, 1635-1834, Volume IV (1926), pp. 293-294, 317-319, 319-320, https://archive.org/details/chroniclesofeast0004hose
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume I: The Period of Conflict, 1834-1860 (1910), https://archive.org/details/internationalrel01mors
Paul A. Van Dyke, The Canton Trade: Life and Enterprise on the China Coast, 1700-1845 (2005), pp. 13-14, 16-17
Stephen R. Platt, Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age (2018), pp. 3-5, 5-6, 6-8, 8-9, 39-40, 40-42

S1 Episode 4 - "The Retired Emperor"

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 03:00:00 +0000

The Qianlong Emperor gives up the throne to his son so as not to reign longer than his grandfather, but goes on ruling, and his son, the Jiaqing Emperor, waits three years in his shadow while the White Lotus rebellion spreads through the hills and the favourite Heshen grows rich. The episode follows Jiaqing from his accession to the old man's death and his first act of real power, the fall of Heshen, and asks what kind of empire he inherited. It is the season's richest episode in Chinese voices, with the court's own records and the rebels and critics heard alongside the Company's.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1793-1834/e4/

Sources

Hosea Ballou Morse, The Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to China, 1635-1834, Volume II (1926), pp. 260-261, 270-271, 271-273, 273-274, 274-275, 275-277, 300-302, 322-323, https://archive.org/details/chroniclesofeast0000hose_h7m0
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume I: The Period of Conflict, 1834-1860 (1910), https://archive.org/details/internationalrel01mors
John Barrow, Travels in China (1804), p. 388-389, https://archive.org/details/b22012928
Julia Lovell, The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China (2011)
Paul A. Van Dyke, The Canton Trade: Life and Enterprise on the China Coast, 1700-1845 (2005), p. 16-17
Stephen R. Platt, Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age (2018), pp. 6-8, 8-9, 39-40, 46-48, 49-51, 51-53, 53-54, 54-56, 56-57, 57-59, 59-61, 61-62, 62-64, 64-65, 65-68, 76-77, 93-96, 96-97, 97-99, 99-100, 116-118

S1 Episode 5 - "The Law at Canton"

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 04:00:00 +0000

George Staunton, the page who spoke Chinese to Qianlong, comes back to Canton in 1800 as a junior clerk of the East India Company and becomes the one Briton who can read the empire's laws. The episode follows him and Robert Morrison, a young missionary who arrives in 1807 to learn the forbidden language, through the new ban on opium and the killings that test whose law rules at Canton, and asks how far the Qing could make foreigners answer to it. It leans heavily on the Company's own records, with the court heard in its edicts on opium.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1793-1834/e5/

Sources

Hosea Ballou Morse, The Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to China, 1635-1834, Volume II (1926), pp. 322-323, 326-328, 333-335, 335-336, 336-338, 338-339, 339-341, 341-342, 342-343, 344-345, 345-346, 364-366, 367-369, https://archive.org/details/chroniclesofeast0000hose_h7m0
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume I: The Period of Conflict, 1834-1860 (1910), p. 175-176, https://archive.org/details/internationalrel01mors
Hosea Ballou Morse, The Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to China, 1635-1834, Volume III (1926), https://archive.org/download/dli.csl.6787/6787.pdf
Stephen R. Platt, Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age (2018), pp. 65-68, 75-76, 76-77, 79-81, 84-85, 85-87, 87-88, 93-96, 96-97, 97-99, 99-100, 120-121, 121-123, 123-125, 125-126

S1 Episode 6 - "Pirates and an Admiral"

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 05:00:00 +0000

In the first decade of the century a confederation of pirates commands the south China coast, and after its leader dies his widow, Zheng Yi Sao, takes it over, while a British admiral, William O'Brien Drury, lands troops at Macau to keep the French out and nearly starts a war. The episode follows both through the years when the Qing could not police its own waters, and asks how the court got both the pirates and the British to back down without winning a battle. It is one of the few episodes with Chinese public voices on the pirates, alongside the court's and the Company's.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1793-1834/e6/

Sources

Hosea Ballou Morse, The Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to China, 1635-1834, Volume II (1926), pp. 333-335, 342-343, 369-370, 372-374, 380-382, https://archive.org/details/chroniclesofeast0000hose_h7m0
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume I: The Period of Conflict, 1834-1860 (1910), pp. 42-44, 404-405, https://archive.org/details/internationalrel01mors
Hosea Ballou Morse, The Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to China, 1635-1834, Volume III (1926), https://archive.org/download/dli.csl.6787/6787.pdf
Stephen R. Platt, Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age (2018), pp. 71-73, 88-90, 90-92, 92-93, 93-96, 103-105, 105-106, 108-110, 110-111, 111-113, 114-116, 120-121, 123-125, 227-229
Yuan Yonglun, translated by Charles Fried. Neumann, History of the Pirates who Infested the China Sea from 1807 to 1810 (1831), pp. 95-98, 103-105, https://archive.org/details/historyofpirates00yarich

S1 Episode 7 - "Rebels in the Palace"

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 06:00:00 +0000

In 1813 rebels break into the Forbidden City and are fought off by the emperor's own son, the future Daoguang Emperor, and the Jiaqing Emperor blames himself, while at Canton the court begins to suspect that George Staunton, now the Company's leading man, knows too much. The episode follows Jiaqing and Staunton through the years from 1811 to 1815, as Britain renews the Company's China monopoly and the court arrests the Chinese who work with foreigners, and asks whether these were years of decline or of a court tightening its grip. It leans on Company records and scholars; the court's own voice is thin here.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1793-1834/e7/

Sources

Hosea Ballou Morse, The Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to China, 1635-1834, Volume II (1926), pp. 326-328, 342-343, https://archive.org/details/chroniclesofeast0000hose_h7m0
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume I: The Period of Conflict, 1834-1860 (1910), p. 404-405, https://archive.org/details/internationalrel01mors
Hosea Ballou Morse, The Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to China, 1635-1834, Volume III (1926), p. 286, https://archive.org/download/dli.csl.6787/6787.pdf
Robert Morrison, Translations from the Original Chinese, with Notes (1815), p. 5, https://archive.org/details/translationsfrom00morruoft
Stephen R. Platt, Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age (2018), pp. 20-21, 34-36, 75-76, 84-85, 85-87, 87-88, 103-105, 120-121, 138-140, 140-141, 145-146, 146-149, 149-150, 152-153, 192-194, 203-206, 206-208, 208-209, 209-211, 245-246

S1 Episode 8 - "The Second Embassy"

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 07:00:00 +0000

In 1816 Lord Amherst sails for Beijing to try again where Macartney failed, with George Staunton as his adviser and Robert Morrison as interpreter, and the Jiaqing court is determined this time to have the kowtow. The episode follows Amherst and Staunton through instructions that pull different ways, a fortnight of argument over the ritual and a night ride to the Summer Palace that ends with the embassy thrown out without an audience, and asks why it ended even worse than Macartney's. It hears the court in the emperor's own vermilion edict alongside the Company and the British government.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1793-1834/e8/

Sources

Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume I: The Period of Conflict, 1834-1860 (1910), p. 1814-66, https://archive.org/details/internationalrel01mors
Hosea Ballou Morse, The Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to China, 1635-1834, Volume III (1926), pp. 284-285, 285-286, 286, https://archive.org/download/dli.csl.6787/6787.pdf
Robert Morrison, Translations from the Original Chinese, with Notes (1815), p. 5, https://archive.org/details/translationsfrom00morruoft
Stephen R. Platt, Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age (2018), pp. 34-36, 118-120, 120-121, 149-150, 150-152, 152-153, 153-155, 157-158, 158-160, 160-162, 162-163, 163-165, 165-166, 166-168, 168-169, 169-171, 208-209

S1 Episode 9 - "Do Not Come Again"

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 08:00:00 +0000

The Jiaqing Emperor writes to the King of England that no more embassies are needed, while Lord Amherst's party makes its way south and its warship shoots its way past the forts at the mouth of the river to reach Canton. The episode follows the emperor and Amherst through the aftermath, as the Company's ship and comprador pay for the embassy's failure, and asks what each side took from two failed embassies. It hears the court in the emperor's letter alongside the Company, foreign observers and the British government.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1793-1834/e9/

Sources

Henry Ellis, Journal of the Proceedings of the Late Embassy to China (1817), p. 409-412, https://archive.org/details/journalofproceed00elli
Hosea Ballou Morse, The Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to China, 1635-1834, Volume IV (1926), p. 315-316, https://archive.org/details/chroniclesofeast0004hose
Hosea Ballou Morse, The Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to China, 1635-1834, Volume III (1926), p. 285-286, https://archive.org/download/dli.csl.6787/6787.pdf
Stephen R. Platt, Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age (2018), pp. 152-153, 157-158, 158-160, 163-165, 165-166, 166-168, 168-169, 169-171, 171-172, 172-174, 174-178

S1 Episode 10 - "Lintin"

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 09:00:00 +0000

In 1820 the Daoguang Emperor, the prince who fought off the rebels in the palace, comes to the throne meaning to restore a frugal and honest government, and his first order to Canton is to end the opium trade. The episode follows the new emperor's order and Howqua, the hong merchant who answers for the foreign ships, through the execution of an American ship's sailor and a crackdown that drives the opium ships out of the river to the island of Lintin, and asks why the ban made the trade bigger. It hears the court's orders alongside the Company's records and the Americans who watched the execution.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1793-1834/e10/

Sources

Hosea Ballou Morse, The Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to China, 1635-1834, Volume IV (1926), pp. 10-12, 12-13, 13-15, 15-16, 16-17, 17-19, 19-23, 23-24, 24-25, 25-27, 34-35, 41-42, 42-44, 44-45, 45-47, 47-48, 48-50, 50-52, 59-61, 61-62, 105-107, 107-108, 134-135, 2-3, 276-277, 277-278, https://archive.org/details/chroniclesofeast0004hose
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume I: The Period of Conflict, 1834-1860 (1910), pp. 104-105, 108-110, 177-179, 179-180, https://archive.org/details/internationalrel01mors
Hosea Ballou Morse, The Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to China, 1635-1834, Volume III (1926), https://archive.org/download/dli.csl.6787/6787.pdf
Julia Lovell, The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China (2011)
Stephen R. Platt, Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age (2018), pp. 181-183, 183-184, 186-187, 187-189, 209-211, 211-213, 213-214

S1 Episode 11 - "Fire and Silver"

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 10:00:00 +0000

Howqua, by now the senior hong merchant and one of the richest men in the world, rides out a British stoppage of the trade, a fire that burns down the foreign quarter, and a decade in which China begins, for the first time, to pay out more silver than it takes in. The episode follows Howqua through the 1820s, from the Topaze affair to taking a young American into his business, and asks why the silver began to flow out of China and why it mattered to every farmer who paid taxes in it; here the sources disagree on whether opium or the world's silver supply was to blame, and the episode gives both sides their time. It leans heavily on the Company's records and scholars; no Chinese voice is heard directly.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1793-1834/e11/

Sources

Hosea Ballou Morse, The Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to China, 1635-1834, Volume IV (1926), pp. 13-15, 15-16, 16-17, 17-19, 24-25, 25-27, 27-28, 28-30, 30-31, 31-32, 32-34, 34-35, 37-38, 38-39, 39-41, 44-45, 45-47, 52-53, 64, 66-67, 105-107, 167-169, 169-170, 170-172, 172-173, 225-227, 227-228, 276-277, https://archive.org/details/chroniclesofeast0004hose
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume I: The Period of Conflict, 1834-1860 (1910), pp. 177-179, 179-180, 203-204, https://archive.org/details/internationalrel01mors
Hosea Ballou Morse, The Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to China, 1635-1834, Volume III (1926), https://archive.org/download/dli.csl.6787/6787.pdf
Paul A. Van Dyke, The Canton Trade: Life and Enterprise on the China Coast, 1700-1845 (2005), pp. 107-108, 108-109
Stephen R. Platt, Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age (2018), pp. 181-183, 186-187, 187-189, 189-190, 200-202, 202-203, 209-211, 211-213, 286-288, 288-289, 289-291

