The Tang Dynasty poet Liu Yuxi led a largely disappointing political career, but he left us with some of the most memorable expressions of individualism and humanism in Chinese literature. Even today, his most famous work remains required reading and is often quoted even by average people.

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A few weeks ago, then out-going Taiwanese Premier Su Tseng-chang (or Su Zhenchang in standard Pinyin) said something that caused quite a stir: 

"Had Yuan Chonghuan not died, how could the Manchu army have breached the Great Wall?"

To understand why this rather curious rhetorical question caused the controversy it did, you obviously have to know who Yuan Chonghuan was.

Here, then, is the story of the Cantonese man who, in the waning years of the Ming Dynasty, did perhaps more than anyone else to defend his country against northern invaders.

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Completing our series on the other, lesser-known regimes that coexisted with the Song Dynasty, we look at the Kingdom of Dali located in picturesque Yunnan in China's southwest.

Led by the Duan family for most of its history, Dali was a minor player in East Asian international relations at the time, and the Song was happy to have a harmless and peaceful kingdom to its rear so that it could focus on threats coming from the north.

In the Chinese imagination, though, and for a literary reason, the Duan family of Dali looms larger than you'd expect.

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Continuing our series on the lesser known regimes contemporaneous with the Song Dynasty, today we look at the Kingdom of Xixia, or "Western Xia," founded and run by the Tangut people.

Smaller than the Liao and the Jin Empires discussed in our recent episodes as well as the Han Chinese regime of the Song, the Xia was nonetheless at one point a true power to be reckoned with.

But, sadly, history destined the Xixia to obscurity. In the wake of 20th century excavations and the rediscovery of the Tangut language, scholars have regained a measure of understanding, but even now this fascinating civilization remains largely cloaked in mystery.

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Continuing our series on the "other" dynasties and kingdoms and co-existed with the Song Dynasty, which we typically think of as the mainline Chinese regime of this period, we look at the Jin Empire.

The Jurchen people rose up against the Khitan Liao Empire in the early 12th century and established their own empire and called it the Jin. But, at every turn, they seemed destined (doomed?) to repeat the drama that the Liao already played out.

And yet another nomadic people waited in the wings, almost ready for their moment in the sun...

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The period in Chinese history we typically think of as the Song Dynasty was much more complicated than that single dynastic name makes it sound. Multiple regimes co-existed and came upon the stage and exited, fighting each other repeatedly but also engaging in diplomacy and cultural exchanges.

Today, we look at one of them: the Liao or Khitan Empire, which gave the Russian language its word for "China"...

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Some time in 76 A.D., a band of Chinese soldiers, the last survivors of a garrison, their clothes torn to ribbons and their bodies emaciated so that they barely seemed like living men, stumbled into Yumen Guan or "the Jade Gate Pass," the western terminus of the Han Dynasty Great Wall.

We may consider their story in light of episodes from the same period in Roman history. And we may ask: what can it teach us about contemporary Chinese nationalism? What does it mean that many modern Chinese call this story "the ancient Chinese version of 'Saving Private Ryan'"?

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In 499 A.D., a Buddhist monk named Hui Shen walked into the city of Jingzhou and regaled the people there with tales from his recent adventure to a distant country called Fusang.

Fusang, according to a number of scholars, was in modern-day Mexico.

Was it? What does "The Book of Liang," the original Chinese source for this account, really say about it? Why did some scholars come to this seemingly outlandish conclusion?

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A nation under attack by a superior foe. A desperate people suffering through a long season of privation, a time that tries men’s souls, and yet they remain resilient and determined. In their struggle for survival, they rely on that so-called “Arsenal of Democracy,” the United States of America. And, at a critical juncture in the war, a leader of their nation travels to Washington to address a joint session of Congress...

I am, of course, talking about the visit by Madame Chiang Kai-shek (better known to the Chinese by her own name, Soong Mei-ling) to Capitol Hill in February 1943.

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In my travels around Mainland China, I often heard a saying: "In the sky there is the Nine-Headed Bird, so on earth there is the man from Hubei."

What does this saying mean, and where does it come from? It all has to do with the Ming Dynasty statesman Zhang Juzheng...

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