Introduction

This week in china's history, may thirtith, 16 26, a seventeenth century mushroom cloud, the wan gong chang explosion. A flash of light blinds the residence of be jing on a spring morningthousands of homes are incinerated. Many thousands more are shaken by a low rumbling that extends hundreds of miles from the source of the light south of the forbidden city. Within minutes, a cloud that contemporary observers described as resembling a mushroom rose into the sky over the chinese capital. Thousands of people who were near by at the time are simply gone ash. According to the official records, the scene sounds like a cold war apocalypse, a nuclear strike,