The Phoenix and the Firebird, of course, takes many liberties with the past. The city now known as Beijing was then called Beiping, for instance—not to mention there weren’t actually any monsters haunting the woods!  While we played around with the facts, it is true China was in a state of turmoil at the time of our story. In 1911, the Qing Dynasty collapsed after its line of emperors had ruled for more than 250 years. This ended two thousand years of imperial rule in China and ushered in a new era of promise with the Republic of China. But challenges gathered like wolves and parts of the country fell into chaos. From this chaos emerged the warlords.  Sometimes bandits, sometimes former military officers, the warlords gathered private armies and terrorized people. One, Chang Tsungch’ang, known as the ‘Dog Meat General’, used former Russian soldiers in his army—one of the inspirations for our warlord The Taotie, and his abduction of Lucy’s father. (The lucky monkey heads worn by The Taotie come from the Shanghai Green Gang mob boss, Big-Ears Tu, another infamous figure from that time. He always wore three heads stitched to his clothing.)

Chang Tsungch’ang, “The Dogmeat General”

Merchants in Shangai (Kossiakoff family collection)