Chapter 18 Research Reconnaissance · HIST 270 Background Essays

Audit disposition. Chapter 18 had no HIST 270 background essays, so this reconnaissance covers four new essays and a retroactive audit of the four published FA26 decks (Smoke and Gunboats, Jesus's Younger Brother, Large and Yet Weak and The Empress and the Boxers). The four-lecture roadmap passes. Lecture 1 is the strongest deck, with one cross-deck inconsistency and three small weaknesses. Lecture 2 has a cluster of quotations in the speaker notes that paraphrase Ebrey while presenting the words as hers. Lectures 3 and 4 repeat several textbook errors, the most serious being the Yalu losses, the Fuzhou death toll, Yuan Shikai's role in 1898 and the scope of the 1901 examination suspension. All findings are recorded in Section 8. Steven approved the fixes on 25 October 2026, and they have now been applied to all four published decks without relettering any slide; Section 8 records what was changed.

1. Governing standards and scope

Research precedes presentation. Ebrey's Chapter 18, "China in Decline (1800–1900)," pp. 314–332, is the course baseline, not its ceiling. Dates, names, numbers and quotations in the decks were checked against the textbook (from an OCR of the course PDF), against standard monographs and the Cambridge History of China, volumes 10 and 11, and, where the decks quote primary sources, against published translations. Every quotation that a deck attributes to Ebrey was compared with the printed text. Where Ebrey's statements conflict with current scholarship, the essays follow the scholarship and flag the textbook. Where a deck follows the textbook into error, the essays give the corrected history and this audit lists the slide.

Audience: the instructor's lecture preparation and advanced students. The essays keep plain language and define terms, but cite real scholarship in footnotes and end with annotated reading lists.

2. Textbook baseline

Ebrey's chapter supplies the spine: population and fiscal strain (pp. 314–316); opium, Lin Zexu and the Opium War (pp. 316–318); the Taiping and the regional armies (pp. 318–320); the Nian and Muslim risings (p. 321); the Second Opium War (pp. 321–322); self-strengthening and its failures (pp. 322–324); Cixi, the tributaries, France and Japan (pp. 324–327); the reformers of 1895–1898 (pp. 327–328); the Boxers (pp. 328–330); and a comparative conclusion and summary (pp. 330–332). The reading guide sets eleven review questions, from population pressure (RQ1) to the end of the tribute system (RQ11).

The chapter is clear and well organized, but it compresses a century and several of its details are dated. Statements needing correction or caution:

The 1842–1844 treaties "mandated ambassadors in Beijing" (p. 317): that came in 1858–1860.
"The Qing had no navy" and British "rifles" (p. 318): overstatements.
Opium as the sole cause of the silver drain (p. 317): contested.
Women "could take the civil service examinations" (p. 318): poorly attested.
Yang Xiuqing's death tied to the concubine beating (p. 319): conflates 1853 and 1856.
"None of the Taipings survived"; Taiping armies "relocating to Taiwan and Vietnam" as the Black Flags (p. 321): too strong and inaccurate.
"By 1867 all of Gansu was in Muslim hands" (p. 321): overstated.
The regency of 1861 as Prince Gong and Cixi (p. 322): omits Ci'an and the coup.
The "10-square-mile" Yuanmingyuan (p. 322) and "one hundred treaty ports" by 1900 (p. 325): both too large.
The reparations table (p. 325): wrong units for 1842 and 1901, wrong years for Taiwan and Liaodong.
Fuzhou, "fifteen minutes" and "three thousand" killed (p. 324); the Yalu, no Japanese ship "seriously damaged" (p. 326).
Guo Songtao's diary suppressed "on his return" (p. 324).
"Some twelve hundred signed" Kang's 1895 petition; a "five-hour audience"; reforms "redesigning the Qing as a constitutional monarchy"; a coup "with the help of Yuan Shikai's army" (p. 327).
The examinations cancelled for five years, nationally (p. 330); Yuan Shikai as a governor-general (p. 330).
"80 provinces" in the Mai Menghua document (p. 329): probably an error for eighteen.
The chapter summary (p. 332) says Cixi "was quickly removed from power" in 1898 and that the court withdrew before the siege; both reverse the sequence.