S1 Episode 12 - "The Committee's Gamble"

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 11:00:00 +0000

William Baynes, the head of the Company's Select Committee, decides in 1829 to force better terms at Canton by holding the ships back, and then brings his wife to live in the city against Chinese law, and for two years he and the Daoguang court push each other toward a showdown. The episode follows Baynes from the stoppage through the dispute over his wife to the governor's raid on the factory in 1831, and asks who the Canton system was really serving by then. It hears the court in the emperor's own orders and regulations alongside the Company and the private traders.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1793-1834/e12/

Sources

Hosea Ballou Morse, The Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to China, 1635-1834, Volume IV (1926), pp. 17-19, 19-23, 25-27, 27-28, 28-30, 32-34, 38-39, 64, 172-173, 193-196, 196-199, 199-201, 201-202, 213-214, 214-216, 216-217, 217-219, 219-220, 230-232, 233-235, 236-238, 238-239, 239-240, 240-242, 242-243, 243-245, 261-262, 2-3, 276-277, 278-279, 279-281, 281-282, 282-284, 284-285, 291-293, 293-294, 294-296, 296-297, 297-299, 299-300, 300-302, 302-303, 305-306, 310-312, 312-313, 320-321, 321-323, 323-325, 329-331, https://archive.org/details/chroniclesofeast0004hose
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume I: The Period of Conflict, 1834-1860 (1910), p. 179-180, https://archive.org/details/internationalrel01mors
Hosea Ballou Morse, The Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to China, 1635-1834, Volume III (1926), https://archive.org/download/dli.csl.6787/6787.pdf
Paul A. Van Dyke, The Canton Trade: Life and Enterprise on the China Coast, 1700-1845 (2005), p. 107-108
Stephen R. Platt, Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age (2018), pp. 166-168, 202-203, 209-211, 211-213, 230-232, 232-234, 234-235, 235-237, 237-238, 238-240, 243-245, 288-289, 289-291

S1 Episode 13 - "Up the Coast"

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Karl Gutzlaff, a Prussian missionary who passes for Chinese, and Hugh Hamilton Lindsay, a young Company man, sail up the China coast in 1832 on the Lord Amherst to see whether the forbidden ports will trade, and find officials ordering them away and people who want to buy. The episode follows the two men from Gutzlaff's first coastal voyage to Lindsay's survey of the ports, alongside the founding of William Jardine and James Matheson's firm, and asks whether the coast was open for the taking. It leans on scholars and foreign observers, with one Chinese voice, a writer describing England for Chinese readers.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1793-1834/e13/

Sources

Charles Gutzlaff, Journal of Three Voyages along the Coast of China in 1831, 1832 and 1833 (1834), p. 133-136, https://archive.org/details/journalofthreevo00gutz
Hosea Ballou Morse, The Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to China, 1635-1834, Volume IV (1926), pp. 16-17, 42-44, 105-107, 134-135, 276-277, 278-279, 300-302, 321-323, 323-325, 326-328, 331-332, 332-334, 334-335, https://archive.org/details/chroniclesofeast0004hose
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume I: The Period of Conflict, 1834-1860 (1910), pp. 177-179, 179-180, 180-181, 181-183, https://archive.org/details/internationalrel01mors
Hugh Hamilton Lindsay, Report of Proceedings on a Voyage to the Northern Ports of China in the Ship Lord Amherst (1833), p. 19-21, https://archive.org/details/reportofproceedi00lindrich
Julia Lovell, The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China (2011)
Paul A. Van Dyke, The Canton Trade: Life and Enterprise on the China Coast, 1700-1845 (2005), p. 133-134
Stephen R. Platt, Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age (2018), pp. 181-183, 183-184, 186-187, 187-189, 189-190, 226-227, 227-229, 230-232, 238-240, 240-242, 242-243, 257-258, 258-260, 260-262, 262-263, 263-265, 286-288

S1 Episode 14 - "The End of the Monopoly"

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 13:00:00 +0000

The free traders win: Parliament ends the East India Company's monopoly on China and sends a Crown officer, Lord Napier, to take over, and George Staunton, now an MP, warns that the change will lead to war. The episode follows Staunton through the campaign and the vote, and Napier from his appointment to his arrival off Canton in July 1834, and asks what the free traders and the Crown expected to change at a Canton whose rulers still believed they set the terms. It leans on scholars and the British government, with a single Chinese voice, a Canton scholar's essay on opium.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1793-1834/e14/

Sources

Hosea Ballou Morse, The Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to China, 1635-1834, Volume IV (1926), pp. 27-28, 28-30, 243-245, 245-246, 246-250, 300-302, 344-346, 350-352, https://archive.org/details/chroniclesofeast0004hose
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume I: The Period of Conflict, 1834-1860 (1910), pp. 86-88, 104-105, 108-110, 118, 120, 167-168, https://archive.org/details/internationalrel01mors
Julia Lovell, The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China (2011)
Paul A. Van Dyke, The Canton Trade: Life and Enterprise on the China Coast, 1700-1845 (2005), pp. 105-106, 108-109, 114-117, 175-176
Stephen R. Platt, Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age (2018), pp. 20-21, 79-81, 152-153, 230-232, 237-238, 242-243, 243-245, 245-246, 246-248, 248-249, 249-251, 251-253, 253-254, 254-257, 258-260, 262-263, 263-265, 266-268, 268-270, 270-271, 271-273, 273-274, 286-288, 288-289, 289-291, 292-294, 294-295, 314-316

S2 Episode 1 - "The Lord at the City Gate"

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 14:00:00 +0000

For nearly eighty years every Western trader in China has done business only at Canton, only through licensed Chinese merchants, and never with an official; in 1834 Britain sends Lord Napier, a Scottish naval officer under orders to deal with Canton's viceroy as an equal, and the viceroy Lu Kun refuses to read his letter. The episode follows the two men through a summer of standoffs that ends with British frigates shooting their way up the Pearl River, and asks why neither side would bend over what looked like a question of manners. It leans on scholars, with the Qing court heard in the viceroy's and the customs chief's orders and the British in their own dispatches.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1834-1864/e1/

Sources

Hosea Ballou Morse, The Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to China, 1635-1834, Volume IV (1926), p. 245-246, https://archive.org/details/chroniclesofeast0004hose
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume I: The Period of Conflict, 1834-1860 (1910), pp. 86-88, 120-122, 122-123, 124-126, 126, 127-128, 128-129, 129-130, 130-132, 132, 134, 135-136, 136-137, 137-139, 140-142, 142-143, 143-145, https://archive.org/details/internationalrel01mors
Julia Lovell, The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China (2011)
Stephen R. Platt, Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age (2018), pp. 245-246, 254-257, 266-268, 268-270, 270-271, 292-294
William C. Hunter, The 'Fan Kwae' at Canton before Treaty Days, 1825-1844 (1882), https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/42685

S2 Episode 2 - "Legalise or Destroy"

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 15:00:00 +0000

With no company to restrain them, British and American traders run opium straight into Canton's waters, silver flows out of China to pay for it, and in Beijing the Daoguang Emperor has to decide whether to tax the drug or crush it. The episode follows the court's great debate and Charles Elliot, Napier's successor, trying courtesy where Napier tried force, while in the same city a failed examination candidate named Hong Xiuquan falls ill and sees visions, and it ends with the emperor choosing Lin Zexu to end the trade. It hears the court in its own memorials and Hong in the Taiping's later account of his dream, alongside scholars and British officials.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1834-1864/e2/

Sources

Augustus F. Lindley, Ti-Ping Tien-Kwoh: The History of the Ti-Ping Revolution (1866), pp. 35-37, 38-39, 828-830, https://archive.org/download/tipingtienkwohh03lindgoog/tipingtienkwohh03lindgoog_text.pdf
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume I: The Period of Conflict, 1834-1860 (1910), pp. 126, 134, 135-136, 136-137, 137-139, 143-145, 149-151, 151-152, 154-155, 157-158, 181-183, 183-184, 184-185, 185-187, 187-188, 188-190, 194-196, 196-197, 197-198, 205-207, 213-214, https://archive.org/details/internationalrel01mors
Julia Lovell, The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China (2011)
Stephen R. Platt, Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age (2018), p. 266-268
Stephen R. Platt, Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War (2012)
William C. Hunter, The 'Fan Kwae' at Canton before Treaty Days, 1825-1844 (1882), https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/42685

S2 Episode 3 - "The Commissioner"

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 16:00:00 +0000

Lin Zexu reaches Canton in March 1839 determined to end the opium trade in a season, and within a week he has three hundred foreigners sealed inside their factories. The episode follows Lin and Charles Elliot through the six week siege and Elliot's gamble of handing over every chest of British opium in the Queen's name, then Lin's destruction of the drug at Humen and his letter to Queen Victoria, and asks whether Lin won or walked into a trap of Elliot's making. It hears Lin and the court in their own edicts and letters, and the British in their dispatches.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1834-1864/e3/

Sources

Augustus F. Lindley, Ti-Ping Tien-Kwoh: The History of the Ti-Ping Revolution (1866), p. 558-560, https://archive.org/download/tipingtienkwohh03lindgoog/tipingtienkwohh03lindgoog_text.pdf
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume I: The Period of Conflict, 1834-1860 (1910), pp. 134, 135-136, 157-158, 181-183, 183-184, 184-185, 185-187, 188-190, 194-196, 197-198, 213-214, 214-215, 215-217, 217-218, 218-220, 220-221, 221-222, 222-224, 224-225, 225-226, 226-227, 227-229, 229-230, 230-231, 253-254, 256-257, 623-624, https://archive.org/details/internationalrel01mors
Julia Lovell, The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China (2011)
Stephen R. Platt, Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age (2018), p. 266-268
Stephen R. Platt, Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War (2012)
William C. Hunter, The 'Fan Kwae' at Canton before Treaty Days, 1825-1844 (1882), https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/42685

S2 Episode 4 - "A Death at Kowloon"

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 17:00:00 +0000

In July 1839 drunken British and American sailors beat a villager named Lin Weixi to death at Kowloon, and the killing becomes a contest over whose law rules foreigners in China. The episode follows Charles Elliot and Lin Zexu from that death through the first shots of the war, and Palmerston's cabinet and Parliament deciding in London to send a fleet, and asks the season's first big question: was the war fought over opium, over free trade, or over equality between states. It leans on British officials and scholars; the Chinese side of the slide to war is heard only a little in Qing documents.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1834-1864/e4/

Sources

Augustus F. Lindley, Ti-Ping Tien-Kwoh: The History of the Ti-Ping Revolution (1866), p. 560-561, https://archive.org/download/tipingtienkwohh03lindgoog/tipingtienkwohh03lindgoog_text.pdf
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume I: The Period of Conflict, 1834-1860 (1910), pp. 215-217, 224-225, 236-238, 238-239, 239-240, 240-242, 242-243, 243-245, 245-246, 246-247, 253-254, 264-265, 272-274, 621-622, 627, 627-629, 629-630, 630-631, 633-634, 658-659, https://archive.org/details/internationalrel01mors
Julia Lovell, The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China (2011)
William C. Hunter, The 'Fan Kwae' at Canton before Treaty Days, 1825-1844 (1882), https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/42685

S2 Episode 5 - "Qishan's Bargain"

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 18:00:00 +0000

When the British fleet appears at the mouth of the river that leads to Beijing, the Daoguang Emperor turns from Lin Zexu to Qishan, a Manchu grandee who thinks the barbarians can be talked back to Canton. The episode follows Qishan and Charles Elliot as they bargain, fight and sign a deal that both their governments throw out, and asks what it cost each man to try to end the war on terms the other could accept. It hears the court in its own edicts and the British in their dispatches, with scholars between them.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1834-1864/e5/

