Imagine an invisible palace, Zhongnanhai, where modern emperors plot in the dark, and every whisper could be a brutal death sentence
This is not fiction: it is today’s China, an empire of 1.4 billion souls (a number under suspicion) ruled by a party that devours its own children with sharp claws and bloodthirsty fangs.
Like in a tragic Chinese opera, heroes are crushed under iron boots, betrayals explode like poison in the veins, and the blood of ancient history floods modern chaos in crimson rivers.
Let’s delve into this visceral saga, without soft filters, just the raw, bloody essence for you to feel the accelerated pulse of Chinese politics, a volcano of ambition and terror about to erupt in devouring flames.
And the trigger? The merciless purge of a general named Zhang Youxia, in January 2026. It’s not “just another one”: it’s the earthquake that tears the ground, the blow that could bring down the entire house of cards, leaving exposed bones and souls screaming into the void.
The Scars of Mao: The Princelings, Children of Trauma and Vengeance
It all begins with Mao Zedong, the insatiable “red dragon” who founded the People’s Republic in 1949.
His reign was a hurricane of murderous madness: the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) transformed China into a hell of cruel denunciations, maiming prisons, and mass executions that painted the streets red.
Millions were annihilated, including the party elites, torn apart like puppets in a slaughterhouse.
Now, imagine being the child of one of these “revolutionaries”: seeing your father, a hero of the Long March, dragged into the icy darkness of a labor camp, tortured until his bones gnashed, or executed with a shot to the back of the head on Mao’s sadistic whim.
These are the princelings, the “red princes,” heirs marked by scars that bleed eternally, survivors of a generation mercilessly massacred.
They grew up in the grip of trauma: a paralyzing fear that was predominant in shaping the character of the current leaders, a voracious thirst for stability, and an unwritten “red consensus,” a pact forged in pain never to repeat the Maoist terror that devoured entire families.
Fathers like Xi Jinping’s or Zhang Youxia’s were crushed victims; their sons swore to protect the party tooth and nail, but with implacable rules: collective leadership to avoid chaos, secure retirement to avoid ending up on the gallows, and hidden fortunes.
These are men and women forged in the fires of hell, something difficult for us in the West to comprehend.
As survivors of a political holocaust, they value family loyalty above all else, but live in a world where betrayal is the air they breathe.
But, ironically, Xi, a princeling forged in the same cauldron of pain, is reliving Mao’s nightmare with renewed fury, betraying his own “red family” in a carnage that makes the past seem merciful.
The princelings form the “red aristocracy” of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), a network of revolutionary bloodlines that control keys to power, such as state-owned enterprises and military positions, but they walk on sharp blades, where one misstep means the abyss.
The Fragile Balance: Factions as Rival Clans in an Imperial Court
After Mao’s death in 1976, Deng Xiaoping emerged from the ashes like a calculating phoenix, healing open wounds with economic reforms that transformed misery into wealth, but left festering scars.
But power fragmented into factions, like savage clans in an ancient dynasty, where if you’re not the executioner, then you’re the victim, waging silent wars for power:
? Jiang Zemin’s Faction (1989-2002): The “Shanghai capitalists,” pragmatic and eager for dirty gold.
Jiang, a shrewd engineer with a predator’s eye, prioritized economic growth and ties with the West, but at the cost of corruption that corroded like acid.
His allies, such as Zeng Qinghong, wove patronage networks in provinces like Zhejiang and Fujian, where favors were repaid with loyalty or lives.
? Hu Jintao’s faction (2002-2012): The “common technocrats” of the Youth League, forged in ruthless bureaucracy.
Hu and Wen Jiabao focused on social stability, poverty reduction, and “scientific development,” but beneath the surface, it was a fierce struggle for survival.
Figures like Wang Yang and Hu Chunhua represent this reformist line, dreaming of a China integrated into the world, but ready to strike if threatened.
These factions danced a deadly tango: they divided positions in the Politburo with claws digging into each other’s backs, controlled the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) like wolves fighting over prey, and ensured that no one became an absolute dictator.
The PLA, the “party gun,” was a neutral monster, guarded by princelings like Zhang Youxia, a war veteran with impeccable lineage, whose hands trembled with memories of bloody battles.
But behind this, the “party elders,” like Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao, act as supreme advisors, an “invisible senate” that intervenes in crises to preserve the fragile balance, but with claws ready to tear.