3. Inventory and authority determination

Authoritative for this audit: the four published FA26 decks in the_lyceum/chinese-history/reveal_decks/chapter-18/; the Chapter 18 reading guide (eleven review questions); and the arc plan used to build the decks (planning only, not published). The SU26 decks of Chapter 18 are superseded and were not audited. The background essays are new:

Smoke and Gunboats (Lecture 1; RQ2, RQ3; Pierian Spring RQ1).
Jesus's Younger Brother (Lecture 2; RQ4, RQ5; Pierian Spring RQ6).
Large and Yet Weak (Lecture 3; RQ7, RQ8; Pierian Spring on foreigners in China).
The Empress and the Boxers (Lecture 4; RQ10, RQ11, RQ9; the Boxers; Pierian Spring).

4. Fresh chapter-wide research reconnaissance

Opium, silver and the first war

Julia Lovell's The Opium War (2011) is the best narrative and is strong on memory; Mao Haijian's The Qing Empire and the Opium War (English 2016) is the essential view from the Qing archives; Hsin-pao Chang (1964) and Peter Ward Fay (1975) remain useful for detail. The silver question has moved: Man-houng Lin (2006) and Alejandra Irigoin (2009) place the drain in a global monetary crisis. James Polachek (1992) explains the court politics of war and peace. For RQ1, Jane Kate Leonard (1996) on the Grand Canal crisis and Susan Mann Jones and Philip Kuhn (CHC 10, 1978) on dynastic decline; Pamela Crossley (1990) for Guancheng.

Reference synthesis: Peter C. Perdue, "The First Opium War," MIT Visualizing Cultures. Primary source: Lin Zexu's letter to Queen Victoria (Teng and Fairbank, 1954).

The Taiping and the other risings

Spence's God's Chinese Son (1996) for Hong; Platt's Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom (2012) for the last years and foreign intervention; Kuhn's Rebellion and Its Enemies (1970) and CHC 10 chapter for structure; Meyer-Fong's What Remains (2013) for the human cost; Richard J. Smith (1978) on the Ever-Victorious Army. For RQ6: Perry (1980) on the Nian; Atwill (2005), Lipman (1997) and Hodong Kim (2004) on the Muslim-led risings; Bradley Camp Davis (2017) on the Black Flags.

Primary sources: the Taiping texts translated in Franz Michael and Chung-li Chang, The Taiping Rebellion: History and Documents (1966–1971); Theodore Hamberg's The Visions of Hung-Siu-tshuen (1854), based on Hong Rengan's account.

The Arrow War and self-strengthening

J. Y. Wong's Deadly Dreams (1998) for the war; James Hevia's English Lessons (2003) and Young-tsu Wong's A Paradise Lost (2001) for the Yuanmingyuan; Mary Wright (1957) and Kwang-Ching Liu (CHC 10) for the Restoration; Kuo and Liu (CHC 10), Feuerwerker (1958), Kennedy (1978), Pong (1994) and Elman (2004, 2005) for self-strengthening; Rhoads (2011) for the students in America; Bickers (2011), van de Ven (2014) and Cohen (1963) for the foreign presence.

Primary sources: Feng Guifen's essays and Woren's memorial in Teng and Fairbank (1954); Elgin's letters and journals (ed. Walrond, 1872).

Cixi, war and the crisis of 1898–1901

Eastman (1967) for court politics in the French crisis; Paine (2003) and Evans and Peattie (1997) for the war with Japan; Kwong (1984) for the Hundred Days; Huang Zhangjian (1970) and Mao Haijian (2005) for the archival revision of Kang's accounts of 1895 and 1898; Esherick (1987) and Cohen (1997) for the Boxers, with Harrison (2013) and Xiang (2003). Rawski (1998) for imperial institutions; Rhoads (2000) for the bannermen; Hao Chang (1971) for Liang Qichao.

Primary sources: Kang Youwei's China Mail interview (7 October 1898); Mai Menghua's essay (in Ebrey, pp. 328–329); the Boxer Protocol (1901), in the Customs treaty collection; accounts of the siege by participants.

5. Four-lecture roadmap audit

The arc plan assigns RQ2–3 to Lecture 1 with RQ1 in its Pierian Spring; RQ4–5 to Lecture 2 with RQ6 in its Pierian Spring; RQ7–8 to Lecture 3; and RQ10, RQ11 and RQ9 to Lecture 4, with the Boxers as a closing story without an RQ. The roadmap passes. It keeps the chapter's chronology while giving each lecture a single narrative problem, and the fourth deck gives Cixi, 1884, 1895, 1898 and 1900 the room the textbook's compressed final pages do not. Two seams need care: the regency of 1861 is told in Lecture 3 and recapped in Lecture 4, so a correction to one must be made in both; and the reparations figures appear in Lecture 1 (slide S) and Lecture 4 (slide Q) and currently disagree.