Sources

Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume I: The Period of Conflict, 1834-1860 (1910), pp. 217-218, 265-267, 269-271, 271-272, 272-274, 275-277, 277-278, 278-279, 279-281, 561-563, 627-629, 629-630, 630-631, 633-634, 635-636, 640-641, 641-642, 642-644, 644-645, 645-646, https://archive.org/details/internationalrel01mors
Julia Lovell, The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China (2011)

S2 Episode 6 - "The Ransom of Canton"

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 19:00:00 +0000

In May 1841 the emperor's nephew Yishan arrives at Canton with an army from other provinces to drive the British into the sea, and within a week the city is under British guns and paying to be spared. The episode follows Charles Elliot through his last campaign and the Sanyuanli villagers who trap a British detachment in a rainstorm, and asks whether Sanyuanli was a people's rising or the work of the local gentry, giving that debate real time because China later made it a founding story. It leans on British officials and scholars; the villagers' own voice is real but comes from a single source.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1834-1864/e6/

Sources

Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume I: The Period of Conflict, 1834-1860 (1910), pp. 85-86, 120-122, 122-123, 124-126, 269-271, 271-272, 272-274, 277-278, 281-282, 282-284, 284-285, 285-286, 286-288, 288-289, 289-290, 640-641, 642-644, 654-655, 655-656, 656-657, 658-659, https://archive.org/details/internationalrel01mors
Julia Lovell, The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China (2011)

S2 Episode 7 - "The Awe-Inspiring General"

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 20:00:00 +0000

Sir Henry Pottinger takes the war up the coast in the autumn of 1841, and the Daoguang Emperor sends his kinsman Yijing as Awe-Inspiring General to win it back. The episode follows Yijing through a winter of preparations, a counterattack timed by the calendar and the false reports that followed it, while Manchu garrisons at Zhapu and Zhenjiang fight to the death and kill their own families, and asks why the Qing armies lost so badly. It hears the court and its commanders in their own memorials and the people of Zhenjiang in a little of their own words, alongside scholars and British officials.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1834-1864/e7/

Sources

Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume I: The Period of Conflict, 1834-1860 (1910), pp. 282-284, 288-289, 289-290, 290-292, 293-295, 295-296, 296-297, 654-655, 655-656, 656-657, 658-659, https://archive.org/details/internationalrel01mors
John Ouchterlony, The Chinese War: An Account of All the Operations of the British Forces (1844), p. 389-392, https://archive.org/details/chinesewaraccoun00ouchrich
Julia Lovell, The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China (2011)

S2 Episode 8 - "The Treaty of Nanjing"

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 21:00:00 +0000

With British warships off Nanjing and the empire's grain route cut, the Daoguang Emperor sends Qiying, a Manchu imperial clansman, to make the peace he has refused for three years. The episode follows Qiying from his appointment through the anxious embassies, banquets and bargaining with Sir Henry Pottinger to the signing of the treaty that opened China's coast, and asks what the treaty changed and what it left out, above all opium. It leans heavily on scholars, with the court heard in its own memorials and the British only thinly.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1834-1864/e8/

Sources

Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume I: The Period of Conflict, 1834-1860 (1910), pp. 289-290, 296-297, 300-302, 308-309, 309-310, 312-313, 546-547, 616-621, 654-655, 658-659, 667-668, https://archive.org/details/internationalrel01mors
John Ouchterlony, The Chinese War: An Account of All the Operations of the British Forces (1844), pp. 389-392, 443-446, 449-452, https://archive.org/details/chinesewaraccoun00ouchrich
Julia Lovell, The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China (2011)

S2 Episode 9 - "Five Ports"

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 22:00:00 +0000

The Treaty of Nanjing opened five ports, and Qiying is left to make it work: two more treaties, an American and a French one, and a Canton crowd that will not let foreigners through its gates. The episode follows Qiying through the 1840s as he trades concessions for peace, from the clauses that put foreigners under their own consuls' law to the toleration of Christianity, while Shanghai grows from a county town into a foreign settlement and opium runs openly along the coast, and asks what the treaties really changed. It leans on British officials, foreign observers and scholars, with the court heard only a little.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1834-1864/e9/

Sources

Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume I: The Period of Conflict, 1834-1860 (1910), pp. 296-297, 297-299, 300-302, 309-310, 310-312, 312-313, 313-315, 315-316, 316-318, 318-320, 320-321, 321-322, 322-324, 324-325, 325-326, 326-327, 329-330, 330-332, 346-347, 354-356, 356-358, 358-359, 368-370, 377-378, 378-379, 387-389, 389-390, 390-391, 394-396, 396-397, 397-1850, 478-480, 539-541, 541-542, 542-543, 543-545, 546-547, 616-621, 689-691, 691-692, https://archive.org/details/internationalrel01mors
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume II: The Period of Submission, 1861-1893 (1918), p. 222-223, https://archive.org/details/internationalre02mors
John Ouchterlony, The Chinese War: An Account of All the Operations of the British Forces (1844), p. 443-446, https://archive.org/details/chinesewaraccoun00ouchrich
Julia Lovell, The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China (2011)
Stephen R. Platt, Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War (2012)

S2 Episode 10 - "The Heavenly King"

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 23:00:00 +0000

Six years after his visions, Hong Xiuquan reads a Christian tract and decides he is the younger brother of Jesus, sent to rid China of demons. The episode follows Hong from that reading through the God Worshipping Society that grows among the poor of Guangxi to the rising at Jintian and the naming of the Taiping kings, and opens the season's second big question: was this a religious movement, a peasant revolution or a rising of Han Chinese against the Manchus. It hears the Taiping in their own later account of Hong's life, alongside scholars and foreign observers.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1834-1864/e10/

Sources

Augustus F. Lindley, Ti-Ping Tien-Kwoh: The History of the Ti-Ping Revolution (1866), pp. 35-37, 39-41, 41-43, 43-45, 47-48, 60, 62, 81-83, 83-84, 90-91, 91-92, https://archive.org/download/tipingtienkwohh03lindgoog/tipingtienkwohh03lindgoog_text.pdf
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume I: The Period of Conflict, 1834-1860 (1910), pp. 296-297, 297-299, 309-310, 312-313, 320-321, 358-359, 394-396, 396-397, 441-442, 539-541, 691-692, https://archive.org/details/internationalrel01mors
Julia Lovell, The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China (2011)
Stephen R. Halsey, Quest for Power: European Imperialism and the Making of Chinese Statecraft (2015)
Stephen R. Platt, Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War (2012)

S2 Episode 11 - "The Heavenly Capital"

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

In two years the Taiping march from the hills of Guangxi down the Yangtze and take Nanjing, the old southern capital, and Hong Xiuquan makes it his Heavenly Capital. The episode follows Hong and Yang Xiuqing from the proclamation calling the Chinese to rise against the Manchus to the capture of Nanjing, the first British visit to the rebels, and the march north to take Beijing, while in Hong Kong Hong's cousin Hong Rengan tells a missionary the story of the Heavenly King. It is told mostly through foreign observers, with the Taiping heard in a handful of their own proclamations.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1834-1864/e11/

Sources

Augustus F. Lindley, Ti-Ping Tien-Kwoh: The History of the Ti-Ping Revolution (1866), pp. 47-48, 83-84, 86-88, 88-90, 90-91, 91-92, 135-137, 137-139, 139-140, 140-142, 142-143, 151-153, 153-154, 155-156, 156-158, 158-160, 160-162, https://archive.org/download/tipingtienkwohh03lindgoog/tipingtienkwohh03lindgoog_text.pdf
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume I: The Period of Conflict, 1834-1860 (1910), pp. 309-310, 441-442, 444-445, 445-447, 450-451, 451-452, 454, https://archive.org/details/internationalrel01mors
Stephen R. Platt, Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War (2012)
Thomas Taylor Meadows, The Chinese and their Rebellions (1856), p. 242-244, https://archive.org/details/chinesetheirrebe00mead

S2 Episode 12 - "The Hunan Army"

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 01:00:00 +0000

With the dynasty's own armies failing, the court orders Zeng Guofan, a scholar official home in Hunan mourning his mother, to raise local militia, and he builds something new: an army loyal to its own commanders. The episode follows Zeng from that order to his first great victory, while the Small Swords seize Shanghai's old city and Ye Mingchen, governor general at Canton, answers rebellion there with mass executions, and asks what it meant that the dynasty's survival now rested on armies it did not raise. It hears the court and Zeng in their own memorials and proclamations, with foreign observers at Shanghai and scholars.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1834-1864/e12/

Sources

Augustus F. Lindley, Ti-Ping Tien-Kwoh: The History of the Ti-Ping Revolution (1866), pp. 88-90, 90-91, 93-95, 95-97, 135-137, 137-139, 139-140, 140-142, 156-158, 158-160, 171-173, 173-175, 461-462, https://archive.org/download/tipingtienkwohh03lindgoog/tipingtienkwohh03lindgoog_text.pdf
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume I: The Period of Conflict, 1834-1860 (1910), pp. 346-347, 354-356, 356-358, 358-359, 396-397, 397-1850, 444-445, 448-450, 456-458, 458-459, 459-461, 461-462, 541-542, https://archive.org/details/internationalrel01mors
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume II: The Period of Submission, 1861-1893 (1918), p. 119-121, https://archive.org/details/internationalre02mors
Julia Lovell, The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China (2011)
Stephen R. Platt, Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War (2012)

S2 Episode 13 - "Brothers Kill Brothers"

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 02:00:00 +0000

In 1856 the Taiping break the Qing camps outside Nanjing and the Heavenly Kingdom has never been stronger, until Yang Xiuqing, speaking as God, demands the title of an emperor. The episode follows Hong Xiuquan and Yang into the killings that wiped out Yang and thousands of his followers and drove the Taiping's best general away, and asks who ordered the slaughter, giving the conflicting accounts their due. It leans on scholars and foreign observers; the Taiping's own voice on the killings is thin.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1834-1864/e13/

Sources

Augustus F. Lindley, Ti-Ping Tien-Kwoh: The History of the Ti-Ping Revolution (1866), pp. 47-48, 60, 62, 83-84, 88-90, 93-95, 95-97, 135-137, 137-139, 153-154, 155-156, 156-158, 215-217, 217-219, 222-224, https://archive.org/download/tipingtienkwohh03lindgoog/tipingtienkwohh03lindgoog_text.pdf
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume I: The Period of Conflict, 1834-1860 (1910), pp. 441-442, 448-450, 450-451, 454, 539-541, https://archive.org/details/internationalrel01mors
Julia Lovell, The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China (2011)
Stephen R. Platt, Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War (2012)
Thomas Taylor Meadows, The Chinese and their Rebellions (1856), p. 242-244, https://archive.org/details/chinesetheirrebe00mead

S2 Episode 14 - "The Arrow"

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 03:00:00 +0000

By 1856 Britain, France and the United States want more than the old treaties gave them, and Canton's governor general Ye Mingchen will not even meet their envoys. The episode follows Harry Parkes, the young British consul at Canton, and Ye from the boarding of a small boat called the Arrow to a second war, a government falling in London, and a new envoy, Lord Elgin, sent out to win it, and asks whether the Arrow was a real grievance or a pretext. It leans on British officials and scholars; Ye and the court are heard here only through others.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1834-1864/e14/

Sources

Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume I: The Period of Conflict, 1834-1860 (1910), pp. 265-267, 296-297, 414-1864, 1864-1866, 420-422, 422-1856, 1856-424, 424-426, 426-428, 428-429, 429-430, 433-435, 436-438, 448-450, 450-451, 480-481, 481-483, 486-488, 490-491, 679-680, 680-681, 681-682, 689-691, https://archive.org/details/internationalrel01mors
James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin, ed. Theodore Walrond, Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin (1872), https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10610
Julia Lovell, The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China (2011)
Stephen R. Platt, Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War (2012)