They represent collective wisdom, but in a brutal system, even they are easy prey: the higher you climb, the more exposed you become, as in the Stalin era, where ascension meant a bigger target on your back, and the fall was always fatal.
Corruption is the inescapable poison of this mechanism; Mandatory for advancement, as promotions require “gifts” and favors that reek of rot.
It’s a universal glass ceiling: everyone is corrupt, so accusations of corruption become selective weapons, taking down rivals without real trial, in a carnage where yesterday’s loyalty becomes today’s betrayal.
Xi, the Traitor Emperor: From Consensus to Maoist Terror
In 2012, Xi Jinping emerged as the “middleman”: a princeling with no apparent enemies, chosen by consensus (or rather, lack of consensus) among the factions in a pact that smelled of a trap.
But Xi had devouring imperial ambitions.
Inspired by Mao, whose ghost still haunts the princelings, he centralized everything with an iron fist: unified titles in a reign of terror, a personality cult (“Xi Thought”) that crushes dissidents like insects, and an anti-corruption campaign that turned into a bloody guillotine, selectively cutting off heads.
Xi purged rivals with savagery: elders like Hu Jintao publicly humiliated, generals like Miao Hua and He Weidong “suicided” or detained in damp cells.
Purging here is not dismissal, it’s the loss of life in agony.
In communist China, it means secret imprisonment where fingernails are pulled out, torture in “fighting sessions” that break spirits and bodies, forced suicides with ropes tightened around the neck, or convenient “heart attacks” in Military Hospital 301, where the smell of death hangs like a fog.
It’s like in the ancient dynasties: Emperor Chongzhen of the Ming Dynasty (17th century), paranoid to the point of madness, executed his best general, Lu Xiangsheng, leaving the empire vulnerable to invaders who devoured everything.
Xi does the same: he atomizes the PLA (Chinese army) with suffocating surveillance, separates ammunition from troops to prevent rebellions, and forces mutual denunciations in meetings where allies betray each other like hungry rats, turning generals into “political zombies” with eyes empty of terror.
The security apparatus, the Central Security Commission (CSB) and the Ministry of State Security (MSS), is the demonic arm of this brutality: a network of spies and guards who protect (and watch over) the leaders with omnipresent eyes, but also execute purges with murderous efficiency, where hidden microphones capture whispers that become death sentences.
As in Stalin, the top is the most dangerous place: ascension means envy and suspicion that corrode like acid, and “mandatory” corruption becomes evidence against you.
The system is built this way: corruption is necessary to rise politically; without it, you won’t get anywhere.
Therefore, everyone who rises has a noose around their neck, and if you’re on the wrong side, that noose will be used.
This way, you’re always guilty, ready to fall into a mass grave, while the party remains preserved.
The Purge of Zhang Youxia: Not Just Another One, But the End of the Game
Now, the blood-curdling climax: in January 2026, Xi purges Zhang Youxia, vice-president of the Central Military Commission, in a carnage that reeks of betrayal.
Why does this change everything? Zhang is not “just another general.” He is the “Tiger King”: a princeling with revolutionary blood (his father fought alongside Xi’s in bloody battles), a veteran of real combat (the Sino-Vietnamese War, 1979, where bodies piled up like firewood), and the last “buffer,” the protective layer preventing total collapse.
He controlled the “guard of the capital” (82nd Army) and openly criticized Xi’s “reckless wars” (like Taiwan) and the alliance with Russia that sucks China dry like a parasite.
This purge shatters the “red consensus” with a crack of broken bones: if an untouchable princeling like Zhang falls, detained without trial, perhaps already tortured to death in a dark cell, no one is safe, and terror spreads like a plague.
83% of the military leadership has been purged, surpassing even Stalin (60% in 1937), where mass executions left piles of bodies.
Like the Ming Dynasty, Chongzhen killed its generals out of devouring paranoia, leading to its fall in 1644. Rebels and invaders seized Beijing in a bloodbath, and the emperor hanged himself in utter despair.
Xi enters the “death loop”: the more purges, the weaker the regime becomes, bleeding from the inside out.
The PLA becomes a “paper dragon”: incapable of war, focused on internal survival in a swamp of fear.
Factions unite in “passive resistance,” a suffocating bureaucratic silence, rumors of coups simmering like poison.
Everything could change: economic collapse crushing millions, popular revolt exploding in flaming streets, or even something worse (better not to detail), echoing the end of the Qing Dynasty in 1911, when fragmented elites overthrew the emperor in a chaos of blades and fire.
