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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 of Story of Yanxi Palace and Wei Yanwan of Ruyi’s Royal Love in the Palace are the same woman. Both characters are based on one historical person: Wei Jiashi (1727–1775), the Qianlong Emperor’s Consort Ling, posthumously Empress Xiaoyichun. One drama made her a heroine and the other a villainess, but she is one woman in two dramas. Name Portrayed as Story of Yanxi Palace Wei Yingluo (Wei Ying Luo) Heroine Ruyi’s Royal Love in the Palace Wei Yanwan…

*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,…

If you follow Kingdom, you already hate one man on sight: Kaku Kai (Guo Kai), the minister of Zhao who took Qin’s gold, drove out the veteran Ren Pa (Lian Po), and slandered the brilliant 〔Ri Boku (Li Mu)〕 into an executioner’s hands. Zhao held two of the age’s greatest generals — and tore off its own arms. Histories call Guo Kai a bought traitor and leave it there. But I don’t think gold is the whole story. Underneath the…

In *Kingdom*, the fall of each state usually comes on the battlefield. But **Qi**, the last of the great eastern states, fell almost without a sword being drawn. Its ruler, **King Jian (Tian Jian)**, sat on a mountain of soldiers and surrendered anyway. This is the story of how forty years of peace, a bribed chancellor, and one seductive idea — *”China will be one, so why prepare for war?”* — destroyed a kingdom from the inside. The Boy King…

  **A note before we begin.** This is not a defense, and it is not an indictment. The Manchu–Mongol Independence Movement was inseparable from Japan’s expansion onto the Asian mainland; from China’s point of view, it was part of an invasion. I do not erase that context. What I want to do here is set the labels down for a moment — “traitor,” “spy,” “puppet” — and return four caricatures to being human beings caught in the collapse of an…

If you know Yoshiko Kawashima at all, you probably know her from Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor — the flamboyant “Eastern Jewel,” a spy in men’s clothing who supplies Empress Wanrong with opium. It is one of cinema’s most memorable villains. I was born in Matsumoto, in Nagano Prefecture, Japan. In Matsumoto, Yoshiko Kawashima is not a movie villain. She is a former local schoolgirl whose grave stands in a quiet temple on the edge of town, and whose memory…

> *This continues from [The Real Yunli, Prince Guo]. The romance and the revenge in the drama are fiction — but underneath them stands a woman who truly lived.*  The Real Woman Behind Zhen Huan  Introduction *Empresses in the Palace* (甄嬛伝), which aired in China in 2011, set off a wave that swept across Asia. Its heroine, Zhen Huan, still holds a firm place in viewers’ hearts as a kind of ideal — a woman people return to and admire.…