Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - Episode 122 - Russo - Japanese War Part 4: So long and thanks for all the imperialism

Episode Date: September 21, 2020

The war ends and the world sets itself on course for nuclear hellfire. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys Sources regarding propaganda discussed at the end of the show: WARNING: This is explicit porn. In case you want to just read what a historian Tim Clark wrote about this piece when it appeared in 2013 exhibition, Shunga: Sex and pleasure in Japanese art, 1600-1900. "Popular print culture in Japan was extensively mobilised to support the country’s war effort in the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-5. This is a particularly savage piece of anti-Russian propaganda.A different (presumed earlier) version of the design was produced using different woodblocks. The flag at top left is Russian, the soldiers in the background are Russians fleeing, and the following dialogue appears with the two foreground figures: [Russian:] (in Romanised script with katakana glosses) “I think I’m going to die!” (Watakushi mō shinisō desu) [Japanese soldier:] “I’ll soon deliver the final blow…” (Sugu todome o sashite yarō) [Russians:] “Quick, let’s run away!” (Hayaku nigero) " The original korean translation of the print that was found during researching was inaccurate. A full translation from japanese shows this is meant to show the japanese military "raping" the russian military. These prints were very common and popular, though technically illegal. WARNING: https://media.britishmuseum.org/media/Repository/Documents/2014_11/8_12/317b80e3_54cc_4575_8936_a3dd00d07c11/mid_01361913_001.jpg There is a non graphic link to further research on the changing japanese propaganda done by actual art historians and not our dumbasses: https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/library/files/special/exhibns/month/mar2008.html

Hey everybody, Joe here from the Lions Led by Donkeys podcast. If you enjoy what we do here on the show and you think it's worth your hard-earned money, you can support the show via Patreon. Just a $1 donation gets you access to bonus episodes, our Discord, and regular episodes before everybody else. If you donate at an elevated level, you get even more bonus content. A digital copy of my book, The Hooligans of Kandahar, and a sticker from our Teespring store. Our show will always be ad-free and is totally supporter-driven. We use that money to pay our bills, buy research materials that make this show possible, and support charities like the Kurdish Red Crescent, the Flint Water Fund, and the Halo Trust. Consider joining the

Legion of the Old Crow today Russo Japanese War podcast. I'm Joe, and with me today, as is nick what's up man fuck we're finally done with the navy so good uh yeah and like i said last time we kind of have to jump back in time again um because i'm a a hack and a bad at outlining podcasts but there was no real good way to do this like it's like that one scene from the other guys where he's talking about all right for me to start this story i gotta start from the end go to the beginning then briefly go back to the end and then briefly talk about each character's back yeah i'm i'm the memento of podcasting people um mostly because i didn't want everybody to have

to wait until part four to hear about the battle of Tsushima because that's what they came to the series for I know what the people want and like um you know Tsushima there's uh there's you know like that we're covering part four now which is mostly going to talk about the the end of ground of ground fighting um but uh at the battle of susan what are they fighting on that's the the ground the earth oh you said this is the end of the ground fighting i was like this episode will cover the end of the final ground battles and stuff okay i thought you said that this is the end of the ground fighting i was like are they fucking fighting in the air now that's sweet um like at the end of the last episode, episode three,

at the Battle of Tsushima, where the Russian Navy got ethered into nonexistence, is pretty much the end of the war. And we'll come back to that, because we're going to talk about what exactly that led to. We also need to find out

where the fucking animals went. They actually went back to Russia and played a pivotal part in the russian revolution yeah they're actually decorated vladimir lenin was a crocodile nobody nobody talks about this is crocodile erasure uh now when we left you last time the russian fleet or at least most of it was at the bottom of the pacific ocean and the japanese had all but won the war. But in order to tell the story completely

and round out this war nicely, as all wars end clean and nice at the end, there's never any secondary or tertiary effects. It's a jagged, rounded war. We have to jump back in time again and rejoin the land war. Now, when we left that, when we left the land war, the Russians had finally been kicked out of Port Arthur

because their commander finally realized that the Tsar was dumb and he was fucked. That happened in January of 1905, meaning Manchuria was gripped by horrible, horrible winters. Now, I don't imagine anybody has a map handy, but say you open the metaphysical map in your head or perhaps Google on your phone or something. Manchuria is settled right next to Siberia. So you can just imagine how terrible these winters are.

This meant the soldiers of the two empires were dealing with freezing winds in a temperature that would hover around, oh, about 22 degrees below zero on a good day yeah what um also that's not that's gonna be a hard no uh i'm a sun guy i am now i definitely like there's no part of me that ever wants to move back to michigan and be frozen for nine months out of the year i mean i've never met anybody from michigan that, oh, I can't wait to go back. We're winter refugees. Yeah.

