At its height, the Red Flag Confederation taxed, policed, and protected the coast of Guangdong rather better than the Qing Empire managed to – 20,000 men , 1,800 hulls, and a woman from a Canton floating brothel who ran the whole enterprise on paperwork. Then Canton went looking for help, and found six Portuguese ships.

Time Period Covered:
1804–1809 CE

Major Historical Figures:
Red Flag Confederation:
Zheng Yi Sao (AKA Ching Shih, née Shi Yang), Commander of the Red Flag Confederation [1775–1844]
Zhang Baozai (Cheung Po Tsai), Fleet Commander of the Red Flags [1783–1822]
Zheng Yi, founder of the Confederation [d. 1807]
Guo Podai, Commander of the Black Flag Fleet [178?–181?]
Liang Bao, Commander of the White Flag Fleet [d. 1809]

Qing Empire:
The Jiaqing Emperor (Aisin-Gioro Yongyan) [r. 1796–1820]
Bailing (Zhang Bailing), Governor-General of Liangguang [1748–18??]
Sun Quanmou, Provincial Fleet Commander
Lin Guoliang, Brigade Commander at Humen [d. 1808]
Xu Tinggui, Brigade-General [d. 1809]

Portuguese Empire:
Lucas José de Alvarenga, Governor of Macau
Miguel José de Arriaga Brum da Silveira, Ouvidor of Macau
Captain José Pinto Alcoforado de Azevedo e Sousa, Commander of the Macau Flotilla [177?–18??]
Pereira Barreto, “the Sea Tiger”
Gonçalves Carocha, pilot of the lorcha Leão

British East India Company:
Richard Glasspoole, second mate of the Marquis of Ely [1788–1846]

Major Sources Cited:
Andrade, Tonio. The Gunpowder Age: China, Military Innovation, and the Rise of the West in World History.
Antony, Robert J. Like Froth Floating on the Sea: The World of Pirates and Seafarers in Late Imperial South China.
Glasspoole, Richard. A Brief Narrative of My Captivity and Treatment Amongst the Ladrones (1809); see also Owen Rutter, ed., Mr Glasspoole and the Chinese Pirates (Golden Cockerel Press, 1935).
Leonard, Jane Kate. “Maritime China in Transition, 1750–1850,” in The Cambridge History of China, Volume 9, Part 2: The Ch’ing Dynasty to 1800.
Murray, Dian H. Pirates of the South China Coast, 1790–1810.
Van de Ven, Hans J. Breaking with the Past: The Maritime Customs Service and the Global Origins of Modernity in China.
Yuan Yonglun. Jing hai fen ji (靖海氛記, 1830), translated by Karl Friedrich Neumann as History of the Pirates Who Infested the China Sea, 1807–1810 (London, 1831).

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A brief history of Mid-Autumn Festival, and the tale of Hou Yi the Archer & the Ten Suns, and Chang’e & the Moon

In other words, please be true
In other words, I love you.

Sources:
Barlett, Scarlett. The Mythology Bible: The Definitive Guide to Legendary Tales.
Masaka, Mori. “Restoring the ‘Epic of Hou Yi’” in Asian Folklore Studies, vol. 52, no. 5.
Yang, Lihui, Demin An, and Jessica Anderson Turner. Handbook of Chinese Mythology.

(initially broadcast in 2022)

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Richard Glasspoole thought he was going to have enough of an adventure sailing to the South Pacific. He didn't expect quite so much excitement as spending 3 months of 1809 as the compulsory "guest" of the Red Flag Fleet until the Company coughed up his ransom...

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天高皇帝远
"Heaven Is High & the Emperor Is Far Away"

On the far side of the realm from the celestial halls of shining Beijing, an outcast girl born on the fringes of society will scrabble to survive amid the coastal chaos of the closing years of the 18th century. With little more than her looks, her wits, and a shark's instinct for a good deal, she'll claw her way up from a floating brothel in Guangzhou harbor to co-found and ultimately command a criminal conglomerate the likes of which the world had never seen — outmaneuvering freebooter, bandit, and official alike, one hostile takeover at a time.

Time Period Covered:
ca. 1775-1807 CE

Major Historical Figures:
Zheng Yi Sao/Ching Shih (née Shi Yang), Pirate Queen of the Red Flag Fleet [1775-1844]
Captain Zheng Yi, Fleet Commander of the Red Flag Fleet [1765-1807]
Zhang Baozai (Cheung Po Tsai), "The Kid" [1783-1822]

Major Sources Cited:
Andrade, Tonio. The Gunpowder Age: China, Military Innovation, and the Rise of the West in World History.
Antony, Robert J. Like Froth Floating on the Sea: The World of Pirates and Seafarers in Late Imperial South China.
Mann Jones, Susan and Philip A. Kuhn. "The Ch'ing Government and Its Problems, 1800–1812" in The Cambridge History of China, Volume 10, Part 1: Late Ch'ing, 1800–1911.
Murray, Dian. Pirates of the South China Coast.
Rawski, Evelyn. Education and Popular Literacy in Ch'ing China.
(re-released: 08/17/2026)

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The Qing has just finished burying one crisis (Heshen), only to start realizing that the true threat was never in the palace. It was out on the water. For two centuries the state's own hand had built this monster of the depths: sea bans, forced coastal evacuations, betrayed pardons… each new policy manufacturing more outlaws than it ever destroyed.

