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Admiral Liu Huaqing is the principal architect of the rapid expansion of the Chinese navy’s presence in the western Pacific. He believed that by 2040 the nation should have an active blue-water force in the region, with several aircraft carriers at its disposal. Liu Huaqing’s view of his navy’s future role came about in the […]

Sandwiched between the mighty Ming and Qing empires is perhaps the most ephemeral, obscure and equivocal of all Chinese dynasties. For the single ‘emperor’ of the so-called Shun dynasty, a rebel commander named Li Zicheng, never meaningfully ruled China at all. In the mid-seventeenth century a series of drought-induced crop failures and an outbreak of […]

Battle of Red Cliffs, and Cao Cao’s retreat (also shown: Battle of Changban). Note that the battlefield location is marked at the site near Chibi City. The demise of the Han dynasty was messy. Like many other dynastic declines, it began as a peasant revolt incited by dissatisfaction at the oppressive conduct of a corrupt […]