So that sounds really bad, and it is. But most people think of Siberia as this snowbound tundra, and parts of it are. But these winds that came down from Siberia into Manchuria were super, super dry. And for snow to form, there needs to be moisture. Refer back to your high school science class or whatever but that meant uh manchuria was super dry and super cold and had wind that would just cut through anything so it's it's kind of like when you like get stationed in texas like when i was stationed at hood and i'm like it's 125 degrees and i'm dying and someone's like well it's a dry heat like it doesn't fucking matter fuck yourself don't worry about

Manchurian it's a dry cold like it's not that bad like if you go into the saunas every once in a while in Hood I would it'd be a hundred outside I'd go into the sauna and be like there's no point why I could just go outside

I could just sit in my car. Yeah. There's no AC. I'll be fine. So while all this is going on, the Russian forces were camped out in the city of Mukden, and they were digging in. While doing their best to dig in, the ground was pretty much frozen, so they had to

blow up holes. And they were freezing their asses off as the Japanese arrayed themselves along a 160-kilometer front in front of them. and they were freezing their asses off as the Japanese arrayed themselves along a 160 kilometer front in front of them. This brought us to the Japanese commander a guy named Okuyasakura

and he was not a dumb man. He had been fighting wars since pretty much everybody he was fighting had been before they were born. Yasakura was born into a samurai family and first served in the military of the Chosu domain fighting in the Boshin War in the military of the Chosu domain fighting in the Boshin War on the side of the

Meiji Restoration after that he fought in the Setsuma Rebellion meaning in podcast lore he was one of the people who shot Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai oh fuck I know that lore okay I know where we're at now alright you kind of lost me there for a second

so if you go back to our bonus in The Last Samurai, that was a redoing of the Setsuma Rebellion, and Yasukuda had fought on the side of the government putting down that Samurai Rebellion, which was not, in fact, entirely a Samurai Rebellion, but we'll talk about that probably. Did Tom Cruise train this guy? No, Tom Cruise would have fought him.

Oh, you mean like before that? Yeah, so in podcast lore yeah tom cruise is america in this situation he trained the mujahideen and then they shot him the samurai mujahideen uh these this is all historical canon i can't help it um what i mean by all this is like yasakura knew what the fuck he was doing um and he and like most uh officers of the day wars generally weren't fought in the winter at that time in in history it's like winter sucks we're just gonna camp out until it's decent again um i mean no and as someone who's forced to go to the field in winter constantly like yeah we should i mean don't fight wars's forced to go to the field in winter constantly, like, yeah, we should not. I mean, don't fight wars ever, but also don't fight wars in winter.

Don't do anything in the winter. Let's just all have a quick stand by. Yeah, just do what we did and just stay inside and get drunk all the time. It's like that thing whenever it's like, how do people in Michigan survive the winter? Like, you don't go fucking outside. Like, it's not that hard. You know, us Californians survive the winter? You don't go fucking outside. It's not that hard.

Us Californians survived the winter. I don't have a winter. We live in California, so that's pretty much it. That'll do it. Pretty much good. Just do what we do. It's the same thing we do in Hawaii. What's winter? Yes. Disease state.

Welcome to Infection Island. I'll be your host host i feel so bad because that's such a i wanted to go there so bad so do a lot of people but until it's like okay uh well you come in you land at uh honolulu airport you just get issued covid and then they lay you yep actually when i landed there those were not happening because you can't touch one another. Oh, they couldn't do the little ring toss? They couldn't ring toss each other's necks. So Yasukuda knew that there wasn't going to be any fighting in winter,

so he had his people dig in the best they could and then just make winter quarters. For the long haul haul he wasn't digging trench lines uh though those those did exist he's like we're gonna be here a couple months right he assumed the russians felt the same way because this is conventional thinking at the time as you would just stare at one another across frozen hellscape like i'll see you in spring motherfucker you just wait when this shit thaws i'm gonna stab you now he would turn out to be both right and wrong wrong and that the russians were smart enough to not fight during the winter and

right that he was a it was a really dumb idea in order to do that facing him in mukden was a russian general and minister of war a guy that we have not shit on enough alexei Kuropotkin. Kuropotkin had so far tripped over his dick and lost every single battle he had fought so far, even snatching the defeat from the jaws of victory at Laodong. A small problem that would follow him all the way through World War I and the Russian Revolution.

Losing never cost this guy his job. I mean, he has consistency, and I guess that's what they were looking for. What we don't need now is a man with skills or competence. We need consistency. Now, Kuro Potkin's never won a battle, but he's always there at them. Exactly.

So the czar is probably like, hey, we really need to lose this battle for some fucking reason. Send in this guy. Look at his record. Look at his record. Look at his stats. I got his fucking playing card right here. That's something interesting about George Washington, for example. He never really won any battles, but he was really good at organization and keeping a military together.