6. Individual background essay audits

Essay 1 — Smoke and Gunboats

Passes. Follows the deck's correct history (dollars for 1842, muskets not rifles, the 1843–1844 treaties as the source of extraterritoriality and MFN) and adds the silver-supply debate, the court politics of Polachek and Mao Haijian, and the Grand Canal crisis.

Essay 2 — Jesus's Younger Brother

Passes. Quotes Ebrey's actual words, which the deck's notes now use as well; corrects the Yang trigger, the "none survived" claim, the Black Flags' origin and the Gansu overstatement; presents women's examinations as a claim.

Essay 3 — Large and Yet Weak

Passes. Corrects Elgin's role, the 1861 regency, the size of the Yuanmingyuan and the treaty-port count; adds legal opium (1858) and the Fuzhou Navy Yard.

Essay 4 — The Empress and the Boxers

Passes. Gives the corrected Yalu and Fuzhou figures, the archival revision of the 1895 petition and the 1898 coup, the Dagu forts of 1900 and the local scope of the examination suspension; frames Cixi through the mainstream "operator" reading with a note on the Backhouse forgery and the revisionist biographies.

7. Primary-source and narrative shortlist

Lin Zexu, letter to Queen Victoria (1839), Teng and Fairbank translation.
Gladstone in the Commons, 8 April 1840 (Hansard).
Guancheng's record of Zhapu (via Crossley and Ebrey, p. 319).
Hong Xiuquan's vision as told to Theodore Hamberg (1854).
The Land System of the Heavenly Dynasty (1853), in Michael and Chang.
Li Xiucheng's confession (1864), in Michael and Chang.
Feng Guifen, "On the Adoption of Western Knowledge" and "On the Manufacture of Foreign Weapons" (1861), in Teng and Fairbank.
Woren's memorial against the Tongwen Guan (1867), in Teng and Fairbank.
Guo Songtao's London journals, trans. Frodsham (1974).
Kang Youwei, China Mail interview (7 October 1898).
Mai Menghua's essay of 1898 (Ebrey, pp. 328–329).
The Boxer Protocol (7 September 1901).

8. Deck issues and fixes applied

Each row names the permanent slide letter, the problem found in the audit, its type and the fix now applied. "Textbook error repeated" means the deck had followed Ebrey into a statement that current scholarship rejects. The rule for every fix: the visible slide teaches the corrected history, the textbook's discrepancy is explained only in an instructor note, and outside works are cited in a brief notes line and on the Sources slide. No slide was added or relettered.

Lecture 1 · Smoke and Gunboats

Mostly strong. Verified correct: Lin's arrival (10 March 1839), the Humen destruction (3–25 June 1839), Chuanbi and the Nemesis (7 January 1841), the Pottinger campaign, Zhapu (May 1842), Zhenjiang (July 1842), the signing (29 August 1842), the 21-million-dollar breakdown (6 + 3 + 12), the Bogue treaty (October 1843) and Lin's death (November 1850).

Slide	Issue	Type	Fix applied
G	Opium presented as the sole cause of the silver drain; Ebrey's 1,500→2,700 cash figures given as fact.	Weakness	Concept card now says the outflow happened "mainly" because of opium; instructor note on the world silver shortage (Lin Man-houng 2006; Irigoin 2009) and the cash figures as Ebrey's illustration.
D	The ban is dated to 1800 (Ebrey, p. 316); earlier edicts of 1729 and 1796 go unmentioned.	Omission	Visible bullet now gives 1729, 1796 and 1800; instructor note (Spence 1975).
II	Visible text: Guancheng "rose by passing the examinations." He passed the provincial examination and served as a magistrate; the notes were accurate.	Error (minor)	Visible line now: he "passed the provincial examination and served as a magistrate."
S / Lec4 Q	Slide S correctly gives 21 million dollars; Lecture 4 slide Q gives "21 million ounces of silver" from Ebrey's table.	Cross-deck inconsistency	Fixed in Lecture 4 slide Q, which now gives 21 million dollars (about 15 million ounces) and links back to slide S.

