This is a murder-mystery story set in England and has at its center the Ainsleigh family. They are an ancient aristocratic family who had been once very wealthy until one of their numbers died in China and, consequently, the family is now supposedly cursed.

In 1927, Chiang Kai-shek - the head of China's military academy and leader of the Kuomintang (KMT) - began the `northern expeditions' to bring China's northern territories back under the control of the state. It was during this period that the KMT purged communist activities, fractured the army and sparked the Chinese Civil War - which would rage for over twenty years. The communists, led by General Mao Tse-Tsung, were for much of the period forced underground and concentrated in the Chinese countryside. As the author argues, this resulted in China's war featuring unusually high levels of espionage and sabotage, and increased the military importance of information gathering. Based on newly declassified material, Panagiotis Dimitrakis charts the double-crossings, secret meetings and bloody assassinations which would come to define China's future. Uniquely, The Secret War for China gives equal weighting to the role of foreign actors: the role of British intelligence in unmasking Communist International (Comintern) agents in China, for example, and the allies' attempts to turn nationalist China against the Japanese. The Secret War for China also documents the clandestine confrontation between Mao and Chiang and the secret negotiations between Chiang and the Axis Powers, whose forces he employed against the CCP once the Second World War was over. In his turn, Mao employed nationalist forces who had defected - during the last three years of the civil war about 105 out of 869 KMT generals defected to the CCP. This book is an urgent and necessary guide to the intricacies of the Chinese Civil War, a war which decisively shaped the modern Asian world.

A grand tale of intrigue in nineteenth-century China, where imperial rule is crumbling as the Opium Wars and Taiping Rebellion rage, from the author of Manchu. Loyalty is put to cruel test in Shanghai, where Jewish merchant Saul Haleevie and his longtime Chinese partner, Aisek Lee, have weathered hardship and distrust to build a thriving business. When Aisek is falsely accused of “abomination” for causing his mother’s suicide, their world is shattered. Now, Saul must save his friend no matter the cost, navigating a brutal and corrupt penal system that could bring about his own ruin as well. Meanwhile, the quest for true love governs the fate of Saul’s wayward daughter, Fronah. Consorting with the Westerners now thronging Shanghai but truly comfortable only in her Jewish-Asiatic identity, she ends up destroying one man and confounding another. Love and deception also entwine in the imperial palace, where the “Virtuous Concubine” Yehenala contrives to bear the opium-eating, syphilitic Hsien Feng emperor’s only son, thus laying the foundation for her elevation to the pinnacle of command in China as the formidable empress dowager. She wins the power battle, but it is beyond her to win the war, for by then China faces not just the collapse of another imperial dynasty, but the end of the millennial imperial system of rule, threatening the lives and loves of all. This compelling saga of nineteenth-century China is filled with “intricate shuttlecock diplomacy, ceremonial/battle action, family saga/romance—all polished to an entertaining high gloss” (Kirkus Reviews).

The techniques described in this book have made thousands of people become fluent in plenty of languages (with particular regard to Chinese and Japanese), on their own. Knowing what to do and how to do it makes all the difference.This book will give you exactly what you need, saving you hundreds of hours of internet searches.This ebook is a condensation of the most important steps to take to become fluent and literate in Mandarin Chinese. What books to buy, when and how to use them, how long it takes and other important aspect are pinned down from a practical point of view.Content: My experience with Mandarin Chinese How to tackle Chinese Characters, books reviews How to not forget Chinese Characters, Anki What to do after single characters Main areas of consensus about Mandarin self- learning Conclusion If you look at becoming fluent and literate in Mandarin Chinese quickly, efficiently and quite effortlessly, you cannot go wrong with this book.