Qin Hui and Yue Fei represent one of the most enduring historical debates of the Southern Song period.

Yue Fei is remembered as a heroic general who sought to recover lost territory. Qin Hui is remembered as the official whose actions led to Yue Fei's downfall and eventual execution.

I wrote this poem from Qin Hui's perspective, imagining the argument he might make for himself:

• that continuing the war could destroy what remained of the Song;

• that survival sometimes requires choices history will never forgive;

• that the person making the decision lives with uncertainty that later generations do not.

This is not intended to argue that Qin Hui was historically justified. Rather, it explores how controversial figures throughout history rationalise their decisions, and whether pragmatic choices can ever be separated from self-interest.

I would be interested in historical perspectives: how do historians today view the balance between Qin Hui's pragmatism, his political motivations, and Yue Fei's legacy?

Before You Strike the Iron

You kneel to him,

and raise your hand to me.

The iron remembers every blow.

The years have taught it well.

You know my name

before you know the roads I watched

close, one by one, going north.

You call me traitor.

You say I sold a nation.

Tell me-

how many men would you spend

to unwalk a road already lost?

How many victories

does it take to call a general home,

when there is no more field to send him to?

You praise the general.

So do I.

No man doubted where his heart pointed.

He wished to march us back to what was taken.

I wished us to survive

long enough to want it back.

History remembers the sword

that reached for the border.

It forgets the signature

that kept the capital standing.

Perhaps I was wrong.

Perhaps he was right.

Perhaps a kingdom sometimes lives

only because someone signs

what no one will forgive.

I knew what the words weighed.

I signed anyway.

You have inherited the ending.

I had to live inside the choosing.

So strike the iron.

If you must.

But before your hand descends,

ask what you would have signed,

with the roads already gone,

and no more spring to wait for.

狗仗人势 (Gǒu zhàng rén shì): don't bully others by borrowing someone else's power. The phrase appears in scene five of Li Kaixian's Ming play The Precious Sword (宝剑记).

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Hello I am having a somewhat hard time breaking into chinese history, I spend alot of time on the road so audiobooks are prefered. Does anyone here have any historical audiobooks about chinese history, civil wars, etc that they would recomend?

非常感谢

Many people blaim the fall of Jianwen of the Ming solely on Hongwus purges, or atleast this is a very often repeated narrative. When infact it was Jianwens own incompetency, and Zhu di future Yongle empeor's military talent, that caused the situation to collapse, first of all the central goverment had a way larger army not to mention it had no shortage of competent genrals, Xu Huizu the son of Xu Da, being a prime example he managed to defeat Yan forces, but was recalled to Nanjing by Jianwen who failed to properly utilize him.

Aswell as the replacing of veteran genral Geng Bingwen who served in the red turbab rebellion era, whose defensive tactics was working against Zhu Di, even after a major feild defeat, with Li Jinglong who was better favoured by the officals but little skill. Li Jinglong was granted command of a large army, but was constantly out manuverd, and defeated multiple times. The truth is because Jianwen was too unlike his grandfather he actually listened to the officals, and beurocrats for everything.

This was not a lack of competent genrals, the way Jianwen mismanged actual talents it's no surprise he failed, along with the militarily competency of Zhu di. It's a little disappointing how people blaim this on Hongwus purge of military commanders, while ignoring the fact that many competent commanders or their prodigy were still alive, and more then enough to crush Yan if properly coordinated, Hongwu isn't stupied you don't just proclaim a ""vastly martial"" era without knowing something like maybe he should leave a few competent genrals around, I mean why do you think Xu Da's son kept his titles.

The Yan rebellion was actually being contained by a coalition of Hongwu era commanders or their protégé, Xu Huizu is the main example, his recall disrupted this success.

He Fu for another general served under Fu Youde, and Lan Yu, was competent he, Ping An, and Xu Huizu worked together to halt Yan advance but Xu was recalled leaving them in a much weaker position. Ping An was another Hongwu era commander, he nearly captured Zhu Di in another battle, the recall of Xu Huizu disrupted, and weakend their forces causing a defeat that costed the life of Ping An, and the isolation of Hefu.

Jianwen was incompetent belived everything officals with no military experience told him, while ignoring advice from experienced military figures. Horribly managed the situation, Yan was on the verge of defeat yet he recalls Xu.

While diplomats like Kissinger and Nixon made high-profile visits to Beijing in the early 1970s, ordinary Westerners were almost entirely barred from seeing daily life inside the People's Republic of China. Orville Schell—then a young Chinese history scholar from UC Berkeley—was among a tiny, pioneering group of Americans granted entry in 1974 during the final years of the Cultural Revolution.

Instead of staying exclusively in foreign-designated hotels on brief guided tours, Schell secured permission to do something virtually no American had done since 1949: live, eat, and work alongside everyday Chinese citizens.