Lecture 2 · Jesus's Younger Brother

Strong narrative and dates (the 1837 vision, Liang Fa's tracts, Roberts in 1847, Jintian in January 1851, Nanjing in March 1853, the Tianjing incident of September 1856, Anqing in September 1861, Hong's death on 1 June 1864, Nanjing's fall on 19 July 1864, the Nian's end in 1868, Dali in 1872–1873, Jinjibao in 1871 and Xinjiang in 1878 all check). The main problem is quotation discipline in the notes.

Slide	Issue	Type	Fix applied
M	Quotation "a utopian vision of an egalitarian society" is attributed to Ebrey but is not her wording.	Misquotation	Replaced with Ebrey's p. 318 sentence.
N	"The Taipings proclaimed the equality of men and women" is in quotation marks but is not verbatim.	Misquotation	Reworded to quote only Ebrey's words ("the equality of men and women"; "some brigades of women soldiers fought Qing forces").
O	"Missionaries who visited Nanjing concluded…" and "…helped the Qing defend the city" are not Ebrey's words; the missionary passage is on pp. 318–319.	Misquotation	Both passages now quoted verbatim (pp. 318–319); the source line corrected to pp. 318–319.
P	"helped the Qing defend the city" repeated as a quotation.	Misquotation	Now quotes "the Western residents organized counterattacks" (p. 319).
S	Three quotations are paraphrases ("dominance threatened Hong"; "with the help of other Taiping leaders, Hong had Yang killed, along with twenty thousand of his followers"; "From 1856 on, the Taipings were weakened"). Ebrey's concubine trigger also conflates the 1853 beating episode with the 1856 "Ten Thousand Years" demand.	Misquotation; textbook issue	All three replaced with Ebrey's p. 319 wording; visible bullet reworded (the general sent to kill Yang killed his followers); instructor note dates the beating episode to 1853.
T	"…was enormous" should be "horrendous," and the page is 321, not 318.	Misquotation; page	Split into two quotations: "cost some 20 to 30 million lives" (p. 318) and "…was horrendous" (p. 321).
V	The quotation drops Ebrey's pronunciation guide without an ellipsis.	Trivial	Restored Ebrey's pronunciation guide, so the quotation is now verbatim.
D	Title says Hong failed "Four Times" but the text lists only 1836, 1837, 1843.	Internal inconsistency	Visible bullet and notes now give all four dates (1827, 1836, 1837, 1843).
L notes	"Its last general, Lin Fengxiang, was captured" — Lin was captured in March 1855; Li Kaifang held out until May 1855.	Error (minor)	Notes now: "Its two commanders were captured in 1855: Lin Fengxiang in March and Li Kaifang in May."
Z notes	Hong Rengan is said to have escaped Nanjing; he was outside the city when it fell and joined the young king at Huzhou.	Error (minor)	Reworded: Hong's son escaped from the city; Hong Rengan was outside it; both were captured and executed later in 1864.
MM	Headline: "Some Taiping Survivors… Became the Black Flags." Liu Yongfu's band came from Guangxi insurgent armies (Tiandihui-linked, Wu Yazhong), not the Taiping proper (Davis 2017). Notes hedge correctly.	Textbook error repeated	Headline now "Rebels from Guangxi Crossed into Vietnam, Became the Black Flags, and Fought the French"; first bullet says the bands were separate from the Taiping; instructor note on Ebrey's claim (Davis 2017).

Lecture 3 · Large and Yet Weak

Dates and figures check (the Arrow, October 1856; Ye Mingchen; Dagu 1858 and 1859; Beitang; Baliqiao, 21 September 1860; the burning, 18–19 October; the Conventions, 24–25 October and 14 November 1860; the Zongli Yamen 1861, Tongwen Guan 1862, Jiangnan 1865; the Educational Mission 1872–1881; Li in Zhili 1870–1895 and 1900–1901, which correctly fixes Ebrey; Hart 1863–1911; Tianjin, 21 June 1870).