S2 Episode 15 - "Canton and Tianjin"

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 04:00:00 +0000

Ye Mingchen is sure the foreigners will go away as they did before; instead Lord Elgin takes Canton, ships Ye to India, and sails north to force a treaty at Tianjin. The episode follows Elgin to the treaties that opened the Yangtze and the interior, and Qiying, the man who made peace in 1842, called back from disgrace to charm the British once more and destroyed by his own secret memorials, and asks what the treaties of 1858 took from the Qing. It is told almost entirely through British and American officials and scholars; no Chinese voice on these events is in the sources yet.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1834-1864/e15/

Sources

Augustus F. Lindley, Ti-Ping Tien-Kwoh: The History of the Ti-Ping Revolution (1866), p. 219-220, https://archive.org/download/tipingtienkwohh03lindgoog/tipingtienkwohh03lindgoog_text.pdf
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume I: The Period of Conflict, 1834-1860 (1910), pp. 297-299, 387-389, 389-390, 390-391, 414-1864, 422-1856, 426-428, 476-478, 478-480, 486-488, 496-498, 498, 500-501, 501-502, 502-503, 503-505, 505-506, 506-508, 516-517, 517-519, 519-520, 520-521, 522-523, 523-524, 524-526, 526-527, 527-528, 528-530, 553-555, 558-560, 560-561, 564-566, 570-572, https://archive.org/details/internationalrel01mors
James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin, ed. Theodore Walrond, Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin (1872), https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10610
John Ouchterlony, The Chinese War: An Account of All the Operations of the British Forces (1844), p. 443-446, https://archive.org/details/chinesewaraccoun00ouchrich
Julia Lovell, The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China (2011)
Stephen R. Halsey, Quest for Power: European Imperialism and the Making of Chinese Statecraft (2015)
Stephen R. Platt, Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War (2012)

S2 Episode 16 - "The Shield King"

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 05:00:00 +0000

Opium, the drug the first war was fought over, becomes legal in 1858, and Lord Elgin takes his ships up the Yangtze to see the river his treaty has opened, straight through the Taiping war. The episode follows Elgin past the Heavenly Capital's guns and Hong Rengan, the Heavenly King's cousin, on his secret journey across Qing China to Nanjing, where he is made Shield King and writes a plan to remake the kingdom with railways, banks and Western friendship, and asks whether the Taiping could have become something new. It hears the Taiping in Hong Rengan's own words, alongside British officials and scholars.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1834-1864/e16/

Sources

Augustus F. Lindley, Ti-Ping Tien-Kwoh: The History of the Ti-Ping Revolution (1866), pp. 219-220, 220-222, 314-316, https://archive.org/download/tipingtienkwohh03lindgoog/tipingtienkwohh03lindgoog_text.pdf
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume I: The Period of Conflict, 1834-1860 (1910), pp. 478-480, 520-521, 522-523, 523-524, 528-530, 532-534, 534-535, 535-536, 536-538, 538-539, 539-541, 552-553, 553-555, 555-557, https://archive.org/details/internationalrel01mors
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume II: The Period of Submission, 1861-1893 (1918), p. 30-32, https://archive.org/details/internationalre02mors
James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin, ed. Theodore Walrond, Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin (1872), https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10610
Julia Lovell, The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China (2011)
Stephen R. Platt, Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War (2012)

S2 Episode 17 - "Blood Is Thicker Than Water"

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 06:00:00 +0000

In June 1859 Frederick Bruce, Elgin's younger brother and Britain's new minister, sails north to have the Treaty of Tianjin ratified in Beijing, and insists on the route past the Dagu forts the Mongol general Sengge Rinchen has rebuilt. The episode follows Bruce and Sengge Rinchen to the worst British defeat of the century in China, a neutral American who joins the fight, and London's decision to send Elgin back with an army, and asks who chose this war. It leans on British officials and scholars, with the court heard in its own reports of victory.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1834-1864/e17/

Sources

Augustus F. Lindley, Ti-Ping Tien-Kwoh: The History of the Ti-Ping Revolution (1866), pp. 156-158, 160-162, 226-228, https://archive.org/download/tipingtienkwohh03lindgoog/tipingtienkwohh03lindgoog_text.pdf
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume I: The Period of Conflict, 1834-1860 (1910), pp. 426-428, 476-478, 490-491, 500-501, 506-508, 517-519, 519-520, 522-523, 523-524, 524-526, 527-528, 528-530, 532-534, 535-536, 536-538, 558-560, 560-561, 570-572, 575-576, 576-578, 578-579, 579-580, 580-582, 582-583, 585-586, 586, https://archive.org/details/internationalrel01mors
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume II: The Period of Submission, 1861-1893 (1918), pp. 435-436, 436-437, https://archive.org/details/internationalre02mors
Stephen R. Platt, Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War (2012)

S2 Episode 18 - "The Eastern Campaign"

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 07:00:00 +0000

Hong Rengan plans to save the besieged Heavenly Capital by a feint, and his general Li Xiucheng, the Loyal King, carries it out: Hangzhou, the siege of Nanjing broken, and a sweep east into the richest country in China. The episode follows the two men from that triumph to the gates of Shanghai, where Li expects fellow Christians and meets British and French guns, while Britain and France are at war with the Qing in the north, and asks why the foreigners chose the dynasty. It hears scholars and foreign observers most, with the Taiping in Li Xiucheng's own letter and refugees fleeing to Shanghai.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1834-1864/e18/

Sources

Augustus F. Lindley, Ti-Ping Tien-Kwoh: The History of the Ti-Ping Revolution (1866), pp. 70-71, 139-140, 140-142, 155-156, 171-173, 268-270, 277-279, 280-282, 282-283, 292-293, 293-294, 294-295, 297-298, 298-300, 460-461, 464-466, https://archive.org/download/tipingtienkwohh03lindgoog/tipingtienkwohh03lindgoog_text.pdf
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume I: The Period of Conflict, 1834-1860 (1910), pp. 390-391, 448-450, 454, 456-458, 458-459, 459-461, 576-578, 578-579, 579-580, 586, 592-593, https://archive.org/details/internationalrel01mors
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume II: The Period of Submission, 1861-1893 (1918), p. 119-121, https://archive.org/details/internationalre02mors
Stephen R. Platt, Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War (2012)

S2 Episode 19 - "The Road to Beijing"

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Lord Elgin returns in 1860 with an army to force the court to honour the treaties, and this time the allies land where the forts cannot stop them. The episode follows Elgin and Harry Parkes, his interpreter and negotiator, from the beaches of Beitang to the talks at Tongzhou, where Parkes and his party are seized under a flag of truce, and on to the flight of the Xianfeng Emperor from his capital, and asks how a negotiation ended in a hostage crisis. It leans on scholars and British officials; the court's side is heard only once.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1834-1864/e19/

Sources

Garnet Wolseley, Narrative of the War with China in 1860 (1862), p. 136-138, https://archive.org/details/narrativeofwarwi00wols
Henry Brougham Loch, Personal Narrative of Occurrences during Lord Elgin's Second Embassy to China, 1860 (1869), pp. 122-126, 154-157, https://archive.org/details/personalnarrativ00lochrich
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume I: The Period of Conflict, 1834-1860 (1910), pp. 578-579, 579-580, 585-586, 586, 592-593, 593-594, 594-596, 596-597, 597-599, 599-600, 600-602, 602, 604-605, 609-610, https://archive.org/details/internationalrel01mors
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume II: The Period of Submission, 1861-1893 (1918), p. 51-52, https://archive.org/details/internationalre02mors
Julia Lovell, The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China (2011)
Stephen R. Platt, Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War (2012)

S2 Episode 20 - "The Summer Palace"

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 09:00:00 +0000

Prince Gong, left behind in Beijing by his fleeing brother, has to bargain for a capital with the allies at its gates and their captured envoys in his prisons. The episode follows Prince Gong and Lord Elgin from the release of the surviving hostages to the looting and burning of the Summer Palace and the convention that ended the war, while in his camp in the south Zeng Guofan is ordered to send his best troops north, and asks whether the burning was justice or vandalism. It leans on scholars and British officials, with the court in its own edicts and a little Chinese public voice on the peace.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1834-1864/e20/

Sources

Henry Brougham Loch, Personal Narrative of Occurrences during Lord Elgin's Second Embassy to China, 1860 (1869), pp. 154-157, 169-172, 285-288, https://archive.org/details/personalnarrativ00lochrich
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume I: The Period of Conflict, 1834-1860 (1910), pp. 596-597, 600-602, 602, 604-605, 605-606, 606-608, 610-612, 612, 615-616, https://archive.org/details/internationalrel01mors
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume II: The Period of Submission, 1861-1893 (1918), p. 51-52, https://archive.org/details/internationalre02mors
James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin, ed. Theodore Walrond, Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin (1872), https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10610
Julia Lovell, The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China (2011)
Peter Zarrow, China in War and Revolution, 1895-1949 (2005), p. 14-15
Stephen R. Platt, Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War (2012)

S2 Episode 21 - "Anqing"

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 10:00:00 +0000

Zeng Guofan believes the war will be won at Anqing, the city that guards the river road to Nanjing, and he sets his brother Zeng Guoquan to starve it. The episode follows Zeng and Hong Rengan through the year long struggle for the city, from Zeng nearly trapped at Qimen and Hong Rengan's great relief plan to Harry Parkes talking the Taiping general Chen Yucheng out of taking Hankou, and the massacres at the end, and asks whether British neutrality was ever really neutral. It is the season's most mixed episode, with foreign observers and British officials heard most but the Taiping and Zeng's own side in their own words, and a Chinese visitor to Nanjing.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1834-1864/e21/

Sources

Augustus F. Lindley, Ti-Ping Tien-Kwoh: The History of the Ti-Ping Revolution (1866), pp. 95-97, 242-243, 828-330, 330-332, 332-334, 334-336, 336-337, 337-339, 347-348, 462-463, 467-469, 469-470, https://archive.org/download/tipingtienkwohh03lindgoog/tipingtienkwohh03lindgoog_text.pdf
Julia Lovell, The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China (2011)
Stephen R. Platt, Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War (2012)

S2 Episode 22 - "The Widows' Coup"

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 11:00:00 +0000

Two weeks before Anqing falls, the Xianfeng Emperor dies at Rehe, leaving a five year old son and eight regents; within three months the boy's mother Cixi, with the senior empress and Prince Gong, has overthrown them. The episode follows Cixi and Prince Gong through the coup that put two widows behind the throne, the new court's trust in Zeng Guofan and the founding of Li Hongzhang's Huai Army, while the Taiping take Ningbo and Hangzhou, and asks what kind of regime would rule China for the next half century. It hears the court in its own edicts and the Taiping in their own refusal to British demands, alongside foreign observers and officials.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1834-1864/e22/

Sources

Augustus F. Lindley, Ti-Ping Tien-Kwoh: The History of the Ti-Ping Revolution (1866), pp. 336-337, 407-409, 416-418, 420-421, 421-423, 423-424, 443-445, 491-493, 494-496, https://archive.org/download/tipingtienkwohh03lindgoog/tipingtienkwohh03lindgoog_text.pdf
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume II: The Period of Submission, 1861-1893 (1918), pp. 51-52, 55-57, 60-62, 62-63, 63-64, https://archive.org/details/internationalre02mors
Julia Lovell, The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China (2011)
Peter Zarrow, China in War and Revolution, 1895-1949 (2005), p. 13-14
Stephen R. Halsey, Quest for Power: European Imperialism and the Making of Chinese Statecraft (2015)
Stephen R. Platt, Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War (2012)

S2 Episode 23 - "Shanghai"

