Radio War Nerd EP #74—Taiping Rebellion
Guest: Carl Zha
The Taiping Rebellion was the deadliest war of the 19th C, maybe in history—between 20 million and 100 million died in fighting between a Chinese cult leader's army in southern China, and the decaying Qing dynasty . . . The War Nerd is joined by fellow "history nerd" Carl Zha, a native of China and a great interview guest! . . . Afterwards, we do a brief roundup of the latest war news...
Click to maps here or here of the Taiping war zones to get a sense of where in China this took place
Total time: 2:24:04
Direct link to this episode's mp3 here
Music: "Brush/Throat" by Alexander Hacke , from the album Sanctuary (courtesy of the good folks at Koolarrow Records)
Comments (31)
This one was a banger
Fantastic show, need to have Carl Zha back and continue, maybe do a 3 part dedicated to the Xinjiang province so you can still interrupt him and he can continue to dig deep in the weeds of the very interesting history of the region. The 3 of you feed off each other well, it's entertaining, educational, it's a nice nice. Cheers !
Thanks! Yeah, Carl has been astonishing. It's like he's been doing this all his life.
Thank you! Love your shows. Listening to them all week-end while working. A bit grim sometimes but this is the truth, plain and simple.
Thanks. I'm glad you like them.
Great episode! Not to defend Truman Capote but he is sometimes given credit for some of the lines in To Kill a Mockingbird — such as "In a far corner of the square, the Negroes sat quietly in the sun, dining on sardines, crackers, and the more vivid flavors of Nehi Cola."
I really liked 'Other Voices, Other Rooms' hard not to say overrated overall but there is some good work.
Great episode!
Thanks! Tough one to do--I'd rather avoid this topic. But it does have some lessons.
I loved this episode and would definitely like to hear more about Chinese history, and East Asia in general.
I loved the Carl Zha interview, and like others here in comments, I hope to see his return in the future. If you ever consider requests, I'd love something on the fascinating but rather obscure military history of Tibet that you (John) wrote about in 2008 (<a href="http://exiledonline.com/war-nerd-tibet-five-to-one-against/all/1/)." rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://exiledonline.com/war-nerd-tibet-five-to-one-against/all/1/).</a> That left me wanting to know more. I don't know if Carl would be willing and able to cover this - somehow I doubt that he would have learned of the glories of ancient Tibet in his government-controlled schooling in China - but whether discussed by Carl or some other guest expert (credentialed scholar or war nerd), this would be a great topic for discussion IMO. One thing I've wondered about - maybe too amorphous a topic to be suitable for a standalone podcast - is whether there is any consensus on what kind of sources are traditionally the most reliable and authentic for war chronicling and analysis, regardless of time and place in the world. Pre-20th century illiterate peasants and serfs pressed into war are obviously out (unless they consented to interviews by someone good at it). My impression is that the relatively rare on-the-scene soldier-scholar makes for the best chronicler. Other educated elites (e.g., clergy, government functionaries) have also served this role. John's frustrations in researching his 2008 Tibet piece due to difficulties in finding sources got me wondering about this. Finally, for those interested in the citation by John at around 1h25m - "Eminent Victorians" by Lytton Strachey (first published in 1918) - it is available free-of-charge in a number of formats at the Project Gutenberg site: <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2447" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2447</a> . You can also get it at Amazon (<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Eminent-Victorians-Lytton-Strachey-ebook/dp/B00ABDHYE6/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1488931093&sr=1-1&keywords=eminent+victorians)," rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.amazon.com/Eminent-Victorians-Lytton-Strachey-ebook/dp/B00ABDHYE6/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1488931093&sr=1-1&keywords=eminent+victorians),</a> where it was free at the time I downloaded it to my Kindle, but just a day later was priced at $1.99 for Kindle. (I think I read that Amazon's system messes with pricing on a lot of books based on online interest/demand; whatever). Thanks again to all for this interview!
Actually My parents met and got married in Tibet, and I was conceived there : )
I agree with everyone that this was a great episode; I'm looking forward to you guys having him on again and would definitely support a chinese history/culture/current events Carl Zha solo podcast!
It would be nice to have separate full 2-3hrs episodes, one entirely dedicated to War, the other about current events/media.
Perhaps I missed it, but where do the higher death toll numbers come from?
Great episode, Id love to hear more about china by a person who actually speaks the language and understands the history! I understand the basic idea behind the cccp and how they came to power, but I would love to hear you guys go more into more depth about how they all connect into the history of China and the context of it all.
Great episode guys! One of the best yet. I really liked the format of a quasi-interview with an expert who can add a lot of context. Keep up the awesome work.
Carl Mentioned the film Warlords. If it's the one I'm thinking of, also called Blood Brothers, there is a scene where the three blood brothers start falling out. One of them does a deal with a city garrison to surrender in return for sparing their lives. The Jet Li character accepts the surrender and then orders the execution of the garrison, excusing himself by saying that they are soldiers and cannot be surprised by this. Also, the trio become blood brothers by each killing a prisoner in a ceremony. It is very clear that these guys mean business, unlike the ceremonies we sometimes saw in westerns, so the betrayal of his brother is much more meaningful later on. Finally, in the book Sons of the Yellow Emperor, author Lynne Pan tells of a Hakka rebellion in British controlled Sarawak. The Hakkas I've met are all very bright people. I think their clan houses were small, round/cylindrical fortresses. I've heard also that they never practiced foot binding. Great episode!
Blood oaths were common practice in China to irrevocably bind unrelated individuals, the ultimate bond being family. They would also choose their birth dates to establish hierarchy, or the same birth date if they were to be equals. The most famous example is the Three Kingdoms epic, where the three main protagonists sacrifice a white horse and a black ox to become brothers.
This was a great interview. Thank you so much!
after listening to the post-interview conversation re: the Manhattan establishment smear club- I realize that the most valuable information I've gleaned from following your output for the last 12 or so years has been from this window into others' reaction to the both of you (and nswfcorp, et al). It's kind of shocking how much is revealed when insiders try to shut you down. It's like being able to study a core sample of the sludge that this country's power base rests on.
great episode. all I knew about the Taiping rebellion to date was from a Flashman book. Incredible how much history Americans are not exposed to.
Especially when it isn't written in English
The translator of the Penguin collection of Pu Songling's stories recommends Miyazaki's "China's Examination Hell" as a good book on the late Imperial examination system. Can't speak to it personally as I haven't read it yet but it seems to have gotten good reviews.
I noticed that you're using Skype to do the interviews, please change to something with a better audio codec, try Discord, <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discord_(software)," rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discord_(software),</a> it's multiplatform, free, has excellent audio quality and can be used on a web browser. To actually record the session I'd suggest <a href="http://craigrecords.yahweasel.com/home/," rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://craigrecords.yahweasel.com/home/,</a> podcasting is one of the case uses of this platform. Almost all the interviews are plagued by the guests poor sound quality, and it's not a poor internet connection issue. And keep the good work, great show.
+1 for Discord, I have been really surprised at how consistently good it is in adverse network conditions which are inescapable
Great episode, but I'm getting some weird audio issues...
We fixed the audio glitch and updated the links and the patreon audio, sorry about that!
I've always wondered about the whole "he said he was the brother of Jesus - what a nutjob" line. It's not controversial in Christian circles to say we are all brothers in Christ. The victors writing the history could well have twisted that one!
There's a sound mixing error at 1:24:00 or thereabouts, sounds like a clip of Mark's audio (from a cut section where you were recovering Carl on the call) is pasted back in, dubbed over a section where Carl is talking
Looks like Mark's track is delayed after that point - it screws up the dialog pretty badly going forward