Slide	Issue	Type	Fix applied
J (and B notes)	"The British commander, Lord Elgin." Elgin was the plenipotentiary; Lt.-Gen. Sir James Hope Grant commanded the army.	Error	Slide J bullet and notes and slide B notes now say "the British envoy, Lord Elgin"; notes name Hope Grant as the army commander.
O (and Lec4 C, E)	"The boy's uncle, Prince Gong, and his mother… ruled as regents" omits Empress Dowager Ci'an (co-regent until 1881), the eight regents named by Xianfeng, and the Xinyou coup (November 1861). Prince Gong was prince-counselor, not regent.	Textbook omission repeated	Slide O headline and bullet now name Cixi and Ci'an as regents after a palace coup, with Prince Gong as chief minister; Ci'an added to the names box; instructor note on Sushun, the coup and the co-regency (Rawski 1998). Lecture 4 slides C and E changed to match.
G / K	Neither mentions that the 1858 Shanghai tariff rules legalized the opium import trade, the natural link back to Lecture 1. Also omits the 1860 emigration (coolie) clause and the French property clause.	Omission	Slide G bullet: "a new tariff made opium a legal import"; notes on the November 1858 tariff (Wong 1998). Slide K's notes add legal opium and the emigration clause.
L	"Foreigners even began to collect China's customs duties" implies a post-1860 start; foreign inspection began at Shanghai in 1854.	Wording	Bullet and notes now as recommended.
CC	Visible text: each zodiac head spouted water "one for each hour"; notes correctly say two-hour periods.	Internal inconsistency	Bullet now reads "…each for one of the day's twelve two-hour periods."
DD	"By 1900 there were one hundred treaty ports" repeats Ebrey (p. 325). The Customs listed about 29 treaty ports at the end of 1899; more than 90 only by about 1917, counting self-opened ports (Feuerwerker, CHC 12).	Textbook error repeated	Bullet now "By 1900 about thirty treaty ports were open"; instructor note on Ebrey's figure (Feuerwerker 1983).
V / X	The Fuzhou Navy Yard (1866, Zuo Zongtang, Shen Baozhen, Giquel) is absent, though Lecture 4 slide J destroys its fleet.	Omission	Folded into slide V (no new slide): a bullet on the 1866 Fuzhou Navy Yard and a notes paragraph on Shen Baozhen and Giquel that sets up Lecture 4 slide J (Pong 1994).
J notes	Ebrey's "10-square-mile complex" (p. 322) is about seven times the area of the Yuanmingyuan proper (about 3.5 km²).	Textbook error	Not changed: the slide already carries an instructor note giving the Yuanmingyuan's real size.

Lecture 4 · The Empress and the Boxers

The deck with the most textbook errors carried forward, because Ebrey's last pages are the most compressed. Verified correct: the Ryukyus (1879), Hanoi (1882), Prince Gong's dismissal (April 1884), the Kowshing (25 July 1894), Weihaiwei and Ding Ruchang's suicide (February 1895), Shimonoseki (17 April 1895), Li's wounding (24 March 1895), the Six Gentlemen (28 September 1898), the siege (20 June–14 August 1900), the Protocol (7 September 1901; 450 million taels over 39 years, about 982 million with interest) and the deaths of Guangxu and Cixi (14 and 15 November 1908).

