The History of China

In this empire business, you gotta make the opium first. Then when you get the opium, you get the silver. Then when you get the silver, then you get the tea.Time Period Covered:ca. 1760-1839 CEMajor Historical Figures:Qing Empire:The Daoguang Emperor (Minning) [r. 1820–1850]Governor-General of Liangguang, Ruan Yuan [1764–1849]"The Hoppo" (Imperial Superintendent of Maritime Customs), The emperor’s personal revenue agent at CantonChinese Commercial Interests:"The Cohong" (Gonghang), the licensed guild of Cantonese merchants authorized to trade with foreigners"The Consoo Fund" (Gongsuo), the Cohong’s collective insurance poolYaokou Dealers & River Smugglers, opium wholesale intermediaries and armed transporters inland via the Pearl River systemBritish & Foreign Interests:The British East India Company (EIC)The Select Committee at Canton, the EIC's on-site management teamDr. William Jardine (1784–1843), physician-turned-opium magnateThe True Protagonists:Silver, shinyTea, fragrantOpium, somniferousMajor Works Cited:Fairbank, John K. Trade and Diplomacy on the China Coast: The Opening of the Treaty Ports, 1842–1854.Platt, Stephen R. Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China’s Last Golden Age.Wakeman, Frederic, Jr. “The Canton Trade and the Opium War” in The Cambridge History of China, Volume 10: Late Ch’ing, 1800–1911, Part I. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Great Qing begins to buckle under early 19th c. internal pressures. Unrest first erupts not at the imperial core but along its social and geographic margins. This time, we look at three of the early warning shocks: the Miao frontier rebellions, the rise of Triad networks across the southern coastal cities, & the formation of the apocalyptic White Lotus uprising.Time Period Covered:~1790s-1840s CEMajor Historical Figures:Qing Empire:Fu Nai, Qing magistrateHeshen, grand councilor under the Qianlong Emperor, (1750-1799) Miao People:Shi Sanbao, Miao rebel leader, (d. ~1796)Shi Liudeng, Miao rebel leader, (d. 1797)White Lotus Sect:Lin Shuangwen, Leader of the Tiandihui (Heaven and Earth Society), (1756–1788)Liu Song, White Lotus sect figure/leader, (banished~1775; active 1770s–1790s)Liu Zhishi, Disciple of Liu Song; charismatic White Lotus preacher, (active 1790s)Major Works Cited:Mann, Susan and Philip A. Kuhn. “Dynastic decline and the roots of rebellion” in The Cambridge History of China, Volume 10: Late Ch’ing, 1800–1911, Part 1.Naquin, Susan. "Millenarian Rebellion in China: The Eight Trigrams Uprising of 1813."Ownby, David. Brotherhoods and Secret Societies in Early and Mid-Qing China.Rowe, William. China's Last Empire: The Great Qing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Qing Empire did not collapse because it stopped working. It collapsed because it kept working — just barely — under pressures that compounded faster than reform could relieve them... Time Period Covered: ~1790s-1840s CE Major Works Cited: Jones, Susan Mann and Philip A. Kuhn. “Dynastic Decline and the Roots of Rebellion.” The Cambridge History of China, vol. 10: Late Ch’ing, 1800–1911, Part I Kuhn, Philip A. Rebellion and Its Enemies in Late Imperial China: Militarization and Social Structure, 1796–1864. Pomeranz, Kenneth, The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From the koan chants of monasteries tucked between Himalayan peaks, to wending caravan paths stretching endlessly across the arid expanses of the Taklamakan & trackless steppes of Dzungaria, we finish out our look at the four primary frontier regions of the Qing Empire as of 1800, where they'd come from, how they were operated, & the imperial tonnage of headaches for Beijing that came with both.Tibet - 00:01:21Xinjiang - 00:22:08 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The world is coming to Qing's doorstep, but it has a whole other set of problems along its own frontiers... Less chronologically tied-down than most of our episodes, today we look at two of the Qing Empire's four major "inner frontier zones" and how they - in spite of often getting upstaged by the "flashier" elements of the 1800s & Qings clashes with the wider world, many have played an even larger part in its imperial decay than the British East India Co. could've ever hoped to achieve. We start off today with Manchuria & Mongolia... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices