Do Go On - 555 - The Terracotta Army of Qin Shi Huang

Episode Date: June 10, 2026

You have probably heard of China's famous Terracotta Army, but do you know the story of the man behind them? This week's episode delves into the epic story of the man who unified China, named himself the First Emperor and was on a mission to find the secret to immortality!This is a comedy/history podcast, the report begins at approximately 06:48 (though as always, we go off on tangents throughout the report).For all our important links: https://linktr.ee/dogoonpod Check out our other podcasts:Book Cheat: https://play.acast.com/s/book-cheatPrime Mates: https://play.acast.com/s/prime-mates/Listen Now: https://play.acast.com/s/listen-now/Who Knew It with Matt Stewart: https://play.acast.com/s/who-knew-it-with-matt-stewart/Jess Writes A Rom-Com: https://shows.acast.com/jess-writes-a-rom-comOur awesome theme song by Evan Munro-Smith and logo by Peader ThomasDo Go On acknowledges the traditional owners of the land we record on, the Wurundjeri people, in the Kulin nation. We pay our respects to elders, past and present. REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING:https://allthatsinteresting.com/qin-shi-huanghttps://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/emperor-qinhttps://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-19922863http://www.britannica.com/topic/Qin-dynastyhttps://www.thoughtco.com/qin-shi-huang-first-emperor-china-195679https://allthatsinteresting.com/weird-royal-deaths/8https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/2000-year-old-texts-reveal-first-emperor-chinas-quest-eternal-life-180967671/https://listverse.com/2017/03/21/10-bizarre-tales-of-the-first-emperor-of-chinas-quest-for-immortality/https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/stories/top-10-facts-about-terracotta-warriorshttps://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0cshgzqhttps://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240327-terracotta-warriors-fifty-years-afterhttps://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20170411-the-army-that-conquered-the-worldhttps://youtu.be/Nol_2FzMQLo?si=35Cz-qk5lay8S_vwThe chapter "What You Find When Digging a Well" in Michael Scott's book 'X Marks the Spot'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2FUmD1pyVMhttps://www.britannica.com/event/Warring-Stateshttps://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/qin-shi-huangdihttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsUE-ZtcUFghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6Ia-SEidBAhttps://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-you-need-know-about-chinas-terra-cotta-warriors-first-qin-emperor-30942673/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's 2026. It's June and I'm excited because who knew it with Matt Stewart is celebrating 200 episodes with a big live show here in Melbourne, Matt. Yeah, at the basement comedy club here in Melbourne and it's a full 75 minute show. Oh, wow. Wow. We're the longest we've done with guest Dave Warnackie. That's me. Jess Perkins. That's me.

Mish. Big Wet Whitrip and one more to be announced. Who could it be? Whoa. And we are also coming with Dugo on to Canada. Oh, Canada, etc. I still don't fully believe this is real. I'm so excited.

You'll believe it when we touch down. David is like, if this is like one of your fucking pranks. No, I'm not going to punk you. I swear we are going to Canada in September, 26. We're going to be hitting up Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal and Toronto. And if you want tickets to the Who Knewet or the Canada tour, visit our website, do go onpod.com. And if you sign up at patreon.com slash dogo on pod, you can get discount codes for all. all those shows. I mean,

you know what I mean. And welcome to another episode of Doogone. My name is Dev Warnikey and as always I'm here with Matt Stewart and Jess Perkins. Hello. So good to be here. Just right off the bat, letting everyone know that I'm underslept and overcaffeinated. Yeah. It's a beautiful convo.

Fair warning. Fair maidens out there and fair fellas. And here's the thing. So like, and we also know his report, because it's Matt's turned to a report. His report is on the long side. So my plan was to just sort of back off a little bit, let him get through some of the story. And in fact, I think he's going to interrupt himself a few.

I'll stop you right there, man. I don't think it's going to help that we don't riff. I think he'll riff for three. What if I just jump in right now and say, do you want me to explain what the show is, so at least we can get into it? Sure, yes. For new people who've never heard the show before,

if you haven't heard us in a while, we take it in turns here to a report on a topic, which is Matt's job this week. We go away, do a bit of research, bring it back to the group in the form of a report that we stayed up until 4 a.m. writing. That's usually the tradition for Matthew Stewart. Then you have three or four coffees and you present the report. It's a year nine level report. It's what we usually go for.

Yeah, it might be a pretty advanced year eight. Yeah, we usually, year eight with too much coffee. Maybe skipping ahead. Yeah. We always start with a question, Matt. Did you remember at 4 am to write a question? I did. Well, you know, I wrote the question. I've been working on this for a few days. You didn't sleep for days. Well, I just, I did a lot of the reading and documentary watching. and all that sort of stuff and I was starting to piece it together but then I was like, holy shit and it just kept getting out of hand

but anyway this is definitely more than a year nine level because no year nine has ever done the reading no God no I've I know I'm sure I've said this but I got a HD in a class no I got a distinction in a class a literature class where I did not read the book

in university so you know it can be done that was before book cheats existed as well if you're a year nine don't worry about doing the reading I did that in uni as well. Yeah. I minored in literature and I think I read one of the books through and it was Bill Bryson.

And you're addicted to this day. That's what got me into him. Yeah, maybe I read most of on the road as well. Anyhow. So we get onto the topic with a question. That's right. My question this week is, what sculpting material translates from Italian as baked earth? Clay?

Baked earth. Is it Terracotta? Yes, signor. We, seor? See. See. Mr. What's the time for seigneur?

Signore. Senore. Yes, signore. Yes. Maltobani. So, yes. I mean, is that alone enough to make you know what we're going to be talking about? Terracotta soldiers?

Yes. The warriors? That's right. Is it warriors or soldiers? It's warriors or soldiers? Terracotta Army. Yes. So soldiers, you're an idiot.

So this week, we're talking. She took it too. I thought it did my back. No, I'm being nice now. Sorry, I apologize. Remember I'm trying to rebrand and I'm being sweet. I'm going to rebrand as the bad boy. You fool?

Sorry, it's hurting me. You fool? We've learned about this on previous episodes. Jess is doing a face turn in wrestling parlance. Dave's doing a heel turn. That's right. Step together. Step together.

Yeah, I was going to say, David is doing this. I hear it, yeah, yep, exactly. What Matt said. So. The topic this week is as much about the man behind the terracotta army as anything. We're talking about a man who is known to history as Chin Shur Huang, the first emperor of China and his terracotta army. Oh.

I don't know if that was the correct Chinese pronunciation, but it sounded really good to me. Yeah. I looked up a lot of the pronunciations, and there's a bunch that aren't natural to me, even though I did two years of Mandarin in primary school. That was 400 years. He did. He didn't do the reading.

That's where most of my Italian comes from. We had the best teacher in grade five and the worst in grade six. We loved our first teacher, Mr. Chang. It was so good. But Miss Lau, I think her name was. She was not nice. She took all the fun out of it. But he was the best.

He brought in a little, like a string Chinese instrument he'd play for us and stuff. It was so good. He was like the most loved teacher in the school. That was my exact experience of Italian. We had an Italian teacher in high school who would like, she would cook for us. She would put on Italian soap operas and say, try not to read the subtitles. And she was amazing. And then I, year 10 kept going and that teacher was awful and so mean and hated me.

And I was like, I'm going to drop Italian. I would have done it all the way through. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Mr. Chang. Like, it was so loved. If you're a pure happiness. If you're like Mr. Chang.

That's right. Yeah. Good teachers are important. Yeah. They really are. Yeah, you remember the good ones. And also the ones you hate apparently. Yeah.

And the ones in the middle? Yeah. Not so much. But the thing that really levels it all out is having met a few teachers remet them in my 20s, nearly none of them remember you. Hey, guy. Hey, bud. They say to me, and both my parents are teachers, so I got an inside word.

It's like, they only really really. remember the real bad ones for the most part and maybe some of the particularly good ones and I guess I was neither. So you're going to talk about the terracotta warrior? Oh, you're doing the Italian. Sorry, that's because of the war. Are you going to do the worries? I've seen them.

What? In China, yeah. Holy shit. So you'll know a fair bit about him. I mean, it's 15 years ago. And you went to the big museum on the site? In Zian. Is it my saying that correctly?

Yes. Holy shit. And it is. Really impressive. It's really impressive. Oh, that's great. So hopefully I'm going to be filling in some of the details of the story behind it from beforehand. And, yeah, I would love to hear more of your perspective, especially towards the end where I'll talk a little bit about what they've dug up so far.

Oh, great. No, I definitely can't remember. I'm not going to be like, um, I don't remember any. I think it was actually the final details, but I might be able to dig out some photos. I'll also say, you know, they were built over 2,000 years ago. And, you know, the details about it is a little. sketchy they've had to like make a lot of assumptions and and every article you read all the little details are a little bit different yeah um even as it starts so i'm going to take you back to

april of 1974 when workers were digging a well are reading like heaps of different articles they were called workers they were called farmers they're called peasants they'll call also i guess they could all be true maybe but it was interesting that even a detail like that you're like can't we all agree from 1974 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Before we get into the BCE stuff. We had cameras, for fuck sake. If you can't get that right, what hoped you have for the 2000 years ago?

I would really like for us to have their names. Like, they're just these vague people who are digging a hole. Anyway, so they're digging this well. For the Smithsonian, Arthur Lubau writes, The side of the well was where the ancient capital of Shangyang once stood. It lies a half-hour drive from traffic clogged Shan, where Dave was talking about, population of 9. million. I love it. It's like, it's not, it's, you can think of like five big Chinese cities before

you think of Shian, well, I would. There's another one that I can't even remember the name of where I remember on the tour, because it's, you know, we're on the tour of China that the guide said, this is a small city and it only has eight million people. It's more of a village. Unbelievable. So it's like, what's the population of Melbourne? Five. And that's with the suburban sprawl. Yeah, that's with every, a big ring around it. So it's, yeah, There's a lot of people that live there. And the only other thing I remember about Gian was we got warned beforehand that they're famous for their hard beds. Oh.

Like it's a cultural thing there. And I do remember being like, oh, it felt like you're sleeping on wood. It's just a bit to get used to. They weren't hotels or whatever, but it's still what they have. Interesting. Yeah, to the fact that they're famous for it. I love it. Well, if you want to get the full experience, then I think you should sleep on a hard bed.

Yeah. But Dave wouldn't. No. He always travels with his own mattress. On my back, I'm doing the hard work. He's actually a real pain. But it's a king. And we're like, Dave, come on.

Come on. If it's for travel, you just need a single, bud. And he refuses to check it. Yeah. He's like, no. It all fits. I'm squeezing it in. So, yeah, I mean, Dave, do you remember this?

Apparently, it's, and you can see from photos and footage from the air. It's sort of dry scrubby land. There's a lot of persimmon and pomegranate plants. And it's very cold in the winter, super hot in the summer. Right. They've got weather there. sounds a bit like another place I know. Melbourne.

What? It gets hot here in the summer and cold in the winter. No. But I think maybe even more so there. Like deserty sort of stuff. So anyway, in 1974, they're digging. They're just trying to dig a well, get some water in this deserty area. And much of their surprise, the workers unearthed some dismembered human body parts.

Oh, my God. When I wrote that at first, I didn't realize I was going to have already revealed the clay soldiers. That could have not been what we're up to yet But I'll say this Not made of flesh and bone But clay What? But what could this mean?

I'm confused So yeah, little bits and pieces Again, everything you read It'll be like they found a head Or they found a body Or they found bits and pieces It would be freaky At first

What body part would you want to find first? It's all unnerving, isn't it? Yeah Find a foot, you're like, bleh! Yeah. Yeah, but you find a head. Oh, are you talking about clay or human flesh and bone? But dealer's choice.

Yeah, I'd go clay if I was going to choose. Yeah, I would agree with you on that. But then you couldn't be in the start of an episode of NCIS then. You know, the amorous teenagers making out in a bush somewhere. And they go, oh, what's that? It's a hand. Dave, you couldn't have been that. You couldn't have been that anyway.

You were not an amorous teenager. Dave, just checking. If you get a role in that show, can you get to make out with people? Maybe I do want to be an actor Wait, there's kissing and more Maybe I do want to be an actor We got an intimacy Director, coordinator

We're not going to need that I'm ready to go Hogwild Yeah, that's probably We might get a second one That's what, we might do a recast I think This isn't porn Wait, what?

What? It's all fake? Word starts getting around this interesting discovery has been dug up and the word

made its way to this guy Zhao Kangman who was the director of a nearby public antiquities collection for all that's

interesting James Bertch writes based on the location Zhao suspected that the clay parts would be an important

find. It's like this is the site of the ancient capital of the first Chinese empire or it's complicated

of course because you know there were Empires on China. But this one we're talking about was known as the first unified one. So it's a big deal. It is a big deal, yeah.

But others are like, well, I mean, the ones that came before it were also, why are you drawing the line here? Anyway, so that all those little things, people are like, you know, and historians love to discount what the generation of historians said before. They're like, because otherwise they're just saying, yeah, what they said is right. Copy, paste. We actually think, you know, they misinterpreted some of these finds and we think, you know. Anyway, so Birch says that when Zhao heard of these clay parts being found, he got on his bike and he rushed over to see them. And his hunch was right.

The discovery that he identified would rank as one of the most spectacular archaeological finds of all time. Again, what is it? What is it? What are we talking? I'm talking about. Oh, is this a terracotta dinosaur? Could be. For National Geographic, John Rochwrights, they found it one, but thousands of clay soldiers.

Or warriors. Each with unique facial expressions and positioned according to rank. Each with unique. Yes. They come up with a thousand different facial expressions. Thousands of different faces. Apparently. Yeah, thousands.

Yeah, thousands. You went to drama school. Do you think you could do thousands of facial expressions? At the drop of a heart. God, you're good. I finished... I finished drama in high school, so I could probably do hundreds.

Yes. But not thousands. I'm self-taught, so I've really just got the one I've got. Yeah. This one. Yeah. And you can, if...

You know, as you can see that on the Patreon, on the video. Yeah, okay, right. Or any photo that Matt's ever taken. You can also... Same face. Yeah. Just looking a bit flummoxed.

Yeah, I had a memory come up recently of... when I was in New York. A Facebook memory or just it came to you? Facebook memory, sorry. I just had a memory come up. There are these days. It was just like me taking selfies around New York and I had that sort of stupid face on my...

Hey, hey, hey, that's just your face. I know, it's just my face. But maybe I play it up a bit. I'm not even sure. No. You see it all the time. It's just your resting face. And I got resting dope face.

But yeah, comments are like, you're looking shocked at every. location. Oh, he's excited. This is his first time in New York. The big city, tell you what. They should go to China. People call that the big city.

You know what I mean? Yeah. People call it the big city. That's for sure. New York, the big city. I'll just come back from the big city. Oh, New York. Yeah, heading over to the big city for a holiday.

Oh, Broadway. You won't remember this, Jess, but I did a patroness, Patreon Byronus episode once about where the nicknames of cities came from and talked about the big apples. Not at all. Yeah, does that sound like just zero memory? Yeah. You remember that?

I do remember that. That memory did not come up for me. Like the big smoke. Anyway. And we talked about why Chicago is called the windy city. There's a bunch of other windy places. I know it's all about political spin or something. Yeah, yeah.

Apparently it's not that windy. Anyway, geez, we're doing a lot of Patreon sizzle early. Can't get on there. Oh, I should also say now that we're this far end of the episode. In case anyone skips over the pre-roll, we're going to be in Canada in September. Yes. That's right. We're doing four shows.

We definitely want people to be aware that we're going to be there for the first time ever in Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal and Toronto. Tickets and details at do go onpod.com. That's September 26. And the same website you can find details for the 200th episode of Who knew with Matt Stewart live in Melbourne on the 27th of June. Come out really soon. Dave and Jess will be going to be guests as well as Mish Whitrop and, and, uh, some of the same. what else? It's not I can't say who. It's, I don't know who. Yeah. May so it wasn't replied. So, um, so yes, uh, for National Geographic, John Roach writes, they found not one, but

thousands of clay soldiers, each with unique facial expressions and positioned according to rank. And though largely gray today, patches of paint hint at once brightly colored clothes, which is interesting, you think of like old Roman and Greek statues and stuff as being like just this sort of grey concrete colour. Yeah. And assuming that's out, but apparently they were like gouty, like bright coloured paints is what they think they actually were now. And I think it was similar for this.

And they've done some recreations showing like what they would have looked like colour. And it's hectic. Unbelievable. It's a, yeah, it's a real salt on the senses. Wow. The scent of salt. That's a scent. It's a salt on the scent.

It's a salt on the sense. I don't know what I said scent. You were thinking of smell. It smells. bad. I farted. Okay? And the listeners would not have had a way of knowing that. Further excavations have revealed swords, arrow tips and other weapons, many in pristine condition. The soldiers are entrenched like underground corridors. In some of the corridors, clay horses are aligned four abreast behind them, a wooden chariots. The wooden chariots are now

long since rotted away, but that's what they know what would have been there. And I will talk about this more later, but the terracotta army or the terracotta warriors, as they're now known, part of an elaborate mausolem created to accompany the first emperor of China into the afterlife. But we'll, yeah, talk about this. But now first, and we'll talk about Dave's experience there. But first, let's talk about this guy. Who's this guy? Who's this emperor who created it all?

So I'm going to go a ways back to the BC or the BCE, depending on which way one you to say. Both mean the same. Before zero. What do you want to say? What I want to say is, I reckon, it's too confusing. Yes. Counting backwards.

I reckon you can keep it like, you know, 100 BC or BCE, but I reckon we change it. So instead of like 101 BCE, it's... Minus. Yeah, maybe that would be better. minus 101 yeah I think that that would solve it I was thinking we flip

the hundreds you know so that we don't you don't move up numbers you don't go down numbers to go forward in time in BC

you change it so it's like 100 100 I can just get back onto the topic yeah because that's already hurt my brain

but I think I think the negative thing is just better put a minus on it instead that'll probably fix it right up like a temperature type thing yeah yeah

I'm so sorry AJ feel free to edit out if that is. But it already is a negative thing. No, it is. Please. I'm just saying, put the dash there.

Get rid of the BC and just go negative 100. Okay. Yeah. You've solved it. Because I'm going, wait, this guy was born in 101 and he died in, you know, 90s, you know, whatever. Sure. A lower number.

Sure. Oh my God, I'm so sorry. I thought I was going to express that better. When's that ever happened? It occasionally does. Like sometimes words just flow out. It's usually when somebody is trying to trip you up by making you say like a... A riddle or a tongue twisters.

You're flawless with tongue twisters. It's incredible, but sometimes you can't say your own name. Matthew Smite. All right, so let's talk about this guy. He was born Ying Zheng or Zhao Zheng, but he's better known to history as Chin Shur Huang. So I'll probably call him that a lot. He doesn't really name himself.

that until he unifies China and becomes the emperor. That's sort of one of the versions of the name that he's known as, there's others. But, you know, it's... Just pick one for the story. Yeah. It's like when we talk about a woman who's more famous name ends up being a married name. Yeah. Just, yeah.