Yeah, he was kind of there. He knew when to withdraw and keep his force together and not get rout together and not get routed, not get cut off, which are very, very good skills to have. Kuro Potkin didn't have that either. I can remember every single retreat that he's had so far has

been a confused route where they leave 2,000 people behind. And Kuro Potkin knew the Japanese raid against him were going to be reinforced very soon by nogi marisuki's third army fresh off its victory at port arthur now most russians thought that the army that defeated them at port arthur that being marisuki's third had to be the best in the japanese army um i guess there's nothing to really base it. They're battle-hardened veterans at this point, but so is every other force that Japan had deployed.

And Murasaki had lost so many people during that battle that there's a good chance that not many people survived it from the start to the end that were still in the army. But Kuro Potkin was deathly afraid of this army reinforcing those positions and knew that once they did, there's no way he'd be able to defeat them, which, spoiler alert, he can't defeat them anyway, but, because he's a fucking idiot. armies would then launch an attack against him at Mukden, despite the fact that they had made zero preparations

in order to do so in the middle of winter, because why the fuck would they do that? Yeah, it's fucking cold. Furthermore, Kuro Potkin was desperate for a real victory, because he hadn't had any of them yet. This is because after commanding the Russians to defeat

Yao Yang, he had simply wired the Tsar and told them that they had won. Do you think he every once in a while just go to a random soldier and he's like, alright, look, I need a victory. Rock, paper, scissors. But he still fucking loses? It's like when...

He's like, fuck, and he just walks away. It's like when the Roman Emperor went to the Colosseum. He cuts off the fucking people's thumbs like, thumb wrestle me. Like, oh, god damn it. But he still loses? Like, fuck! When he lost at Liao Yang,

which is a pretty big loss, he just told the Tsar that he won? What's amazing is this is the 1900s and telegraphs are a thing. Someone could have very easily just been like, dears are, we lost real, real bad.

Like he framed it as like, we, you know, we did, we fought them and then like, you know, withdrew in order and the Japanese were, were badly lashed during this battle.

So they can't possibly continue their advance, which is completely untrue. It was a route and they got stomped, and the Japanese immediately assaulted them again. He also wasn't great at management or logistics or manpower management in any way. Is he good at anything? No, he's really not,

other than the fact that he's good at palace intrigue, which is why he kept his job. It's like the Tsar's government is pretty much ran by backstabbing nobles, and he happens to be one of them. He got reinforcements after that route at Liaoyang and then immediately tossed them into battle at Saho in October of 1904. tossed them into battle at saho in october of 1904 um and like it was really like this battle alone outside of every other battle we've talked about so far pretty much underlines how bad he is at commanding and remember while this is happening not only is he a general he's the minister of war

so like for people who aren't sure what that means he is the secretary of defense of the russian empire he's in charge yeah he's in charge of literally everything, and he sucks. So at the Battle of Saho, he thought his officers under him were incredibly incompetent, which, I mean, to be fair, probably a little correct on that,

but he was worried that they wouldn't simply be able to pass down orders through a chain of command, which he's on the top of. So instead of doing that, he simply wrote and issued written orders to everyone, every single officer in the battle. And this is a battle of tens of thousands of people. So you can imagine how many thousands of officers that includes.

So when the battle started and people began to die very quickly, because you've been listening to this series for almost four hours at this point that happens a lot. It was only a matter of time before one of those written orders fell into the hands of the Japanese because they found the body of a dead Russian officer. That meant they gave up

all of Kuro Potkin's plan. This led to a route which caused 41,000 casualties and retreating into the city of Mukden where he was currently sitting. So that perfectly encapsulates how bad he is at his job. Now, he was... That's a lot of dudes.

I mean, 41,000 people is kind of like a drop in the bucket in this war. Sorry, I'm still seeing it from my mind. As someone who... We were both people who definitely would have died on day one in this battle. Oh, absolutely. I would have died on deployment. Like, pre-deployment. Statistically, we probably both would from, like, cholera or whatever.

But, like, it's incredible that, like, all this keeps happening and nobody's lying. Like, Kuro Potkin's never replaced. He's just, like, what he does is he never takes any accountability for anything and he's kind of allowed to do that as minister of war and leading the battles he can just fire everyone he doesn't like because he's also like he's not only the overall commander he's also their boss so like and he doesn't have one because the czar's a fucking idiot and he's a thousand miles away. Now, the Trans-Siberian Railroad had finally been finished, and Kuro Potkin was due to get reinforcements from it.

And so he wanted to attack Yasukuda, the Japanese position, across the um before he was reinforced uh the problem was that as he thought more eyes on the situation and word would leak back to the czar about how badly he's managing everything like the one thing curl pot can seem to be good at is limiting the amount of shit talking people were able to do behind his back like every most people were afraid of like telling the czar, like, holy shit, this guy is mismanaging the shit out of this war. This guy is covering his bases.