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 12:00:00 +0000

In January 1862 the Taiping close on Shanghai, and Britain abandons the neutrality it had claimed since 1853. The episode follows Li Hongzhang, whose new army is carried through Taiping country by British steamers to defend the city, and Li Xiucheng, who tries one last time to break the siege of Nanjing, through a year of foreign intervention, massacres, cholera and the death of the American Ward, and asks how much foreign guns decided the war. It leans heavily on foreign observers, with the court and Zeng's side heard in their own reports and the Taiping only a little.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1834-1864/e23/

Sources

Augustus F. Lindley, Ti-Ping Tien-Kwoh: The History of the Ti-Ping Revolution (1866), pp. 330-332, 332-334, 407-409, 420-421, 447-449, 449-451, 451-453, 467-469, 503-505, 507-509, 511-512, 516-518, 518-520, 520-522, 529-530, 533-535, 535-537, 648-550, 552-553, 585-587, https://archive.org/download/tipingtienkwohh03lindgoog/tipingtienkwohh03lindgoog_text.pdf
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume II: The Period of Submission, 1861-1893 (1918), pp. 77-1862, 1862-1863, 1863, https://archive.org/details/internationalre02mors
Stephen R. Halsey, Quest for Power: European Imperialism and the Making of Chinese Statecraft (2015)
Stephen R. Platt, Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War (2012)

S2 Episode 24 - "Suzhou"

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 13:00:00 +0000

Charles Gordon, a British engineer officer, takes over Ward's army in 1863 and leads it beside Li Hongzhang's Huai Army toward Suzhou, the Taiping's great eastern city. The episode follows Li Hongzhang and Gordon to the siege, the secret surrender talks, the murder of the city's commander by his own officers, and Li's execution of the kings who surrendered, and asks whether Li broke a promise Gordon had made. It is told almost entirely through foreign observers; no Taiping or Qing voice on Suzhou is in the sources yet.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1834-1864/e24/

Sources

Augustus F. Lindley, Ti-Ping Tien-Kwoh: The History of the Ti-Ping Revolution (1866), pp. 280-282, 282-283, 491-493, 585-587, 694, 609-611, 611-612, 612-614, 614-616, 669-671, 671-673, 680-682, 682-684, 684-685, 705-707, 707-708, 708-709, 709-711, 711-712, 712-713, 714-715, 715-717, 721-723, 723-724, https://archive.org/download/tipingtienkwohh03lindgoog/tipingtienkwohh03lindgoog_text.pdf
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume I: The Period of Conflict, 1834-1860 (1910), https://archive.org/details/internationalrel01mors
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume II: The Period of Submission, 1861-1893 (1918), pp. 86-87, 93-94, 94-95, 95-97, 98-100, 100-101, 101-103, 103-104, 104-106, 106-107, https://archive.org/details/internationalre02mors
J. O. P. Bland, Li Hung-chang (1917), pp. 46-48, 48-51, 51-53, 53-55, 55-57, 224-226, https://archive.org/details/cu31924023144706
Stephen R. Platt, Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War (2012)

S2 Episode 25 - "The Fall of the Heavenly Kingdom"

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 14:00:00 +0000

By 1864 Zeng Guoquan's army has sealed Nanjing, and inside the Heavenly Capital Hong Xiuquan tells his starving people that God will provide. The episode follows Zeng Guofan and Li Xiucheng through the last months, Hong's death, the mine that breaks the wall and the sack of the city, and Li's capture and confession, and closes the season by asking what thirty years of opium and war cost ordinary people, and what they leave to the empress dowager Cixi and the boy Tongzhi Emperor: a dynasty saved by Han Chinese generals with armies of their own, and foreigners in treaty ports along the coast. It leans on foreign observers, with the court in its own reports, the Taiping in their last words and Nanjing's people in their own accounts of the sack.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1834-1864/e25/

Sources

Augustus F. Lindley, Ti-Ping Tien-Kwoh: The History of the Ti-Ping Revolution (1866), pp. 62, 135-137, 155-156, 217-219, 277-279, 585-587, 627-628, 680-682, 682-684, 749-751, 753-755, 755-756, 756-758, 758-760, 768-769, 773-775, 775-777, https://archive.org/download/tipingtienkwohh03lindgoog/tipingtienkwohh03lindgoog_text.pdf
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume I: The Period of Conflict, 1834-1860 (1910), pp. 120-122, 124-126, 300-302, 444-445, 450-451, 502-503, 523-524, 532-534, 553-555, https://archive.org/details/internationalrel01mors
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume II: The Period of Submission, 1861-1893 (1918), pp. 55-57, 98-100, 100-101, 103-104, 104-106, 106-107, 107-109, 109-110, 110-112, https://archive.org/details/internationalre02mors
J. O. P. Bland, Li Hung-chang (1917), p. 53-55, https://archive.org/details/cu31924023144706
Julia Lovell, The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China (2011)
Stephen R. Halsey, Quest for Power: European Imperialism and the Making of Chinese Statecraft (2015)
Stephen R. Platt, Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age (2018), p. 268-270
Stephen R. Platt, Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War (2012)

S3 Episode 1 - "The Ruined Capital"

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 15:00:00 +0000

In July 1864 Zeng Guofan, the Hunanese scholar whose army has just ended the Taiping war, rides into a Nanjing that has been fought over for eleven years, and he decides to send most of his men home rather than become the general the throne fears. The episode follows Zeng and his protege Li Hongzhang, who keeps his own army under arms, and meets the people who will run the next thirty years, the empress dowager Cixi and Prince Gong in Beijing, Zuo Zongtang in Hangzhou and Robert Hart at the Customs, and asks who really won the war, the throne or its Han generals. It hears the court in its own edicts and Zeng's side in its own reports, alongside foreign observers and scholars.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1864-1894/e1/

Sources

Andrew Wilson, The Ever-Victorious Army: A History of the Chinese Campaign under Lt.-Col. C. G. Gordon (1868), pp. 332-334, 334-335, https://archive.org/details/evervictoriousar00wils
Augustus F. Lindley, Ti-Ping Tien-Kwoh: The History of the Ti-Ping Revolution (1866), pp. 749-751, 773-775, https://archive.org/download/tipingtienkwohh03lindgoog/tipingtienkwohh03lindgoog_text.pdf
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume I: The Period of Conflict, 1834-1860 (1910), p. 450-451, https://archive.org/details/internationalrel01mors
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume II: The Period of Submission, 1861-1893 (1918), pp. 43-44, 44-46, 46-47, 62-63, 63-64, 107-109, 110-112, 437-438, https://archive.org/details/internationalre02mors
John Ouchterlony, The Chinese War: An Account of All the Operations of the British Forces (1844), p. 202-205, https://archive.org/details/chinesewaraccoun00ouchrich
Julia Lovell, The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China (2011)
Peter Zarrow, China in War and Revolution, 1895-1949 (2005)
Stephen R. Halsey, Quest for Power: European Imperialism and the Making of Chinese Statecraft (2015)
Stephen R. Platt, Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War (2012)
W. A. P. Martin, A Cycle of Cathay, or China, South and North, with Personal Reminiscences (1896), p. 232-233, https://archive.org/details/cycleofcathayor00mart

S3 Episode 2 - "Learning from the Barbarians"

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 16:00:00 +0000

Li Hongzhang has seen at Shanghai what foreign guns can do, and Prince Gong, who runs the court's new office for foreign affairs, has seen the foreigners burn the Summer Palace; both decide China must learn their skills. The episode follows the two men from a school for interpreters in Beijing and an arsenal in Shanghai to the plains of the north, where the Nian horsemen kill the dynasty's best Mongol general and Li's modern army finally runs them down, and asks whether guns and schools could be added without changing anything else. It hears Li in his own memorial, with scholars and foreign observers.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1864-1894/e2/

Sources

Andrew Wilson, The Ever-Victorious Army: A History of the Chinese Campaign under Lt.-Col. C. G. Gordon (1868), p. 334-335, https://archive.org/details/evervictoriousar00wils
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume III: The Period of Subjection, 1894-1911 (1918), pp. 412-413, 471-473, 473-474, https://archive.org/details/internationalre03mors
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume II: The Period of Submission, 1861-1893 (1918), pp. 62-63, 114-115, 143-144, 185-186, 1866-188, 188-189, 206, https://archive.org/details/internationalre02mors
J. O. P. Bland, Li Hung-chang (1917), pp. 81-84, 84-86, 86-88, 124-127, 224-226, https://archive.org/details/cu31924023144706
Stephen R. Halsey, Quest for Power: European Imperialism and the Making of Chinese Statecraft (2015)
Stephen R. Platt, Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War (2012)
W. A. P. Martin, A Cycle of Cathay, or China, South and North, with Personal Reminiscences (1896), pp. 294-296, 301-303, https://archive.org/details/cycleofcathayor00mart
William T. Rowe, China's Last Empire: The Great Qing (2009), p. 202-204
Yung Wing, My Life in China and America (1909), p. 151-155, https://archive.org/details/mylifeinchinaame00yunguoft

S3 Episode 3 - "Tianjin, 1870"

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 17:00:00 +0000

Treaties made at gunpoint have let missionaries into the interior, and across China placards say they steal children; in June 1870 a crowd in Tianjin kills the French consul, ten nuns and dozens of Chinese Christians. The episode follows Zeng Guofan, now viceroy of the capital province, as he is sent to settle it with French warships in the harbour and comes out of it called a traitor, and Li Hongzhang, who takes his place and holds it for twenty five years, and asks whether the massacre was a crowd's panic or a sign of what the treaties had done. It leans on foreign observers and scholars, with a Hunanese placard as the one Chinese public voice and Zeng's side heard a little.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1864-1894/e3/

Sources

Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume III: The Period of Subjection, 1894-1911 (1918), pp. 412-413, 471-473, https://archive.org/details/internationalre03mors
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume II: The Period of Submission, 1861-1893 (1918), pp. 188-189, 189-190, 190-191, 193-194, 194-195, 195-196, 196-198, 198-1870, 203-205, 205-206, 210-211, 212-214, 214-1869, 1869-217, 217-218, 218-220, 226-227, 227-229, 235-236, 236-237, 242, 242-244, 244-245, 245-247, 249-251, 251-252, 252-254, 254-255, 255-256, 256-258, 258-259, 259-260, 262, https://archive.org/details/internationalre02mors
J. O. P. Bland, Li Hung-chang (1917), pp. 81-84, 84-86, 86-88, 124-127, 131-133, 224-226, https://archive.org/details/cu31924023144706
Stephen R. Halsey, Quest for Power: European Imperialism and the Making of Chinese Statecraft (2015)

S3 Episode 4 - "The Kingdom of Kashgar"

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 18:00:00 +0000

While the Qing were fighting the Taiping, the Muslims of the northwest and southwest rose too, and by 1865 a soldier of fortune from Kokand named Yaqub Beg had made himself ruler of a kingdom at Kashgar, a sixth of the empire gone. The episode follows Yaqub Beg from his arrival with a handful of men to treaties with Russia and Britain, and Zuo Zongtang, sent west in 1867 to crush the Muslim risings in Shaanxi and Gansu, and asks whether the empire could, or should, win back its far west. It leans heavily on foreign observers, many of them British visitors to Yaqub Beg's court who wanted him to survive, with Zuo's side heard a little; the rebels' own words are thin.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1864-1894/e4/

Sources

Augustus Raymond Margary, The Journey of Augustus Raymond Margary, from Shanghae to Bhamo, and back to Manwyne (1876), p. 297-299, https://archive.org/details/journeyofaugustu00marguoft
Demetrius Charles Boulger, The Life of Yakoob Beg; Athalik Ghazi, and Badaulet; Ameer of Kashgar (1878), https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33712
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume II: The Period of Submission, 1861-1893 (1918), pp. 112-114, 244-245, 245-247, 254-255, 262, 287-289, 329-330, 330-332, https://archive.org/details/internationalre02mors
J. O. P. Bland, Li Hung-chang (1917), pp. 61-63, 86-88, 187-189, 189-191, https://archive.org/details/cu31924023144706
Robert Shaw, Visits to High Tartary, Yarkand, and Kashgar (1871), p. 466-468, https://archive.org/details/visitstohightart00shaw_0
Stephen R. Halsey, Quest for Power: European Imperialism and the Making of Chinese Statecraft (2015), p. 100-102