Slide	Issue	Type	Fix applied
M	Headline and notes repeat Ebrey (p. 326): four Chinese ships sunk and "none of the twelve Japanese ships seriously damaged." China lost five (Zhiyuan, Jingyuan, Chaoyong sunk; Yangwei and Guangjia run ashore and destroyed). Matsushima was wrecked by a 30.5 cm shell (about 100 casualties); Hiei, Akagi and Saikyō Maru were badly damaged. Japanese casualties about 300.	Textbook error repeated	Headline now "Off the Yalu River, China Lost Five Ships and Japan Lost None"; bullets corrected; instructor note on the ships and casualties (Paine 2003; Evans and Peattie 1997).
J	Headline "In About Fifteen Minutes" and visible "About three thousand Chinese were killed." The action lasted about 30 minutes (an American observer saw the fire slacken after about fifteen); Chinese records give roughly 500–800 killed; Courbet's 2,000–3,000 included the descent of the Min.	Textbook error repeated	Headline now "In Half an Hour…"; bullets give nine of eleven warships and "Hundreds of Chinese sailors were killed"; instructor note on Ebrey's figures and Courbet's estimate (Elleman 2001); notes add Zhennanguan/Lang Son and the Treaty of Tianjin.
Q	Reparations table copies Ebrey's errors: 1842 "21 million ounces" (should be dollars, ≈15 million taels; contradicts Lec1 S); Taiwan 1873 (should be 1874); Liaodong 1897 (should be 1895, convention of 8 November 1895); 1901 "silver dollars" (should be taels, if shown).	Textbook errors repeated	Stat cards corrected (1842 in dollars, Liaodong 1895, 1901 in ounces); the Taiwan entry is not on the slide and is explained in the instructor note with the other three slips; notes link to Lecture 1.
D	"Four-year-old" Guangxu and Tongzhi "at nineteen" are Chinese counts (sui); Western counts are three and eighteen. Elsewhere the deck uses Western ages.	Internal inconsistency	Headline and bullets now use Western ages (three, eighteen); instructor note explains Ebrey's Chinese counts; check-yourself question updated.
X	"Twelve hundred examination candidates" signed is Kang's claim. The surviving list has about 600 names, and the petition was never submitted (Huang Zhangjian 1970; Mao Haijian 2005). Graduates and officials sent more than thirty other petitions.	Textbook error repeated	Headline and bullet now: about six hundred signed, and the petition never reached the throne; instructor note on Kang's figure (Huang 1970; Mao 2005).
Y	"Five-hour audience" (Kang himself said two hours, China Mail, 7 October 1898); "redesigning the Qing as a constitutional monarchy" overstates the decrees (Kwong 1984).	Textbook errors repeated	Bullets now say "two-hour audience" (Kang's own figure, so more exact than "long") and that the decrees stopped short of a constitution; instructor note (Kwong 1984; Huang 1970; China Mail interview).
Z	"Staged a coup with the help of Yuan Shikai's army," and the check-yourself question "Why did Cixi need Yuan Shikai's army?" Cixi resumed power on 19–21 September before Yuan's report reached her; no troops were used; the report turned the change into a purge and the executions of 28 September (Mao Haijian). Some scholars still give Yuan a larger role.	Textbook error repeated	Bullets and check-yourself question rewritten as recommended; "executed six reformers and revoked most of the reform edicts"; instructor note on 18–21 September (Mao 2005; Kwong 1984).
CC / B	Omits the allied seizure of the Dagu forts (17 June 1900) before Cixi's declaration of war (21 June).	Omission	Slides B and CC bullets now name the seizure of the Dagu forts; notes date it to 17 June and call the retirement "demand" a forgery (Esherick 1987; Cohen 1997).
BB	Could add the Boxer slogan "Support the Qing, destroy the foreign."	Enhancement	Slogan added to the notes only (Esherick 1987).
DD	Yuan Shikai was governor of Shandong, not a governor-general (Ebrey's wording). Russia's 1900 occupation of Manchuria is omitted.	Minor error; omission	Bullet now "Most provincial leaders, including Li Hongzhang and Shandong's governor Yuan Shikai"; instructor note on the southern governors-general and Manchuria (Hsü 2000).
EE	"Examinations were cancelled for five years" nationwide. The Protocol (Art. II) suspended them for five years only in about 45 cities and districts where foreigners were killed or mistreated.	Textbook error repeated	Bullet and check-yourself question now say the suspension applied only where foreigners had been killed; instructor note on Article II and the 1905 abolition (Hsü 2000).
N	Check-yourself misquotes Ebrey as "a defeat not of weapons but of organization."	Misquotation	Check-yourself question now quotes the full phrase.
U	The diary blocks were ordered destroyed in 1877, while Guo was still in London, not "on his return" (Ebrey's framing).	Minor	Bullet now dates the order to 1877, while Guo was still in London; instructor note (Frodsham 1974).
P	Russia's Manchurian railway concession (1896) and Germany's seizure of Jiaozhou after the Juye murders (November 1897) are missing; both prepare the Boxer story.	Omission	Notes now add the 1896 railway concession and the November 1897 seizure of Jiaozhou after the murder of two German missionaries in Shandong (Esherick 1987; Bickers 2011).

9. Linked research apparatus

Lecture 1 deck: Smoke and Gunboats · essay: Smoke and Gunboats
Lecture 2 deck: Jesus's Younger Brother · essay: Jesus's Younger Brother
Lecture 3 deck: Large and Yet Weak · essay: Large and Yet Weak
Lecture 4 deck: The Empress and the Boxers · essay: The Empress and the Boxers

Audit conclusion

The Chapter 18 decks tell the century well and already fixed several of Ebrey's errors before this audit (the Lecture 1 treaty clauses, Li Hongzhang's tenure, Tongzhi's age in the notes). The audit found about ten misquotations in Lecture 2's notes, two content errors and a cluster of textbook figures in Lecture 3, and nine substantive corrections in Lecture 4. All of these fixes were applied on 25 October 2026. The visible slides now teach the corrected history, the textbook's discrepancies are explained in instructor notes, and every outside work is listed on its deck's Sources slide. One audit item was deliberately left as it was (Lecture 3 slide J's Yuanmingyuan area, which already had an instructor note). The four background essays match the fixed decks.