Yeah. He did everything, but actually win. Like he's like, Oh no. What if I completely botched this, the progress of this entire war? There's the map of the whole fucking like battlefield and just over

it is a map of all his people talking shit and he's just like all right if i cut this guy off here i could yeah he's just good at strategy for fucking not getting talked shit off that's how you survive in the palace like that's what it seems like like the the cream is not rising to the top here just the the most backstabbing motherfucker rose to the top. It wasn't his skill. The fucking battlefield map is the rug. It's that scene from Always Sunny where he has the thread map, but it's just people

leaking shit to the Tsar. Yeah. So I cut this off here, but it came from an undisclosed location here. But... Like any good officer, he's able to pass accountability off to the blame should something fail uh and that's what comes to this battle uh that he launches against this raid he launches against yasakuta because remember i've said this a point a couple of times he's the

minister of war and he knew he needed to launch this plan uh before his reinforcements got there and before the japanese reinforcements got there. So you would think as the commanding general and the minister of war, he would make that plan himself, right? He did not. Instead, he just kicked that can down the road to the most inexperienced member of his staff to do so, General Oscar Grippenberg.

I thought it would be like a grizzly bear or something it's a chameleon it's one of the chameleons that survived yeah one of the fucking chameleons just licking the map oh I never thought of that chameleons and like

his second aid to camp is one of the snakes but could you imagine a chameleon in Russian uniform? How many awards that thing would have? That'd be adorable. That's a new podcast mascot. Now, Grippenburg had just arrived in the war zone just a few months ago,

and he had never been a general before. This is his first deployment as a general, as a commanding general. He's not new to war he had previously fought on various other smaller uh levels and command at various other smaller levels like in the russo-turkish war and the crimean war so like he's not new to war but he's like i shouldn't be making the overall plan for this uh because he wasn't really entirely aware of the realities of the war quite yet, and he was working directly under the Minister of War, so he assumed that the Minister of War would be doing his job.

Oh, yes. But, I mean, even though he wasn't, even though this is his first time being an overall commanding general, didn't mean he was a fucking idiot, unlike, you know, Kuro Potkin. He thought launching an offensive in the middle of winter, like Yasukuda, was very, very stupid, and he shouldn't do it. Furthermore, the Russian soldiers that he, like, reviewed were not in great shape.

They had been beaten multiple times, and they had virtually no morale left to lose. But also, their supply situation was awful. There was not enough... This is a trend with the Russians. Whenever we talk about them... Everything I say about morale and supply could be copy and pasted into our

Soviet-Afghan war, 100%. It's a tradition. It almost seems like you're trying to take a break on the script. Like, oh, let me go back to the other fucking podcast we just had. I got to copy and paste. It's actually just called Russian history, unfortunately.

Yeah. Like, there wasn't enough ammo. There wasn't enough food. There wasn't enough water. And there wasn't enough medical supplies. Though I guess medical science at the time was mostly trying to do an exorcism to get the ghosts out of your blood. So, like, I guess that's the least time was mostly trying to do an exorcism to get the ghosts out of your blood. So, like, I guess that's the least serious of everything I just named.

You have too much blood in your body. We got to cut your leg off. Your humors are all disjointed. You got the flu. We got to open up the... You see? We got to pull off your toenails because you got the sugars. Now, Grippenberg knew that there was no way he was going to get out of this bad job. He knew that he's like, God damn it, no matter what I do, he's going to make me make this plan.

This fucking sucks. So he agreed to make this operation as long as all three Russian armies that were encamped in Mukden would take part and help coordinate. They said they would. And it was... You have to ask? Also, like, exactly, right? And he's making this plan directly for the guy who's supposed to be their boss, so it's like, just tell him to fucking do it. You're literally the minister of war.

That makes no sense. Hold on. Let me make sure they're good. Let me go over to this army committee like, what's in it for me? I don't know, the fucking war, maybe? Your life? I don't know. the fucking war maybe? Your life? I don't know. Either way, you're going to die. I don't know.

You could either refuse. And it was decided that these elements would work together and launch their attack against the Japanese left flank. Now, one of the keys to this battle was surprise. He knew that the Japanese wouldn't see an attack coming because a total idiot attacks someone during the death of a Siberian winter, right? And to be fair, he was mostly right.

