00:00 Cold open: one order, three months apart, never late 00:29 Why this episode is not Yangzhou yet 00:40 Act One: Where the names came from 01:51 Act Two: One man, and twenty characters 02:38 Act Three: Where the money came from 03:46 Act Four: What it cost 05:56 Act Five: Is it still there today 06:51 Closing: next stop, 1860 07:27 About sylogs.com In 1723, the first year of the Yongzheng reign, an order came out of the Forbidden City. A pharmacy outside Qianmen was from then on to deliver medicine to the palace on schedule — "once every three months, without delay." That order ran until the Qing dynasty ended. One hundred and eighty-eight years. Eight emperors. What entitled a shop to make the palace wait? This episode is about the old firms on that street outside Qianmen, and what actually kept them standing. · Where the names came from: why Dashilan is called Dashilan, and how one street grew a string of shop names · One man, and twenty characters: Yue Xianyang and Yue Fengming, two generations and two books, turning a private formula into a rule you could look up, test, and trace · Where the money came from: why there was money outside Qianmen — the arcades, the court building and leasing shops, guild halls, and the grain barges · What it cost: the damage the old firms took, and what they held on to · Is it still there today: Tongrentang, Neiliansheng, Ruifuxiang, Quanjude, Zhang Yiyuan — walk into Dashilan today and they are all still there Full transcript, bibliography and further reading: https://sylogs.com/media ⚠️ Some historical scenes in this film are AI-generated illustrative reconstructions, marked with a corner label on screen. The narration is synthetic. —— Shenzhou: China's Living Heritage China is often called a mysterious country. That is half true — and half our own doing. Outsiders see us through a layer of distance; we, just as often, fail to explain ourselves clearly. So the first thing this series does is not add another layer of mystery. It clears the gauze from both sides. Not a travel film, and not a history film. We go place to place, looking at where each name came from, what the place produced, what trade it did, who came out of it, and what it left behind. Next episode: 1860 — the street has to face the thing it least wants to face. #Shenzhou #Beijing #ChineseHistory ▶ Subscribe to the YouTube channel: one month of the paid tools on sylogs.com, free Log in at sylogs.com and comment "Subscribed on YouTube" on the video page to claim it.