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365 Core Stories of Chinese History 001: Zhoukoudian: Firelight, a Skullcap, and the Distance to “Us”
On December 2, 1929, excavation continued at Zhoukoudian Locality 1. Pei Wenzhong uncovered what became known as the first complete Peking Man skullcap. “Comple…
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365 Core Stories of Chinese History 002: When Rice Husks Entered the Clay: How a Wild Grass Became a Crop
A pottery sherd ten thousand years old does not readily suggest a bowl of rice. It preserves neither a complete vessel nor a menu of what the vessel once held. …
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365 Core Stories of Chinese History 003: A Pottery Basin and a Civilization Rich in Imagination
In the spring of 1953, a buried village came to light on the eastern bank of the Chan River, outside Xi'an. Large-scale excavation began the following year. As …
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365 Core Stories of Chinese History 004: Liangzhu, Hangzhou: Grass-and-Clay Dams, the Ingenious Technology behind the Birth of a Civilization
Bundles of grass-wrapped clay remain legible inside the Laohuling dam. High dams, low dams, waterways and stored grain reveal how unnamed labor became a connect…
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365 Core Stories of Chinese History 005: Sunrise through Thirteen Gaps
An original AI-assisted historical narrative based on archaeological publications actually consulted. After a spring rain, the soil in one excavation area at Ta…
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365 Core Stories of Chinese History 006: Pingliangtai: Four Thousand Years Ago, the Town's Clay Water Pipes Clogged, and Someone Dug Them Open Again
An original AI-assisted historical narrative based on archaeological material actually consulted. About four thousand years ago, in an earthen walled town at wh…
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365 Core Stories of Chinese History 007: Yu Tames the Flood: How Did the "Door" He Passed Three Times Become a Subject of Later Dispute?
What follows is the Yu handed down by the ancients from generation to generation, not a contemporary engineering log. When Sima Qian wrote the "Basic Annals of …
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365 Core Stories of Chinese History 008: Erlitou: Sixty Years of Digging Reveal a Layered Labyrinth, Still Undecided Between Xia and Shang
An original AI-assisted historical narrative based on ancient texts and archaeological studies actually consulted. At Erlitou in Yanshi, Henan, the core area co…
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365 Core Stories of Chinese History 009: Erlitou: A Dragon Made of More than Two Thousand Turquoise Pieces Survived Only Because It Was Lifted Indoors in a Single Block of Earth
An original AI-assisted historical narrative based on archaeological studies and museum material actually consulted. In 2002, a tomb was opened in the palace ar…
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365 Core Stories of Chinese History 010: Oracle-Bone Divination: After the Cracking, the Shang King Declared, "Hardship Is Coming"
On the day guisi, a diviner for the Shang king Wu Ding once again heated an ox bone and asked whether there would be disaster in the coming ten days. The cracks…
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365 Core Stories of Chinese History 011: YH127: A Pit Full of Oracle Bones, Still No Bottom at Nightfall, So the Archaeologists Packed the Whole Pit into a Wooden Crate
Evening, June 12, 1936, Xiaotun, Anyang, Henan. A few young archaeologists from the Institute of History and Philology spotted an inscribed piece of turtle shel…
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365 Core Stories of Chinese History 012: Fu Hao: Named in Divination Inscriptions as a Commander, Consort of Wu Ding, Her Name Carved on More than a Hundred Bronzes in Her Tomb
1976, Xiaotun village, Anyang, Henan. A probing rod was driven into the ground. Three meters, six meters, seven meters. Suddenly the rod dropped. The experience…
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365 Core Stories of Chinese History 013: The Inscribed Deer Skull: A Shang King Back from War Offers His Kill to an Ancestor, and Three Carved Lines Show Ritual and Record Sharing One Root
April 8, 1931. Xiaotun, Anyang, Henan. In a pit numbered E10, the excavator Wang Xiang dug up a great heap of animal bones: a tiger skull, the lower jaw of an e…
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365 Core Stories of Chinese History 014: The He Zun: 30 Yuan, a Not-So-Ordinary Pot, and an Extraordinary “China”
August 1963, the Jiacun tableland outside Baoji, Shaanxi. After a heavy rain, part of the earthen bank behind villager Chen Dui's house collapsed. He saw someth…
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365 Core Stories of Chinese History 015: King Wu Against Shang: Two Years to Wait, One Day to Win, Then the Hard Part
When King Wu of Zhou marched east, a wooden tablet rode on one of his chariots. According to the Shiji, the tablet bore the name of his father, King Wen, and wa…
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365 Core Stories of Chinese History 195: Along the River During Qingming: One Boat into Northern Song Bianjing
The most tense passage in the scroll contains no general and no battle. A heavily laden boat is approaching a timber arch bridge on the Bian River. Its bow has …
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Cold War Encounters 001: The Eight-Thousand-Word Telegram from Moscow
On February 22, 1946, in Moscow, a telegram marked secret was sent from the American embassy to the secretary of state. The published text gives its dispatch ti…
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Cold War Encounters 002: Blockading Berlin: A Four-Power Contest
On June 24, 1948, rail traffic into the western sectors of Berlin stopped. British Cabinet records from that day also noted that electricity supplied from the e…
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Cold War Encounters 003: The Berlin Airlift: 1,398 Flights and 12,940 Tons in a Single Day
On June 28, 1948, American and British aircraft brought a combined 268 tons of supplies into West Berlin. The figure is easy to lose beneath the later story of …
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Cold War Encounters 004: The Korean War: Stalin's Green Light, Followed by "If the Chinese Comrades Do Not Agree..."