That was until he forwarded the plans to St. Petersburg for approval from the Tsar, which immediately, because there's no secrets within the Tsar's inner circle. Everything immediately bleeds out to other people. This ended up with a loudmouth within the Tsar's court openly talking about the planned attack to a reporter from a French newspaper. That reporter did what reporters do and published it, leading to the Japanese to find out about the attack before it happened. uh we're still the russian commanders in mukden had no idea about their plans had been uh having been leaked to the press because they did not receive any french newspapers to the front and their intelligence agency was completely stupid so they just went ahead with their original plan

don't worry we got them by the balls the russians were so bad at that so bad at this that their incompetence actually helped them a little bit. The Japanese really didn't prepare because they thought that the leak was so dumb it had to be part of a plan to lure them out of position. Because who's dumb enough to leak their entire battle plan to the fucking media weeks before it happens?

And then it pans over to the Russian side. Us! It's us! We did that! The Japanese knew theians might just be that dumb uh when they saw grippenberg openly redeploy a large amount of troops over to the left flank so like at that point yes it was like oh oh they're that stupid okay we're still doing this yeah these fuckers are dumb the first move what would become the Battle of Sandapu, would be a cavalry raid led by Russian General Pavlov.

Sorry, Pavel Mishachenko. I'm bad at names. Everybody listening already knows I'm bad at names. But Pavel Mishachenko. Mishachenko? He's Ukrainian. Mr. Janko. Mr. Janko.

The jeans from the 90s I heard you got in a fight with the FUBU guys It's just like a Russian general in the early 1900s wearing a billowing pair of Janko jeans Did you own a pair? No, I couldn't afford them

They were really expensive Thankfully my bad fashion choices were limited because of how poor I was Did you own a pair? No, I couldn't afford them. They were really expensive. Oh, yes. Thankfully, my bad fashion choices were limited because of how poor I was. For some reason, I feel like you would own a pair. If I could afford one, probably. I don't know. I was a dumbass. It's possible.

Just get some now. They're probably a thing, aren't they? Someone somewhere should bring them back. I'll put money on that without even Googling it. thing, aren't they? Someone somewhere should bring them back. I'll put money on that without even Googling it. So, the raid included 6,000 cavalry troopers and a few dozen cannons. Now, his target

was a rail station that was thought to be used as a food and supply depot for the Japanese army. Now, there's a two-fold reason for this plan. Obviously, they wanted to cut the Japanese off from their supplies, but also they wanted to steal them because, remember, they have none.

Yeah, we don't have supplies. We're going to call this a cavalry raid, but it's actually a military-grade mugging. Has everybody got their ski mask? This advance was slowed pretty much immediately because, remember, they're in the middle of winter. A very cold and windy

winter in Manchuria. So he was immediately greeted by a windstorm that kicked up dirt and dust. Fucking immediately. Hmm, who could have seen that coming? Except everybody. It was so thick that by the time

that they had gotten to the rail station, the Japanese had seen them coming as they've been getting lost in the storm the whole time and had been prepared for that. They've just been riding around in circles. Pretty much. They got lost and at one point

probed the wrong part of the Japanese line. And they're like, oh, that's at the supply depot and immediately pulled back. And the Japanese were very confused as to what the fuck was going on. Like, did you guys see those horses? I saw horses.

I was just going to dip the old pinky toe into the water. By the time Miss Chanko got his cavalry raid on target, he unlocked the wonderful achievement of being one of the first modern military commanders to lead his cavalry directly into the barrels of a

Maxim machine gun. Whoa. That's the wrong thing to lead into anything in 1904. But Mishchenko had explicit orders to not stop attacking without more orders from Grippenberg or

Koropatkin himself so or maybe from the newspapers maybe from a french newspaper yeah so after three different attempts over several days mishchenko finally gave up and retreated back to the russian lines leaving thousands of dead and wounded behind him uh including himself he was shot in the leg and couldn't fight the rest of the war also they, they didn't... They did some damage to the supply depot, but it was repaired in literally an hour by the Japanese.

They did nothing. They accomplished absolutely nothing. Piece of 2x4 fell from the seat. Don't worry, we got it. It's no big deal. It just hits a light bulb or something. Oh, we gotta change up the light. Somebody get a potato. Unless the part of his plan was to...

Well, they have more machine gun bullets than us, so if we just charge at their machine gun, we'll have to use them. They'll run out eventually. It's the Zap Brannigan of military history. I say that in video games, whenever a dude's holding a position for really long, I'm like, look, he's

got to run out of ammo at some time. He's got to reload soon. Congratulations on your commission into the Staff Officer Corps of the Imperial Russian Army, Nick. So the next day on 19th of January, Grippenberg launched his assault against the Japanese left flank. But

before he could do that, remember how he was supposed to get all three armies to coordinate and help? Yeah, he was supposed to ask. So right before that happened, Kurapatkin probably got an idea that this attack wouldn't work, but didn't call off the attack. He just restricted the troops under Grippenberg's command to just three divisions. Ah.