So, anyway, if I'm talking about Ying Zheng or Chin Shur Huang, this is our main man. I wonder who he's going to marry. It's exciting. What if I've heard of him? So he was born in the year, 259. BCE, negative 259, and this was a couple of centuries into China's warring states period. There was this long, multiple century long period where a bunch of different states were fighting for supremacy.

The seven states being Chin in the west, Qi in the east, Chu in the south, Yan in the north, and Wei, Han and Zhao located in the central region. for Thoughtco, Cali Chappansky, writes, this was a difficult time for any ruler in China with seven warring states

fighting for control of the land. The leaders of these states were former dukes under the Jiao dynasty but had each proclaimed themselves king of the Jiao as the Jow reign fell apart. Oh, okay.

So they're all gone. They're kings of their area. Yeah, so basically, I mean, trying to figure how to explain it best, but it's basically like there was the king at the top and they were sort of these dukes or had these fiefdoms underneath that king, but they were all in their own areas building up their own power and followings.

And then the overarching king, that kingdom sort of fell apart a bit, which left this power vacuum in seven princes or dukes or whatever, who each thought of themselves as the going to take over. It's kind of like the Prime Minister of Australia dies and all the premiers of each state go. You know what, I'm in charge now? Yes, exactly. I'll have this.

I'll have all of it. And it's like, well, you've only got Victoria, mate. Yeah. It's a big place. Yeah. Like China is a big place. Yeah. And they go, well, I've just annexed, you know, South Australia. Everything else.

Yeah. Yeah. And they're named different things like dukes or fiefdoms or all these other sort of names. But they're kind of like mini kingdoms are they? Yeah. And obviously, we're putting English words onto the, like, there weren't, that doesn't neatly fit into any of those words, but something like that. Yeah. So, all right.

By the way, the Jiao, which is the kingdom before that sort of fell apart, that remains the longest-running dynasty in China, existing for nearly eight centuries, from 1046 BCE to 256 BCE. But of course, this is before China was unified, you know, so some people are like, oh, why aren't they counted in this whole thing? And they are, but they're not. Anyway, his parents, our main man, the emperor, were probably a guy who ended up being known as King,

Zhuang Shang of Qing. And definitely, it's easier to know for sure with the mother, Lady Zhao, who would become known as Lady Zhao. A lot of the people that come up in this part of the story have names that incorporate the state, one of the seven warring states that they're from. Chin, for instance, the guy's, the father, is one of the states, and Lady Zhao from Zhao, another one of the States.

The story goes that his mother, Lady Zhao, was a concubine of a wealthy businessman named Lubei from the Wei state. Lu Buwei became friends with the king, the guy became king, King Zhuang Shung of Qing, who was then a prince known as Yin Yuran. Apparently, the future king took a great liking to Lady Zhao,

and they got together, soon having a child, and that child being the star of this episode, Yingzeng, aka the future emperor Qin, Shir Huang. Now, what's had some doubt placed on it is whether or not this was nine months or further after, you know, so some, there is some belief, and in some writings that happened after this, about 100 years after this period,

suggesting that biological father is actually Lu Buwei, not Yin Yuran. But that's kind of by the by. Yin Yerang believed the child would be his own and brought him up as such. As well as being involved in his procreating, Lu Buoy is also thought to be the reason Ying Yeran went on to become king. We're still talking about the dad of the main guy of the episode. So while Ying Yeran was a prince, he wasn't next in line for the throne. Like back then, the kings would have a lot of partners, and they're all having kids.

So there's a lot of, the line of ascension is long and complicated. Oh, my God, I mean, you have to have a different birthday party every day. Nah, just throw one big one each year. Oh, that's good. But then they, so there's like a main, the main wife and her first oldest son. That's the first one. Yeah, been the main wife. I know, I reckon the dream would be like the third or fourth main wife.

likes you, but doesn't need your round all that much. You're going to live your own life. I used to have a bit about I think I'd make a really good third wife. Was it a third wife? Yeah, but I didn't mean like one of three. Currently. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I meant you've had one and two.

Yeah. One for love. One for trophy wife. The other one. Third one, a bit of companions. Yeah. You're golfing together. Yeah, I'm a bit of fun.

Yeah. And then I'll leave you to it. I still think I could be a great third wife. And there's still a chance for me to do that. Which probably means a great. stepmom. Yeah, 100%. To adult children.

Exactly right. Yes. They're still younger than me. Yeah. But probably not by haves. I'm not changing their nappies. And I'm not like disciplining or driving them to soccer and shit. No.

I'm like, you can borrow my car, drive yourself to soccer. Yeah. I'm not coming. Here's the case. But I'm having a couple of license. Here's the key. I said here's the keys. Figure it out.

So yeah. So Ying Noren, the dad of the main guy from this episode, wasn't next in line for the throne. It was a ways down the order of merit to put it into horse racing parlance. Could you use of the word ways there too. Well, great, I meant it that way. I meant it as a very clever word playery. I'm the king of puns. Is that what you call me? Yeah, pun king. Pun king. But of course, behind every king is a... What do we call you?

Pun master. Pun master. Yeah, the pun at master. And I'm the pun princess. So, yeah, I guess it was more like a princess. Eugenie type to put it into like British sort of. Because you put it into horse racing and I was like, uh-huh. Yes. Jesus Eugenie, got it.

So you say her dad is awful? Yeah. Oh, she is. Oh, that'd be a rough thing to live with. Yes, it would. And your mom's Fergie. Okay, getting better. I don't know.

Is she good? She seems fine. She's the redhead or the other one? She's the redhead. I don't think she's great either. Okay. Well, that probably makes sense. Who am I?

Who's the other? There's Fergie and there's one. Who's the other, probably the one who's now the queen? Probably the one who's now the queen. Camilla Parker Bowles. Oh, I see. Right, yes. Probably harder to get those suit confused now.

I think one will be pretty happy with her choice, committed to the other. And that wouldn't have always been the case, surely. Wait, Charles is the better one? Oh, my God. Anyway, so, yeah, the Karen King had many partners and children, But the ranking system meant the top wife's first male child was the first in line. Top wife.

The top wife, number one wife. Oh, Australia's next top wife. But it's, but the only people voting are those wives' husbands? Yeah. And so they're all saying, no, my wife's number one. And there's one. I actually think Steve's wife's a bit better. She's awesome.

She lets him have whatever he wants for dinner. It's awesome. You only see the good side of Susan, okay? And yeah, they're fighting with her. You see her at one barbecue a year. And every season ends with all the husbands swapping their wives. And all the wives. Keyes in a bowl.

Yeah. And the wives going, okay, this is probably an upgrade for me too. Yeah. Because I only see the good side of Darren and. That's right. Whoever. When you get to know, Darren, you go, he's a fucking slob. Yeah, this guy sucks.

This guy's a pig. Shave your back, Darren. The difference is. It's hard to get back there. The difference with this, uh, 2,000 years ago, 22,000 to 100 years ago, style of top next top wife. Yes.

Is there's just one husband judge. And he's ranking all of his wives. That's brutal. That's a better system. It'd be quicker because he just goes, yep. One, two, one, three, four, five. And the rest. Yeah, sort yourself.

I suppose you'd have an idea of who was your favorite and who was your least favorite at the time, given day to day. And then the middle, it doesn't really matter, does it? So you just go, yeah. You'd depend on the time of the month tomorrow. Yeah. You'd have a little. The old Chinese king's like, yeah,

ranking today is this way, but I'll tell you what, different time of the month, different ranking order. As of the 15th, you'll be number five. Nightmare. Got on a little calendar.

They sink up pretty quick, you think. So the thing was that the number one wife was childless. Lady Huayang. She didn't have a kid. Or it didn't have a male kid. Jason didn't have a kid. That was a non-choice.

Didn't have an adult kid. But this is where Lou Buoye comes in. The businessman. The businessman slash X of Lady Zhao. Lady Zhao was his concubine. Now she's with the future king. But she's not number one. Well, she's the partner of the guy who's not number one, if you know what I mean.

Ah, gotcha. And that's all about to change because Lou Buoye basically, did a bit of wheeling and dealing and got the child, oh, the male airless lady Huang Yang, Huyang, to adopt.

Oh. So she adopted. He skips the whole line. Yeah, he skips the whole line and is adopted as like an adult adopte, but that gets him next in line. He becomes the heir apparent. It's like, ha,

you do have a son. She's like, you're 34. Yes, and I'd like a sandwich. Which, yes, mummy. And, Anything for you, Mommy Dearest? Can you start calling me Mommy Dearest? Yeah.

Just like that, though. Okay, Mommy Dearest. Okay, nope, I take it back. Yeah, I think, I thought that would... Okay, well, it's nothing wrong with trying stuff. Nothing wrong with trying. God. I just didn't realize we were that style that we're already going on that sort of way.

Can we got to spice things up a little? Let's go back to vanilla. So, yeah, Lady Huay Yang was from the Chu State, And she renamed Yin Yuren to Zichu, basically, son of Chu. But he's an adult. He's, I think he's, you know, he's at least an old. I can't remember exactly. But he's not a baby.

Right. I mean, he's already fallen in love and had a kid. Yeah. So like, you don't have to rename him. Yeah, but she did. And a lot of the, I mean, like I say, a lot of the names aren't, you know, it's not John Benjamin. It's like Greg from Melbourne.

I was kind of like a rank. It isn't really, yeah. So, yeah, it's about a title and it's about where you're from. Yeah. Do you have to be older than someone to adopt them? Good question. Like, could I adopt you? Mm.

Even though you're two days older. Two days. See if the court was like, I don't know. It's a bit weird. I reckon if we took Matt in, they'd say, yeah, he needs help. You and Jess, you can adopt him. Yeah, I think it would be like a guardianship type thing rather than adoption. Yeah, we'd be like, we can't trust this man with his own finances.

Yeah. We'd better be in charge. Are you Googling it? Yeah. I reckon you probably do because you'd surely have to be 18 plus in order to adopt someone, and they'd have to be under 18 to be adopted. So you probably could become a guardian, though, if they were in need of that. Oh, yes.

According to one American website, it says it's in most jurisdictions you can't. You've got to be older. Right, well, we go into the jurisdiction where you can't. We're going for a drive. Pops. I mean, son. Yeah, we rebrand Matt as the young guy of the pot because we need tickets across the leg to do that. Yeah.

Yeah, I'm just a kid, you know. Hey, things move very quickly. He's now first in line. Great. He's now got a new name. Yes. Zichu. But anyway, he's...

All the other kids must be spewing, because he used to be this little... Wait, what the heck? Whatever? Yeah, he was nothing yesterday. He was like married to... He was like, you know, the son of the, like, wife number 48 or something. And, yeah, things moved real quick. So he's now next in line, and...

Soon after, the king, King, Shwa Huan, lady Huyang's husband, died. So he's king. He gets the caller. And that makes his son that was already born before he became the next in line. Now the new next in line. Exactly. That's awesome. So that, and that kid is the one who built the terracotta army.

So all these little things don't happen then. Is it possible that he had a little terracotta chip on his shoulder his whole life? And that's why he's like, when I go out, I'm taking everyone with me. It was, yeah, not a, I don't think he was a super mentally well guy. Huh. But I think that's, I think growing up in these sort of scenarios where everyone's ranked constantly and everyone's fighting for the top position, I don't think it's a healthy way to come up.

My God, it is like next top model. And you're better off being in our kind of dynamic where you know exactly where you stand and there is a change. There's no changing. Equal bottom. Absolutely. We're all equal here, bud. I'm going to tell you, it's lonely at the top with both of you.

Definitely, both of you. So yeah, Zichu, formerly known as Yingeren, became the king of Chin, which is fun. That is fun. Spelt Q-I-N, but you forget until you start talking, you're like, oh, that sounds, just sounds like he's got a great jewel on. King of Chin. Becoming known to history as King Zhuang-shung-sung of Chin. which is what I referred to him as before. Is that what you're going to call him from now, so I can just...

Yeah, just the king. He, yeah, he's the king or the dad of the main guy. Oh, yeah, that's right. The dad, sorry. Yeah, yeah, yes. And also, he's part of the story doesn't last too much longer. Oh. Sad bit of a spoiler.

He does, he dies soon. So anyway, what was the state of Chin like? Remembering one of the seven warring states? It was the one to the far west. and yeah, it was kind of looked down upon by some of the other states. This is the Condo Labour. Celebrated for its horsemen, Chin sat on the margin of civilization,

regarded by its easely rivals as a semi-savage wasteland. Its governing philosophy was as harsh as its terrain. Elsewhere in China, Confucianism held that a well-run state should be administered by the same precepts governing a family, mutual obligation and respect. Chin rulers, however, subscribed to a doctrine known as Lee, legalism, which rested on the administration of punitive laws. It's like, black and white.

It's how you do it. It's not, hey, none of this airy-fairy woke bullshit, okay? We do it, you know. So the new king, the dad of the main guy, repaid his friend Lou Buoy, the businessman. Oh, yeah. A possible father of his son. Yeah, possibly father of his son and certainly the guy who helped get him the throne. Yeah.

So you'd probably forgive the fathering of your son thing, then, wouldn't you? Oh, yeah. But he seemingly had no idea of that as a possibility anyway Or at least didn't act like he did Couldn't count to nine It's crazy how quick your gestation period was babe It was like on the yesterday It's crazy

Man you should yeah geez Wow Yeah she's going into labour Tommy tell me Tommy love me Yeah it's yours I'm having a baby Yes I baby So yeah obviously he owed him maybe And he repaid him by by making him chancellor, basically prime minister or his top aid or whatever.

Yeah, great. And Lady Zhao, his wife was his queen consort, number one wife. And their boy Ying Zheng, our main man, became the crown prince and the heir to the throne. Our main boy. Our main boy. But of course, like I just alluded to, he did not remain heir for long. Oh. Because as King Zhuang Shang of Chin, his dad,

he died in July of 247 BCE, aged only 34, less than three years into his reign. That's so young. That's so young. That's tragic. That's, fuck, you've got such a life ahead of you at 34. And only three years, you'd just be getting comfortable on the throne, wouldn't you? Yeah. Because it's been a whirlwind for him.

He's gone from Prince No. 50 to Prince No one to King No one. Yeah, to put in horse racing terms from running in a maiden at what, Ceynton, and now he's in the Melbourne Cup. Oh, my God. And now they're pulling a sheet across his legs broken. Yeah, bang. Yeah. Whirlwind. So this means that our main man, still known as Yingzeng, but as I'm referring to him as what he's known to history,

Chin Shur Huang, took the throne at the age of 13. Another thing that I think is really good for your development. Yeah, I think... Having so much power at a young age. If I can... The power of hindsight, if I can look back and think, what would be the perfect time of my life to be given that kind of responsibility, I would say 13.

Yeah. That's when you peaked? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Still had braces, but, you know, my teeth were pretty straight. Yeah. And it's when you sort of ruled with an even hand, and an even tooth. Yep. I had one eyebrow.

I think that was really important. That's a strong look. If you look at a lot of old royalty photos. Yeah. One eyebrow. I don't know when plucking was invented. Did you go for left or right? I did a little thing called All in One.

Oh, yeah. Well, the Oasis was big at the time. Yeah. Yeah. So he's still very young, obviously 13. So Chancellor Lou Buoy, the businessman, acted as his regent, until it was sort of around the age of 21 or something like that. With her husband dead, Lady Zhao took the title of Queen Dowager,

sort of like the Queen Widow or whatever. But now apparently she was kind of horny, like she liked to root. What? A woman. Which is wild that it isn't known history. But anyway. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. But she was a mum.

Yeah. A working mom. Mums don't root. Well, they do at least once. Yeah, but then once they've done that. They retire. That's done. And she doesn't have a husband.

What's the joke your dad's, is it your dad or people like your dad? Make about the day their partner gives birth. It's like watching your favorite pub burn down. Is that your dad? No. No, but it's something you could hear him say. Maybe he had said that. Hard to say.

But it is. It's of that generation, certainly. Yes. Yes. And it is, because I think it's. It's important to note that childbirth is hardest on the dad. Yes. It's sad for him.

Yes. You know, yeah. His favourite pub's burning down. Yeah, you've got to mourn a loss. You know, so that's why, you know, there's often absent fathers. They're mourning the loss of a pub. Exactly. So I'm probably drinking at another one.

Oh, oh, Dave. Dave, Dave, Dave, Dave, please. Dave, Dave, Dave, Dave, Dave. That's not on that. David, David. So, yeah, she was keen to reeked to read. kindle her relationship with Lou Bueuey, the businessman. Oh, I see, yes. But Lou Bway was now, like, he was a top dog. He was sort of like, he's like, this will

complicate things. I don't really know if getting involved with my boss's mom. Just keep it secret. That's hotter. And that, that possibly happened and some say, or said, think that maybe their relationship never really ended. It's hard. That's why I've kept my marriage very secret. Yes. It's really hot. But yeah, so he wanted to distance himself from her, perhaps for reasons like didn't want the king to find out he was the real dad. Maybe that's about. So Lou Bui went about finding Lady Zhao a boy toy.

And he heard about a guy named Lau A, who was famed for being well hung. A first century BCE text said his member was of such size that it could be used as an axle for a wooden carriage. That's big. It's noteworthy that they're writing about it. Yeah. Nobody else's dick is being written about.

No. So it's got to be noteworthy. I mean, this is quite a hog. Big enough for an axle of a carriage. Yes. And obviously, unfortunately. So it's a couple of metres at least. Unfortunately, the wood in the tomb has rotted away from the characters.

So we're not sure exactly how big it is. Yeah. But it does sound quite big. Yeah. Yeah. Wait, you got two horses. Was it four horses of breast? Yeah, it was.

So he is, it's four. And that's for each breast. Imagine how much for one cock. Oh, when people talk about horsepower, is this what they're talking about? I don't know. They either felt like a breast. Yeah, there were parts of a joke there.

I'm not sure what the joke is, to be honest. That was about the size of her. Yeah, you had to have a go. Yeah. Agee look after me, I am sure of that. I trust him implicitly. Now, yeah, so he is about this guy who apparently has an inhumanely big cock. A painfully big.

Yeah, it sounds like honestly an absolute burden. Yeah, he's rooting from the next room. And that, you know, I know we've had this conversation before that you guys think women are talking about dick size all the time. But that... Only because that's what you told us. No, that's what Dave told us. And I said, I don't think that conversation happens as much as you think it does. I know women.

No. Your mum doesn't count. Oh, cop that. Was that a your mum joke? But it was also just very dis- I just saw very dismissive of women. Jess, sorry, if you could allow me to speak. I'm trying to stand up for women. If you'd allow me to speak.

I was assured I could speak. Sorry, Jess. What were you saying about Dave's mom? She's a beautiful woman. Matt, do go on. So, yeah, so Lou Bueway hired the big knob fella to work for him as one of his aids or whatever, and he started going about playing Matchmaker. Apparently he got the guy, Lowe to put his dick through a wooden wheel,

and he walked around the palace or whatever spinning it. And apparently it made a bit of a sound. And the idea was to get her attention to entice her. Like jingling keys or something. Yeah, putting his dick through it, like... Jesus Christ. Jesus is swept. Because it could be a small wheel.