S3 Episode 5 - "Merchants and Students"

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 19:00:00 +0000

With Zeng Guofan dead in 1872, Li Hongzhang is the man the court turns to for anything modern, and he looks for ways to make the foreigners' wealth Chinese, starting with steamships. The episode follows Li's China Merchants company, run by merchants under an official's eye, and Rong Hong, the first Chinese graduate of Yale, who takes thirty boys to New England to learn the West from inside, while the young Tongzhi Emperor receives the foreign envoys without the kowtow, and asks whether the merchants and students were a beginning or a dead end. It leans on scholars, with Li's side heard a little and the students' story told mostly through foreign observers.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1864-1894/e5/

Sources

Demetrius Charles Boulger, The Life of Yakoob Beg; Athalik Ghazi, and Badaulet; Ameer of Kashgar (1878), https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33712
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume III: The Period of Subjection, 1894-1911 (1918), p. 413-415, https://archive.org/details/internationalre03mors
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume II: The Period of Submission, 1861-1893 (1918), pp. 266-268, 268-269, 269-270, 314-315, 320-322, 329-330, 330-332, 394-396, https://archive.org/details/internationalre02mors
J. O. P. Bland, Li Hung-chang (1917), p. 189-191, https://archive.org/details/cu31924023144706
Stephen R. Halsey, Quest for Power: European Imperialism and the Making of Chinese Statecraft (2015), p. 100-102
W. A. P. Martin, A Cycle of Cathay, or China, South and North, with Personal Reminiscences (1896), p. 435-436, https://archive.org/details/cycleofcathayor00mart
Yung Wing, My Life in China and America (1909), pp. 151-155, 170-173, 185-188, 204-206, https://archive.org/details/mylifeinchinaame00yunguoft

S3 Episode 6 - "Taiwan and the Throne"

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 20:00:00 +0000

In 1874 Japan, only six years into its own modernization, lands troops on Taiwan to punish villagers who killed shipwrecked sailors, and the Qing find they have nothing that can make them leave. The episode follows Li Hongzhang, who argues that the empire's danger now comes from the sea, and the empress dowager Cixi, who in January 1875 loses her son, the Tongzhi Emperor, and puts her three year old nephew on the throne so she can rule again, and asks where the empire's defence should look. It hears the court in its own edicts on the succession, alongside foreign observers and scholars.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1864-1894/e6/

Sources

Demetrius Charles Boulger, The Life of Yakoob Beg; Athalik Ghazi, and Badaulet; Ameer of Kashgar (1878), https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33712
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume III: The Period of Subjection, 1894-1911 (1918), p. 413-415, https://archive.org/details/internationalre03mors
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume II: The Period of Submission, 1861-1893 (1918), pp. 62-63, 268-269, 269-270, 270-272, 272-273, 273-274, 274-276, 277-279, 279-280, 280-282, 314-315, 329-330, 330-332, https://archive.org/details/internationalre02mors
J. O. P. Bland, Li Hung-chang (1917), pp. 77-79, 84-86, 99-101, 101-103, 155-157, 189-191, https://archive.org/details/cu31924023144706
Stephen R. Halsey, Quest for Power: European Imperialism and the Making of Chinese Statecraft (2015)
Stephen R. Platt, Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War (2012)
W. A. P. Martin, A Cycle of Cathay, or China, South and North, with Personal Reminiscences (1896), p. 435-436, https://archive.org/details/cycleofcathayor00mart
Yung Wing, My Life in China and America (1909), p. 185-188, https://archive.org/details/mylifeinchinaame00yunguoft

S3 Episode 7 - "The Margary Affair"

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 21:00:00 +0000

In February 1875 a young British consular interpreter, Augustus Margary, is killed on the Burma border of Yunnan, and Britain's minister Thomas Wade turns his death into a demand for everything Britain has wanted from China. The episode follows Robert Hart, the Customs chief who tells the court frankly how it must change if it wants to stop being bullied, and Li Hongzhang, who finally settles the crisis at the seaside town of Yantai, and the envoy Guo Songtao, sent to London to apologize, who becomes China's first resident minister abroad, and asks what the empire gave up for one man's death. It leans on foreign observers, with the court heard in its instructions to Hart and its envoys.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1864-1894/e7/

Sources

Augustus Raymond Margary, The Journey of Augustus Raymond Margary, from Shanghae to Bhamo, and back to Manwyne (1876), p. 324-326, https://archive.org/details/journeyofaugustu00marguoft
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume III: The Period of Subjection, 1894-1911 (1918), p. 413-415, https://archive.org/details/internationalre03mors
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume II: The Period of Submission, 1861-1893 (1918), pp. 269-270, 270-272, 273-274, 274-276, 279-280, 280-282, 284-286, 286-287, 287-289, 289-290, 290-291, 291-293, 294-296, 296-297, 297-298, 298-300, 300-301, 301-303, 303-304, 304-305, 313-314, 314-315, 441-442, 445-446, 452-453, 453-454, 459-460, 461-462, 462-464, 470-471, 473-474, https://archive.org/details/internationalre02mors
J. O. P. Bland, Li Hung-chang (1917), pp. 135-137, 140-142, 142-144, https://archive.org/details/cu31924023144706
Stephen R. Halsey, Quest for Power: European Imperialism and the Making of Chinese Statecraft (2015)
W. A. P. Martin, A Cycle of Cathay, or China, South and North, with Personal Reminiscences (1896), p. 379-381, https://archive.org/details/cycleofcathayor00mart
Yung Wing, My Life in China and America (1909), p. 185-188, https://archive.org/details/mylifeinchinaame00yunguoft

S3 Episode 8 - "Famine and Reconquest"

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 22:00:00 +0000

In 1876 Zuo Zongtang, now in his sixties, finally marches into Xinjiang with an army fed by foreign loans, and in the same years the rains fail across north China and millions starve. The episode follows Zuo and his field commander Liu Jintang through the campaign that broke Yaqub Beg's kingdom in under two years, and Yaqub Beg to his sudden death, and sets beside it the famine the court and foreign missionaries tried to relieve, asking what the reconquest cost and whom it served. It leans heavily on foreign observers; the rebels' own voice is a handful of claims, and the famine is told by missionaries and the court's grants.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1864-1894/e8/

Sources

Demetrius Charles Boulger, The Life of Yakoob Beg; Athalik Ghazi, and Badaulet; Ameer of Kashgar (1878), https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33712
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume II: The Period of Submission, 1861-1893 (1918), pp. 193-194, 286-287, 287-289, 294-296, 300-301, 301-303, 304-305, 305-308, 308-309, 309-310, 310-311, 311-313, 313-314, 330-332, 470-471, https://archive.org/details/internationalre02mors
J. O. P. Bland, Li Hung-chang (1917), pp. 189-191, 290-292, https://archive.org/details/cu31924023144706
W. A. P. Martin, A Cycle of Cathay, or China, South and North, with Personal Reminiscences (1896), p. 379-381, https://archive.org/details/cycleofcathayor00mart

S3 Episode 9 - "The Treaty That Cost a Head"

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 23:00:00 +0000

With Xinjiang won back, the court sends the Manchu grandee Chonghou to St Petersburg to ask Russia for the Ili valley, and in 1879 he signs a treaty giving most of it away. The episode follows Chonghou home to a death sentence, the young official Zhang Zhidong who makes his name demanding war, and Zeng Jize, Zeng Guofan's son, who goes to Russia to undo the treaty, and asks whether the court's war party saved Ili or nearly lost everything. It hears the court in its own edicts, alongside foreign observers and scholars; Zhang Zhidong's memorial is told through scholars.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1864-1894/e9/

Sources

Demetrius Charles Boulger, The Life of Yakoob Beg; Athalik Ghazi, and Badaulet; Ameer of Kashgar (1878), https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33712
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume II: The Period of Submission, 1861-1893 (1918), pp. 110-112, 244-245, 245-247, 251-252, 268-269, 273-274, 274-276, 297-298, 309-310, 310-311, 311-313, 313-314, 320-322, 329-330, 330-332, 332, 836, 836-837, 837-838, https://archive.org/details/internationalre02mors
J. O. P. Bland, Li Hung-chang (1917), pp. 59-61, 86-88, 99-101, 111-113, 189-191, 191-193, 193-195, https://archive.org/details/cu31924023144706
Peter Zarrow, China in War and Revolution, 1895-1949 (2005)
Stephen R. Halsey, Quest for Power: European Imperialism and the Making of Chinese Statecraft (2015), p. 100-102
W. A. P. Martin, A Cycle of Cathay, or China, South and North, with Personal Reminiscences (1896), pp. 379-381, 383-385, https://archive.org/details/cycleofcathayor00mart

S3 Episode 10 - "The Hermit Kingdom"

Sat, 03 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

For centuries Korea has sent tribute to the Qing emperor and run its own affairs, and in 1876 Japan forces it open by treaty. The episode follows Li Hongzhang as he tries to keep Korea in China's orbit by new means, urging it to sign treaties with the West to balance Japan, and Ma Jianzhong, the Western educated aide he sends to Seoul when soldiers riot in 1882 and who carries the king's father off to China, and asks whether this was the old tributary order or a new Qing imperialism. It hears Li in his own letters and memorials, alongside foreign observers and scholars.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1864-1894/e10/

Sources

Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume III: The Period of Subjection, 1894-1911 (1918), pp. 8-10, 10-1882, https://archive.org/details/internationalre03mors
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume II: The Period of Submission, 1861-1893 (1918), pp. 272-273, 274-276, 313-314, 332, 836-837, 837-838, https://archive.org/details/internationalre02mors
J. O. P. Bland, Li Hung-chang (1917), pp. 157-159, 159-161, 161-163, 163-165, 165-167, 193-195, https://archive.org/details/cu31924023144706
Stephen R. Halsey, Quest for Power: European Imperialism and the Making of Chinese Statecraft (2015)
W. A. P. Martin, A Cycle of Cathay, or China, South and North, with Personal Reminiscences (1896), p. 383-385, https://archive.org/details/cycleofcathayor00mart
William T. Rowe, China's Last Empire: The Great Qing (2009), p. 226-227

S3 Episode 11 - "Tonkin"

Sat, 03 Jan 2026 01:00:00 +0000

France is taking Vietnam, another of the Qing's tributaries, and in 1882 a French naval officer seizes Hanoi. The episode follows Li Hongzhang, who wants a bargain that avoids war, and Prince Gong, who has run the court's foreign affairs for twenty years and is thrown out with the whole Grand Council in April 1884 when the Qing armies lose in Tonkin, and asks whether Cixi dismissed him over the war or to take the court back for herself. It leans on foreign observers and scholars, with the court heard in its own decrees.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1864-1894/e11/

Sources

Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume II: The Period of Submission, 1861-1893 (1918), pp. 277-279, 350-1883, 1883-352, 352-354, 354-355, 357-358, 369-371, 473-474, 474-476, https://archive.org/details/internationalre02mors
J. O. P. Bland, Li Hung-chang (1917), pp. 99-101, 142-144, 144-146, 148-150, 150-153, 157-159, 161-163, 163-165, https://archive.org/details/cu31924023144706
Peter Zarrow, China in War and Revolution, 1895-1949 (2005), p. 14-15
Stephen R. Halsey, Quest for Power: European Imperialism and the Making of Chinese Statecraft (2015)
William T. Rowe, China's Last Empire: The Great Qing (2009), p. 226-227

S3 Episode 12 - "Fuzhou"