Add a failed war in Vietnam that handed a generation of Chinese privateers their on-the-job training, and by 1807 the result is a confederation the likes of which Great Qing has never seen…
Time Period Covered:
~1550-1807 CE
Major Historical Figures:
The Ming Court & the Wokou Crisis:
Wang Zhi, "King of Hui" [d. 1560]
Qi Jiguang [1528-1588]
Hu Zongxian [1512-1565]

The Zheng Maritime Regime:
Zheng Zhilong [1604-1661]
Zheng Chenggong / Koxinga [1624-1662]

The Qing Dynasty:
Shi Lang [1621-1696]
The Kangxi Emperor (Aisin-Gioro Xuanye) [r. 1661-1722]
The Qianlong Emperor (Aisin-Gioro Hongli) [r. 1735-1796]

The Golden Age Pirate Confederation (Tay Son-linked):
Chen Tianbao [fl. 1780-1802]
Zheng Qi [d. 1802]
Cai Qian [1761-1809]
Zheng Yi [1765-1807]
Zheng Yi Sao [c. 1775-1844]

Major Works Cited:
Antony, Robert J. Like Froth Floating on the Sea: The World of Pirates and Seafarers in Late Imperial South China.
Glasspoole, Richard. Mr. Glasspoole and the Chinese Pirates.
Murray, Dian H. Pirates of the South China Coast, 1790-1810.
Wang, Wensheng. White Lotus Rebels and South China Pirates: Crisis and Reform in the Qing Empire.
Rowe, William T. China's Last Empire: The Great Qing.

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Old man Qianlong is dead at last, leaving the Jiaqing Emperor

Time Period Covered:
~1799 CE

Major Historical Figures:
The Qianlong Emperor (Aisin-Gioro Hongli) [r. 1735–1796]
The Jiaqing Emperor (Aisin-Gioro Yongyan) [r. 1796–1820]
Heshen [1750–1799]
Fuchang'an [1760–1817]
Zhu Gui [1731–1807]

Major Works Cited:
Backhouse, E., and J.O.P. Bland. Annals and Memoirs of the Court of Peking.
Jones, Susan Mann, and Philip A. Kuhn. "Dynastic Decline and the Roots of Rebellion" in The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 10.
Rowe, William T. China's Last Empire: The Great Qing.

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"I mean it's three eggs, Qianlong! What could it cost? Ten taels?"

The Qianlong Emperor has grown so remote from his own policies that he no longer even realizes he's being lied to about the price of eggs. But behind that small deception lurks a far more consequential one: Heshen, the favorite who's looted the treasury dry while the aging Qianlong looks away. Now the bill comes due – two rebellions, a drained state, and an emperor who's staged his own retirement without actually leaving.

Everyone's walking on eggshells.

Something has to break...

Time Period Covered:

1775–1804 CE

Major Historical Figures:

Qing Dynasty:
The Qianlong Emperor [1711–1799]
The Jiaqing Emperor (Yongyan) [1760–1820]

Heshen, Grand Councillor [1750–1799]

Rebels & Pirates:
Wang Cong'er, White Lotus commander [c. 1777–1798]
Zheng Yi, pirate confederation leader [1765–1807]
Zheng Yi Sao, pirate confederation leader [c. 1775–1844]

Major Sources Cited:
Backhouse, Edmund, and J.O.P. Bland. Annals and Memoirs of the Court of Peking.
Woodside, Alexander. "The Ch'ien-lung Reign," in Peterson, Willard J., ed. The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 9: The Ch'ing Empire to 1800.
Dai, Yingcong. The White Lotus War: Rebellion and Suppression in Late Imperial China.
Murray, Dian H. Pirates of the South China Coast, 1790–1810.
Kahn, Harold L. Monarchy in the Emperor's Eyes: Image and Reality in the Ch'ien-lung Reign.

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A British lord sails halfway around the world with warships, telescopes, and a hot-air balloon, convinced that dazzling gadgetry will win his country a permanent embassy and a seat at the table as an equal. Lord Macartney gets his audience with an aging Qianlong Emperor at Chengde in 1793 – and a magnificent, unambiguous no.

The rejection produces the single most quoted sentence in the history of China's relations with the West: the Celestial Empire "possesses all things." For a century and a half it's read as the epitaph of a doddering, complacent court, blind to the industrial revolution bearing down on it. It isn't – it's the calculated shrug of a man who already owns four thousand European clocks and genuinely holds the stronger hand. But the confident world he's shrugging over is already rotting from within, and the silver, opium, and gunboats that follow will finish what neither man in that room could see coming.

Time Period Covered:
1792–1842 CE

Major Historical Figures:

Great Britain:

Qing Dynasty:

Major Sources Cited:

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The Qianlong Emperor, at the height of his power and glory, decides to build the greatest library that the world has ever known. A total collection of every book and writing worth remembering in the Empire. There’s only one catch – in order to determine what’s worth preserving for eternity, one must also decide what - and who - belongs in the burn pile. The story of the Siku Quanshu: The Complete Library of the Four Treasuries.

Time Period Covered:
~1772-1782 CE

Major Historical Figures:
The Qianlong Emperor (Aisin-Gioro Hongli) [r. 1735–1796]
The Yongzheng Emperor (Aisin-Gioro Yinzhen) [r. 1722–1735]

Major Works Cited:

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"O King of Wherever, New Throne Who Dis?"

0:00:00 - Edict of Emperor Qianlong to King George III, 1793

0:06:34 - The Second Edict to George III (in reply to Macartney's note)

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