Yeah, tiny wheel. A wheel of cheese, wheel of brie. Yeah. I mean, it would definitely get my attention. Yes. A wheel on a dick. It would get your attention, but would it be positive attention? I don't think so.

Are you making a call? I'd be calling everyone over to the window to say, look at this. Yeah. Yeah, I'd... Like, if someone's walking around a courtyard and I'm in the palace, I'd be like, what the hell's that? Yeah. If someone's doing that to try to woo me, I'd be like, what the fuck are you doing? This is a weird way to go about that.

It's super strange. You've just put your dick in a wheel. I'm okay, thanks. So, yeah, the idea was to entice her. And this is documented by the Royal Scholars or something? This is hilarious that they'd write this. It is, but by the next dynasty. Okay. Who were kind of, they didn't really align. The next dynasty was more of that Confucius kind of woke nonsense, I think.

I know that's not exactly accurate, but watch more than the legalism of these guys. Yeah, they're coming through going back. So they want to be like, they were, they were fucked. A hundred years ago, they were just having sex with wheels. Yeah, yeah. But anyway, it worked according to the text. But apparently also, it wasn't decent for her, the Queen Dowager, to have a boy toy. So they hatched a plan to have Lau A, the man with the...

Big Hog. The hog. I was going to be a loudbie. well. Allowed. Lau B. Lau A? Oh, yeah.

Lau B. Because she said she's really horny. Yeah, yeah. Mine did another boyfriend. I mean, how much can one Dowinger take? Well, let's find out. So, yeah, he poses a eunuch, which would be a hard thing to do, wouldn't it? I don't think about that.

He's famous for his huge deal. How much tucking is involved here? I think quite a lot. I think he's going to, like, roll it up. Putting it over his shoulder. Under through and over. Yeah. Yeah, well, this is just a musical instrument I carry around.

Don't touch it! He used it to tie his robe up. But, yeah, so, oh man, you watch the boys, there are characters. There's one guy with huge long scrote, one with a huge dong, and he'd use it as a weapon. It's like, that's their mutation's got a bit odd in the boys. I've never seen it, but now, I don't want to. Well, you're missing out. Missing on Du Bois.

De Bois. So, yeah, the plan was to have his eyebrows and beard plucked and have a fake castration. Like they faked that he'd done something that was punished with castration, which is big in this time, apparently. And Lady Jiao bribed the castration guy, say, can you make it look like a castration? So they faked it. And then, so he was able to basically live in the court as a... As a eunuch. Right, but really would just be sleeping with the Queen's mom.

Yeah. Or Queen's mother. Yeah, the Queen's mother. And yeah, so they were able to hang together and bone together. They moved to another place, I think, because it must have been kind of obvious, but they were living slightly apart so that, because she had two kids with him. Oh, wow. Which I don't know how she would have explained.

It's like, no, that wasn't the eunuch, obviously. It was my dead husband. Yeah. Who's been dead a long time. Or something else. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know.

Stop asking questions. Don't be rude. Unfortunately, to go of the big hog. Yes. Lau A or Lauai, the relationship with the queen mother went to his head, and he started to think of himself as more important than perhaps he was. But the queen was with him, like, I guess they're in love or whatever, and they started to hatch plans to sort of usurp the throne or have one of their illegitimate kids be the next in love.

line. He ended up raising an army with the help of the neighboring Wei State because, you know, they're like, you could make deals with us. They say, hey, you can come in and we can maybe have a deal here that we take over together. And he tried to launch a coup. But the young Chin Shre Huang, our main man, this week, came down hard. And he squashed the rebellion pretty quickly.

Seems like, yeah, the guy got really cocking. he apparently, like, he was out drinking with other important people. And he was just seen, you know, as an aide or whatever. And he was like, he's like, how dare you talk to me like that? I'm basically the king's stepfather. And I'm like, what? And then one of those aids that he said that to went and told the actual king. And he was like, wait, what the fuck?

That you, Nick. Yeah. So. That guy who lives with my mum? I don't think so. Yeah. So he came down hard, squashed the rebellion. after finding out about the plot.

He had the big Dick Lauer Eye pulled apart by horses. Oh, beautiful. Which I guess is where that band name comes from. Just tied up to a few bits and horses run in different directions. Yakes. Apparently, like real brutal stuff. A brutal stuff, but it will keep the wang intact. Oh, true.

Unless you get a fifth horse. Just saying. Yeah. And, you know, four horses, sure. Yeah. A fifth horse? That's ridiculous Do he love enough?

I know I'm the king But I'm not made a catch It sounds like even a horse Couldn't take that thing Yeah Yeah A horse sees it as impressed The horse goes

Whoa Oh you're hug like me And then some Apparently also This is just super brutal time Three generations of his family Were also executed The big dick man

Oh for this Like as punishment Yeah, including the kids. Whoa. And apparently, yeah, anyone like aunts and uncles, like a bunch of people were killed. But yeah, those kids were the King's Half Brothers and he had them killed. Because I think it happened a lot back there, like, they're not relatives, they're threats to your position. That's still how I see my brother.

And I think it's a healthy way to see your brother. Yeah, I think so. That's why I... Threat to your position. He's in exile, isn't he? Yeah, he could... In the tropical north. He's moved two states away and I say, stay there.

He could... He's been threatening to mount a coup and take a position at this podcast table for years. Yeah. That would not go well. No. Because then I would take his job and I'd do a little too well at it. Yeah. And I wouldn't be the oldest on this show anymore.

And that wouldn't feel good. Yeah, true. Because he's even older than the wind. Even older than the wind. Wow. He was around when the wind was just a... Oh, near to a grasshopper. Mm-hmm.

So Lou Bui, the businessman, the businessman who was also like the kingmaker, Unfortunately for him, he was implicated in the plot as well. Oh, yeah, because he is the matchmaker with Big Dong. Yes, and we're not sure, but maybe he was really involved or, you know, people think he might. He was implicated, but how implicated was he? But either way, he was stripped of his titles and he was banished. He was put in exile. And there he drank poison, ended his own life.

One of Lou Buewe's subordinates, guy called Li Su, became the prime minister type guy in his stead. and apparently Chin Suir Huang, our main man, was earlier impressed by Li Suu's ideas about how to unify China. He's like, I reckon, you know, we can bring these seven warring nations under us. One of the seven being us already, so that's a great start. It's only six to go. I've only got one. We're on the board.

He also stripped his mother of her titles, Lady Zhao, and had her live under house arrest. or palace arrest, I guess. So, yeah, pretty sad stuff. That's, I mean, that sucks, but like, under palace arrest, she could just get another quote-unquote eunuch to come over. Yeah, I think. Should be fine.

I mean, as far as punishment goes, it seemed back then, if you were a royal, talking about in the UK or China or wherever, you're either killed in a brutal way, or you have to stay in a palace. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

There's a wide range of. punishments there. Can I have a moment to think about it? Do you remember like there were some, like when the first lockdowns happened in Melbourne, there were like incredibly wealthy. Chris Judd's wife? Yes, I was going to say, yeah, Beck Judd. Beck, Judd. So sorry to disrespect you, Beck, if you're listening. Complain. But like publicly complaining about having to stay in her multi-million dollar mansion with a pool and each kid has a room and a playroom and you know and you're like you're fine and it just it just speaks to the bubbles that they're in they're talking to each other on this is not on isn't this awful yeah other people like i have to

move home because i i've lost my job yes uh yeah uh yeah i don't have a balcony in my little apartment i'm trapped but i've walked all of brighton for that one yes that's right oh so yeah this woman's on palace arrest and she'd be like oh this is awful Yeah, I should say a lot of this story there is some doubt about it. You know, like the doubt over if it was really his father and stuff like that. Particularly if that's been written 100 years later now, you've told me that people that don't really like him that much. That's the kind of thing you'd throw into the book, wouldn't we?

Just make him sound a bit illegitimate as well. Yes, exactly. So he's the next guy, he's seen as a very respected historian, and he wrote this big, chunky history for over like a couple of thousand years up to that point or something. But yeah, you know, there's not a lot else to go on, but there are also history. I mean, oh, we're not 100% sure. You know, the affair with Lenny Longdong and and also, you know, the dispute about the group chat.

Lenny Longdong? Don't mind it. Who wants to be Lenny Longdong? Yeah, so the text I'm talking about is this Han Dynasty historian, Sumer Qian, and his work, the Shiji, or also known sometimes as records of the grand historian. It's had different names over the use. I like what you were referring to, it sounds like his name, chunky Chinese history. That's pretty good. Yeah.

And like I was saying, the Han dynasty had a Han or Han? It's crazy that I've looked up so many pronunciation. or not that one. Maybe Han Dynasty? I'm definitely... But I feel like I've also heard Han Dynasty. Han Dynasty, Han Dynasty, dynasty or dynasty?

But yeah, they had a difficult relationship with the chin, the previous dynasty, and their brutal ways. And maybe this gave them an ulterior motive, like they were saying, to paint their predecessors as immoral and whatnot. Yeah, so putting all that to one side. There is much doubt over the fact that while he may not have been a bastard in terms of parentage,

he certainly was a bastard in terms of brutality and ruthlessness. Although a lot of that also, I should say, comes from Sumer Chen's The Shiji, or Chunky Big Book of Chinese history. Chunky Chinese history, yeah. So, yeah, let's talk more about the emperor and him bringing China all together. the seven warring states. I should say also, Sumichens describes the young kid

like this in his junkie Chinese history. With his puffed out chest like a hawk and a voice of a jackal, chin is a man of scant mercy who has the heart of a wolf. When he is in difficulty, he readily humbles himself before others. But when he has got his way,

then he thinks nothing of eating others alive. If the chin should ever get his way with the world, then the whole world will end up his prisoner. He's the same he's like... He sounds kind of brutal. He sounds, yeah. But it says like the reverse of brutal. When he's not getting his own way, he's humble.

But when he gets his own way, then he's brutal. Do you want you want to do the other way around so you get what you want? But I think this is still that the future historian talking back about him. Don't you think that makes him sound like a bit of a, like a two-faced cowardy kind of guy? Yeah. Oh, please, please. You know, when you don't have the upper hand, oh, oh. Now I've got the upper hand there.

fuck you, I'm going to... Yeah, you beg for mercy? No, loll. Yeah, yeah. So I think it, to me, that reads as someone saying this guy sucks. Sounds a bit like a, like a, he said two different birds, like a bird boy. What's the voice of a jackal? I'm thinking of hyaenaes, I think.

What's a jackal sound like? What does the Bruce Willis sound like in the jackal? Yeah, he's like, run Jack Black. Yeah. I'm going to test out this gun. Yeah, they put on a vaguely different disguise. Yeah, mustache. I'm going to spray paint a car really quick.

Okay, I haven't seen the jackal. It's a bit of fun. I'm like, yeah, I remember the job. Oh, I've never seen this before in my life. Movie Club. So when you're a warrior king, being brutal is probably part of the deal. You're not going to survive long unless you're a bit of an asshole, I suppose. Oh, when you're a podcaster.

Yeah, same. Same. Being brutal, it's all part of it, babe. You want to stay on top where I am? You've got to be pretty brutal. Do you think it's easier to get on those Apple podcast chart? No. It's not.

You've got to take conversations with Richard Fidel about the scruff. Threaten him. If you can get his attention, which is very hard to do. I was a man, he's, huh, tell you what. He is deep in that conversation. Richard. Richard. Richard.

Richard. Like trying to get my dog at the park. And some say, without his brutality and the way he went about it, perhaps China would remain as multiple smaller states to this day. Like, there's no reason why that whole landmass had to be one country, one state. Harvard University, sorry, Jess, Harvard. Harvard. Harvard University's Peter Boll certainly thinks this is to be the case.

Peter. Peter. Peter from Harvard. When you start working there, you've always, it changes. You become lowest from family. Hey, Peter. Peter. Or the mocking Jay.

Whoa. Yeah. Because her love interest is called Peter. And he paints himself like a rock. You have shown me that. That's very funny. So, yeah, Piedap, I'll believe this be the case, telling the BBC's Carrie Gracie, quote,

we wouldn't have a China without Chin Shur Huang. It's as simple as that. Not only was the area of modern-day China a series of warring states at the time, it was also, as it remains today, of course, a vast landmass with wildly varying climates, lifestyles and diets. You know, it's like thinking like Western Europe,

or maybe all of Europe is just one country now, which it could, you know, if it had this guy, maybe it would have been. Yeah. Napoleon, had to go. Yeah, true. I mean, yeah, a few had to go. A guy called Hitler.

Don't know much more about him, but, yeah, so Gracie writes, in many ways, someone from Northern Scotland and Southern Spain have as much in common as someone from China's frozen north and the tropical south. And rather than coalescing at the time, like you think, oh,

maybe it was naturally going this way anyway. Boll says that is not the case at all. They had different calendars. Their riding was starting to vary. The road widths were different, you know, depending on the size of the cock. The axles would change.

Sure, yeah. But the axle widths would change, you know, in different areas. Similar to like how rail is different. I think even in Australia, isn't it, different in different states? Yeah, infuriating.

There's different gauges. Hmm. they're just not compatible. It's infuriating. Yeah. I'll tell you what, Dave. How does that impact your day-to-day life? Well, doesn't that, like, aesthetically just piss you off

that they couldn't have just sat down and make it all the same? Yeah. It's because it happens slowly. I think it's something called standard gauge, whatever, but that's a standard for a certain group of people. Yeah, right. It's like left and right-hand drive. Oh, that makes me feel sick as well.

Anything to do with these left-handers. But yeah. let's all agree the right hand. Yes. If we... Jess, happy with that? No. I reckon if we got Chin Shui Huang back,

he probably would kill all of ten minutes. Yeah. Something like ten percent. Only ten percent. And once you get rid of them all, they don't, they can't come back, right? They don't grow back.

They can't. Yeah. If you just rip their left arm off with a wild horse. Yeah. No two right-handers could have a left-handed child, that's for sure. Yeah. Great.

Well, that's a relief. So we'll go ahead with the plan. So, yeah, so things were diverging as things would, you know, different areas. They're, like, evolving separately. Yeah, they're so far apart. And like, over 2,000 years ago as well, like everything travels maximum of speed of a horse or whatever. So it's so big. Yeah, exactly.

How do you keep in control of? I don't have Instagram. That's a couple of years away. How are you connecting with other people? Exactly. You know what I mean? How are you getting that perspective? Pigeon.

Oh shit. No, I did forget about it. They did have pigeons. Influencer pigeons. So things are diverging. I would follow the shit out of an influencer pigeon. Oh, look, there's one. Follow it, follow it.

No, I want a pigeon doing like an unboxing. Get ready with me, pigeons. I don't know why I knew you'd be good at that. Yeah, because you've done it before. I can do a pretty good pigeon. Let's hear it again. Oh, that's really good. Because it's the same as,

And then, Dave, you do Bill Lorry being horny over the pigeon, 12-man style. Oh, yeah. Thanks a lot, Tony Craig. Some like that. Some like that. Grass of peace. My God. Bill, Bill, stop looking at these pigeons.

Oh, I'm sorry, Bill. I'm sorry, Tony. Oh, I'm sorry, I got distracted there. Oh, God. Yeah, harder than you think. That's the reason there's only one 12th man. To me, a garage is just a place, you pork your core. So, so things are diverging.

Sure. But then comes the ruthless Chin Shui Huang, our man. I mean, I don't really want to claim he's a fucking, he's a bad. And so far he seems great. But do you want him to be your enemy? So far he seems super chill. I love this guy. Exactly.

Exactly. Okay. The official emperor of the podcast. Yeah. We're cowards, remember. Absolutely. Know your place. A beneath.

A beneath. We are beneath. We are beneath people. So even like inside his own state, I think things are diverging. But he comes along and he really, bit by bit, just gets it all standardised. First, his own state and then as he starts swallowing other states. Swallowing a state? Yeah.

He turns his state into like a real formidable and ruthless war machine. and they just start swallowing up the country. Wow. Like the Pac-Man. Yeah. That's kind of cute. Lee Sue, the PM-type guy. Leigh-L-I-S-I is his name, but I think it's pronounced something like,

Lee Sue. And he's kind of the ideas. He's the one that came with the idea first wasn't. We could take them all. Yes. And it seems like he had a lot of the big ideas. Like he was the real right-hand man guy, or left-hand man in just his case. I'm the left-hand woman.

No? You're our left-hand man. Okay. Be grateful that we acknowledged your left-hand. Okay. Thank you, Master. So, yeah. So, Lee Su convinces Chin Shur Huang to lure intellectuals to the state of chin.

That's some of them, you know, to be part of the gang. We're bringing the big brains in. And other ones, he had killed. He was like, he was like, he was like, also sending assassins out to the other states to kill the other... Join us or die kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, a bit like that. And the first state they took down was the Hahn, H-A-N, which...

When it became clear, Chin was going to annex Han. The Han king sent one of his princes, the highly intelligent Han Fei to negotiate a way out for his state. So the king's like, oh, I'll send one of my best boys. Yeah. He'll go over. He'll be able to talk our way out of this. When he arrived, Li Su, the brains behind the operation, convinced Chin Shur Huang, our guy, to hold him as a prisoner instead. Because Lee Su was like, he's too smart to send back, he'll go back and it'll be bad news for us.

Right. But he's too loyal for us to be able to switch him. So instead, let's imprison him. And then apparently he was able to convince the guy to poison himself. Or maybe he just killed him. What, Lee Sue said you should poison yourself? He's like, why don't you kill yourself, mate? What, he's like Hannibal Lecter or something?

I don't know. Yeah, he's nagging him so bad. Like, mate, you wearing those shoes with that top? Come on. Oh, we're drinking the poison. And then, yeah, not long after the state of Han, Han, was conquered in 230 BCE. Gracie writes one by one, Chin Shur Huang defeated neighboring states

swallowing their territory into his growing empire and enslaving and castrating their citizens. Every time he captured people from another country, he castrated them in order to mark them and he made them into slaves, says Hong Kong University's Zunjiao. Well, like every normal, everyday citizen.

I couldn't have been everyone, but it seems like a lot of them. So this is what Hong Kong universities Zun Zhao says, there were lots and lots of eunuchs in his court. He was a ruthless tyrant. Stepansky writes in 229, B.C. A devastating earthquake rocked another powerful state,

Zhao leaving it weakened. Chin Shur Wei took advantage of the disaster and invaded the region. Then Wei fell in 225, followed by the powerful Chu in 223. The Chin army conquered Yan and Zhao in 222, and the final independent kingdom, Qi, fell.

to the chin in 2-1 BC. So it started happening pretty quickly. I've got to say, these guys always think that the gods or God is on their side. And when an earthquake takes out your neighbour and then you are able to get them more easily,

that would be a bit of a sign, particularly if you are an ecomaniac already. You feel like you're on the right path. Yeah, better keep going. Yeah. Exactly. It doesn't sound like he had any moments of doubt, but if he was even close to going, I don't know about this.

Yeah, that was... Yeah, thanks to talk about thank you for the sign. Got it. And it seems quick, but it probably makes sense as well because he's becoming bigger and more powerful with everyone he takes down, so it gets easier and easier too. So he's got them all.