Sat, 03 Jan 2026 02:00:00 +0000

In August 1884 French warships anchored peacefully inside the Min River open fire on the Fujian fleet and the Fuzhou Navy Yard, the proudest work of self strengthening, and destroy them in under an hour. The episode follows Liu Mingchuan, the Huai Army general sent to hold Taiwan against the French, and Robert Hart, who brings the war to an end through secret talks run from his office, and asks how the Qing could lose at sea and win on land at Lang Son, and what the peace cost. It leans on foreign observers, with scholars on the battle; the Qing side of the war is heard only through others.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1864-1894/e12/

Sources

Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume II: The Period of Submission, 1861-1893 (1918), pp. 277-279, 352-354, 354-355, 355-357, 357-358, 358-359, 359-361, 361-362, 362-364, 364-365, 365-366, 366-368, 368-369, 369-371, 371-372, 372-374, https://archive.org/details/internationalre02mors
J. O. P. Bland, Li Hung-chang (1917), pp. 131-133, 153-155, 155-157, 297-299, https://archive.org/details/cu31924023144706
James Allan, Under the Dragon Flag: My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War (1898), https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16407
Stephen R. Halsey, Quest for Power: European Imperialism and the Making of Chinese Statecraft (2015)
W. A. P. Martin, A Cycle of Cathay, or China, South and North, with Personal Reminiscences (1896), p. 395-396, https://archive.org/details/cycleofcathayor00mart

S3 Episode 13 - "The Fleet and the Palace"

Sat, 03 Jan 2026 03:00:00 +0000

After the French war Li Hongzhang builds what he has wanted since 1874, a northern fleet of German and British built ironclads at Weihaiwei and Port Arthur, with telegraphs, mines and factories behind it. The episode follows Li and Cixi through the late 1880s as the fleet becomes the strongest in Asia on paper, its British adviser quits, and navy money goes into rebuilding the Summer Palace for Cixi's retirement, and asks whether the court's politics or self strengthening's own limits held it back, giving the palace money real time because it is contested. It leans on scholars, with the court heard a little and foreign observers on the fleet and the riots.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1864-1894/e13/

Sources

Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume II: The Period of Submission, 1861-1893 (1918), pp. 836-837, 358-359, 364-365, 365-366, 368-369, 371-372, 410, 410-412, https://archive.org/details/internationalre02mors
J. O. P. Bland, Li Hung-chang (1917), pp. 77-79, 101-103, 153-155, 220-222, 222-224, 226-228, 228-231, 290-292, 299-301, https://archive.org/details/cu31924023144706
James Allan, Under the Dragon Flag: My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War (1898), https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16407
Stephen R. Halsey, Quest for Power: European Imperialism and the Making of Chinese Statecraft (2015)
William Ferdinand Tyler, Pulling Strings in China (1929), pp. 35-37, 111-113, https://archive.org/details/pullingstringsin00tyle

S3 Episode 14 - "Korea, 1894"

Sat, 03 Jan 2026 04:00:00 +0000

In December 1884 a young Qing officer named Yuan Shikai breaks a coup in Seoul with his own troops, and for the next ten years he runs Korea for Li Hongzhang as China's resident, while Japan watches. The episode follows Yuan and Li from that coup and the 1885 agreement with Japan that each would warn the other before sending troops, to the rebellion in 1894 that brought both armies back, and closes the season with China and Japan at war over Korea, asking whether thirty years of self strengthening were the failure that the next nine months would make them look. It leans on foreign observers and scholars, with Li's side heard once and the court barely at all.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1864-1894/e14/

Sources

B. L. Putnam Weale, The Fight for the Republic in China (1917), https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4522
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume III: The Period of Subjection, 1894-1911 (1918), pp. 10-1882, 19-20, 20-22, 27-29, https://archive.org/details/internationalre03mors
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume II: The Period of Submission, 1861-1893 (1918), https://archive.org/details/internationalre02mors
J. O. P. Bland, Li Hung-chang (1917), pp. 101-103, 103-105, 129-131, 161-163, 163-165, 165-167, 167-169, 170-172, 172-174, https://archive.org/details/cu31924023144706
Peter Zarrow, China in War and Revolution, 1895-1949 (2005), p. 10-13
Stephen R. Halsey, Quest for Power: European Imperialism and the Making of Chinese Statecraft (2015)
Vladimir, The China-Japan War: Compiled from Japanese, Chinese and Foreign Sources (1896), p. 338-341, https://archive.org/download/in.ernet.dli.2015.285116/2015.285116.The-China-_text.pdf
William Ferdinand Tyler, Pulling Strings in China (1929), p. 35-37, https://archive.org/details/pullingstringsin00tyle
William T. Rowe, China's Last Empire: The Great Qing (2009), pp. 216-217, 217-218, 226-227, 227-229, 229-230

S4 Episode 1 - "The War That Broke the Old Order"

Sat, 03 Jan 2026 05:00:00 +0000

Li Hongzhang, the viceroy whose modern army and navy were meant to prove China could hold its own, watches Japan break them in nine months of 1894 and 1895, then has to go to Japan himself to sign away Taiwan, Korea and a fortune. The episode follows Li from the first shot to the peace table, where a gunman's bullet wins China slightly better terms, then turns to Kang Youwei, an examination candidate who answers the treaty by getting more than a thousand of his peers to risk their careers on an illegal petition, and asks why this defeat, unlike the Opium Wars, made reform a cause. It leans heavily on foreign observers and scholars; the court's own voice is a single claim.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1895-1916/e1/

Sources

B. L. Putnam Weale, The Fight for the Republic in China (1917), https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4522
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume III: The Period of Subjection, 1894-1911 (1918), pp. 23-25, 27-29, 30-32, 32-33, 35-36, 36-38, 38-39, 39-40, 42, 44-45, 47-48, 50-51, 55-57, 80-82, 129-130, https://archive.org/details/internationalre03mors
James Allan, Under the Dragon Flag: My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War (1898), https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16407
Percy Horace Kent, The Passing of the Manchus (1912), p. 11-12, https://archive.org/details/cu31924021495258
Peter Zarrow, China in War and Revolution, 1895-1949 (2005), pp. 2, 10-13, 13-14, 21-22
Vladimir, The China-Japan War: Compiled from Japanese, Chinese and Foreign Sources (1896), pp. 372-374, 382-384, 400-403, 413-415, https://archive.org/download/in.ernet.dli.2015.285116/2015.285116.The-China-_text.pdf
William T. Rowe, China's Last Empire: The Great Qing (2009), pp. 227-229, 229-230, 232-234, 234-235, 238-240

S4 Episode 2 - "Carving the Melon and the Hundred Days"

Sat, 03 Jan 2026 06:00:00 +0000

Li Hongzhang, discredited by the peace, is sent round the world as China's envoy to the Tsar, and within two years he can only protest as Germany, Russia and Britain carve leased ports out of the coast. The episode follows how that scramble drove the young Guangxu Emperor to Kang Youwei and the most ambitious reform the dynasty had tried, and asks how much of it the emperor could ever carry out. It leans on scholars and foreign observers, with the court heard only through its reform edicts.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1895-1916/e2/

Sources

B. L. Putnam Weale, The Fight for the Republic in China (1917), https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4522
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume III: The Period of Subjection, 1894-1911 (1918), pp. 32-33, 35-36, 39-40, 44-45, 55-57, 80-82, 82-83, 101-103, 103-104, 104-106, 106-107, 107-109, 109-110, 110-112, 112, 116-118, 118-119, 126-127, 129-130, 131-133, 133-134, 134-136, 136-137, 139-140, 140-142, 154-156, https://archive.org/details/internationalre03mors
Percy Horace Kent, The Passing of the Manchus (1912), pp. 11-12, 12-14, 14-16, https://archive.org/details/cu31924021495258
Peter Zarrow, China in War and Revolution, 1895-1949 (2005), pp. 2-4, 7-8, 15-16, 16-18, 18-19, 128-129
William T. Rowe, China's Last Empire: The Great Qing (2009), pp. 227-229, 229-230, 232-234, 234-235, 235-237, 238-240, 241-243, 248-250

S4 Episode 3 - "A Week in September"

Sat, 03 Jan 2026 07:00:00 +0000

In September 1898 the reformers decide the Empress Dowager Cixi must be stopped, and turn to Yuan Shikai, a general with five thousand foreign drilled troops whom the emperor has just put in charge of army reform. Yuan's choice that week decides who rules China and starts the season's spine; the episode asks whether he betrayed the reform or whether Cixi was already moving, and gives real time to the conflicting accounts, including Yuan's own uncorroborated version. It is told almost entirely through foreign observers and scholars; no reformer's own claim is in the sources yet.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1895-1916/e3/

Sources

Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume III: The Period of Subjection, 1894-1911 (1918), pp. 134-136, 139-140, 140-142, 142-143, 143-145, 145-146, 146-148, 148-149, 172-174, 182-183, 183-184, 184-186, 413-415, https://archive.org/details/internationalre03mors
Percy Horace Kent, The Passing of the Manchus (1912), pp. 14-16, 16-17, 17-19, 19-20, 20-22, 26-27, 186-188, https://archive.org/details/cu31924021495258
Peter Zarrow, China in War and Revolution, 1895-1949 (2005), pp. 15-16, 16-18, 18-19, 53-54
William T. Rowe, China's Last Empire: The Great Qing (2009), p. 241-243

S4 Episode 4 - "Spirit Boxers"

Sat, 03 Jan 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Out of drought struck Shandong come young men who say their rituals make them immune to bullets. Yuan Shikai, governor of the province, refuses Cixi's order to tolerate them and drives them north, and within months they are in Beijing and Cixi has declared war on the world. The episode follows her choice and the governors who refused it, asking who the Boxers were and why the court backed them. It leans on scholars and foreign observers; the Boxers themselves left almost no words in these sources.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1895-1916/e4/

Sources

B. L. Putnam Weale, The Fight for the Republic in China (1917), https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4522
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume III: The Period of Subjection, 1894-1911 (1918), pp. 140-142, 142-143, 148-149, 175-177, 177-179, 179-180, 183-184, 184-186, 186-187, 200-201, 201-203, 206-207, 209-210, 212-213, 213-215, 215-216, 218-219, 222-223, 223-224, 227-228, 231-233, 236-237, 247-248, 254-256, https://archive.org/details/internationalre03mors
Percy Horace Kent, The Passing of the Manchus (1912), pp. 17-19, 20-22, https://archive.org/details/cu31924021495258
Peter Zarrow, China in War and Revolution, 1895-1949 (2005), pp. 2, 2-4, 4-5, 18-19
William T. Rowe, China's Last Empire: The Great Qing (2009), pp. 241-243, 243-245, 245-247

S4 Episode 5 - "Fifty-Five Days and the Price of Peace"

Sat, 03 Jan 2026 09:00:00 +0000

For eight weeks diplomats, soldiers, missionaries and thousands of Chinese Christians hold out in the legation quarter while the outside world believes them dead, and Li Hongzhang, the old negotiator, tries to talk the allies out of marching. The episode follows the siege, Cixi's flight in disguise, the looting of Beijing and Li's last task, signing the Boxer Protocol, and asks what it cost China for a generation. It leans heavily on foreign observers, who wrote nearly all the siege accounts; the Chinese side of the siege is thin and the episode says so.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1895-1916/e5/

Sources

B. L. Putnam Weale, The Fight for the Republic in China (1917), https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4522
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume III: The Period of Subjection, 1894-1911 (1918), pp. 44-45, 222-223, 223-224, 226-227, 233-234, 234-236, 236-237, 240, 251-253, 253-254, 254-256, 256-257, 259-261, 269-271, 271-272, 275-277, 277-278, 278-279, 279-280, 280-282, 282-283, 283-285, 285-286, 311-313, 314-316, 316-317, 317-319, 328-330, 346-348, 351-352, 352-354, 354-356, 360-361, 363-364, 409-410, https://archive.org/details/internationalre03mors
Percy Horace Kent, The Passing of the Manchus (1912), pp. 22-24, 26-27, https://archive.org/details/cu31924021495258
Peter Zarrow, China in War and Revolution, 1895-1949 (2005), pp. 2, 2-4, 4-5
William T. Rowe, China's Last Empire: The Great Qing (2009), pp. 204-206, 229-230, 243-245, 245-247, 260-261

