2026

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…

> A note on what this is: an essay built on a single idea — that calligraphy is a portrait of the person who holds the brush — traced across the emperors and princes of the Qing dynasty. It begins with a scroll I saw in Shimonoseki, Japan, and ends with Kawashima Yoshiko’s father. Related pieces: [Li Hongzhang — The Scroll at Shimonoseki], [Prince Su (Shanqi) — The Qing Royal Who Chose Japan], [Kawashima Yoshiko], [Pujie and Saga Hiro —…

Four Words That Break What English Does to a Chinese Court — notes from translating a Warring States life I spent several weeks writing about a woman who rose from the entertainer households of Handan to become Queen Dowager of Zhao, and then helped destroy the state by having its finest general killed. She died around 228 BCE. History calls her the Chang Consort. Writing her in Japanese was difficult. Writing her in English turned out to be a different…

Queen Daochang of Zhao (趙悼倡后), also known as Lady Chang or Queen Chang, was the consort of King Daoxiang of Zhao and the mother of King Qian, the last king to rule from Handan. Born into an entertainer household, she rose to Queen Dowager, took Qin’s gold, and helped destroy Li Mu — the general who was Zhao’s last defence. Three months later, Zhao fell. Readers of Kingdom know her as a villain of the Zhao court, and the histories…

This article continues the story begun in “[Posthumous Names],” and stands as one worked example of the series’ opening piece, “[History Is Written by the Victors].” In the manga Kingdom, Zhao Qian appears as the strange, unstable king of Zhao — the state’s very last ruler. The history books dismiss him in a word: benighted, a fool. But read the single poem he is said to have composed in his place of exile, and you find something else: a man…

Li Mu (李牧) — known as Ri Boku in the manga and anime Kingdom — was a general of the state of Zhao in China’s Warring States period and one of its Four Great Generals. He never lost a battle. In 229 BCE, his own king had him executed on a charge of rebellion, after Qin bribed the courtier Guo Kai. Three months later, Zhao’s capital Handan fell. Quick facts Died: 229 BCE, executed on the order of King Qian…

Wei Yingluo in Real Life: Who Was Wei Jiashi?” Was Wei Yingluo a real person? Yes. The heroine of Story of Yanxi Palace (sometimes spelled Wei Ying Luo) is based on a real woman: Qianlong’s Consort Ling, Wei Jiashi (1727–1775). So is Wei Yanwan, the villainess of Ruyi’s Royal Love in the Palace: two dramas, one historical person. She rose from a bondservant family to Imperial Noble Consort, gave birth to the future Jiaqing Emperor, and was made empress only…

*The “golden lotus steps” scene in the hit drama Story of Yanxi Palace looks like pure invention. But pull on that single thread of fiction and something remarkable happens: almost the entire historical skeleton turns out to be real. What starts as a piece of palace mischief opens straight onto the deepest question in my whole series — what it actually meant to be a conquest dynasty, caught between Han and Manchu, and how that boundary came to be drawn,…

  This is a companion to [The tiny gold seal Japan nearly died to fetch], where we watched a “Son-of-Heaven system” hand out recognition at the edge of the world and let the periphery sort itself into a hierarchy for free. Here we watch the same machine run inside the palace walls. A hereditary slave could rise to become the mother of an emperor — the woman the drama Story of Yanxi Palace renders as Wei Yingluo was exactly such…

  This is a companion to [The Heirloom Seal of the Realm: the empty stone that ruled China for a thousand years]. That article looked at the center — the jade in which the Son of Heaven held the whole Mandate. This one looks at the far rim. What a little island at the outermost ring of that world crossed a deadly sea to fetch was not “the Mandate” at all, but something much smaller: mere *recognition*. And the gap…

This article continues from [The He Shi Bi (the jade that became the Heirloom Seal)]. The jade once guarded at the cost of lives was recut into the Chuanguo Xi — the Heirloom Seal of the Realm, the object that declared its holder the rightful Son of Heaven. For a thousand years it was seized, chipped, hidden, and at last lost forever. Why did emperors crave a single stone so badly? And why do replicas still sell today? This is…

King Daoxiang of Zhao (Tou Jou): The King Made and Sold by His Teacher In Kingdom, Tou Jou, King Daoxiang of Zhao, is the ruler who drove out the veteran general Lian Po (Ren Pa) and set his kingdom on the road to destruction. History carved two characters over him: fool king. But “fool king” hides more than it reveals. Why did he make the same ruinous choice again and again? The answer leads to one man: his lifelong teacher,…