As Tupansky continues, with the defeat of the other six warring states, Chin Shih Huang had unified northern China. His army would continue to expand the Chin, empire's southern boundaries throughout his lifetime, driving as far south as what is now Vietnam. The king of Chin, with that beautiful jawline, was now the emperor of Chin, aka China. He unified it. I did not put that together.

Oh, me either. China is a chin. I was like, chin this whole time, I'm like, yep, got it. Yeah, so apparently it's not known for sure, but that is what people think, that that's where the name China comes from. Funnily enough, that's the English word for China, which basically comes from Chin Dynasty. But the Mandarin word for China is something like Junk Guo, and that translates to something like Middle Kingdom or Central Country, which is...

There you go. It's interesting to me, it's like, oh, that feels like the sort of bland nonsense we'd call you, whereas you'd be like, no, where the... But I don't think China, I think they've had a problem. relationship with this guy. Like a lot of China and China history looks back at this guy has been a bit of a fuckhead, I think. Oh, the emperor.

So maybe not the kind of guy you'd want to name your country after, I don't know. Right, but he's the first one that they acknowledge is he's the first emperor. But we don't like him. Well, he called himself that as well. Good branding. Like, I think his name that we've been calling him and another one is kind of just means the first emperor of China. Numero uno.

Yeah. So I guess, you know, dress for the job you want. Fank it till you make it. So this is 221 BCE and he's 38 and he is the king of a unified China. 38, you're really only just coming online then, aren't you? Yeah. You're just figuring yourself out.

You're just, you know, feeling competent. Are you even an adult yet? Yeah, God, at 38 to be, that's a lot of responsibility. Yeah, Wunderkind. Yes, you'd say about him. Yeah, I'd say that. I'd say both. Yeah, like, I'd be fine if you at that age and he hadn't worked it out yet.

Oh my God, he'd be expected. Yeah, exactly. He's the exception. Even beyond, much beyond. Oh, well beyond. Sorry, dear, what'd you say? A lot of people, I certainly know people older than 38 who, you know, could probably get some of their shit together. So, dear, please.

Speak up to my goody. Lou Bauer writes, the first emperor's capital, Shang Yang, was a large metropolis where he reportedly erected more than 270 palaces, which only a single foundation is known to survive. 270 palaces? Yeah. What is he, a bloody boomer? That's great stuff. Just like, just accumulating property, am I right?

Tell you what, this guy's like, he's even older than boomers. What? Yeah. Does that exist? A silent generation. No, no, even before that. What's before that? The great generation, is it?

That can't be right. Who's calling themselves that? That's so embarrassing. Oh my God, so cringe. That's so cringe. We're the greatest generation. As a member of the greatest generation, ugh. And they said that right out of the bat.

That was their first word. Greatest generation. It's like growing up in the 90s, I definitely knew I was a millennial. Yeah. I knew it. You know, we were taught it in school. We were feeling it. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, even sometimes people would say Jen Y and you say, that's going to go out of work and we'll become millennial. Yes. So yeah, he's built in this crazy big city. I mean, part of it was because as he was conquering other lands, he'd bring that royalty to his capital. The palaces aren't just for him. No.

So in some cases, he's a landlord. Yeah, exactly. Oh, my God. That's pretty boomerish as well. So, yeah, he's built him heaps of palaces. Yes. Which is fine. We're all fine with it.

So, yeah, he, and mainly that was because he's conquering these other states, It's bringing those royal families to Shangyang, the capital, which doesn't really exist anymore. It's just like fruit trees and stuff. And then, yeah, he built replicas of their palaces back home as well. That is awesome. Yeah. So it's like a little Las Vegas. Yeah.

Here's a little awful tower. Little awful tower. For the French to live in. That's where, you know, Charles de Gaulle can live there. What would they build for us? They'd build a little opera house, I guess. A little Sydney Harbour Bridge. Oh, that's nice.

A little realto. Yes. The jewel in Melbourne Scholar. And at the same time as he's building, like he's obviously, you know he's a good guy because he's building all these palaces at the same time as building himself this epic tomb city. Oh, that's nice. Just thinking about his future but also the comfort of others now. Oh, yeah, other royalties. Yeah.

Yeah. And obviously. He's got, I think, 700,000 odd people working on these things. And I think... So, job creation. Yeah, job creation. Oh, what God. Keeping people employed.

That's important. We respect that. People need that. I haven't looked at the terms of the contracts, but I think they all offered pretty good benefits. Yeah, I would say so. I think they'd be paid well, definitely paid. Yeah.

And then, once they were being paid very well. Yes. And then, yeah, dental. Holidays. Holidays. Yeah. You know, one day or one day. off. That's right. Yeah. Which, yeah, to me, I like to get a workflow going. I'd much prefer

two days on two days off. Yeah, I like consecutive days off. And he would allow that. Sometimes I need a day off after my day off. You know what I mean? Oh, I do. I do. Like you spend all day Saturday, do it, all the chores, do it, all the cleaning, you know, little reset. Sunday, that's a rest. I'm exhausted. That's right. You know? Hey, as the Lord wanted. Am I right? And then you've got Monday off, Tuesday off, Wednesday off, Thursday. Friday, working towards the... Thursday night I go home and I go, I am so tired.

I couldn't possibly cook dinner. Bring it to me in bed, would you? Did you say adulting? Yes. You meant adultery. Adultery? Yeah. Yes.

That is very tiring for you. I hope Aiden's not listening to this episode. He never listens. Yeah. Adultery, that's what you do on Monday. Took a fridge on Tuesday. We were making love by Wednesday. Thursday, Friday, Saturday.

You're doing the chores. Chill on Sunday. Now, Britannica writes, to rule this vast territory, the chin instituted a rigid author author, author, authoritative. Awful? Authoritarian. That can be awful. An awful authoritarian government, they standardised the writing system, standardise the measurements of length and width and of highways, also weight. That kind of makes sense.

So they went kilos. Yeah. Only it was someone else. Yeah, yeah. I would say that kind of makes sense. A lot of that makes sense. I mean, being authoritarian, you can standardise weights without being like, my way or the highway. By the way, that highway is going to be of a standard.

Six cows wide or something. Yeah. How big are the cows? Are they baby cows? Well, no, they're all standard size. Cows will be born one size. Yes. And if they're not, well, I'll be authoritarian about it.

Throw them in the hole. Until they learn to have a same-sized cow. When he says his house? Throw him in the hole. I love beef. And veal in this case. That's fine too. It's believed that his road network measured more than 6,500 K's.

6,500. 6,500. 6,500 K's. Wow. Which included a central lane, I think you'll love this, Jess, a central lane reserved for his family. Oh, I do love that, because I hate traffic. Central lane. I'd lost my own lane.

That'd go down so well, wouldn't it? And nobody would... Like these days, you're all stuck in traffic and then Princess Beatrice cruise a straight past her on a horse and car. But you know, like, you'd be thinking, I mean, what are the chances of them using it today? You know, there's only one raw film?

You know, when you say, like, a car just going for it in the bus lane? Yeah. All the emergency services lane? Yeah. Like, that's a good call. Yeah, like, it's annoying, but you're also part of his like, I wish I was that bro.

It's like the Independence Day, classic film. What's that line that you love to? Sorry, I'm late, Mr. President. Randy Quaid. But earlier in that, Everyone's trying to get out of town and they're all just using the normal lane and then Will Smith or someone. Maybe the guy from Jurassic Park who thinks nature always finds away. Goldblum.

Goldblum. He just goes, I'm going to use the empty four lane hallway. Honestly, I'd be going through farmland. No, it's just the opposite side. And everyone's just sticking on their, you know, they're on the right side over there. Oh, gotcha. So they're all on the outbound. No one's coming into town.

Yeah. So he's like, well, I might. If I'm remembering that, right, it might not be. If you hadn't heard the news and you were driving into town, you'd be like, my God, I'm having a dream run. Where is everyone? It's amazing. Have you seen the traffic in the other direction?

I'm going to have time to get a coffee. This is great. Maybe even a full meal of this rate. You have a record time. Honestly, if I get a park right at the front, honestly, I'm buying a lot of ticket. What a day I'm having a deal. I do. There's no one at the lottery shop.

What's going on? In fact, the shop's running out. Shops on fire. I've been threatened by a man with a baseball bat. It's weird. I was having such a good day. Another change our man made was abolishing feudal privileges. Where are you of the feudal or duchy or fiefdom?

You know that system we're talking about? How the old system was they'd have a little duke out in looking after different areas. But they all built up power as the overruling kings power shrunk. And then those little guys all became the seven warring states, kind of. So he was like, I don't want to do that again. and the new system instead was centralized with the officials all living in the capital city under his watch rather than being able to build up their own new mini kingdoms.

So that was still looking after their places but from the central city. Right, that's why he's like 270 palaces. They're working remotely is what I'm doing. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Peter Boll credits Chin Chur Huang, our man, not only with creating China, but with establishing the world's first truly centralized bureaucratic empire. He set out to unify the procedures and customs and policies of all the states, says Boll. Lourdao suggests a lot of these changes were made by the king with guidance from Lysu.

Leroux, likely, sort of his right-hand man type guy. He likely initiated many of the sovereign's accomplishments. Under his tutelage, the king introduced a uniform script, as we're talking about, meaning that subjects with all these vastly different dialects were able to communicate now. I imagine that it was pretty slow on the uptake though. It's like, you don't speak that anymore. You speak this now.

How do I do that? Yeah, well, I think this was more the writing, which wasn't like your average Joe probably wasn't doing. So you just had to get it through, you know, academia. Oh, right. So the average Joe, they're like, you write like this now And they're like, okay, I never wrote any. Yeah, yeah.

Standardisation, a hallmark of the chin state, was applied to weaponry as well. Should narrow shaft snap or a trigger on a repeating crossbow malfunction, the component could be easily replaced. The young ruler also presided over the creation of an advanced agricultural infrastructure of the incorporated irrigation canals or canals and storage granaries. Or granaries. Granaries. But Gracie writes, despite this,

it is the stories of his bloodletting that historian Zun Zhao grew up with saying he got rid of anyone who showed opposition or didn't agree with him. He was paranoid. He was constantly in fear of how he could control his vast new territory with so many cultures and so many different groups of people.

Yeah, so he made a lot of the changes that have still sort of been felt in modern-day China. Like bringing all the script together, I think that's like it's evolved to what it is now, I believe. But yeah, you can look at those things. He did some cool stuff. But a lot of people think of him as the guy who just killed anyone who looked at him wrong. Oh, okay.

Focusing on the negative. And now being a bit fiery is a bad thing. Yeah, okay. Well, lock me up. Would you say I'm authoritarian? No. He's got to have authority, I think. I will bash you.

No, you do. You're violent. Yes, but it's not authoritarian. You maybe could be a paid thug. Yeah, you're muscle. Yeah, you're the muscle. Yeah. But you need a...

I need muscle to star with. Well, you need a ruthless puppet master behind you. Yeah. A ruthless but cowardly. Oh, yeah. Oh, okay. Dave, you put in your name for it. Sorry, I had to make it a bit more specifically about me.

And what's Matt then? Yeah, good, Jester. Yeah, entertainment officer. He's funny. Which, uh, yeah. Jess very quickly gives me the thumb down. No, Dave gives me the thumb down. Jess kills me.

Yeah, that's right. She comes over with a big sword and you go, oh, no, what about juggling? Oh, I can't do it. Oh, no. I assumed I could. And I go, that's funny. I love watching him struggle.

Put the sword away. Oh. And then I juggle the sword and lands through my temple. And I loved it. So he was a paranoid guy, Chinchua Huang, our man. I keep calling him here, our man, just in case you guys have forgotten. Yeah.

But I love saying his name, Chin Shur Huang. It is fun. Especially because I think I'm absolutely nailing the question. I can't wait for people to agree. So yeah, he was paranoid, but maybe he had the right to be because there are at least three attempts on his life. Okay. Who hasn't had three?

Exactly. That could be a coincidence. Yeah. Yeah. Every time I like trip over something and go, lose my balance for a second. Like, that was nearly, I nearly lost my life. Someone planted a twig there.

Quick, burn that twig. One of my enemies planted a twig. Kill them. So it seems like these are the three most known ones. I assume that's probably heaps. Probably. Wasn't Hitler, there wasn't like 6,000. It's every four minutes someone was trying to kill them.

Geez, all I'm hearing is 6,000 fails. Yeah. 6,000 losers. They missed a lot. They were close a few times. Yeah. We should. Were you ever going to do an episode about that guy?

Yeah, we could. Because I know him, I know, I know him by mustache. I know the big overarching story. I don't know, do I want to know more? Exactly. I don't, yeah, do we, yeah. I felt maybe an episode could be done on his early life that's less disgust, maybe. Less disgusting.

Well, no. Maybe we don't know. We don't know. Because we haven't done the episode yet. Apparently his paintings were pretty better. Yuck. Ugh, disgusting. Spill me off my lunch.

In 227 BCE, five years before they toppled the state of Yan, or yarn, crown prince Dan of Yan, or Don of yarn. Get fucked. Really? Plotted an assassination attempt against the king. For the mission, he recruited Jing Ka and Chin Wu Yang, and the pair went to present the king with a gift of a severed head under the goal. eyes of diplomacy. Severed head was of this exiled Chin general. He booted this general named Van Yuki. I think he wanted to kill him, but he got exiled and he went to this other state, one of the enemy states instead where he sort of hung out there and he was wanted for treason.

So our man, Chin Shure Huang wanted him. But he was high. out here. In Yan, with Dan the man of Yan. With Dan the man of Jan. So Dan the man of Jan brought this guy's head. He said... There you go. That's for you.

That's for you. Hey, Sean, you know, no hard feelings. I know you're trying to topple us. But maybe you let us keep existing. And we'll look after you too with a head every now and then of your enemy. How does that sound? Okay. Do I reckon he'd recognise the head?

Yeah, I think he knew the head. I think it was the kind of head that he wanted this head. Oh, okay, right. He was a janet. He was like... Oh, I was going to say, because like, he's got so many subjects. He'd be like, I'd be like, who's that?

I think he was one of, I think he would at one point work closely with him. Do you think you'd recognize my severed head? Yeah, probably your severed head. Because you do look at it a lot. Yeah. Yeah, but I imagine your head looks a little bit different when it's not attached to a body. Right from the back.

Oh, yeah. What are you suggesting? Oh, what are you suggesting? Oh, why would Dave recognize you from the back? Oh, so I'm asking. Yeah, okay. Someone says, do you recognize... Don't think, don't be weird.

I thought you would talk about adultery again. No, no, no. No, she has to say. Yes. Are you two? You're screaming. I need you to calm down. It's a bit of a game.

Is that what you're saying just? They bring it and go, do you recognize this hair? Exactly, that's what I mean. And then they turn around. It's my face. You'd know my faith. Do you think that they opened it like a closh? Here's the general's head.

Yeah, that'd be good. That's a good reveal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And for dessert. So as well as the head, they are also presenting a map of Some of the areas that I think it was like, you can have these areas. Here's a beautiful map. He's a lovely swamp.

That could be yours. In truth, the map was hiding a poison-laced dagger. What? It was a cunning ruse. The map was hiding a dagger. Yeah. How? The map was rolled up.

Oh, you're thinking of like Melways or something. I was thinking the map already unrolled. No, they weren't arriving with, you know, head in a box or head under a collosh. I was thinking that the head was going to be stuff really explosive. or something you open the cloths, bang. That's arguably better. That would have been better. Yeah.

That definitely would have been better. Did they have explosives back then? They invented in China. Yeah, that's right. But when? When? They've been around a long time. When you said repeating crossover before, I was like, geez, that seems early too.

Wow. But also, okay, so they've put the dagger in the map. Ninth century China. So about a thousand, a bit more years away. Great. Close. So it's close. Yeah, that's exciting.

Okay, what about exploding knives? They've put a dagger in a map and then what's the idea that he'll unfill the map and then see the dagger and go fantastic and stab himself with it? No, one of the guys presenting it

was going to be the stabbing. Oh, they won't just hope me for an intrusive thought just to be taken up upon. Come on. For you, my lord? Anything you feel like doing with that, my lord? I should also say the severed head.

That was donated by its owner. He wanted the king of chin dead so badly that he allowed him to be killed and beheaded for the cause. Holy shit. Yeah. That feels a bit full on. I'd try a couple of other things first.

Do I mean? Why has he got straight to that? Guys, guys, guys, guys. No, shut up, I've got it. I've got it. I've got it. I've got it. I've got it.

Take it to him. I'm there like, come true. This general's lost his fucking mind. Well, he's lost his head. But Dan, the man is like, that's actually not too bad. That'll get us in the door. Just try something else first. Maybe they had.

Well, you're the one telling the story. They had. Okay. They tried everything. Fair enough. Finger, thumb. Eventually, you went, you know what? I can't even, like, I've kind of all my fingers.

Yeah. I'm basically just a head now. Yeah. That gives me an idea. It's funny that they needed the head for them. But the head didn't have the weapon. The map did. Why don't they just do the map?

Well, the head opened the door. All right. He's like, I'm interested to see more because I've seen the head. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. It's like otherwise, who are these guys? What are they doing here?

Oh, okay. Or head and a closh. All right, because to meet this paranoid emperor, you know, to get close to him, you needed to bring something pretty good. Okay, I agree. That's actually really smart. So, yeah, the two men were arrived and they... The two men were arrived. The two men were there.

They arrived. Yeah. It's just really hard to deal with today, Jess. If you could work with me, not again me. Come on. So they'd arrived, but, yeah, I'm not. Unfortunately, Chin Wu Yang, one of the two men, got cold feet. He's just, apparently, he was like, he panicked and he was, like, freezing up.

But this guy's donated his head. Yeah, I know. The least you can do is follow through on your part. You know you're going to die anyway. Now they see the knife. Well, they haven't seen it yet. Oh, okay. This is before.

So they're still, I don't even think they've gone into see the Emperor yet. They're at the stage before, and the guy's freezing up. But luckily, the other fella, Jin Ka, stepped up and he went it alone and he explained away Chin Wu Yang's nervousness Sorry, he has traveller's diarrhea

Sorry Yeah, that would have been I think his quick thinking was really good He said Because the emperor was just a head He said to the emperor He just froze up Because he's never been in the presence

Of such a great man before That's great, so good You've really better Also travel story Oh he's also shit himself. He's got the shit. He's shitting himself because he's intimidated by you, but also quite literally. Yeah. So he thought not appropriate to bring that in to the inner sanctum.

No. You know, you say, I've got diarrhea. Nobody's asking follow-up questions. Not even the emperor. Can I get a certificate from your doctor? Yeah, exactly. No, that's okay. I'm not going to waste my doctor's time. Even the empress had diarrhea. Yeah, everyone's had it, and we all know it's unpleasant, you know?

Just get through it. I understand you don't want to come into my chambers. You need to be near some other chambers. I understand. Yes, that's good. So now, Jin Ker is in the inner sanctum with the emperor. Our man, Chin Shur Huang. Yes.

And the emperor is quite unprotected because he was so paranoid. He didn't allow those around him to carry weapons because he was afraid they'd turn on him. Oh. So Jin Ker goes, his ahead. Open the collosh. What do you think of that? Pretty good. One of this guy did, pretty good.

