150 episodes listed below
China's war with Japan, told river by river.
Age of Conquest tells the Second Sino-Japanese War as one continuous story, with each episode picking up where the last left off. Battles on the Hunan front sit alongside the split between Chiang Kai-shek and Wang Jingwei and the Soviet clash with Japan at Khalkhin Gol.
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Age of Conquest: A Kings and Generals Podcast treats military history as a serial, and its 'Fall and Rise of China' series shows the method at full stretch. The episodes under that banner follow China's war of resistance against Japan, including the fighting of 1939. They open with a recap, and the phrase 'last time we spoke about' works like a chapter heading. They end with a summary as well, so a listener who comes in partway through has two places to get their bearings. The battlefield narration is dense. Japanese forces appear as numbered divisions, Chinese forces as named armies and the commanders who led them, and the Changsha campaign is followed through river crossings, landings and recaptured towns. Right beside the fighting are the rival plans for defending Hunan, argued over in Chongqing and settled by telegram. At one point the narration hands over to an officer's first-person account of a battalion holding a mountain position for three days and nights, and the battalion commander's reply, 'A soldier has no if necessary', hits harder than any summary could. Then the frame widens. Diplomacy runs as a steady thread: a loan negotiated with American banks, Soviet arms traded for Chinese tea, wool and hides, and Chinese representatives setting out Japanese atrocities at the League of Nations. The politics of collaboration gets the same attention. Episodes titled 'Fall and Rise of China: Chiang-Wang Divide' and 'Fall and Rise of China: Wang Jingwei Regime' are part of the run, and the narration follows Wang's break with Chiang Kai-shek, his flight to Hanoi, and the government he set up in Nanjing with Japanese backing and limited sovereignty. Details like the five-color Beiyang flag and the yellow pennant Japan required on the national flag make the politics concrete. The show also looks past China's borders. The Soviet clash with the Kwantung Army at Khalkhin Gol, where Zhukov's August offensive annihilated the Japanese 23rd Division, is presented as the setback that turned Japan's ambitions south. The narration argues that this fighting in the east figured in Stalin's thinking about the pact with Hitler, a factor it says standard accounts give little attention. Most of the time the register is measured chronicle, full of names, dates and unit designations, with an occasional burst of heightened language when events turn. It cites a historian where the argument needs backing, quoting directly on Wang's search for legitimacy. The closing minutes include a pitch for supporters, offering an exclusive series, early access and a vote on future subjects. A listener who stays with it comes away with a clear picture of how decisions made in Chongqing, Nanjing and Moscow reached the front lines.
Made for: Suits a listener who wants the Second Sino-Japanese War in close operational detail, with commanders, divisions and competing plans named, and who is happy to follow a serial from one episode to the next. Also a good fit for anyone curious about how Chinese, Japanese and Soviet decisions in 1939 affected one another.
What sets it apart: It pairs unit-level battle narration, down to numbered divisions and rival defensive plans, with the diplomacy and collaboration politics behind the front. It also places China's war next to Khalkhin Gol and the Hitler-Stalin pact instead of treating it in isolation.
Kings and Generals Podcast
One disputed river, eighteen maps, and suddenly your history rabbit hole needs a logistics department.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A clear account of rivers, mountain holds, and costly counterattacks in China's resistance to Japan's 1939 advance.
September 1939 sets the First Battle of Changsha as a test of resistance through attrition. Japanese forces under Okamura Yasuji move into Jiangxi and Hunan, taking positions including Yingtian, while Chinese formations respond with counterattacks, fortified river lines, and…
A command decision at Changsha opens into a grim, detailed account of encirclement, sacrifice, and resistance.
Changsha comes into focus through Chiang Kai-shek's choice to favor repeated resistance north of the city. The episode moves cleanly from the dispute over Plans A and B into Japanese attacks in Jiangxi and Hunan, the brief taking and retaking of Guowen, and the hard fighting at…
A fog-bound retreat anchors a campaign story about strategy strained by confusion in the field.
The Xiang Gan Operation frames Japan's 1939 push to pressure Chongqing through Hunan as both a matter of planning and a test of command under stress.
Wang Jingwei's peace bid becomes a lesson in how occupation can turn legitimacy into a political trap.