Despite the fact that he had made the plan and Koropatkin and the Tsar had approved the plan, requiring the entire 2nd Manchurian army to take part. Krippenberg sighed, realized that he didn't have any choice, and continued his attack anyway, directly into the same kind of weather

that had fucked over Mishchenko. Now... You think they actually have a weather report guy that's just kind of ass at it? He's just like, you know, yeah, it's going to be clear today. You guys are good. Clear chance of rain. I don't know. Sir, it is negative 22 degrees outside.

Oh, I'm sorry. Are you the weather guy? Yeah. I'm wearing shorts. I'm fine. No previous reconnaissance of anything. Because remember, this is supposed to be like a surprise. Like he didn't want to ruin the surprise by setting scouts up, which is also kind of stupid.

And also they had no maps of the area. So it was kind of just like the left flanks that way. But none of that really mattered because they got caught in the middle of a fucking snowstorm. Like a blinding blizzard. And everybody got lost. Every division got lost and confused

and simply launched attacks at random wherever they happened to come across a group of Japanese soldiers. Maybe a Russian? That also happened. Yeah, they definitely shot at each other a lot. Actually, it's not surprising.

Just launching a bayonet charge back at the headquarters or something. Well, we did something really stupid, but somebody stabbed Kropotkin to death, so this could only get better. I imagine while they were charging they took our fucking uniforms, they took our fucking uniforms, they took our fucking rifles,

these bastards. Wily motherfuckers. So, like, at one point, some division did actually find the village they were supposed to attack, and attacked it. And that's the village of Sandapu. Ah, yes. But everybody else is all spread out now, so instead of

like, several divisions attacking this position there's one and they did manage one of the Russian divisions that were lost managed to take the wrong village which then led to them being immediately cut off by the entire Japanese 5th army

oh fuck surrounded and under attack they begged Grippenberg for relief but instead of relieving them grippenberg simply ordered his soldiers to rest fuck well they're goners he then sent word to kura potkin that he had taken sandapu and what has to be the first time ever i've seen a general officer get a fuck it like like like he's you know like we joke like the give a fuck broke like this is the first time i've ever seen a general it like like like he's you know like we joke like the give a fuck broke like this is the first time i've ever seen a general officer is like give a fuck break in

the middle of a battle and like while this is happening his one division cut off one division not have taken the city or the village he said that they had taken like they're on the outskirts and then one division just went back to the Russian line. They got tired? They just said, fuck it. I don't know. Like, yeah, I'm out of here. It's cold.

This war stuff sucks. Yeah. By the next day, the blizzard had cleared, and it became obvious to everyone that the Russians did not control the village that they said they controlled. In fact, they controlled a completely different one, which was then surrounded by the Japanese.

Fuck, that sucks. And then the Japanese forces within Sandapu, which outnumbered the Russians, had begun shelling them and shelling the Russian line. So it was pretty obvious to everyone that, like, Grippenberg had lied or he's incompetent and didn't know what village he had taken.

I think it's both. I don't know. Now, at this point, Grippenberg realized what was going on and wanted to continue the offensive, despite not actually knowing where all of his soldiers were and the fact that he had lost an entire division to spontaneous retreating back to the main line. Now, at this point, even Kropotkin knew that this was fucking stupid, and they began to argue over the details via runner which is kind

of hilarious uh they were they were sending i feel so bad for that runner like a runner would send orders back and forth like koropatkin would give like scream at him to write them all down then take the letter back leading to uh like grippenberg to do the same thing and then the runner's like come on man i've ran two marathons today um god and the running's for the devil yeah like just anybody who enjoys running i'll trust you the accounts of people who are runners like back in war makes my knees hurt um and while they were arguing over the details a gentleman named Georgi Stackelberg said fuck it and just launched his own assault on Sandapu with only the forces around him. Like, fuck it, you guys come with me. There's only five of us.

It worked. As dumb as this whole thing sounds, it was the most effective attack that the Russian military make against the village. And it could be argued the most effective attack the Russian military made against the Japanese during the entire portion of this war. Yeah, nailed it first try. Stettler's forces managed to get a foothold in the village and began to reinforce it by other Russian units, totally independent of Grippenberg's or anybody else's command. They're just like, hey, look, an attack, and joined in. Like, oh, look. Hey, look, that one actually looks promising.

It worked! And then as this was happening and the Japanese were peeling off from Sandapu, realizing maybe this village isn't really worth defending because the Russians seem to have gotten their shit together, Kurapat can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory again, sending orders

that immediately relieved Steckleburg of command for insubordination and ordered Grippenburg to withdraw. The soldiers, only probably a few minutes away from taking the village, were thrown into confusion by these orders and had no idea what to do because they said, well, Steckleberg's like, sorry guys, I guess I'm not a general anymore. Yeah, I guess I'm out.