I have the impression that we are in the phase of that disturbing silence that precedes the great storm.
Shadows Over the Strait: Possibilities Regarding Taiwan – A Game of Fire and Illusions
At the heart of this bloody tragedy looms Taiwan, the democratic island that Beijing sees as a rebellious province to be crushed, but which the world recognizes as a beacon of freedom in the Indo-Pacific, resisting like a clenched fist.
Xi dreams of “reunification” in a bloodbath, but internal purges transform this dream into an unpredictable nightmare, where one mistake could set the world ablaze with nuclear flames.
Let’s explore the possibilities, like pieces on a blood-soaked chessboard, where one wrong move means annihilation.
In the short term (2026), the risk of invasion seems diminished, but it still throbs like an open wound.
With the PLA decapitated, leaders like Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli investigated for allegedly undermining Xi’s authority and the military modernization goals by 2027, the Chinese army is paralyzed, bleeding from internal cuts.
Recent exercises, such as “Justice Mission 2025” in December 2025, simulate blockades and furious strikes, but are more macabre theater than a real threat, masks to hide weakness.
In February 2026, dozens of Chinese warplanes (37 in a single day) circle Taiwan like hungry vultures, but this is “salami slicing,” gradual intimidation tactics that slowly cut, not an imminent assault that devours everything.
Internal instability forces Xi to focus on survival, not war: purges leave commands empty like tombs, and “zombie” generals hesitate in bold actions for fear of being next on the guillotine.
However, in the medium term, the danger could explode like a time bomb.
Inexperienced leaders, promoted by blind loyalty rather than competence (the Chinese army is anchored in political appointments and not meritocratic systems), can commit fatal miscalculations, driven by corrosive paranoia.
Imagine an “accidental incident” in the Taiwan Strait, a stray drone exploding, a ship colliding in flames, escalating into conflict because Xi, isolated and paranoid, sees weakness in retreating, preferring the abyss.
Economic models coldly warn: a war would cost US$10 trillion globally, with Chinese GDP plummeting 11% into ruins, American GDP 6.6% into ashes, and Taiwan devastated like an apocalyptic battlefield.
But for Xi, Taiwan is the “great historical dream,” a consuming obsession; If purges neutralized the PLA this year, 2027 could bring an amphibious invasion, tanks rolling over bodies, costing countless lives and risking intervention from the US and allies like Japan and the Philippines, in a missile dance illuminating the night sky.
On the other hand, there are scenarios of hope, or at least of a bloody truce.
If reformists like those in Hu Jintao’s faction gain influence in a post-Xi world, they could prioritize poisonous diplomacy: engagement with the Taiwanese opposition and reducing tensions to repair torn economic ties.
Taiwanese President William Lai warns in a steely voice: if China takes Taiwan, “you’ll be next,” Japan, the Philippines, and then the sky’s the limit, falling like dominoes in a deadly game where China and America divide control of the Pacific, since there is no longer the containment of the primary islands.
This echoes calls from American lawmakers for Taiwan to increase its defenses (US$40 billion in missiles and drones, fortresses against the dragon).
A fragmented China could opt for “peaceful reunification,” supporting pro-Beijing forces in Taiwan with bribes and veiled threats, rather than brute force that leaves trails of corpses.
But with Xi at the helm, the balance teeters on the brink: constant pressure, like the 37 warplanes on February 12, 2026, keeps the world on edge, with hearts pounding like war drums.
The Future: A Year of the Snake and the Abyss
2025, the Year of the Snake (like those of Mao and Xi), brought dark prophecies that howl in the wind: the regime that began with one snake (Mao) ends with another (Xi), in a cycle of poison and death.
With “five successors” in play (like Chen Jining, the Westernized technocrat, a wolf in sheep’s clothing), the stalemate is lethal, an arena where gladiators face each other with hungry eyes.
Xi is a figurehead emperor, but his Maoist terror, reviving the traumas of the princelings in an orgy of pain, may be the final poison that dissolves everything.
This is not just politics: it is a visceral human tragedy, where the children of martyrs become sadistic executioners, and power corrodes like acid on flesh (after all, children behave like parents who behave like children).
Fascinating and terrifying, like watching an empire collapse in slow motion, with bones cracking and screams echoing.
The world holds its breath; an unstable China affects us all in waves of chaos that could engulf us.
Published in 02/14/2026 11h36
Text adapted by AI (Grok) and translated via Google API in the English version. Images from public image libraries or credits in the caption.
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