And how about this? This map, beautiful map, how lovely is it? Rolls it open. The dagger's there. The king sees it. Goes to his sword, the only sword in the room. And Jinka grabbed the dagger. And he starts trying to, because it's poison tipped, he just needs to get it.

A little scratch. And he's jabbing at him. He's missing. and, you know, the emperor's bobbing and weaving. Hey, who, who, ha, who, ha. Cannot land the blow. There's a scuffle. And eventually, Jinkar, it's like, he's been done.

He gets, he gets cut by the emperor. And he surrenders. And, yeah, basically, you know, I don't think you'd be surprised by this. Life in prison. He, well, let go after three years on parole. Yeah, a bit of rehab. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, he didn't go to prison in Victoria, darling.

She has not trying how to take that. Yeah, machete bins. Sorry, I'm trying to talk like some of my old school friends. Who call their friends, darling? Yeah, sorry, tuts. You know, just patronising sort of stuff. But all your old school friends, they've been murdered by gangs, haven't they? Yes.

They're too afraid to go out on the streets. That's a machete gang. Melbourne's just not what I was when I was a boy. Absolute war zone out there. Cannot walk down Burke Street and go to J.B. High Fire anymore without having your head cut off. And that's why I haven't tried for 20 years. But I still do watch some news.

So, yeah, so he's killed there and then. He just needed a scratch. I know he was so close. So close. Unbelievable. This story's been immortalized in like a tapestry. You can see it all going down in vivid 2D. And it's still a really well-known story in Chinese history.

It's become the subject of poems, books and films in the millennia since. Even like in recent years they're still making movies and TV shows about it. And now a podcast. Probably for the first time. Yeah, probably. We can only assume. He's remembered in wildly varying ways by some as a noble hero. Because, you know, some, like a lot of China remembers this emperor as,

even though the first emperor, but still like a real dog, brutal asshole. But others is a bit of a fool and others still as like a cold-blooded assassin. He was just doing it, you know. He was just a guy from another kingdom trying to, it wasn't a noble thing at all. It's like when you get to heaven and you see the guy who donated his head and you're like, sorry. I was this close. We're in heaven. Huh?

Hey, it turns out we were the good guys. I was pretty nervous there, actually. All right. That's the first one I'm going to talk about. The second one was directly related because a friend of Jin Ka, the guy who got so close. named Gaoji Yenli wanted to seek revenge for his friends' death. This guy was a well-regarded musician, and he was summoned to play for the king.

Okay, this is a good. Oh, my God, was he summoned to play a blow dart? I'm really talented. He's like, yeah, he's like his special instrument is the tuba, which is harder to aim. Just put your head in here. I'm an expert at the exploding sex. It's just the name.

Don't worry about it. Sorry, yeah, to really get the best sound quality, you've got to get your head right in there. But no, he changed his name in the aftermath because he was known as being a close friend. In the afterlife? In the aftermath of the first assassination attempt. So he was quite associated with the first attempted assassin. So he's like, I'm changing my name. to afford any repercussions.

Because this king's paranoid, he would have been killing friends and associates as well. I was Jefferson Airplane. Now I'm Jefferson Star She. Yes, that's right. And all the other way around. So he's invited to play for the emperor, and this is his idea.

His instrument is possibly called the Zhu, which is like a stringed instrument. He added inside of it a slab of lead. So just really weighted it down. He's going to get him with lead poisoning. Oh, he's going to try and get the emperor to eat his instrument. Lick this a lot. Go on, have a good lick.

I don't know if they knew. Have a good lick. I think it's a great riff, but I think maybe they didn't know about lead poison. His idea was to just bat him up there. Yeah. Yeah. That's really funny. I think have a good lick was a better idea, but sure.

Well, I mean, it's interesting that he accidentally had a two-edged sword in a way, which obviously had a two-edged sword. Double-edged sword. Because he could have killed him in two different ways. He just didn't ever know it. He's got the slab of lead in there. Not for licking, but for batting. Oh, okay.

For banging. There's three options now. Fuck this lead. Have a good fuck. Unfortunately, when he arrived at the palace at the court of the emperor, he was recognised by someone as an associate and a friend of Jinka, the last... Unlucky. What?

There's like... The population of this place is enormous. How is somebody like, mm-mm, I know those two are friends. This is pre-social media. This guy maybe is such a good instrument player. It means renowned. It's like, they're like, oh my God, that's... That's Harry Stiles.

He used to be in a band with Zane. Yes, yes, it might be like that. If I'm saying the correct name. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, he showed some mercy. He didn't kill him. He did punish him, though, by having his eyes removed.

Okay. So he was being punished for being an associate of Lasker. Okay. Was he not invited to come and play? He was invited, but they didn't realize. Okay. He was invited as a great musician, but not as a friend of an assassin. Right.

They didn't realize as a double threat. He's accepted. He was like a two-inch sword. And had his eyes removed for it. Yes. Could he still play? Yes, and he was asked to play soon after. But harder to hit.

Probably still bleeding from his eye holes. Harder to hit the Emperor over the head if you can't see him. Exactly. So he performed for the King. And apparently his playing was so beautiful that the King, the Emperor, was like heeping praise on him. Give this guy his eyes back. Yeah. I think that was close.

The emperor was feeling safe, got right close to him, and he realized that, and then he started swinging the instrument. No! Yeah. But he was newly blinded. He was missing, unfortunately, and was executed soon after. Fuck! Wow. But his name, Gaoji Yan Li, still lives on with, again, poems being written about him, as well as being portrayed in film and TV.

be as well. So he's, like this old story is seen as, you know, it's amazing it's living on. Yeah. Is that where the phrase gouge eyes comes out from?

Oh my God. Were you thinking about talking about a name? Yes. My God. Spelled quite differently, but of course it would be. Yes. Language is like a liquid.

It's fluid. It's flowing. I can't get a hold of this thing. Come on. Let's go through my fingers. I don't know if you believe that. But yeah, language offered.

I can't quite. get a hold of it. I just got to throw my fingers and thumb. All right, so that was the second. The third assassination attempt, a little bit different. After the Hahn or Han, I really should have looked that one up. It pronounces it, it looks, but it looks like it could be Han or Han. I think I've always heard Han.

Han. So, after the state of, the Han State was annexed by Chin in 230 BCE, 21-year-old Han noble Zhang Liang dedicated his life to getting revenge on the king of Chin, our man, Chin-Shur-Hung. He's like, he was on his way up. He was like a prince or whatever.

He was ready for a life of luxury and now he's living in a palace under the nose of this chin fella. He's living in a palace that looks exactly like the palace he was born in? And he expected to inherit? But it didn't have the same vibe. So apparently put his entire family fortune into the effort to get revenge.

One of the main things he did was hiring hitmen. But yeah, his best known attempt came quite a while later when he hired a strong man to throw a 75 kilo iron hammer at the emperor's horse and carriage. Oh, wow. Throwing 75 kilos. Yeah. Jess, we're going to need you to do that.

Is that throwing a day? Plus some. It's throwing a Jess. It's throwing a Jess. Yeah. I could lose a few and you could throw me. I mean, you could just throw yourself. In so many ways, I'm throwing that weight around.

Be the ball and throw yourself. Just by existing. Yeah. Yeah. That's so true. Yeah. You throw yourself every morning out of bed. That's right.

You got to carry that weight. I throw myself up the stairs to get to this very studio. Yeah. She rolls up, rolls down. Wow. So this plan's pretty good. Yeah. And if there's somebody out there who could throw 75 kilos, like, get in touch.

I want to be thrown. Dave Lauren. Yes. We're all thinking of Dave Lauren. Tasmanian Patreon, who has deadlifted Dave before. Yes. Like quite easily. Yeah.

He overhead pressed Dave. Yeah. Could have been a one-arm press. It was scary to watch. He's also Hobart's greatest sweating celebrant. I thought you said sweating. Me too. Wedding celebrant.

It's important to en masse yet. He won't sweat. I would say that like, you know, when you're lifting huge concrete balls and saying, he would be a sweaty man. I assume he demands sweats. Yeah. I hope so. Because the only guy I know who doesn't sweat is not a good guy.

So he and his strong man, the hide, hide nugget, David Loring, the David Loring top. David Loring of the Han Dynasty. Yeah, they lay in wait until the convoy approached. they knew they're on their way through town. And, you know, there's a bunch of horse and carts, but there's one clearly main horse and cart, you know. It's the golden horse. Yeah, yeah.

They spray painted it gold. Yes. So the strong man stands up and he chfts this huge weight and just totals this carriage. It's very reasonable weight. Very reasonable way. It's huge weight. No, but like that's insane.

It's huge for a throwing weight. it at a distance. For a human, I think, you know, wild. Yeah. Eat it. Could eat up. Oh, totally. If I want to, if I want to, if I want.

You're wasting away, for example. Yeah. This weight is a very low BMI. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, I guess we don't know like how far away he's standing to because like even to like be on a building above it and drop it down is incredible.

Yeah. I mean, I don't know this for sure, but I'm picturing there up on an embankment. Yeah. throwing it down, like rolling it down. That's so funny. I was imagining like a netball chest pass. Huh! Just like it over the top of the head.

Oh yeah. Oh, I get like a soccer throw in. Yes. I was singing that too, but from above. Throwing into the line out. Using a bit of gravity. Yes, yes. That makes sense.

But I don't know. They all make sense. Anyway, whatever it was, it worked. He did crush the carriage. The carriage just exploded and killed everyone within it. Unfortunately, it was a decoy carriage. You sneaky fucks. Oh, was he actually up the front pretending to be like the poorest driver?

So, like, remembering how paranoid he is, of course he's got decoy carriages. Some stories said there were multiple that looked the same. But yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if it was more like that. If I could make up my own history. That makes more sense to me that you have one as the decoy. Rather than having three, then they've got a one and three chance. Yeah. If you got one decoy and then he's,

Eeps of plebs ones. You just go, I'm running in the pleb one. Look shit outside, but inside it's got like a bar fridge. Yeah. And like a... Really comfy seat. Yeah, really comfortable seats. Some cool LED lights.

I can change the colours. What color do you want? Yeah. What color do you want? Have you been in a limo? Once. I think I've been in a limo once too. Year 10 formal.

We took the bus to the formal. But in... Year 11 formal took the bus. The party bus. Yeah, we had a party bus. It was a party bus. It's a bus. I'm not a limo.

It's a stretch fan. When I was a kid and we went to the US to get from our hotel to the airport because there were two families, we just got a limo. That is so cool. That's sick. Isn't that wild? The recent... It was like eight of us. We're like, wow, I can't all fit in a taxi.

That is great. I mean, boomers had it so good. Yeah. The recent times that I've been in limos. Recent times. Yeah, like in the last decade or something. No, Vegas. But it was just in a way that it was,

there was so many people in it. We went from L.A. to Vegas. And it was, you know, it was full of people. So really, it may as well have been a bus. Nothing. I think the only point of a limo is, you know, you're, oh, look how much space we've got. But if you're like shoulder to shoulder.

Yeah, you may as well be in a bus. Yeah. You're like hanging on to a bar like you're standing on a bus. I think it just ended up being cheaper than, you know, catching, you know, a greyhound or whatever. Anyway, next time we do a show, should we go to Adelaide and a limo? Sure, that's cheaper. Yeah.

Yeah, and then still stay in a hostel, I reckon. We rock up to the hostel. I think that's the right priority, yeah. Yeah. Which one do you spend more time in? Awake. I think the limo. So, he's exploded.

He's killed innocent people. basically. And yeah, the brains behind that attempt, he, Jan Liang, he was able to get away. He fled and avoided capture. Obviously, he was on the shit list and the emperor wanted him dead, but just wasn't not found. It actually ended up outliving the emperor and became a major player in the dawn of

the following dynasty, or the Han dynasty. This is the strong man. No, this is the guy hired the strong man. Oh, okay. Strong man, I think his name wasn't recorded. Okay. It wasn't just assassins that Chin Shur Huang, our man, was worried about.

He was also paranoid about being raided by nomadic barbarians from the north. You know, the... Future Mongolian stuff. Yeah, like the ancestors of Attila's Huns. Oh, okay, yep. So this is as Stepansky writes, despite its military might, the newly unified Chin Empire face a recurring threat from the north,

raids by the nomadic Chong No. In order to fend off the Chong No, Chin Shur Huang ordered the construction of an enormous defensive wall. Like a really, kind of a great wall, if you will. Really? Oh, okay. The work was carried out by hundreds of thousands of enslaved, people who I were pretty sure had great perks. Holiday leave for sure.

Yeah, the pay might have been not great. Nothing. But the holiday perks. Yes. Yeah, the benefits. And it's great experience. That's right. Really good exposure to the elements.

So, yeah, enslaved people and criminals worked on it from between 220 and 206 BCE. Thousands of them died at the task, but loved every minute of it, I'm sure. Yeah. Great for the resume. I should say this is basically this big part of what the Great Wall of China is today, but not how we think of it. Lodd Outrides, it was made of rammed earth and rubble. But yeah, most of it was rebuilt in stone and brick during the 15th century under the Ming Dynasty

to become what we need more picture as the Great Wall of China. Gotcha. As all great psychos do, he was also in a book burning. Yeah, he feared the actual. academics pen just as much as the barbarian sword. I'm pretty happy that I wrote that down. Can't remember that. I'm happy with that.

That's beautiful. Is that one of yours? Wait, hang on, let me read it all. Because I didn't realize there was another little... Before we give you too much credit, was that a quote from somebody else's writing, or you thought of that? No, if it's a quote, I'll... I'd say it's a quote.

I know you plagiarise, I don't do that. I don't know you plagiarized. Do you play dress? Oh, yeah. You say that on the record? Yeah, of course. I respect academia too much. I don't.

Okay. Because Jess fears the academics pen just as much as the barbarian sword. Neither at all. One of mine. But the emperor feared the academics pen just as much as a barbarian sword or the assassin's lead line jew. You've taken a beautiful piece of art and then you've taken it to the next level. You've come back and said, actually, it needs a bit more.

For four, people said, now it's a masterpiece. Yes. Timeless. It is beautiful to watch him work. Shropansky writes, while the warring states period was dangerous, the lack of central authority allowed intellectuals to flourish. Confucianism and a number of other philosophies blossomed prior to China's unification. So people are out there thinking about stuff, wondering about life.

What's this all about? They're having ideas. They're less of that. No, no, no, no. Cut that out. He was not into it. Chin, Shur, Huang saw this kind of intellectual thought as a threat to his authority, and so he ordered the majority of existing books to be burned in 213 BCE.

Some texts were spared, such as ones related to medicine, but if people were caught with the unauthorized texts, they would pay with their lives. According to Zun Zhao, the emperor felt that, quote, the scholars were talking behind his back. And of course, being a paranoid person, he didn't like that. So he ordered the arrest of over 400 scholars and buried them alive. Peter Bowles says, ideologically speaking, the chin make the argument, we don't want to hear people criticise the present by referring to the past.

The past is irrelevant. History is irrelevant. And so you have the burning of books. You have the burying of scholars, of scholarly critics. You've heard that before. History never repeats if you don't think about it. 100% agree. Flash in the pan.

Why look backwards? Always look forward. That's right. Yes. And I think, you know, how can it repeat if I go, la, la, la, la. And I think in, you know,

even in modern day, I think people are smart. Sometimes you hear world leaders say things like, I love the uneducated. It's got a little bit of the old chinchot-hung about it, I don't you think? A bit of the old chayna, if you will. So the emperor seems to have been obsessed with finding the secret to immortality as well.

He's like, this guy wants to have control over everything. everything, including over death itself. Yeah, the one prick that won't bow down to me, or will it. Kind of like that weird guy in America. You know that guy who was like obsessed with living forever? Oh, like trying to be younger than his son. Yeah.

And he's like the slimyest man you'll ever see. Just to look at. Yeah, but on the inside, he's, I'm sure he's doing great. Yeah. He lives on slurry, I think. Yeah, but he'll live forever. A specialized slurry. He's slowly turning into like some sort of worm-like creature, and they are hard to kill.

Yeah. Worms. Got him enough. They just wriggle away. They'd wriggle away. Spanski writes, as he entered middle age, the first emperor grew more and more afraid of death. He became obsessed with finding the elixir of life, which would allow him to live forever. Like, midlife crisis is a great, but he's had an old timer here.

When you've got access to everything, you go, geez, what I'm? What else can I want? How about live forever? Everything? I'll keep everything, but have it forever. For the Smithsonian, Bridget Katz writes, analysis of 2,000-year-old texts dating to the emperor's rule reveals his obsessive quest for the elixir of eternal life.

The documents belong to a case of some 36,000 wooden strips inscribed with ancient calligraphy, which were found in an abandoned well in a county in the southern Hunan province in 2002. relatively recently discovered. These wooden strips commonly used as writing materials in ancient China date from 259 BCE to 210 BCE, a period overlapping with the Emperor's rule. They're really cool.

Look at that they're just like, remember those competitions with paddle pop sticks? You have a little bit of a picture on them? Yeah. And you have to collect like five of them. Yes. You sort of tape them together a bit. Yeah. Paddle pop absolutely ripped off these old Chinese texts.

So they were like long sort of bamboo, I think, or some sort of like kind of like thin wooden strips and they'd roll like they'd be linked together and they'd roll out to... That's awesome. Cool. But it's interesting. I've seen a few of the documentaries I've watched people like,

and this is like classic historian stuff, but they go, well, actually I think this word's been misinterpreted. The last generation of historians thought it meant this, but I think it actually means this. And that really changes the meaning entirely. And that's why I should. Still have a job. Yes.

Yeah. Otherwise, like, yeah, this has all been locked down. Yep. Agree with everything they said. Yeah. Yep. Nothing new to report. But I guess also they're like, honestly, we have learned more stuff and it does change

the context. But in David Mitchell's book about the old British monarchy, he talks about that a lot. He's like, they love going, no, I think you'll actually find. So around 10 years ago, this is. is still from Bridget Katz. From around 10 years ago, Zhang Chunlong, a researcher at the Hunan Institute of Archaeology, discovered text pertaining to an executive order issued by Chin Shur Huang, our man, demanding that his subject's search for an immortality elixir that would keep him alive forever. According to the BBC, the writings express assorted awkward replies from regional governments

who had failed to find a key to eternal life. Though officials in one area, Langya did suggest that a herb from a local mountain might do the trick. So yeah, a lot of messages are just like, yeah, this crazy thing you're asking for, without a good look. Yeah. And when I say crazy, I mean reasonable. Very and brilliant. A brilliant idea.

We're still looking, but we're close. We're getting close. Definitely keep us alive. Yeah, certainly can't find it if we're dead. Stropansky writes, his court doctors and alchemists concocted a number of potions, many of them containing quicksilver, mercury. We know now that that is absolutely poisoned. That stuff tastes fantastic.

Oh my God, a quicksilver milkshake. Do yourself a favour. Do not do that. Do not do you self a favour and never do that. Dave, you know how much people respect your word. Don't put quicksilver in a milkshake. Put nest quick. Not even.

Isn't that owned by the billionaire guy? doesn't think water is a human right. Anyway, as a result, instead, sorry to get political, as a result, instead of immortality, he gave himself madness and a premature death. Great. Because of the poison of it all. It took him out.