In this confusion of not sure whether to retreat or push the attack, the Japanese launched a counterattack, crushing everyone that was around itself trying to put up a fight. I feel bad for the soldiers because just looking at the general, he's trying to out process it in the village. Where's S1? I'm just trying to get my leave approved. Yeah, and they're just getting fucked. After the battle, Grippenberg immediately resigned his commission and left the war zone. His first and only battle as a general.

Huh. Steckelberg had his career completely ruined and his reputation tarnished and went home. But it seems that the Tsar didn't even agree with his own minister of war. the Tsar didn't even agree with his own minister of war because Steckelberg when he got home was immediately awarded the Order of St. George 4th Class, which is a very, very high-ranking medal in the Russian Imperial

Military for bravery for that same battle he was fired for. So yeah, I guess that's a furore victory in his part. I don't know. Now after this failure, nothing stopped General Marisuki from reinforcing the Japanese

forces lined up against Mukden. While the Japanese had been marching, pretty much unfailing since the beginning of the war and never losing a battle, they were at their end. Now, we talked... Can I say that Mukden just sounds fucking... like it smells like shit?

I mean, it's full of hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers living in trenches. So I'm going to say you're probably correct. I'd fucking do it. Remember when we talked about the Siege of Port Arthur, their battle tactics, the Japanese battle tactics combined with the modern murder machines of mass artillery and machine guns meant high casualties were just part of the plan. That meant after all of that, their combined strength was

now outside of Mukden, like the Russians within. Meaning the entirety of both sides' commitment to the war was now lined up against one another for one giant battle like a shitty JRPG. The result would be a land the result meaning

that the entire land war would depend on the outcome of the single battle because whoever lost their back would be broken their army wouldn't be able to fight anymore everybody was at their end at this point and this isn't an easy place to be reinforced by either side uh so like and you know largely like the city of mukden largely tactically unimportant they're simply fighting over it because the other people happen to be there um it's that it's that red versus blue skit that we only have a base in this valley because they have a base in this valley after kura potkin had every single offensive blow up in his face, he knew that he had to prepare

for a purely defensive action, and that's how he ordered his forces to array themselves. The Japanese saw this, and their plan was not to throw themselves directly at the enemy to try to overrun them like they had been doing, but to encircle the city, with their overall commander,

Field Marshal Oyama, ordering that any fighting within the city with their overall commander field marshal oyama ordering that any fighting within the city was to be avoided at all costs mostly because he knew it turned to a horrible meat grinder that you know urban warfare is generally known for but mostly and probably more surprisingly is oyama was worried about civilian casualties of the chinese civilians of the area really that had i mean they had largely taken the set of the Chinese civilians of the area. Really? I mean, they had largely taken the side of the Japanese during the war because of how awful the Russians had been, and he didn't want to alienate them. Meaning that, much like the Koreans,

that this is the first and only time in Sino-Japanese history that any Japanese leader gave a fuck about the lives of Chinese people. Or fucking anybody. Like, in literally fucking 30 years, so much would change. A lot. The battle began on 20 February 1905. And the battle unleashed

not only the largest battle of the war, but quite possibly the largest in history until the beginning of World War I. And by, I mean, like, modern history, there's a lot of Chinese battles but quite possibly the largest in history until the beginning of World War I. And by, I mean, like, modern history, there's a lot of Chinese battles from, like, the Romance of the Three Kingdoms era and things after that where, like, Chinese armies were just, like, comically massive and caused, like, millions of casualties. But in modern history, this was one of the largest all the way up until

probably the Battle of Frontiers or other battles of World War I. Tens of millions of rounds would be fired. Hundreds of thousands of artillery shells would be fired over the next 10 days. And almost one million men attempted to kill one another over a country that was neither of theirs. Now, what the Japanese were really attempting to do to get tactics nerdy, was like a hammer and anvil type approach, where they would try to

get the Russians to commit fully to battle by attacking along the front, while trying to move along behind them and flank them and break their flank and the anvil being their front line being pinned down by the japanese attack but also because you know they only prepared to attack to

defend from these lines uh this is not a a modular design by any means um and it was kind of working um as the japanese soldiers moved around to complete their encirclement, the Russian soldiers, like during the siege of Port Arthur, actually fought pretty well as long as they were on the defensive. And this actually tracks mostly well through World War I for the most part. And even Napoleon's invasion of Russia, that as long as the Russians weren't forced to maneuver, they did fine. Because their officers were so

bad, they couldn't command them on the move. The Japanese were mowed down by machine gun and rifle fire, though the Russian artillery largely failed completely. The reason for this was that the Russians rushed out a new kind of artillery for this

battle, and it was put in Mukden and it came in with some new reinforcements. The problem was that nobody had trained anybody on the use of these guns in their new sighting. So nobody could fire them accurately. Their artillery support was technically

there, but it was wildly inaccurate and off target, while the Japanese artillery clearly outdueled them and just devastated them almost entirely. Fuck. As the Russians held, Kuro Potkin received word that the Japanese Third Army, under our boy Marisuke, was moving west around the city. Now, if you remember from the last battle, Kuro Potkin kind of thought Marusuki and his third army was the boogeyman of the Japanese army and they were to be feared

for reasons I still don't completely understand, other than the fact he just keeps losing to them. So if I keep losing to them, that must mean that they're the elite of the Japanese army. It can't possibly be because I suck. Definitely not.

