The Making of Modern China

Then and There
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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. The Embassy and the Canton System opens with Lord Macartney refusing to kowtow to the Qianlong Emperor, then a second failed embassy and an opium trade that grows despite the emperor's ban. Opium and the Heavenly Kingdom runs from Lin Zexu's campaign against the drug through the Opium Wars and the Taiping rising of Hong Xiuquan, until Zeng Guofan's new armies take Nanjing in 1864. Self-Strengthening follows Li Hongzhang and the empress dowager Cixi as the court learns foreign skills and builds a fleet, until China and Japan go to war over Korea in 1894. Reform and Revolution runs from that defeat through the Boxers and the dynasty's fall to Yuan Shikai, who reaches for the throne and dies in 1916. It is told through the people who lived it, and each episode is checked against the sources it lists. Every episode with its sources: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/ Then and There is written and narrated with AI, then fact checked against its sources. Every episode page lists the sources it was checked against.

  1. Episode 1

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

    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/4522Hosea 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/internationalre03morsJames Allan, Under the Dragon Flag: My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War (1898), https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16407Percy Horace Kent, The Passing of the Manchus (1912), p. 11-12, https://archive.org/details/cu31924021495258Peter Zarrow, China in War and Revolution, 1895-1949 (2005), pp. 2, 10-13, 13-14, 21-22Vladimir, 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.pdfWilliam T. Rowe, China's Last Empire: The Great Qing (2009), pp. 227-229, 229-230, 232-234, 234-235, 238-240

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

  2. Episode 2

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

    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/4522Hosea 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/internationalre03morsPercy Horace Kent, The Passing of the Manchus (1912), pp. 11-12, 12-14, 14-16, https://archive.org/details/cu31924021495258Peter Zarrow, China in War and Revolution, 1895-1949 (2005), pp. 2-4, 7-8, 15-16, 16-18, 18-19, 128-129William 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 2 - "Carving the Melon and the Hundred Days"

  3. Episode 3

    S4 Episode 3 - "A Week in September"

    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/internationalre03morsPercy 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/cu31924021495258Peter Zarrow, China in War and Revolution, 1895-1949 (2005), pp. 15-16, 16-18, 18-19, 53-54William T. Rowe, China's Last Empire: The Great Qing (2009), p. 241-243

    S4 Episode 3 - "A Week in September"

  4. Episode 4

    S4 Episode 4 - "Spirit Boxers"

    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/4522Hosea 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/internationalre03morsPercy Horace Kent, The Passing of the Manchus (1912), pp. 17-19, 20-22, https://archive.org/details/cu31924021495258Peter Zarrow, China in War and Revolution, 1895-1949 (2005), pp. 2, 2-4, 4-5, 18-19William T. Rowe, China's Last Empire: The Great Qing (2009), pp. 241-243, 243-245, 245-247

    S4 Episode 4 - "Spirit Boxers"

  5. Episode 5

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

    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/4522Hosea 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/internationalre03morsPercy Horace Kent, The Passing of the Manchus (1912), pp. 22-24, 26-27, https://archive.org/details/cu31924021495258Peter Zarrow, China in War and Revolution, 1895-1949 (2005), pp. 2, 2-4, 4-5William T. Rowe, China's Last Empire: The Great Qing (2009), pp. 204-206, 229-230, 243-245, 245-247, 260-261

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

  6. Episode 6

    S4 Episode 6 - "The Court Reforms Itself"

    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/4522Hosea 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/internationalre03morsPercy 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/cu31924021495258Peter Zarrow, China in War and Revolution, 1895-1949 (2005), pp. 2, 4-5, 18-19, 28-29, 47-48William 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 6 - "The Court Reforms Itself"

  7. Episode 7

    S4 Episode 7 - "Rebels, Students and Boycotters"

    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/internationalre03morsPercy Horace Kent, The Passing of the Manchus (1912), pp. 11-12, 34-36, 36-37, 278-279, https://archive.org/details/cu31924021495258Peter Zarrow, China in War and Revolution, 1895-1949 (2005), pp. 31-32, 32-33, 48-49, 49-50, 53-54William 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 7 - "Rebels, Students and Boycotters"

  8. Episode 8

    S4 Episode 8 - "The Regency's Gamble"

    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/4522Hosea 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/internationalre03morsPercy 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/cu31924021495258Peter Zarrow, China in War and Revolution, 1895-1949 (2005), pp. 32-33, 38-39, 42-43William 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 8 - "The Regency's Gamble"
See All Season 4 (13)

About

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. The Embassy and the Canton System opens with Lord Macartney refusing to kowtow to the Qianlong Emperor, then a second failed embassy and an opium trade that grows despite the emperor's ban. Opium and the Heavenly Kingdom runs from Lin Zexu's campaign against the drug through the Opium Wars and the Taiping rising of Hong Xiuquan, until Zeng Guofan's new armies take Nanjing in 1864. Self-Strengthening follows Li Hongzhang and the empress dowager Cixi as the court learns foreign skills and builds a fleet, until China and Japan go to war over Korea in 1894. Reform and Revolution runs from that defeat through the Boxers and the dynasty's fall to Yuan Shikai, who reaches for the throne and dies in 1916. It is told through the people who lived it, and each episode is checked against the sources it lists. Every episode with its sources: https://www.thenandtherepodcast.com/china/ Then and There is written and narrated with AI, then fact checked against its sources. Every episode page lists the sources it was checked against.

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