Eventually. There's a little bit more, but yeah, it does. Wait, he dies? Yeah, I'm so, so. It didn't work? Well, maybe this is just what he wanted us to think. Maybe like Elvis, he's still alive. That is hilarious.

Suck shit, buddy. The thing that you thought was going to keep you alive forever, it was actually poisoning you. And then you can't take revenge on the nobles that gave it to you because you're dead. Suck shit. And he was clearly to those around him, like, losing his mind before dying. Like it ruined him before killing him. That is excellent news.

But I did. Before we get to that, I found another funny story about his elixir quest on a very reliable source, a list verse which had a listicle and my favorite way to consume information I like stuff that's written in verse was it that as well

yes yes yes yes list and verse and it like there's version of this story elsewhere but I don't know I found this to be the funniest retelling so I'm going with this one great

Mark Oliver writes for this verse as his scholars had failed him Jin Shir Huang travelled to Zifu Island where he had heard that a man could find the secret to eternal life. I think this might be to do with, you know, some thought there might be a herb in a mountain. I think this is related to that.

There he met the magician Shufu, who assured him that it could be done. Shufu promised him that the elixir of immortality was waiting for him on Penglau Mountain. This was not a real place. It was a mythical home of the eight immortals and a pathway to the gods. Here Shufu told the emperor

lived a thousand-year-old magician named Anki Sheng who would share the secret. Ching Xiu Huang was pleased. He gave Shufu a fleet of ships and let him sail out in search of the elixir of immortality. And soon Shufu returned, insisting that he had found it. The island of immortals, Shufu said, was full of grass that would give the emperor eternal life. But the immortals demanded a sacrifice. He needed to bring 6,000 virgins to get the elixir.

Ching Shur Huang believed him and he gave him what he needed. So he's got a fleet of ships and now 6,000 virgins apparently. Surely this has been in the retelling, this has been exaggerated a little bit. Anyway, for the next eight years, Shu Fu did not go anywhere near the emperor. He just sailed around the sea with 6,000 virgins. Oh my God. While Chin Shur Huang patiently awaited for an elixir that would never come. Oliver continues.

One year before the emperor died, a meteor fell to the earth. On it were inscribed the words, the first August emperor will die and his land will be divided. The emperor was a very superstitious man, but even he did not think that the message was actually engraved by the gods. He was like, someone's carved this into the rock after it landed, but he's like, I want to know who that is, because this is not good. Because they clearly know something. Yes. Oliver says, he demanded that the person responsible confess or everyone would pay. When no one came forward, every single person who lived near the place where the meteor

landed up, thrown in prison and executed. Fuck. He even had his men get the meteor itself and destroy it in a fire. Yeah. Yeah, try and kill me now, Meteor. You set fire to a meteor. Yeah. You must be looking around going, I've lost.

I've gone too far here. I'm burning a meteor. Oh, he's thinking. You've ever chucked a tantrum and halfway through you're like, I'm being unreasonable here. I'm being really stupid. Yeah. I mean, that's one of the most common feelings I have. Yes, yes.

You know, the red mist comes down and I go, wait. What is happening? Sorry about that. Oh, I'm hungry. Yeah, yeah, sorry about that. You know what it is? Haven't had enough sleep, bit peckish. Sorry, Dave.

And normally it ends with me saying, sorry, Dave. Sorry about that. As you tend to the meteor over the fire. Sorry about that. I just needed a kebab. But even now that he's wiped out a whole video. village and a big rock. He's still worried by it.

Reportedly after giving the order to kill every person there, he called in his musicians and they played him songs about his immortality. Play him songs about me. Sing about how I'm going to live forever. And you're telling me this guy's losing his mind from Mercury? Yeah. Do we have any signs or symptoms that have been recorded? Still with this list first article, which I hope you agree is certainly worth reading.

This is great storytelling. After the meteor landed, Chin Shur Huang grew impatient. He sailed off to Zifu Island, you know the one, I'm talking about the magic place, once more to find Shufu, the magician who would promise him the elixir. And when he found him finally, Shufu assured him that he'd found the special Panglau Mountain, the one that I think doesn't exist. Now, though, the path was blocked, he said, by a great sea monster. He's like, and he couldn't get through, the sea monster's blocking its path.

It's this big magical sea. I tried honking. I tried using the 6,000 virgins. I think I'm going to need another 6,000. I went left, it blocked me. I went right, it blocked me. I'm like, what do I do? What do I do?

Submarines don't exist. I mean, even the fact that I know the idea of him is pretty impressive, right? So this time, Chin Shur Huang did not want to wait around. He decided to get a team of arches, and he told Shu Fu to go and kill the seamong. monster. But he didn't trust Shufu to go alone this time. I think he was starting to wise up after, I guess, more than eight years. He was like, I don't know about this. Which feels like, again, that's probably been exaggerated. But anyway, and I guess that means in the meantime, he is only when he started chugging on the poison. So, yeah, he ends up going along with them.

Chin Shur Huang and his team of archers sailed into the water where they found what they believed to be the sea monster, which today is believed to have been a whale. Anyway, the archers open fire and killed it. Oh, poor whale. This guy's just killing anything in its path. Yeah. When it was done, Chin Shur Huang returned to the island, Jifu Island and left a...

This is the real island. There's a real island and then there's the mystical island. Yes. The real island's where the magician is, the fake islands where there's older magician. So he left a message. on this island for Shu Fu after killing the whale. And apparently this message is still there, carved.

Came to Fu, saw an enormous stone and shot a fish. Apparently that's still there, if you believe list first. Wow, I believe list first. Yeah. I've no reason not to. Shufu didn't have any excuses left. Chin Shur Huang ordered to get the elixir from the immortals and return immediately, or else he would say, I'll face the consequences happily.

Shufu Imagine him in the movie Just being this awesome Grift young grifter Hey no habit To face the consequences No worries I just need another few boats

And yeah Can we get those virgins back on board So yeah Apparently got the virgins back on board On the ships It's got to be fresh virgins Right The old ones are not virgin

What do you think I'll swim for those eight years I mean they're doing each other Oh yeah Awquedly tried to Oh, I'm sorry That's a lot of

Oh I get to I'm so glad We got that on video We got that on video I don't know if that can I'm still a virgin Let's go again

Technically I didn't quite But no He said So he got another 6,000 versions In the ships Sailed off And Shufu

Never came back He just Why would you? He was like Obviously I don't want to see consequences. Happy to face the consequences.

Of course. He's off. Apparently, yeah, he was like, I'm found out though now. I can't, if I'm ever found by this guy, I'm gone. So he went to Japan and sort of hid out for the rest of his life. Bit of fun. That's great. Thanks, Liz first.

So, unfortunately, and I have strongly alluded to this, all good things must come to an end. What? And despite the emperor still chugging down the elixir of eternal life slash mercury, He did indeed die at the age of 49. At the time of his death, he was touring around his kingdom, and he was a two-month journey from home. So there was a bit of fear from his inner sanctum what would happen if word got out of his death,

and that was so far from the capital. You know, like, could there be an uprising? Yeah, we're going to get back quick. Could there be a usurping of the throne? So they are like, we're going to keep this on the down low. his top minister Li Su, who we talked about a few times, is right-hand man, and also his chief eunuch advisor, Zhao Gao, decided to keep it on the down low till the royal party had returned to the capital.

This is Oliver writing from this great listical article, list verse. For the next few months, he pretended Chin Shur Huang was still alive, sending out orders of his own that he claimed came from the emperor. Meanwhile, the immortal emperor's dead body journeyed home. Bit of an oxymour on there. Flanked by carts full of rotting fish to hide the smell of his decaying remains. They had to get like a dead body back home on a two-month horse and cart journey. And it's like, I guess we'll keep it as cool as we can.

Yeah, just put him in. We're not hard in this smell. Why didn't they just put him in a fridge? Don't think they were quite invented yet. What? Yeah. Pre-fridge. I believe someone who was telling me recently that Australia,

was it you, Australia, like Australians were related to the invention of the fridge. Is that one of ours? Oh, does the cool guard he safe? And obviously the hills hoist. Got that. You know the cool guard he safe that? No. Sort of thing you have out in the country, I guess back in Gold Rush days,

you get like a wet sack and he created a breeze sort of thing going on. Yeah, yep, yep, yep. Is that, maybe that was it? Is that it? Is that us claim? It was like, yeah. We had a wet sack. Basically, yeah, it was that, then Fisher and Pichol.

I made that up all by myself. Yeah. I mean, an Indigenous guy did show it to me, and then I made it up from there. Yeah. That sack was Terrad. Terran not there, yes. Invented in Western Australia in the late 1890s, it served as the precursor to the modern refrigerator. Cool, Gardy safe.

Cool, Gody, he's a beautiful name. Beautiful name. I like it. I can't believe at the, uh, 2000. an Olympics opening ceremony, they didn't have people dressed up in sacks. They definitely did the Hillshoist and Victor Mowers and all these other... I don't know they do goon sacks? They're worse people in sacks at some point.

Okay. Okay. Well, then I'm... I can't remember... I'll stop writing this letter then. A thousand people in sacks storm the stage. That can't be right. Named after the place where it was invented Cool Gardy, Western Australia, Small,

mining town near Keguili. near Calgoorlie Boulder. Nice. So, yeah, they're, the inner circle, mainly these two guys, his top unique advisor, Zhao, and his top minister, Li Su. But perhaps these two, Li Su and Zhao, had an ulterior motive for delaying the announcement, because as it turned out, they were part of a plot to usurp the throne themselves.

Instead of Fusu, the eldest of the emperor's 30 sons ascending. Remember, we're talking about how there's lots of wives, lots of kids. 30, just sons. Yeah, sounds like it. So the eldest was meant to, even that they were sort of estranged from each other. As a mother, that's my nightmare. You know? Oh, it would stink.

Yeah. 30 teenage boys. But remember how many palaces are in town, you know? Spread them out. Spread out. Spread out the boys. Yeah. So, yeah, they didn't like this guy because Fusu was seen as this, probably he didn't favour them as much,

and they thought they'd be shut out from the inner circle. So they wanted to install a younger, doper son named Huai, and now known art to history as Chin Yur-Chur. He's like, we'll be able to manipulate this guy a bit more. He can be our puppet if we can get him in instead of Fusu. And it worked. They got their way. Yeah.

So the coup was complete when Fusu was either murdered or convinced that his father wanted him to commit suicide. That is brutal. Brutal. They're like, yeah, dad's final wish. He said, kill yourself. So you've got to comply. Come on. Yeah.

It's in his will. The usurpers brutally killed many more of the royal court, anyone they saw as being potentially threats to their power, including the previous emperor's concubines for fear any of them may be bearing a rival air. It's pretty grim stuff. A lot of these bodies were found in recent times when the tomb and the underground kingdom basically that we're going to talk about in a second was uncovered. Whoa.

Yeah, some grizzly, like, A lot of bones of young women sort of found and, yeah. Anyway, the new emperor, who was installed for being weak and manipulatable, it turns out he was weak and, yeah, pretty shit. Oh. Mainly the eunuch named Zhao Gow was calling the shots. Apparently, he tested his sway against the emperor in a, I was going to say Firmus, I took off the inn.

In an infamous or famous incident called the deer or horse test. Either have you heard of this test? No. I was unaware of this test. What are you picking, Jess, deer or horse? Horse. Okay, that says a bit about you. So you're going horse, Dave?

I think I'm also, oh, dear. I'll give you a little more information in a second, but. We were born here, the horse. That's true. So on the 27th of September 2007 BCE, Gal, the, you know, the puppet master, presented a deer to the emperor, but called it a horse. He said, check out this cool horse I've got.

Which you called a horse as well, Jess? Yep. They've called a deer. Interesting. Thing is Unicade had made a funny error. The emperor is like, oh, I think you'll find that that's actually a deer, but Gao said, no, no, that's a horse. And then the emperor asked the officials,

around him, you know, the rest of the inner circle to confirm, I'm correct, right? That's, that's a deer. You, right? Am I right, everyone? Some said, no, it's a horse. Some said, no, it's a deer. Some were like, I'm not getting involved in this. I don't know.

I don't know. Yeah, I'm not sure. And Zhao Gow knew that those who backed up his lie saw him as more powerful than the emperor. That was basically he was testing the court to see how powerful he was. And then he had those who correctly called it a deer killed for disrespecting him, for the ones who respected the emperor. Oh, wow. Slash said it is a...

Wow. Because I meant it under the old regime, everyone would have been like, yeah, yeah, that's a horse, whatever you said. That's what it, yeah. King. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, but the king in this case was correctly calling it a deer. Yeah. So the incident provides the modern Chinese idiom.

which translates to point to a deer and call it a horse, which I guess is like the English saying, don't piss down my leg and tell me it's raining, I think. That's something like that. Equally beautiful. Yeah. Because our first prime minister, someone pissed on his leg. And he said, what are you doing?

You pissed on my leg? They said, no, Edmund Barton, it's raining. And he looked up, not a cloud of the sky. And I've just seen you put your wang away. It's raining. So he went around the parliament. And that's when he knew he was on his side. Do my pants smell like piss?

Piss or water? And they all came up, had a sniff. I said, oh, it's possible the rain smells like piss. If you thought about that, a third option. That's how this Great Land was federated. Anyway, this whole setup was bad news. Like having a weak ruler, it just is not good news for stability in this kind of setup, unfortunately. Which you don't want to hear, you don't want to be like, that brutal asshole.

He kept things together at least, but, you know, is it worth it? I'm not saying it is. Probably isn't. Ruled through a lot of fear. But yeah, the whole setup started crumbling. Rebellions were going on everywhere, unbeknownst to the young emperor, who was just kept quiet, you know, sat away in his palace and his two main puppeteers were like, so going great out there, I'll tell you that for nothing. You sit here, don't worry about anything.

We got to, and they were like out there. Fuck, we don't got this. Things are falling apart. They're like, the emperor, everything's going great. Just have fun in your ball pit. Yeah. We'll come back and play with you later. But we've got to go to some business.

Sadly, the gal, the eunuch advisor, he eventually convinced the young emperor to kill himself. He's like, things are fucked. it's you got a it's uh it's time to go he was like but everything was so great before yeah yeah five minutes ago he so he died at 21 and that was the end of the chin dynasty in only 207 bcee this thing that was set up and was so big and powerful a very short time earlier all of a sudden was all done wow uh while chin chinch uh chinch uh chen shir huang had proclaimed his empire would last 10,000 generations.

He fell short with it only lasting two. A slight rounding error there. That's right. Although some say you could argue that China is still existing. So, you know, if you look at it that way, maybe it'll get there. For a long time, it was thought that the dynasty had actually crumbled because they'd been putting too much cash into the palace and stuff,

especially the emperor's Ipang. Palace. They're like, they just ran out of cash. It's only, I mean, this is talking about historians bringing up new things. They're going, that's actually not the case. They didn't run out of cash. It was backstabbing and all these sort of things that did it. But yeah, for a long time, they thought it was this E-Pang Palace. Lou Bauer writes, located on the Wei River, south of ancient Shang-yang. The palace was synonymous with ostentation. Can I say that again? Did I say that wrong? Synonymous? I said synonymous. The palace was synonymous.

The palace was synonymous with ostentation, not the Australian comedian. Ostentatious. The structure was said to have been the most lavish dwelling ever constructed with an upper floor gallery that could seat 10,000 and a network of covered walkways that led to distant mountains to the south. It was a hectic thing and they're like, no wonder it all fell apart. guy was putting too much cash in this palace. But according to the head of the mausoleum excavation team, Duang Ching Bo, all Chinese people

who can read, including middle school students, believe that the Qing dynasty collapsed because it put so much money into the E-Pang Palace. But according to excavation work from 2003, we found it was actually never built, only the base, above it was nothing. Like, for so long, thousands of years, they thought, This palace, it really screwed this dynasty. But now, like, actually, yeah, never was even built, apart from the base. They poured a slab and went, oh, we've run out of money.

That's right. Yeah, back to this Duang Chingbo. He says, if the palace had been erected and demolished, as historian's thought, there would be ceramic fragments and telltale changes in soil color, but Tess found nothing. It's been such a famous symbol of Chinese culture for such a long, time showing how cruel, showing how cruel and greedy the first emperor was, an archaeologist found it was a lie.

Wow. It would have blown your mind, right? Be like realizing, you know, the MCG never existed. What? It would be like finding out the Saints never won the premiership in 1966. What? The basis of all of our civilization. The Chin was to be replaced by the Han Dynasty just five years later.

There was a brief period of something in between called the 18 states, which sounds hectic. But of course, that's a story for another time. But yeah, before we go, we're going to talk about this epic mausoleum. Oh, yeah. It started with the Warriors. So, yeah, this is another way the Empress seemed to try and stave off death, building perhaps the most epic tomb ever created. Of the Terracotta Army, Nat Geo writes, Work has accomplished the enormous task by dividing up the labour in assembly line fashion.

And yet no two statues are the same. We've mentioned this before. Each depicts an individual with its own hairstyle, facial expression and painted details. Cordena Loubao, some of them, the figures appear so strikingly individual that they seem modelled on real people, though that is unlikely. You wouldn't have just, do you reckon, if you're in there making them, you're like, I'll make this one look like me. Yeah, I. I live forever. Put me in there, coach.

You give one like a mullet just for a bit of fun. Yeah. And some say, oh, you know, because it was bringing all these different areas of China together. Perhaps he wanted people to make sure everyone was represented over his whole empire. So that's why people had different looks and stuff.

But maybe it's also like, you know, just naturally the line, you're doing the same mustache over and over. But maybe it's just a little bit different each time. Yeah. Lou Bauer writes, Clay, unlike bronze, lends itself to quick and cheap fabrication.

Workers built bodies, then customise them with heads, hats, shoes, mustaches, ears and so on, made in small moulds. That'd be kind of fun. Yeah. So I guess they should have been similar with the moulds. And while it is famous, this whole thing is famous for the Terracotta Army, that's only the thin edge of the wedge. It's really an entire subterranean city. It's huge. Which I think, I mean, if you're like me, I really only knew about the...

the terracotta army. Yeah. Yeah. And also much of it is yet to be uncovered still. Yeah, it's like a small percentage has been dug out or something. Like they're just going to be digging for decades. Yeah, exactly. And some of it, they're afraid to dig up.

They don't want to disturb it. The tomb especially, which we'll talk about in a sec. The curse. Yeah, I mean, it is, yeah, it is been rigged up with traps, but also, or they believe it has been. Let's get Brennan Fraser in there. The only one. one who's ready for the job.

They're also like, they're like, you know, our first emperor has been resting there for 2,000 years, and they're sort of a bit respectful of that, which is so funny to think if, like, you know, the English who went to Tutankham's one, they weren't thinking about that sort of stuff very much. No, and? Curse got them.