Wang Jingwei's bid to end China's war with Japan becomes a sharp study of how a peace faction can harden into a government with little real sovereignty.
Failed mediation reveals the pressure splitting Chiang Kai-shek's government and drawing Wang Jingwei toward defection.
Chiang Kai-shek's refusal to accept Japan's harsher terms anchors this episode, which traces the failed Trautmann mediation from cautious talks to Chiang's resignation and Wang Jingwei's break with the resistance.
Khalkhin Gol becomes the hinge between Stalin's timing in Poland and Japan's turn south.
Fall Rise of China Podcast treats the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact as the product of battlefield pressure and careful timing. It follows Zhukov's offensive at Khalkhin Gol through the night river crossing, the bombardment of Japanese positions, and the encirclement of…
Outnumbered units, remembered under fire.
Battle maps, war films, and patient context.
War news, tested against military reality.
Antique European history, read aloud.
A narrative history episode detailing the Battle of Nanjing in December 1937, focusing on the Chinese defense against Japanese forces.
This episode covers the Mukden Incident and the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, focusing on Zhang Shuliang's response and the political divisions in the region.
This episode details the Japanese encirclement and assault on Nanjing during the Second Sino-Japanese War.
A narrative episode recounting the Battle of Nanjing and the subsequent massacre in December 1937.
This episode details the Japanese assault on Hill 52 during the Russian counter-offensive in Manchuria, focusing on tactical maneuvers and the battle's outcome.
["Craig Watson's Fall and Rise of China episode on the First Battle of Changsha follows Lu Wen-Lang of the 55th Regiment from Fulinpu to Dongtang, where a Japanese night assault kills Yi Zu-Tao and forces a dawn counterattack.", "The same wartime arc tracks Chen Yujie's 195th Division at Bijia Mountain and the Xinjiang River, where the defenders hold for days while Okamura Yasuji's forces push south.", "The show then cuts to Chiang Kai-shek and Song Meiling's Mid-Autumn banquet at Huangxiang Villa in Chongqing, where the conversation turns to the Hironuma cabinet, Abe Nobuyuki, a $20 million U.S.
["Age of Conquest: A Kings and Generals Podcast follows the September 1939 Road to Changsha, moving from Huibu and Gao'an in Jiangxi toward the Xinjiang, Miluo, and Xiang River lines north of Changsha.", "Craig Watson hosts the episode and credits Kings and Generals, while his narration relies on campaign maps, wartime orders, and eyewitness testimony from Lu Quixue and Yang Peiyao.", "The episode asks how Okamura Yasuji's Xianggan Operation tried to pin Chinese forces in Jiangxi and force a fight around Changsha.", "Later sections use Lu Quixue's Gaoyuan recollection, Qin Yuji's defense of Beijia Mountain, and Shengwei's line 'A soldier has no if necessary' to show how Chinese units absorbed repeated assaults."]
Chiang Kai-shek receives a Chongqing intelligence report that says Okamura Yasuji's Japanese 11th Army is preparing the Xianggan Operation against the Ninth War Zone.
Age of Conquest: A Kings and Generals Podcast follows Wang Jingwei from his 1938 break with Chongqing to the creation of the Reorganized National Government in Nanjing in 1940.
Age of Conquest: A Kings and Generals Podcast follows the Chiang-Wang divide inside wartime China, beginning with the Mount Lu forum after Beiping and Tianjin fell.
Greg Watson examines how the 1939 Nomohan conflict, the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, and Soviet-Japanese diplomacy reshaped East Asian strategy.
Greg Watson's Age of Conquest episode examines General Georgy Zhukov's August 1939 offensive at Nomohan, where Soviet forces crossed the Hala River under darkness and coordinated tanks, artillery, and aircraft.
Greg Watson details how General Georgy Zhukov used armor, artillery, logistics, and deception against the Japanese Kwantung Army at Nomonhan in July and August 1939.
Greg Watson traces the Nomohan Incident from the 23rd Division’s inexperienced troops and weak anti-tank equipment to Yamagata’s failed May 28 assault.
Greg Watson's Age of Conquest: A Kings and Generals Podcast traces how the 1938 Changkufang clash and Japan's Operation Order 1488 shaped the 1939 Nomonhan Incident, known to the Soviets and Mongolians as Khalkhin Gol.