The Lin Biao Affair and Project 571
In the pitch-black, freezing early morning hours of September 13, 1971 CE, across the desolate, windswept grasslands of Öndörkhaan (温都尔汗) in northeastern Mongolia, several…
28 min read
Tag
Chinese History
The Zhenbao Island Clash and the Brink of Nuclear War
On the blindingly bright, sub-zero morning of March 2, 1969 CE, the surface of the frozen Ussuri River (乌苏里江, Wusuli Jiang)—the serpentine border separating…
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The Third Front Movement and China’s Secret Industrial Relocation
Deep in the precipitous, mist-shrouded limestone gorges of the Wu River in Fuling, eighty miles east of Chongqing in southwest China, a colossal mountain…
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The Hundred Flowers and the Anti-Rightist Campaign
On the sunlit afternoon of May 19, 1957 CE, in the tranquil northern suburbs of Beijing, an extraordinary political explosion erupted across the red-brick…
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The Land Reform Movement and the End of the Gentry Class
In the biting cold of November 1950 CE, in the village of Long Bow in Shanxi Province, as across tens of thousands of rural…
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Liaoshen, Huaihai and Pingjin in the Chinese Civil War
Between September 12, 1948, and January 31, 1949 CE—a span of precisely one hundred and forty-two breathless days—the geopolitical destiny of the world’s most…
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The 1938 Huayuankou Dyke Breach
In the sweltering, overcast dawn of June 9, 1938 CE, on the south bank of the raging Yellow River near the tranquil village of…
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The Xi’an Incident and the United Front Against Japan
At five o’clock in the freezing, pitch-black morning of December 12, 1936 CE, a ferocious crackle of rifle fire and the thunder of exploding…
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The Long March and the Ascent of Mao at Zunyi
On the evening of January 15, 1935 CE, in the remote mountain city of Zunyi in the rugged highlands of northern Guizhou, a cold…
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The Northern Expedition and the 1927 Shanghai Massacre
At four o’clock in the morning on April 12, 1927 CE—in the damp, mist-choked pre-dawn darkness of Shanghai—the sudden, piercing wail of a naval…
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Lu Xun, New Youth and the Assault on Confucian Absolutism
In the fifth lunar month of 1918 CE—the seventh year of the Republic of China—inside a modest editorial office on Sanyi Lane in the…
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Yuan Shikai’s Eighty-Three Days of Empire and the National Protection War
On the twelfth day of December in the fourth year of the Republic of China—1915 CE—inside the cavernous, silk-draped hall of the Renzhouluan (Hall…
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The Sichuan Railway Protection Movement of 1911
In the seventh lunar month of the third year of the Xuantong era—September 1911 CE—the wide, flagstone-paved avenues of Chengdu, the provincial capital of…
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The Tongzhi Restoration and the Contradictions of Imperial Revival
In the tenth lunar month of the tenth year of the Xianfeng era—November 1860 CE—the Great Qing Empire appeared to be gasping its final…
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The White Lotus Rebellion and the Shattering of Qing Infallibility
In the first lunar month of the first year of the Jiaqing era—February 1796 CE—an imperial abdication ceremony of breathtaking pageantry was staged within…
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Heshen and the Plunder of the High Qing
3B. The Siku Quanshu and the Terror of the Literary Inquisition Beyond his financial machinations, Heshen exercised immense cultural and intellectual power as the…
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The Thirteen Factories of Canton and the Cohong
For eighty-five years—between 1757 and 1842 CE—the entire commercial, financial, and diplomatic relationship between the Chinese Empire and the maritime powers of the Western…
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The Dzungar Annihilation and the Creation of Qing Xinjiang
In the ninth lunar month of the twentieth year of the Qianlong era—October 1755 CE—an extraordinary triumphal stone monument was hoisted atop the precipitous…
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The Treaty of Nerchinsk and the First Sovereign Border of the Qing
On August 27, 1689 CE (the twenty-fourth day of the seventh lunar month in the twenty-eighth year of the Kangxi reign), on a wind-scoured…
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The Revolt of the Three Feudatories and the Young Kangxi
In the eleventh lunar month of the twelfth year of the Kangxi era—December 1673 CE—a momentous ceremony of rebellion was enacted inside the marble…
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Li Zicheng, Chongzhen and Wu Sangui at Shanhai Pass
At the fifth night watch on the nineteenth day of the third lunar month in the seventeenth year of the Chongzhen era—April 25, 1644…
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Zhang Juzheng’s Single Whip Reform and the Silver That Broke the Ming
In the ninth lunar month of the ninth year of the Wanli era (1581 CE), an imperial decree drafted by the most powerful statesman…
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The Imjin War and Ming China’s Pyrrhic Victory Over Hideyoshi
On the thirteenth day of the fourth lunar month in the twentieth year of the Wanli era (May 23, 1592 CE), the morning sea…
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Wang Yangming and the Unity of Knowledge and Action
In the suffocating, pitch-black midnight of the third year of the Zhengde era (1508 CE), a freezing mountain rain battered the limestone crags of…
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