Curse got them. But also, they're worried about just things decomposing stuff, like air, it's been sealed in you for so long. All of a sudden, air changes and silk and stuff, made, and paper, they're like, we're going to wait until we're really confident we can do it safely. But anyway, Nat Geo suggests that more than a tomb, the emperor had built himself a second empire, one that would accompany him into the afterlife. And so while that really until the 1970s, it wasn't particularly known about. As well as the more than 7,000 warriors, almost 8,000

warriors, archers, cavalry, charioteers, and foot soldiers that guard his tomb, there were Also, more than 600 life-sized horses with timber chariots, which we talked about have since rotted away. Wow. He obviously wasn't happy with only one size of horse, so he also had an intricate, half-sized bronze chariots and horses there too. So imagine you get to heaven or whatever, and there's like a door, and he can't get the horse.

Yeah, he needs a smaller horse. I mean, it makes sense. Think about it. He's saying it to his way, he's like, Guys, I really need you to lift. He's only made, like, Kia carnivals. Like, people move, and he's like, but what if I just need to pop to the shops?

Yeah. Golf buggies. I'll zip you little number gets from A to B. Okay, I'll get a Toyota Echo. Are you sure you should be taking this quick silver every time? Are we sure? He's also got some, what are those just two wheel move forward and back? Yeah, segways.

A little bronze segways. Just in case. It goes like I've bothered to walk in that day. Go, yeah. Maybe I'm tired. Got a bronze scooter. Maybe I've hit my 10,000. You got a bronze raider scooter.

Raver's a scooter. Got a bronze skateboard. Got a bronze tricycle. Every mode of transport. And he's like, well, probably a couple of thousand of them. Yeah. I need, obviously, I don't know if I'll, if riding in the afterlife is as easy as riding in life. So I'll have training wheels.

So, yeah, they're the most famous things. but less known is that the emperor also wanted civilians and animals in the afterlife as well. Court officials, acrobats, dancers, singers, and even a strong man to entertain him. Don't trust the strong man. He'll crush you with his giant netball. So it's like, he's basically just mirrored society above the ground in the tomb. And it is really, really huge. In one pit that was dug up, there are bronze statues of birds such as swans.

cranes and wild geese. It's like there's a, you know, like a, probably like a little water garden area that he could just chill out in. Lubau writes, over the past 50 years, archaeologists have located some 600 pits, a complex of underground vaults, all across a 22 square mile area. It's huge. It's like a city. Yeah.

Archaeologists think that parts were ransacked soon after his death, which, uh, led to damage, including the roofs collapsing. The looting was probably by peasants rebelling against a backdrop of inept rule by his son, the second emperor. I say good on them. Yeah. Looters took many of the terracotta army's weapons to the point that modern archaeologists have only recovered tens of swords when they probably would have been thousands. The ones they show beautiful swords, double-ed swords in all the cases. Lou Bauer rides raging fires

Possibly set deliberately Following the ransacking Wakening support pillars For wooden ceilings Which crashed down and smashed the figures Some 2,000 years later Archaeologists discovered Charring on the walls of one pit

So they're piecing out of the story From these little bits of evidence So the pits used to have roofs Yeah So it wasn't like they buried them Like Tutankarman When I was like I don't want this to be disturbed It's like he was hoping

You could get around in there This mausole in this building would stay up like the Taj Mahal or whatever forever. I think it was underground though. Interesting. I don't know why I'm thinking that. Maybe I'm mistakenly thinking that. That's how I was sort of picturing it.

And I feel shame about that. I apologize. So of course the center of the site is the emperor's tomb, which as yet remains underserved by archaeologists. I mean, I was just sort of saying this. But Lubauer writes, the emperor's tomb lies beneath a forested hill. Kind of looks like a forested.

pyramid, if you see it today, surrounded by cultivated fields about a half mile from the museum, which Dave actually visited, which I'll ask you about in a sec. Out of reverence for an imperial resting place and concerns about preserving what might be unearthed there, the site has never been excavated. Do you, yeah, what's your memories of it? I was so excited to hear that you'd visited there. I actually texted my dad at the start of the episode and I was like, do we have any photos?

And he goes, he'll have a look. But, because we went, I went on a trip to China with, it was like my last family trip. So I went with my mom and dad and my grandpa. And, yeah, and dad sends back, this is just a photo that's sitting on his desk in the study. Oh, wow. It's like, yeah, I think I got a photo.

Yeah. And I remember it, so, I remember, it's all like, it's, I remember it being like a big shed now. Yes. area you go into. Yeah, it looks like an airplane hangar. Yeah, like it's so massive, but obviously to keep like the light out and the and the elements and the rain and stuff.

And it's like very impressive because there's so many of them. And then you hear, like at the time, like I imagine there's been 15 years more digging since, but at the time they're like, yeah, there's only a small bit of it. There's a heaps more and then there is a museum, I remember, and a gift shop. And so much, oh, I've got it. Of course. Exit through the gift shop. But every, I love a gift shop.

I believe nearly all of them have had to have been like painstakingly pieced back together. And some of them are still missing legs and stuff. I watched one documentary where a British museum was able to get a few cent over and they had this big exhibition. And you can see like the cracks and where they've been sort of pieced together. Because of after the looting, it all sort of came down on it, which may have happened over time anyway, but yeah. Wow.

A former director of the museum, the one that Dave visited, a guy called Wu Junkie, has said, I have a dream that one day science can develop so that we can tell what's in there without disturbing the emperor, who has slept here for 2,000 years. I don't think we have good scientific techniques to protect what we find in the underground palace, especially if we find paper, silk, or textiles from plants or animals. It would be very bad if they have been kept in a balanced condition for 2,000 years, but suddenly they would vanish in a very short time. Of the tomb, Britannica writes,

The interior is reputedly a vast underground palace that took 36 years to complete, which we sort of know. Around 100 years after the emperor's death, the historian Sumer Chien wrote, and we talked about this guy a bit, he's the one, like the famous historian from the following dynasty, the Han. Oh, that was a bit like, oh God,

maybe his dad wasn't even something real king or whatever. Yeah, that sort of stuff. But he wrote of what was in the tomb. The labourers dug through three subterranean streams, which they sealed off with bronze to construct the burial chamber. There's doubt about some of these. I mean, if I was in charge of building my tomb, my main bit, I don't want it to be where a river was.

Yeah. Or they have to get rid of a river because it sounds like you're going to be prone to leaking. I want to be away from the... My bit needs to be dry on a hill somewhere. Yeah, and I don't want to be in there some dank. Yeah, that's not good. But I guess it is built up above her. But yeah, you're right.

So back to this old text, Sumichien. They built models of palaces, pavilions and offices, and filled the tomb with fine vessels, precious stones and rarities. Artisans were ordered to install mechanically triggered crossbows, set to shoot an intruder. Oh my God, that's full Indiana Jones stuff. With quicksilver and various waterways of the empire, the Yangzi and Yellow Rivers, is that right?

and even the great ocean itself were created and made to flow and circulate mechanically uh yes using you know basically what he thought was an elixir of life with shining pearls and heavenly constellations depicted above and figures of birds in gold and silver and of pine trees carved of jade the earth was laid out below lamps were fueled with whale oil so that they might burn for the longest possible time this is all uh Wild stuff. Do you think they're still burning? I would assume so.

The compound was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987. I wonder if some of this stuff was, you know, you say Indiana Jones, but this was all being uncovered in the decade or so before that was made. I wonder if they're inspired by it at all. Archaeological excavations on the site continue, and discoveries continue to be made. How many times have we done an episode? where soon after big developments happen.

I wonder. Are they going to get to them? Imagine how cool the main chamber is. I just, yeah. I know like I fully see how you treat it with respect and whatnot. But I'd love for science to catch up to be able to show us. They've already, they go in with, you know,

infrared and they have drones going over and they've got an idea of what's in there. But, you know, obviously they're seeing, like, very vague details. but they can see what's inside of it, which is interesting in itself. That's really cool. It's cool. I mean, it is a way to live forever, isn't it? Yeah, that's right. Most people outside of China have heard of the terracotta warriors.

It's one of their three biggest sort of tourist exports, right? That's right. The Great Wall, panders and the Terracotta warriors, yeah. It's like, well, and people will be visiting and talking about that for centuries. It's such a fascinating thing. Yes. In a way, you kind of got his wish. Yeah.

Would you be happy with that or would you be like, whoa, whoa, don't dig it up? They do. So what do they say that you die twice, once your normal death and the second time and the last time someone mentions your name? Yeah. And he's obviously still alive. Still alive. Still alive in the second way.

So that brings to the end of the story. I thought I was listening to a podcast recently and at the end, they suggested previous topics that if you like this one, you might enjoy these other ones. So I went back through a back catalogue and picked out a few that involved China or tombs. Episode 16, Curse of the Pharaohs, which we mentioned a bit. 267, Ching Shi, the pirate queen, who was a Chinese pirate in the 18th and 19th century. Episode 406, Kawashima Yoshiko, who was born a Chinese princess, became a Japanese spy. 473, Genghis Khan, which is, you know, same region, but more of one of the raiders above the wall.

and then a more recent episode and event, Dave talked about the Tiananmen Square Maskeran episode 521. Also, I forgot to say at the start of the episode, this was suggested by a few of our great listeners, including Helena Beattie from Eaton-Socon in Cambridge Shire in the UK. I hope I got some of those words. I reckon you got Helen, all right. Anastasia.

It could be Helena. Anastasia Paris Diabella from Queenbien in New South Wales, in brackets, but a canned baron at heart. Ariane from Ireland and Rebecca Bondi from Toronto. Were the four that suggested it. Great one. Yeah, so a bit of a, maybe a bit of an epic in length, which I do throw out sometimes. It just felt, it just was one of those stories. I'm like, initially was going to be mainly about the terracotta army, but I found the story.

of the man behind it, quite fascinating. And hopefully, the listeners did as well. And crazy, do you think it's one of those historical, like, quirks or twists of fate where he wasn't even destined to be the emperor? Yeah, it was just some, yeah, people behind the scenes manipulating things. And then he's the one that stepped forward and unified China at that time. And, like you say, that affects a lot of Chinese history.

And you think probably that, yeah, his dad wasn't meant to be, you know, like all these little things. And so you go, oh, the people who tried it again with one of his sons, you go, you can see why they think this can work. Just not in this case, I'm afraid. Yes. Who knows if his eldest son would have done much different, I don't know. I think Dan Carlin from the Hardcore History podcast talks about how when you get kings and queens,

it's like a historical crapshoot because they're like inherit the throne or whatever. And some of them are these obviously really naturally gifted great leaders. and others either have no desire to be up there or just so inept or too young or whatever and it just can fall apart really fast. Some that are so imbred that they just like struggle to function as people, let alone. You know, listening to David Mitchell's book about some of the French and then their relatives in England just being like unable to rule at all or eat properly, which is, I think shows the system works.

It's a great system. Yeah. All right, that brings us to everyone's favourite section of the show. For those of you, did skip through it. I just told the story of the Emperor who came up with the Terracotta Army. No big deal. It's pretty interesting. Maybe it's one you want to go back to this too.

Yeah, but understandable you want to start here. I'm already hearing buzz around it being an all-timer. Big for award season. Could be up for a shiny? Could be up for a Grammy. Yeah. Could be up for a Grammy. Oh, it could be.

Best spoken word. podcast. Should we enter this time for once? I actually believe in ourselves for once. We should. We should nominate for the Oscar for Best Foreign Film. Now that I know you have to nominate yourself for awards, awards have really taken off the shine.

Oh, and pay money? You have to pay money to nominate yourself. Yeah, including the Oscars. Yeah. It's so weird. How are people so surprised when they're nominated for something? I get targeted. You see videos of actors finding out they're nominated and you're like, I mean,

your team put you up for this. Like, there was a fee. It's not out of nowhere. Yeah. I get targeted ads on Instagram being like, the webbies are closing soon. Nominate your thing now. And I looked into it once. It was like $500 or $600 for an entry.

Yeah, it's brutal. Well, I probably just keep the money. Yeah, that's okay. And feel like a winner. The patrons and just our listeners in general, that's all the reward we need. And that's why we invented our own annual award ceremony. I'm yet to lose. I have, though.

I have lost. We are uncovered the, uh, uncovered. I found the, the tiger. I saw that. I saw you post that and I watched a little bit of it and it was like very self-indulgent, but very funny. I,

I assumed we'd released it as a bonus episode, but it wasn't. It was sort of a standalone video, so yeah, a few years ago, so every year for our Patreon's, uh, one of the bonus episodes,

usually in January looking back the year before, was, uh, is, uh, the golden shiny Gary Awards where we, nominate, best episode, best guest episode, that kind of stuff. And the Patrons are our Academy of Voters.

They vote. What do they call the Academy voters? The Academy. Okay. We thank the Academy every year. What's the Golden Globes then? What do they call them? The Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

Is that what you were looking for at first time? No, someone else. Oh, okay. And a few years ago, we actually did a full live-streamed episode, downstairs here at Humdinger. Everyone got dressed up. And we had some patrons coming. Yes, you did.

You looked adorable. It was so fun. Michelle Brazier came and did an in-memoriams live song. Yes, I guess I watched that. It's been a long day. Paul Walker is dead. So funny. It was a great fun time and we had a lot of previous guests come and actually

received trophies. It was really awesome. We won for Who Knew It or something. Yes. Matt goes, it feels like I should be making the acceptance speech and we're like, no, no, no, no, no, no. And we, uh, were you talking about it?

We're going to do it every Olympiad or something? Yeah, we're calling it the Gary ad, which I think it might be next year or the year after. Yeah, you have to remind me. Very exciting. Because I will not remember. But it's got to be coming out, the Gary ad. Anyway, this part of the show is about,

really just spending a bit of time thinking out our awesome patrons without them. This show does not exist. If you want to be one of them, go to Patreon or Comps. Dogemon Pod, linked in the show notes. But, you know,

it'd be way easy to just type it. Or, you know, you do? Why am I telling you how to suck an egg? Do you know how to suck eggs? Why are you so upset at us? So, yeah, there's a bunch of different rewards

or whatever you get if you sign up there, depending on the level you're on. Jess or Dave will be able to fill you in more. We've got over 300 bonus episodes, including multiple Golden China Gallery Awards, and that previously mentioned episode, the video episode. You've got us to get access to live shows before anyone else. You get discounted tickets, be part of the Facebook group, which is a genuinely lovely part of the internet. You get to vote for topics, and you just get to be a big part of the show, including

you get to write into the show with a section that we like to call. Matt, I believe it's called the fact-quota question. That's right. It has a jingle. And what I'll be correct in saying it sounds something like this? Fact quote or question. Ding! Wow, he often remembers the sing, and she sometimes says the ding.

I've never, I don't think I've ever dinged. You've never dinged? I don't think so. That's incredible. She does the dingling. I'm tingling. I'd be so happy for you to be the dinger. I'm dingling right now.

I don't want to be the dinger. Okay. Thank you, though. I'm happy to be the dinger of the show. I want to be the singer. Yeah, oh mate, you're a dinger, all right. And this is a part of the show where Matt is in charge of collating these. People write into the show, they get to give themselves a title.

This is people on the Sydney-Schenberg deluxe memorial package rest in peace level or above, which is our premium tier. I also forgot to mention if you're on the bonus episode, you also get the video feed and also an ad-free feed. Oh, my God. So people are... It's happening right now. Looking at us right now. But for the Sydney-Synberg deluxe memorial package,

this is called the fact-quote or question. People write in with a fact-quoted question, brag suggestion. We recently had a game. Yeah. Like an ancient, ancient game. That was a lot of fun. I was listening back to that last week. But...

But Matt... We recorded it last week. You mean you heard it last week when we were saying? No, what I did was I... Oh, it doesn't matter. I listened to the live. episode because it had been months to make sure that that was all good and I was still driving and it kept playing into the Patreon part so I'll listen to the first bit of it's

why a lot of people listen to the Patreon section because they're driving yeah it's a lot of people's favorite section of the show sure but then I said some people oh yeah I guess yeah they'd be an anomaly yeah absolutely their phone is in the other room yeah Matt people give themselves a title when they write in yeah so I don't read these out so I read them I've got three this week first one comes from David Molofsky aka I play to hang your cape, aka, aka the movie drinking game superhero.

And I think it's another first time on. We haven't had this before, I don't think, drinking game is the category. Here we go. Writing, in the most recent, as of writing,

episode of Movie Club, my comment about my Muppet Treasure Island drinking game was mentioned. I decided to return to the fact quote or question Patreon tier to share the rules of the game. That's cool. Great. I will preface this by saying Muppet Treasure Island is one of my favourite movies and I've played this game multiple times. I created it about 20 years ago when I was in uni and it is my absolute favourite movie drinking game because the pacing works out surprisingly well.

Important. Play with sips of beer or cocktails unless otherwise noted. Rules. One sip anytime they say the words map, compass or treasure. One sip anytime someone pours alcohol on screen. If you know, you know, winky face. I think it's going to be a lot. Two sips at the start of each song. I'd do a shot when Miss Piggy makes her entrance. Whenever you realize how much better the film would be

if Tim Curry was dressed as Dr. Frankenfurter costume, drink until it looks like he is. If you ever start to think that the film would be better if Miss Piggy was dressed as Dr. Frankenfurter, stop drinking immediately and seek me. medical help. Enjoy. Well, there's an asterix next to Winky Face, says.

Asteris. Yes, I wrote out the words Winky Face so that Matt would read them instead of getting confused by emoji kissy face. Fair. And it worked. Thank you so much, David. I was just going to say, once you finish the drinking game, then you listen to the Patreon bonus episode for the movie club that we did. That's right.

I think that was also improved with alcohol. Yeah, yeah. Thank you so much, David. Next one comes from Keith Green, okay, can I ask to be given one? Oh, do either of you want to give Keith his title? Keith Green. Okay.

I feel like it should have been a bit of a blank-the-mind sort of thing. Sure. Okay. Okay. I've got it. I got the first word. Okay, go. Commander.

Commander. Oh, that's the first one? Yeah. Okay. And then I'll say the next one. Okay. Because I was going to do a bit of a word association thing. That's why I sort of...

Okay, sorry. All right, let's start again. No, that's good. Command is the first bit. Then I'll get the second bit going. So I think of Keith. I think of Keith, Flint from the prodigy. Flint is for fire.

Fires keep you hot. Commander hot. Perfect. Commander hot. Okay. Sure is going to go out of the litteration there. Commander Campfire or something. But no, I think Commander hot is better.

I agree. It is way better. Commander Hot? Are you kidding me? Commander Campfire is like, what? That's the sadness. It's dumb. So that's why it's good I was sitting out. The Campfire Commander's kind of cool.

Oh, the Campfire Commander. You're right. He's always got marshmallows ready to go. Delicious. So the Commander Hot, okay, Keith Green, writes, I think I remember hearing Dave likes baked beans. That is so true. I should say this is a recipe.

I have a recipe for him. Something I've made several times. Okay, listening. Sorry, I don't know the conversions right off. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit, in brackets, Celsius question mark. One, two 16 ounce oz. Yeah. Two 16 ounce cans of pork and beans, rinsed and drained, set aside.

