Qu Yuan, the Chu Ci and the Shamanic Soul of Chu
In the fifth month of the lunar calendar in 278 BCE, an emaciated, disheveled nobleman walked along the reed-choked banks of the Miluo River…
30 min read
Tag
Pre-Imperial
The Zhengguo Canal and the Espionage Plot That Financed Unification
In 246 BCE, as the thirteen-year-old King Zheng (the future First Emperor, Qin Shi Huang) ascended the throne of Qin, the neighboring State of…
28 min read
Hezong, Lianheng and the Diplomacy of the Warring States
In the twilight centuries of ancient China, the collapse of the Zhou ritual order transformed the Central Plains into the most complex, lethal balance-of-power…
30 min read
Shang Yang’s Legalist Revolution and the Qin Conquest
In the fourth century BCE, the State of Qin was widely disdained across the Central Plains as a crude, culturally backward marcher realm. Cut…
32 min read
The Battle of Muye and the Mandate of Heaven
At dawn on the day of Jiazi in roughly 1046 BCE, on the sodden loess plain of Muye just south of the Shang capital…
28 min read