EARLY EPISODE: The Taiping Rebellion Part 4: The Heavenly King Has a Tummy Ache

TV party tonight!

Sorry I know I'm commenting on this late but re: your talk at the end about the human cost and how most of these people had no choice I highly rec the book The World Of A Tiny Insect by Zhang Daye. Its a memoir written by a guy who lived through the Taiping Rebellion as a child (though obviously he didn't write the book till decades later) in a town that fell under Taiping occupation and it gives a really good if depressing ground level view of what it was like to just be a normal civilian in all this

My personal method of trying to get pronunciations of foreign words right is to just plug them into google translate and press the text to speech button. Doesn't help in pronouncing speech sounds that don't occur in english but it does help you get in the right ballpark.

Spending my childhood in the city of Nanjing, China, our elementary school teacher used to take us to tour the remaining palaces and gardens built during the Taiping rebellion, most of them were destroyed. The most famous one remained like Hong’s heavenly palace becomes Kiang Kei-shek’s presidential palace during the Republic of China period, then the Rape of Nanjing took place. Then the civil war broke out and the communists took the palace and now it’s a tourist attraction. The history of that palace alone is an epitome of recent Chinese history and makes me question whether Nanjing as a city is just cursed…

Thank you for mentioning what else was happening in the world at the time, I find it a lot easier to remember history when I can place it alongside things I already know.

Fun fact: The Wing King was not the only person involved in this war to make a significant contribution to chicken cuisine. The attack on the last city held by Hong's son was led by general Zuo Zongtang, alternative spelling Tso Tsung-t'ang. This is the guy that General Tso's Chicken is named after.

Speaking of smokestack VW diesels. My buddy had a Jetta on all terrain tires with a smokestack and it was dumb, but oh so fun at the same time

Excellent series as always, good work boys

Thanks for the gracious shout out Nate re: Entebbe. I wanted to also acknowledge the level of respect everyone on the show has to non-Western cultures, peoples and histories. I know people may criticize mispronunciations as you mentioned, but I think most would ignore that and accept your fundamental open-mindedness. Just a small note of appreciation from a Pakistani Muslim fan of the pod and the crew.

Fun fact about those Taiping remnants in Southeast Asia: the heroin trade in the Golden Triangle region used to be dominated by ethnically Chinese people who were, at least in part, descendants of Taiping refugee bandits.

Should cover the Owain Glyndwr Welsh rebellion

Does my shitty tattoo grant me membership in the Black Flag army?

MONKEYS ARENT DONKEYS

The Black flag army would also write poetry. I remember reading one in college called "Manchu Man".

At some point, there will be a podcast that I won't end up saying "holy mother of God that's fucked up" over and over again...but I don't think it'll be any time soon. This one was truly special.

Aside from knowing there was multiple rebellions happening in China at this time I had no knowledge of this so it was fascinating. Thanks for another great series.

If I had a Nickel for every Float-by cannoning I'd have two nickles with isn't alot but it's odd that it happened twice

If anyone wants an interesting Chinese History rabbit hole to go down look into the Kongsi Republics! Super cool and ahead of their time economic/social organizations

On behalf of Joe: Please don't write in if you know how and where to acquire massive amounts of dog blood. ;)