The Korean War: Stalin's Green Light, Followed by "If the Chinese Comrades Do Not Agree..." Cold War Encounters · Secret Files · 004 On January 30, 1950, the So…
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Cold War Encounters 005: The Korean War: After Inchon, U.S. Forces Are Cleared to Go North; Beijing Warns, and Americans, Britons, and Indians Are Left Guessing
This is an AI-assisted contemporary historical narrative by Clio Walker, based on sources actually examined. It is not a memoir or submission by a historical pa…
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Cold War Encounters 006: Across the Yalu: Zhou Enlai's Midnight Warning Dismissed as a Bluff, the Volunteers Cross at Dusk Unnoticed by the Americans
This is an AI-assisted contemporary historical narrative by Clio Walker, based on sources actually examined. It is not a memoir or submission by a historical pa…
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Cold War Encounters 007: MacArthur Talks of a Wider War; Truman, Racing a Resignation, Replaces His Commander in the Middle of the Night
This is an AI-assisted contemporary historical narrative by Clio Walker, based on contemporary US government records; some details follow standard accounts, as …
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In Conversation with the Chiang Kai-shek Diaries 001: A Revolutionary at 30: Between Orders and Self-Reproach
In Shantou in 1918, Chiang Kai-shek revised military orders while recording anger, ambition, and self-reproach. His diary reveals a young revolutionary whose am…
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In Conversation with the Chiang Kai-shek Diaries 002: The Defeat at Yongtai
The retreat from Yongtai in 1918 left more than a battlefield account: coerced fundraising, rivalry over offices and revenue, a fogbound mountain path, and Chia…
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In Conversation with the Chiang Kai-shek Diaries 003: In Middle Age, Remembering His Youth: Set on Revolution, Bound to Trail His Class
In 1931 Chiang returned to his life before fourteen: dismissal as an amnesty, a mother who found travel money, and a revolutionary book remembered in dreams. Ja…
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In Conversation with the Chiang Kai-shek Diaries 004: In a Few Strokes, Chiang Kai-shek Could Not Hide His Disgust for Chen Jiongming's Camp
Two urgent telegrams brought Chiang Kai-shek to the Yue Army headquarters in Zhangzhou. Five nights later he left without taking leave. A few strokes in his dia…
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In Conversation with the Chiang Kai-shek Diaries 005: Chiang Kai-shek Explained This One Defeat Three Times in His Diary: How Large a Shadow It Must Have Cast
After the retreat from Yongtai, Chiang Kai-shek produced three explanations in six months: broken faith, disobedient units, an army that resisted reorganization…
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In Conversation with the Chiang Kai-shek Diaries 006: Raising Army Funds, Chiang Kai-shek Moved from Persuasion to Anger to Threats, and Feared Retribution
A magistrate and local notables stayed away. Chiang moved from kind words to anger, sent troops to watch wealthy merchants, and turned to threats. One-third of …
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In Conversation with the Chiang Kai-shek Diaries 007: 1920: A Failed Stock Gamble Was Also Why Chiang Kai-shek Turned Back to the Revolution
He declined the forward command, yet four days later was still drafting operational plans. The Guangdong Army entered Guangzhou; Chiang then set off for home ag…
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In Conversation with the Chiang Kai-shek Diaries 008: Sun Yat-sen Faulted Chiang for Being "Too Unbending, Too Contemptuous of Worldly Ways, Hard to Work With," While Chiang's Diary Is Full of "Humility"
Clio Walker | This is an AI-assisted contemporary historical narrative checked against the Chiang Kai-shek Diaries and independent sources. It is neither Chiang…
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In Conversation with the Chiang Kai-shek Diaries 009: An Army Finds Its New Alignment
Clio Walker | An original AI-assisted historical narrative checked against the Chiang Kai-shek Diaries and independent sources. This is not Chiang's own text or…
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In Conversation with the Chiang Kai-shek Diaries 010: Guangzhou Was Like a Trading Floor: Revolution Became a Division of Power, and Every Faction Waited for the Best Price
Clio Walker | An original AI-assisted historical narrative checked against the Chiang Kai-shek Diaries and independent sources. This is not Chiang's own text or…
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In Conversation with the Chiang Kai-shek Diaries 011: Chiang Kai-shek Flew into a Rage over a Letter, and Three Days Later Reflected That a "Hot Temper Is the Great Illness of My Life"
Clio Walker | An original AI-assisted historical narrative checked against the Chiang Kai-shek Diaries and independent sources. This is not Chiang's own text or…
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In Conversation with the Chiang Kai-shek Diaries 012: The Day Sun Yat-sen Took Office in Guangzhou as President of the Republic, What Pleased Chiang Kai-shek Was a 50 Percent Rise in Share Prices in Twenty Days
May 24, 1921: "Why did I come to the Guangdong Army? To buy myself a good name? Should I go back?" May 5, 1921. Heavy rain in Guangzhou. Sun Yat-sen took office…
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In Conversation with the Chiang Kai-shek Diaries 013: Chen Jiongming Asked Chiang Kai-shek to Command the Central Army, and Chiang Wired Back "I Certainly Dare Not"; He Was Not Yet on the Core List of Sun Yat-sen's Government, but His Relationship with Sun Was Nearing a Turning Point
January 21, 1921: "I have decided to come within ten days to serve in a personal capacity. For the post, it would be best to appoint Ziyin. I certainly dare not…