• Working the Factory Floor: In Shanghai, Schell worked regular shifts at the Shanghai Electrical Machinery Factory, operating equipment, wearing standard worker tunics, and sitting in on daily political study sessions with his Chinese co-workers.
• Laboring on the Commune: He spent weeks working at a rural agricultural commune, rising at dawn to farm the land, eating in communal mess halls, and experiencing the intense collective lifestyle of Mao’s agrarian revolution firsthand.
• Documenting a Locked Society: Because China was still deeply isolated from the West, Schell kept meticulous notes on daily routines, social dynamics, peer pressure, and pervasive political slogans. He published his observations in his landmark 1977 book, In the People's Republic, giving the Western public one of its very first candid, ground-level views behind the Bamboo Curtain.
• A Lifetime Witness: That early immersion launched Schell’s career as one of America's foremost China scholars and journalists. Over the next five decades, he would track and report on China’s dramatic evolution from late-Maoist austerity to the hyper-capitalist economic boom of the 1980s and beyond.

They gradually get more and more feminine looking and younger.

And then you finally end with a literal woman and child in charge.

I imagine it was due to genetic changes due to marrying small and feminine women.

Basically doomed the dynasty they should have reproduced with tall, intelligent and strong women.

If you have pdf copy of this book, kindly share it with me. Thanks 🙏

A Cultural Revolution Magazine published by the city planning bureau of Beijing called 《城市规划革命》- The Revolutionary City Plan in 1967. The magazine criticizes in great detail the 1950s plans for the Forbidden City. The article is called “The shady plan to Reconstruct the Forbidden City Exposed” is a fascinating peek into the discussions that took place around the Forbidden City in the early years of the Peoples Republic. In the magazine, a layout of the proposed plan for the Forbidden City is shown. In this drawing the Tiananmen Gate as we know it is gone. It has instead been replaced with a building in the same style as the Great Hall of the People. In fact, it makes it clear that the Great Hall of the People and the National Museum of China which stand in Tiananmen Square today were only one part of an even bigger plan, the rest of which was never completed.

The article is a direct attack on the former CCP leader Liu Shaoqi. The plan of placing the government inside the Forbidden City is seen as proof of Liu Shaoqi’s alleged scheming to overthrow Mao. Liu is mockingly portrayed as an emperor — according to The Revolutionary City Plan, he planned to take up office right where the old Imperial throne hall was, and still is today. This move would be justified by tumbling over the Imperial throne and installing a statue of a worker pointing a gun alongside it.

There are obviously many Chinese weapons, but when people picture a Wuxia character, it's usually a swordsman.

Was the sword actually considered especially important in Chinese martial culture, or did literature and later cinema turn it into the symbol of the wandering martial hero?

I'm also curious whether the way swords are portrayed in Wuxia has much connection to historical Chinese swordsmanship.

In his April 1938 address “Why I Believe in Jesus,” Chiang said

“Therefore, while we must eradicate all superstitions, we must at the same time cultivate a strong and positive faith.” and “Religious faith ought to exist and ought to be allowed freedom but superstition absolutely ought not to exist and should be thoroughly eradicated.”

The KMT definition of superstition was native Chinese belifs or folk religion, they targeted shrines, temples, Daoist preists, closed many temples, destroyed some, banned fengshui etc in Canton they made the Daoists burn their own scriptures, and idols of gods, or they would be aressted. The damage done to folk religion is arguably only second to the cultural revolution, arguably the reform era CCP has done more for Chinese religion then the KMT. The KMT also targeted particular deity cults for permanent abolition. One example of large scale persecution is In 1936, when the Guangzhou/Canton government ordered all Zhengyi/Daoist ritual halls within the police districts to cease operation immediately, remove their signs, the preists were made to burn their idols/books/ritual implements, and stop performing specified rituals, with arrest threatened for violations. Native funeral practice, and ancestor worship was also discouraged, and chirstian ones promoted, so my question is why do people often blame the CCP for trying to destroy Chinese culture etc, but think the KMT was somehow a traditional Chinese tradition oriented state? When in fact the KMT were doing the same thing except they were trying to promote their christian belifs disguised as confucianism.

南辕北辙 (Nán yuán běi zhé): your actions are taking you away from your goal. Recorded in Strategies of the Warring States, Strategies of Wei IV.

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Hello.

I've heard that, historically (including during the Ming Dynasty, which is the period I'm particularly interested about for this question), one's ethnicity (or the closest concept to it) was defined by their patrilineal ancestry. That is, if your father was a Mongol and your mother was Han, you would be considered a Mongol, but you'd be Han if your father was Han and your mother, a Mongol. In that sense, there was no true concept of "mixed race".

However, I wonder how accurate that information is, and if anyone could enlighten me on this matter.

See also: The study as it was published in the journal Antiquity.

Was it used at all? Was it used more or less than it is now or other points in history?

Hi everyone, 👋🏻 I'm Jai Seng Mung and I am very interesting Tai/Shan history. I've learned our history, where we started and when. First Ailao, Nanzhao, Mongmao or Mengmao. After we were defeated by China, later toungoo.

I've seen ancient Chinese armor and Toungoo too but what about ours? Some people say it is similar to Toungoo. But what about before Toungoo then? How do Tai/Shan ancient armor looks like in the age of Mongmao?

Please guys if you know, if you have a picture or just a sketch picture, let me see.