August 2026

Was Ruyi a Real Person? The True Story Behind Ruyi’s Royal Love and Yanxi Palace Short answer: yes — but not as “Ruyi.” The woman at the center of Ruyi’s Royal Love in the Palace really existed. Her name, however, was not Ruyi. She was the second empress of the Qianlong Emperor, known to history as the Step Empress, Lady Nara — the only empress in the entire Qing dynasty who was never given a posthumous title. If you have…

Why the Tiger Tally Never Came to Japan This piece continues from [Jade Gui, Bi, and Yue: The Jade Regalia of Rule], where I traced how the yue —the ceremonial axe—stood for the right to move an army. Here I follow that right forward, into the Warring States, where China turned it into something with the opposite logic: the tiger tally. And I follow it as a foreigner, because I am Japanese, and the tiger tally is the one Chinese…