S4 Episode 6 - "The Court Reforms Itself"

Sat, 03 Jan 2026 10:00:00 +0000

Cixi, who crushed the reformers of 1898, announces from exile in Xi'an that everything is open to change, and over the next five years her court abolishes the examinations, promises a constitution and lets Yuan Shikai build the most modern army China has had. The episode follows Cixi's late turn and Yuan's rise inside it, and asks the season's central contested question, whether the New Policies were a failed rescue or the real start of a modern Chinese state. It hears the court in its own edicts more than any episode so far, alongside scholars and foreign observers.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1895-1916/e6/

Sources

B. L. Putnam Weale, The Fight for the Republic in China (1917), https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4522
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume III: The Period of Subjection, 1894-1911 (1918), pp. 98-99, 148-149, 226-227, 233-234, 240, 277-278, 346-348, 351-352, 352-354, 358-360, 360-361, 363-364, 410-412, 425-427, 427-428, 429-430, 436-438, 439-441, 478-480, 482-483, https://archive.org/details/internationalre03mors
Percy Horace Kent, The Passing of the Manchus (1912), pp. 17-19, 24-26, 26-27, 27-28, 28-29, 29-31, 31-33, 33-34, 34-36, 36-37, https://archive.org/details/cu31924021495258
Peter Zarrow, China in War and Revolution, 1895-1949 (2005), pp. 2, 4-5, 18-19, 28-29, 47-48
William T. Rowe, China's Last Empire: The Great Qing (2009), pp. 241-243, 243-245, 245-247, 255-257, 257-258, 258-260, 260-261, 286-287

S4 Episode 7 - "Rebels, Students and Boycotters"

Sat, 03 Jan 2026 11:00:00 +0000

Sun Yat-sen, a doctor from Guangdong, has been plotting the dynasty's overthrow since 1895, and for ten years nothing he tries works. The episode steps back to follow him from a botched uprising to a kidnapping in London and the founding of the Revolutionary Alliance in Tokyo, alongside a writer jailed for calling for revolution and merchants who refuse to buy American goods, and asks how much of the revolution's later story was really Sun's. It leans on scholars and foreign observers; the revolutionaries' own words are not yet in the sources.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1895-1916/e7/

Sources

Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume III: The Period of Subjection, 1894-1911 (1918), pp. 130-131, 433-435, 435-436, 436-438, https://archive.org/details/internationalre03mors
Percy Horace Kent, The Passing of the Manchus (1912), pp. 11-12, 34-36, 36-37, 278-279, https://archive.org/details/cu31924021495258
Peter Zarrow, China in War and Revolution, 1895-1949 (2005), pp. 31-32, 32-33, 48-49, 49-50, 53-54
William T. Rowe, China's Last Empire: The Great Qing (2009), pp. 237-238, 255-257, 258-260, 269-271, 271-272, 274-275

S4 Episode 8 - "The Regency's Gamble"

Sat, 03 Jan 2026 12:00:00 +0000

In November 1908 the Guangxu Emperor and Cixi die within a day of each other, and Zaifeng, Prince Chun, becomes regent for his two year old son. Within weeks he turns on Yuan Shikai, whose head the dead emperor's reported will demanded; Zaifeng dares not kill him and sends him home instead. The episode follows the regent's bid to keep the constitutional promise on the court's terms without Yuan, opening the National Assembly himself, giving way to it, then packing his cabinet with Manchu princes and seizing the railways, and asks whether the New Policies' own assemblies sped the dynasty's fall. It hears the court and foreign observers most, with scholars on the assemblies.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1895-1916/e8/

Sources

B. L. Putnam Weale, The Fight for the Republic in China (1917), https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4522
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume III: The Period of Subjection, 1894-1911 (1918), pp. 99-101, 142-143, 240, 271-272, 346-348, 435-436, 439-441, 441-442, 442-444, https://archive.org/details/internationalre03mors
Percy Horace Kent, The Passing of the Manchus (1912), pp. 17-19, 20-22, 33-34, 39-40, 40-42, 42-43, 43-45, 45-46, 50-52, 52-53, 55-56, 59-60, 61-62, 85-86, 163-166, https://archive.org/details/cu31924021495258
Peter Zarrow, China in War and Revolution, 1895-1949 (2005), pp. 32-33, 38-39, 42-43
William T. Rowe, China's Last Empire: The Great Qing (2009), pp. 241-243, 255-257, 258-260, 269-271, 271-272, 275-277, 277-278, 278-280

S4 Episode 9 - "Wuchang"

Sat, 03 Jan 2026 13:00:00 +0000

An accidental bomb exposes a plot, soldiers in Wuchang mutiny before they can be arrested, and they force their colonel, Li Yuanhong, to lead them at gunpoint. Within weeks province after province declares independence, and the court has to bring back Yuan Shikai, on his terms, from the exile it sent him into. The episode follows the reluctant rebel and the general who takes his time, asks why a local mutiny brought down the dynasty and who actually made the revolution, and gives that debate full airtime. It is told mostly through foreign observers, with scholars, the court's edicts and one Chinese public voice on the Nineteen Articles.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1895-1916/e9/

Sources

B. L. Putnam Weale, The Fight for the Republic in China (1917), https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4522
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume III: The Period of Subjection, 1894-1911 (1918), pp. 99-101, 442-444, 444-445, https://archive.org/details/internationalre03mors
Percy Horace Kent, The Passing of the Manchus (1912), pp. 39-40, 42-43, 45-46, 50-52, 59-60, 68-69, 69-71, 72-74, 74, 78-79, 79-81, 88-89, 89-91, 91-92, 100-101, 101-103, 103-104, 104-106, 106-108, 124-125, 127-128, 128-130, 130-132, 140-142, 142-144, 145-147, 147-148, 148-150, 150-152, 152-153, 153-155, 155-156, 160-161, 161-162, 166-167, 167-169, 169-170, 170-172, 178-179, 179-181, 192-194, 194-196, 197-199, 202-204, 204-206, 214-215, 215-216, 216-218, 221-223, 231-232, 232-234, 234-236, 236-238, 253-255, 255-256, https://archive.org/details/cu31924021495258
Peter Zarrow, China in War and Revolution, 1895-1949 (2005), pp. 6-7, 30-31, 32-33, 33-35, 42-43
William T. Rowe, China's Last Empire: The Great Qing (2009), pp. 23-25, 261-263, 263-265, 269-271, 272-273, 275-277, 278-280, 280-282, 282

S4 Episode 10 - "The Bargain"

Sat, 03 Jan 2026 14:00:00 +0000

Sun Yat-sen lands in China at Christmas 1911 and within a week is provisional president of a republic proclaimed in Nanjing, while Yuan Shikai, the dynasty's premier, holds the army and the north. The episode follows the two men through the deal that traded the throne for Yuan's presidency and asks who won it, Sun who got his republic, the court that got its terms, or Yuan who got the state. It is the first episode with revolutionary and republican voices in their own documents, alongside the court's abdication edicts and foreign observers.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1895-1916/e10/

Sources

B. L. Putnam Weale, The Fight for the Republic in China (1917), https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4522
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume III: The Period of Subjection, 1894-1911 (1918), p. 441-442, https://archive.org/details/internationalre03mors
Percy Horace Kent, The Passing of the Manchus (1912), pp. 88-89, 166-167, 234-236, 253-255, 255-256, 256-258, 258-260, 262-263, 263-265, 265-266, 269-271, 274-276, 276-278, 278-279, 279-281, 294-296, 296-297, 297-298, 308-310, 312-313, 316-318, 318-320, 321-324, 332-334, 334-335, 340, 340-342, 342-344, 344-346, 391-393, https://archive.org/details/cu31924021495258
Peter Zarrow, China in War and Revolution, 1895-1949 (2005), pp. 10-13, 32-33, 33-35, 74-76, 115-116, 129-130
William T. Rowe, China's Last Empire: The Great Qing (2009), pp. 280-282, 282

S4 Episode 11 - "A Republic in Name"

Sat, 03 Jan 2026 15:00:00 +0000

The first national elections make Song Jiaoren's Nationalist Party the largest in parliament, and weeks later he is shot at Shanghai station by a man who says he was paid by the highest authority. The episode follows Yuan Shikai from that killing through crushing the Second Revolution, dissolving parliament and rewriting the constitution, and asks the season's Yuan question at its sharpest, usurper or state builder. It mixes foreign observers, scholars and the republic's own documents, with a little revolutionary and Chinese public voice.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1895-1916/e11/

Sources

B. L. Putnam Weale, The Fight for the Republic in China (1917), https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4522
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume III: The Period of Subjection, 1894-1911 (1918), pp. 98-99, 110-112, https://archive.org/details/internationalre03mors
Percy Horace Kent, The Passing of the Manchus (1912), pp. 88-89, 106-108, 202-204, 253-255, 344-346, https://archive.org/details/cu31924021495258
Peter Zarrow, China in War and Revolution, 1895-1949 (2005), pp. 7-8, 32-33, 33-35, 49-50, 74-76, 77-78, 78-79, 91-92, 128-129
William T. Rowe, China's Last Empire: The Great Qing (2009), pp. 282, 286-287

S4 Episode 12 - "Twenty-One Demands"

Sat, 03 Jan 2026 16:00:00 +0000

With Europe at war, Japan takes Germany's base at Qingdao, and in January 1915 its minister hands Yuan Shikai in person a secret list of demands that would make China close to a protectorate, with a hint that Yuan's own position could be secured if he settled. The episode follows Yuan through four months of bargaining, the leaks he made hoping protest would force Japan back, the ultimatum and the surrender, and asks what it cost China among the powers and Yuan at home. It leans on foreign observers and on the republic's own diplomatic replies; the public anger that followed is heard only thinly.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1895-1916/e12/

Sources

B. L. Putnam Weale, The Fight for the Republic in China (1917), https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4522
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume III: The Period of Subjection, 1894-1911 (1918), pp. 98-99, 110-112, https://archive.org/details/internationalre03mors
Peter Zarrow, China in War and Revolution, 1895-1949 (2005), p. 79-80
William T. Rowe, China's Last Empire: The Great Qing (2009), pp. 227-229, 232-234

S4 Episode 13 - "The Emperor of Hongxian"

Sat, 03 Jan 2026 17:00:00 +0000

Yuan Shikai reaches for the throne, and Liang Qichao, the reformer who fled in 1898 and later served in Yuan's government, refuses to help and becomes the voice of the opposition. The episode follows the two men from staged petitions and a unanimous provincial vote, through Liang's farewell letter and Cai E's escape to Yunnan, to the revolt that forces Yuan to cancel the monarchy and his death in June 1916, then closes the season by asking what these twenty years meant for ordinary people and what Yuan left behind. It draws on the republic's own documents, scholars, foreign observers, the Yunnan rebels and Liang Qichao's letter, the season's strongest Chinese public voice.

Episode page: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/china-1895-1916/e13/

Sources

B. L. Putnam Weale, The Fight for the Republic in China (1917), https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4522
Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Volume III: The Period of Subjection, 1894-1911 (1918), p. 441-442, https://archive.org/details/internationalre03mors
Percy Horace Kent, The Passing of the Manchus (1912), pp. 106-108, 344-346, https://archive.org/details/cu31924021495258
Peter Zarrow, China in War and Revolution, 1895-1949 (2005), pp. 10-13, 32-33, 76-77, 78-79, 79-80, 80-82, 82-83, 91-92, 130-131, 137-139