Two, in a bowl add quarter cup molasses, quarter cup brown sugar. Holy shit, this is a dessert or I don't, a main course. quarter cup tomato sauce slash ketchup quarter cup chopped onion one-eighth of a cup yellow mustard one eighth of a cup sweet baby raised barbecue sauce one tablespoon Worcestershire teaspoon smoked paprika salt and pepper to taste mix that shit up now three pour the beans into a nine by nine inch dish pour the mixture over and gently mix together four cut four strips of bacon into one inch pieces and place on top. Five, cover with aluminium foil and bake for 45 minutes.

Six, take the foil off and bake for another 10 minutes. Let me know how it all turns out. Anyway, I love you guys. You're a treasure and I appreciate all the laughs you've brought me. I look forward to many more. I regret not doing that with an American accent. I think I could have absolutely... I should have known as soon as it was Fahrenheit

and then can of pork and bean. Yeah, I've never, I don't know, we don't have pork and beans here commonly. Well, I think that that recipe, the end of it sounds like it's going to be fantastic, but the thing that surprised me most is that you rinse the pork and beans. Yeah, you got to rinse the beans. So they usually come in a tomato sauce like our baked beans? Oh, yeah. And you're rinsing their sauce off and making your own.

Is that sort of the idea? Maybe that's the idea. Or is it, or is it. Kidney beans? Yeah. But that's because it comes in a, it doesn't come in a sauce, it more comes in a goo. A gooey, yeah, it is gooey, isn't it?

That's interesting. John, I'll forward this on to you, Dave. Please do, I love the sound of it. Does that, Commander Hot makes sense. And if Commander Hot has a photo of it, I'd love to see what it looks like, too. That'd really wet my whistle. Wet your whistle mean having a drink? I didn't enjoy that.

Yeah, yeah. Got to wet my whistle. Wet your appetite, I think he's what you're saying, but that's all right. Dave doesn't always have command over the English language. That is so tough to take. He's fuming. Oh my God. Are you kidding me?

Wet your whistle, Jess. I'm sorry. Hard to keep up with this guy. God, probably couldn't pass grade four English. Anyway, I'm blub-blib-blib-blit-blit-blit. Hang on. Obviously, we'll stop the podcast so that I can send this recipe. I mean, Dave also has access to the...

Oh my God, he does too. Oh, my God, yeah, that's right. I never look at this. We're in the spreadsheet now. The final one comes from... Thank you so much, Keith. That sounds so good. I mean, yeah.

To be honest, it sounds sickly sweet to me, but I would be up for trying if Dave can find a bacon-free alternative. I'll just take it off. Take it off the top. Just rinse it off. Oh, I said this was the pork and beans. Yeah, I forgot about that bit.

We'll rinse out the pork. Rinse it off. So, the final one this week comes from Mikkel Hens Peterson, okay, yes, I'm from Middlefart, Denmark, and it is really pronounced Middle Fart. Jesus God. Middle Fart! That is hilarious. Mickle has written a few who knew at questions, and the guests always enjoy. Middle fart. Hearing Mikkel from Middle Fart. Mikal's got a brag writing, this brag starts with lots of numbers, but hang on.

Okay, thank you for the warning. I was born the 5th of January, 1992. Congratulations. 16 years, 7 months and 5 days old, I met a girl named Per Neal at boarding school. On the 11th of February 2009 at 17 years, 1 month and 6 days old, I asked her to be my girlfriend. And she said yes. On the 11th of May, 2019, at 27 years, 4 months and 6 days old, we got married. And here is the brag.

On the 21st of March, 2026, I will have spent exactly half my life with the love of my life. Whoa. That's so sweet. Wow. That is so nice. Somehow even sweeter than that pork and beans recipe, which had sugar in it. Yeah, this has got a full cup of molasses, my goodness. Amazing.

Love to hear that, Mikael. Born on the 5th of January, 1992. Yeah. Three days, three days? after the love of my life was born. Isn't that nice? Doxing Aiden, one bit of info at a time. If you want my address, just ask me.

Yeah, Aidan's mother's maiden name is. Thank you, Michael, Keith and David. The next thing we like to do is shout out to a few other great Patreon supporters. If I think Jess normally comes up with a bit of a game. What's in their tomb? Oh, fantastic. Great. And yeah, this is...

You know what's in mind, Dave? What's in your team, Jess? You. Oh, buried together. You gotta hope you go at the same time or soon, you know? I'm in the tomb wondering and going, hello? Hello? Trying to ask someone for help.

The whale lamps are going out. Oh, these all men are made of terracotta? They're not helping them all. Actually, that would be awful. Excuse me. Dave can't be alone. Well, he wouldn't be. He'd be with your rotting cor.

I know, but I wouldn't be, you know, much conversation. So he'd be struggling. One of the people who suggested this topic said they go, Dave didn't mention being buried with terracotta men in his episode about death. What was it? Oh, death, cremation, burial or other. Sorry, burial cremation or other. Yeah, we forgot that one option is being buried with an army. Yeah.

And horses of many sizes. Helena Bedey wrote, Dave didn't include being buried with a terracotta army as one of his options in his burial episode. Do you really got a very funny? Ten years later, we have, right of that wrong. Suggested that more than six years ago to the system. So hopefully you're still listening slash with us.

Okay, pretty much. All right, so what's in their tomb? All right, what's in their tomb? I'll read out the name and place. Dave and Jess can oscillate. between the tomb objects. Okay, got it. First up, thank you so much for your support from Glendale in WI,

maybe Wisconsin and America. It's Jay Swan. Lifetime supply of canned pineapple. Oh, stay sweet. Stay sweet down there. From Hamilton in Ontario, Canada. Thank you so much to Dennis Austin. Dennis Austin is buried with a fully working ice cream truck.

Oh, hell yeah. Oh, hell. Hell yeah, brother. Enjoy this off, sir, brother. From Lethbridge in AB, maybe Alberta, Canada. Thank you so much. Alexis Reed. Alexis Reed is buried with their pet cats.

Oh, yeah. Live? No. No. Because then they've crossed over too. Exactly. Is Alexis on fire, Canadian? Yeah, they are from, I think, St. Catherine's,

Ontario, which is near Toronto. There you go. Next up from Address Unknown can only assume from deep within the fortress of the malls. Thank you so much to SC and Savage. S.C. and Savage has been buried with a large novelty hat collection. Different sizes, different eras, different bits of fun. Can have a bit of fun. Do some plays in the afterlife.

Yeah, that's nice. Oh, I'm John Wayne. That's fun. That's fun. Also from Adress Unown assuming, once again, deep within the fortress. to the moles. Thank you so much for your support. Prunit Valb. Pranit was buried, is buried, is going to be buried.

Anyway, going to be buried with a Olympic-sized swimming pool. Oh, great. And is it full of water? Yeah. Mercury? No. No, that'd be weird. Classic old, H-2O, a little bit of piss.

Like every pool. A little bit of piss. From Barberton in God's Country, Ohio. Thank you so much for your support. Emily Jivin. Emily, harking back to Commander Hot, this is so amazing. She's buried with 10,000 cans of baked beans just in case. Oh, you never know.

You never know. They surely they don't go off. Yeah, prepper. From West Kowna in British Columbia and Canada, I reckon. for cash. That's an incredible surname. Reach for cash. It really does sound like Reach for cash.

Which is fantastic because... Rees for cash, maybe. In Rees' tomb is one million of every currency. So a million yen, million U.S.D. Cash. Cash. That's great. And in some currencies, that's a fortune in others.

That's jump change. You've got to get a packet of chewing gum. That's right. And finally. from Kirkland in Washington in the United States, it's Andrew Hash. Andrew Hash is buried with 50,000 albums on CD. Unfortunately, forgot to take a CD player.

Why are you doing this to Hatchy? Unfortunately, Andrew Hash. But he's buried with Doug Panasonic, who has his whole company's collection there of players. Yeah, but the separate tombs There's a big wall in the middle Yeah, but the speakers are in the wall

Soundproof walls Yeah Sorry Andrew I mean you can still read the line I know it's a bit of fun And trying to remember I think I remember this one No, like

Na na na na nah Nah Nah Nah Nah God they read all out The nars

Nah Did you notice Anything in common With a lot of those people A lot of those people Are from a beautiful part of the world called North America. Yes.

A place that we are visiting in September, specifically the country of Canada. A lovely part of the world to visit or live in in September, particularly if you are in the area of Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal, all the aforementioned Toronto. Toronto. Toronto, those places are all going to be having a little visit from Dugan. It's no coincidence that all the people reading out today and probably for the last few weeks is because you get discounted tickets if you

sign up to the Patreon. That's right. On the shoutout level or above. That's right. And the code is still active for those shows, so you will get a 10% discount on all tickets. So if you buy 50 tickets, think about how much money it's up. You'd be able to afford to put a thousand dollars in your tomb. That's how much you're saving. Enjoy. You're saving afterlife kind of cash. Thank you so much. Is there a chance that we've missed a name? Mr. Name? How's my father? Do we say Ashul-Bashels?

No. Okay. No, we did not. So I'm going to go back around and say one last name from Toronto. Yeah. Big City, Ontario, Canada. Ash-e-bashy or Ash-E-Bashes. Or ash-e-bashes.

Oh, they're eyes. Okay, because there's... Or Ashel-Bashels. I can't tell if it's a... an iron L. Yeah, how can you tell? I'll copy and paste it,

let's see. L for London. Oh, Ashle Bachel. Do one together. Okay, I clear the mind. Yeah. Clear the mind. Okay.

Way ahead of you. No, let's just say it at the same time. Okay. Okay. Ashul Bachel has been buried with a large collection of inflatable bullhorns. Wow.

Actually, I reckon that could be a world record for the largest collection of inflatable bullhorns. Unfortunately, it's in a tomb inaccessible to Guinness World Records, so they won't get the certificate. And are they, like, is it air sealed? Is it the kind of thing where you wouldn't want to waste it blowing any up? Probably, yeah. I don't understand science. Yeah, absolutely. We know.

That is abundantly clear. Unlike the air in the sealed tomb, it is not abundant or. clear, it's foggy, I'm nervous about the quality of the air. So the next thing we need to do, and this is a wild week for the Tripditch Club. We've got so many inductees. I don't know what was going on three years ago, but I love it. You're going to be okay, Dave. In fact, I think I know maybe, oh no, I don't, I don't know.

Do I know? I think maybe three of these might have, hang on. Was that there? Hang on. I think maybe some of these were missed somehow, and someone messaged me saying, I think you were missed. I'm like, I've got you down for this episode.

And they're like, no, I wasn't mentioned. I'll listen back, and we only did one of the four for some reason. So I think that's why three of these are on here, maybe. Or maybe not. Doesn't matter. Let's just do them anyway. Yeah. So do you want to explain what this is?

Yeah, Dave. Are these people who have been on the shout-out level or above for three? consecutive years. So we're going to induct them into our Hall of Fame slash Clubhouse or Theatre of the Mindstar

which is, yeah, basically your name goes up on the wall. You're in Trine Forever. You're welcomed into the clubhouse the thousand plus people that are already in there cheer you on as you run on in.

Once you're in, you can never leave, but why would you want to? Because we've got everything you could possibly ever need. Music, entertainment.

Places to sleep. Yeah. Places to shit. Places to shit. Ice baths. Don't shit in the ice baths. No, we have toilets. We have toilets.

Yeah. Some of these things don't need to be mentioned, Jess. I think toilets probably went without saying. Even though it's mainly gentlemen in there, of course. And ladies. You would? The ladies should? I know, gentlemen don't should. I've never asked.

I don't want to know. I've never known a woman. Oh, so yeah, people come on in. And basically, I'm on stage emceeing this event. As you run on in, I give you a bit of a hype up. Matt's got the clipboard with your name on it, lifts up the velvet rope. But before we get into any of that, the festivities of the evening, Jess always has food or drink that she's organised. What have we got this week, Jess?

We have got stuff that I found these huge jugs of liquid like booze in a tomb. Oh, great. So I thought, I'll just, oh, yeah, we'll just have a bit of that. All right, that's the good stuff, you know. Yeah, I'll put ice in it. It'll chill, you know. Yeah, chill out. It would be pretty good.

It's going to be so good. I'm so looking forward to hearing Dave lose his mind as we go through this list. I've just added three more, those ones that were missed before. Could they not be next week? No. They've been waiting for a year. I reckon one more week they'll be right. They've got on the top of the list. I always book a band or an entertainment group, and this week is no different.

You're never going to believe I've got this week. Who? I've got Canadian hip-hop group Dream Warriors. Wow. According to their Wiki page, recognized as a pioneering musical force of the jazz rap movement, but then it's got a little asteris next to recognize saying, in brackets, by whom?

Brutal note. Some of their songs have millions of plays on Spotify, so I cannot wait to have Dream Warriors formed in 1988, performing such as, What's Your Face in My Sink? And my definition of a boombastic jazz style. Yes. I really want to listen.

of that. Yeah. Me too. All right, so I'm on the door. I've got the names. Dave is going to welcome him in. He's the host of the evenings. He's up on stage.

I'm seeing, he's hyping up the thousand plus people already in there in the intercube and which is, I think, is still a fresh meme. And Dave, yeah, he'll do a bit of weak wordplay to welcome you in. Okay, because he's got such a long list, you need to keep the flow going. I'm going to keep the flow going. I don't want to hear any commentary from you in between. We're just flowing. It's going to be, I'm going to get in a flow state, much like I assume the dream warriors do.

Correct. Yep. By whom? All right. Here we go. From Mount Coulham in Queensland, Australia. Welcome into the club, Angela. Oh, I thought that was Angel.

Oh. From Chicago, the windy city in Illinois, United States. Welcome in J-Dood. My dude, give us some skin. Yes. From Carreri. in MS, maybe Mississippi in the United States. Welcome in Jasper Souls.

Favorite movie as a kid? Casper. Favorite movie as an adult? Jasper. Woo! I love to watch you. London Gann here in Victoria. Welcome in to the Claire.

Bernadette Blanche Palmer. You're my burner pet. Woo! Oh, give you a little pet. From Latham in the Australian Capital Territory. Welcome in to the club. Jessica Yao. Jessica Yao

Ah, kapow! Jessica Yao! From Sydney here in Australia and New South Wales, welcome in Lockhees Shorters. Hey, I'm not going to blocky. I want Locky in the club. Yeah, come on in! From North Sanich in British Columbia, Canada. Welcome to the club, Diana Chomac.

More like Diana Chomaxon and respect. Yes, pooh-boop. From address unknown, can only shoot from deep within the fortress of the miles. Please, welcome to the club. The club. Daniel H. Age, probably for Hook. Oh, I was going to say H probably for Hero. Oh, maybe.

Might be right. From Sky here in Victoria, Australia. Welcome into the club, Sean M. Sean, you make me happy to be born. Yes. From Salt Lake City, Utah, home of the round round of rebound. Welcome in Ryan King. I'm crying without Ryan.

You're the King, King. From Watertown in MA. Maryland. In the United States, it's Hannah Lutawasa. Luta Wassa. I thought you were going to go with Lorder Wassa. Or Lorta Wassa. I'm going to say, some people can't live with that water,

but I can't live with that. Lorder Wassa. Hannah Star. Vesty. Dongcaster in Great Britain. Welcome into the club. Amy G. Amy Groves based on email, possibly.

Oh, I was thinking this is going to stand for Amy Great, This person I've met tonight. Woo! And finally from San Francisco, home of the 49ers, sort of, their homegrounds actually in another city in California. And then I say, please, welcome into the club, DeLara Galliac Barova. I hope this night is never Gala Becky over. Yeah, fantastic.

All right, welcome into the club. I mean, this is what an injection of youth and enthusiasm we've got here. Delara, Amy, Hannah, Ryan, Sean, Daniel, Diana, Locky, Jessica, Bernadette, Jasper Jay, and Angela. Make yourselves at home. Let's party. Let's party with Dream Warriors. But before we get a Dream Warriors, we do have one inductee into the Triple Triptage Club. Amazingly, this is a club for patrons have been supporting us on the shoutout level or above for nine straight years. for this one we have a bit of a solemn ceremony Dave will give you a compliment and a salute Jess will give you a kiss and I will give you the keys to a classic episode so you can be the

custodian of it and look after it with your cotton gloves yes which we also give you and when you're finished with them put them in the used glove bucket so they can be washed yeah okay okay I'm sick of finding dirty gloves in the clean glove bucket. You chuck them down wherever. She's talking to me. My job is to get them and put him in the bucket. She's talking to me.

From welcome into the club, nine years. So cool. I know your name from around the Patreon world, I believe, from two harbors in Minnesota, I reckon, our man, in the United States. Welcome in to the Triple Triptych Club, Sir Nathan Hanson. Sir Nathan Hanson. I can't remember a time of my life before I knew you.

And frankly, I don't want to remember one. Salute. That's really long. I don't know why I gave him the sir. No, I liked it. Okay. But I think everyone should be a sir from now. Okay.

Yeah, everyone's a sir. Just because, like, otherwise, you know, if you're guessing at their... I'm not going to do gender guesses. No, absolutely not. So everyone's sir. Everyone's sir. Yeah. And every previous person, they're also sirs.

They're all sirs. Yeah, we did a countback like old Brownlow medalists. Yeah. And they're all sirs now. Yeah. And I give you Nathan the keys to episode number 28, the Shinobal nuclear disaster. Oh, what a ripper to have. What an absolute beauty.

Megatrots. Recently, the AFL journalist, Jared Whiteley, called the, the AFL's arc, which is like the video replay umpire. He called it the AFL's Chernobyl. Jeez. That's grim stuff, mate. Yeah. And he thinks of himself as like the highfalutin kind of commentator.

Yeah. That's, that feels, yeah, anyway. I think that feels about right. It feels like a big reaction. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, Nathan Hansen, welcome in. Make yourself at home.

Leonardo DiCaprio, we still have, I think, a few months left of him on contract to paint all of our new residents before we get the next artiste in. But he'll paint you any which way you like. Yeah. Just ask. He'll do it. Very accommodating. Very accommodating. Very talented artiste.

Very talented artiste. Well, that brings us to the end of the episode as far as I'm aware. Jess, anything we need to tell people? Just that we love you so much. Thank you for joining us once again. we're sorry about Dave Me too We'll have a word with him

Yeah thank you If you'd like to suggest a topic Anybody can There's a link in the show notes It's also on our website Which is do you go on pod com And you can find us on social media

At do go on pod Or do go on podcast on TikTok Dave, boot this baby home When you finished yawning Oh Hey I've been yawning the whole time Wait what? No not out of boredom

I thought it was a fascinating tale It was a very fascinating tale It was just a long episode No it's not even that What is it about four hours Yeah I'll be three. Three and a bit.

Yeah. Close to four. Anyway, Dave, boot this baby home. Hey, we will be back next week with another. We will be back. We will be back. We will be back. Is this Aussie crawl?

Is this James Ryan over here? This guy's trying to get to four hours. We will be back next week with another bonus. No, another main feed episode. But also, if you want the bonus episodes, don't forget, you know, you can have 300 bonuses in your podcast feed. and they also, you know, you can get an RSS feed so it goes into your app of choice. We just start mentioning that

because some people think you need the Patreon app. No, you can have, you can listen to this podcast wherever you like. Anyway, we'll be back next week with another episode, but until then, I will say, thank you so much for listening, and until then, goodbye. Later. Don't forget to sign up to our tour mailing list

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