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Before we head back to modern times, we look at the mythological beginnings of the Chinese people and the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors. This period preceded China’s legendary Xia Dynasty and the beginnings of Chinese recorded history in the Shang.

This week we look at the immortal Zhou Gong, the Duke of Zhou. If he isn’t the most revered person from Chinese history, he’s certainly in the top three. He guided the earliest years of the Zhou Dynasty through treacherous times. Zhou Gong was responsible for building a great amount of the foundation from which Chinese culture has evolved.

This week’s episode runs a little long as there won’t be anything for the following week. Today’s episode looks at the life and interesting career of Sir Robert Hart (赫德), an Ulsterman from Northern Ireland. For most of his life he lived in China in the employ of the Zongli Yamen. Though his official title was Inspector General of the China Maritime Customs Service, he played an important behind the scenes role during the Treaty Port Era. His was an amazing life and today we look at his days in China from 1853 to 1908. I’m in Shanghai and Ningbo all this week so there won’t be any episode until after I get back.

Thanks to RL in Hefei for the inspiration, this week we take a look at China and Japan's difficult history. We focus on the historical events that led to "2,000 years of friendship and 50 years of confrontation," as CPCCC member Zhao Qizheng 赵启正 said recently in the People's Daily. We look at the background and the 50 years that were so terrible, the reverberations are still loud and clear today with many Chinese.

Today we're back with more history. We look at the Shanghai Massacre of April 12, 1927. This was the defining moment when Chiang Kai-shek and his allies and supporters made a bloody break with the Communists.

Laszlo finishes off his weeklong biz trip to China with a few days in Hong Kong with another chit chat show about stuff in general. The history episodes will return as soon as the jet lag wears off and Laszlo is back in the saddle.

The 1920's in Republican era China was anything but quiet and uneventful. In this episode we focus in on the general situation in China during the period of the early 1920's. This was a time when the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) and KMT (Kuomintang) were in the same bed dreaming their different dreams. It was a period where China was divided with warlords Zhang Zuolin, Wu Peifu and Sun Chuanfang controlling China from the Yangzi north. The south was the domain of the KMT-CCP alliance where revolution was always in the air. In 1927 Chiang Kai-shek will turn on the CCP and this sets a chain of events in motion that will lead to the Communists victory in 1949.

We close out our little overview of Daoism by looking at the most powerful and popular Daoist deities. In this episode you will meet the Three Pure Ones and the Eight Immortals with a focus on Lu Dongbin and Zhongli Quan.

More Daoism this week. We look at Zhuangzi and trace the development of Daoism during the classical age from the Han Dynasty to the Tang

In this week's episode Laszlo tackles Daoism, a philosophy, a religion and way of life that everyone has heard about but not everyone learned the backstory. This time we look at the history and the times that spawned this most fertile of philosophies. In later episodes we’ll dig a little deeper and look more at the religion and the philosophy.

Today we have some lighter fare than usual. Nine months ago we looked at one great Hong Kong tycoon, Li Ka-shing. Today we look another. In this episode we look at the life and career of entertainment mogul Sir Run Run Shaw and the Shaw Brothers organization. Born in Ningbo in 1907, along with his brothers, Run Run Shaw built a business empire that spanned the globe and he brought joy to millions with his movies and television. This week we'll take a break from the brutality and bad news to examine a nice success story from Chinese history.

Thanks and 非常感谢 to listener Steaven who alerted me that the July 1st podcast was cut-off two thirds of the way through. After rallying the entirety of the resources here at the China History Podcast, we were able to resolve the problem and have re-uploaded this episode. Our profoundest apologies. In commemoration of the festivities in China marking the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party, today we look at the events leading up to the CCP's 1st Party Congress in Shanghai. It was nine decades ago on this day on July 1, 1921 that the thirteen delegates of the Party participated in this historic event that began in Shanghai and finished off in the city of Jiaxing.

In this episode we look at the life of one of the bravest and greatest adventurers of ancient times. Zhang Qian was selected by the Han Dynasty Emperor Wu to make a political alliance with a distant central Asian people, the Yuezhi. Zhang Qian's thirteen year journey to the west between 138 BC and 126 BC brought back massive amounts of intelligence and understanding about those distant lands beyond Han China's frontiers. This great adventurer and national hero of China paved the way for the explosion of two way trade that followed in his footsteps and led to the development of the Silk Road.

May 4, 1919 was an historic day in modern Chinese history. The demonstration in Beijing and the subsequent movement brought seismic changes to Chinese culture, politics and literature. All the leaders of modern China who played a founding role in the establishment of the PRC were influenced by the writings and ideas that grew out of this May 4th Movement. All the pent up anger, frustration and resentment of foreign imperialism and China's weakness in the face of their might, came to a head at this time.

The Qing Dynasty formally came to an end on February 12, 1912 when the last emperor Puyi abdicated. That same year the Republic of China was founded and had a very rocky start. In today’s episode we look at the immediate aftermath of the Xinhai Revolution and what happened right after Sun Yat-sen handed the presidency of the new republic to Yuan Shikai.