Also, he's lost to other armies as well. He just lost to Yasukuda, but he didn't internalize that one as deeply. Yeah, maybe there's something to this guy. I'm starting to think Kuro Potkin, not great at his job, Nick. I don't think he's that great at it. That's what

I've been thinking throughout this whole series. Instead of developing a healthy respect for an enemy commander that you know took poor Arthur like it developed into a fear because when he heard that the third army was maneuvering around him he decided

that nobody could counter this threat except him despite the fact that his troops were like a bad movie he's mine despite the fact that his troops were... It's like a bad movie. Yeah, like... He's mine. Right, where I want him. Despite the fact that his troops were already committed to battle somewhere else, and there

was already troops stationed on the west side to meet him. So when Koropatkin gave his orders for the third Manchurian army under his direct command to shift west, the order was lost in the chaos of battle, because remember, they're still fighting some units moved while others didn't still others heard that they should pull back into the city

and prepare to defend in depth and like nobody had any like because remember there's no chain of command here um he which goes back to the asahoahi where he had to write everything down on paper, which still didn't work. He still lost. So immediate chaos. In the end, attempting to shift his armies over to the west ever so slightly caused his army to fall apart completely. Now, Oyama saw this and ordered his soldiers to exploit that gap in the line that Koropatkin himself had created, and gave an explicit order to, quote, pursue and destroy the breaking Russian soldiers.

Also, the Russians built one of their side flank, like one of their flanking positions, overlooking a river on the Russian left flank. The idea being like, well, you can't cross a river on the Russian left flank. The idea being like, well, you can't cross a river. The river had frozen solid because it's winter. Yeah. So like they just crossed it. Like it's that simple.

No need to swim. I'll just walk. Yeah. Like I can just, at that point it had been frozen so solid it might as well have been dirt. But the left flank collapsed completely pretty quickly after that. And when the Russians broke

they caused the entire Russian defense around the riverbank to collapse and be cut off from the rest of the Russian forces. As a result, the left flank collapsed, became encircled as did the right, causing Koropatkin to order a retreat further north into the city i always say whenever we talk about the russians it's

at any point in time whether defeat or victory it's never good to be in the russian army anyway tune in next time to our series of the any one of the Chechen wars. But the problem was that left flank that had collapsed and been encircled and was buoyed by the frozen river was now behind Kuro Potkin. So as they retreated into that, they ran into the Japanese, which meant the Japanese had them all but surrounded.

The Russian soldiers panicked, and all hopes of an organized withdrawal were gone. Soldiers dropped their weapons, left their wounded behind, and ran for their lives into the wilderness. Every man for himself. A few Russian forces that managed to stay together, kind of like we said during our Napoleon invasion of Russia series. They rallied around the flag or whatever. By that I meant

they kept unit integrity. They just panicked and ran back towards the Russian border for safety. Absolutely no attempt or rear guard was made to defend themselves as they retreated. As well as there's probably no organizational ability left within the command to do so

because Kuro Potkin was running away as fast as he could too. The only thing that saved Kuro Potkin from a total and embarrassing destruction or even possibly a Japanese counterattack into Russia, which is like a rare possible historical note here, is that Field Marshal Oyama had overextended his own supply lines during the attack and assumed incorrectly that the russians couldn't possibly be this bad and there must be

something waiting for him as he got closer to russia i mean something will stop us once again the japanese gave the russians too much credit as the nearest r Russian force that was in any position to resist any kind of Japanese force was 10 full days of marching away. Fuck. This meant that like Koropatkin and what remained of his army only survived because the Japanese thought they were more competent than they actually were.

Again. Now, the Japanese moved into the city of Mukden and captured the railroad. With that, the land war was all but over, as both armies had smashed themselves into pieces, causing some of the worst casualties in the shortest amount of time the world had yet seen, but would unfortunately surpass not that far from now. In just two weeks, the Russians lost 90,000 men,

while the Japanese lost 75,000. Fuck, that's a lot still. In case the subordinate commanders of this battle on the Russian side, Alexander Samsonov and Paul von Rickenkampf, had not done enough battle damage to the prestige of the Tsarist militaries,

they wouldn't lose their job. In fact, they would both go on to command the disaster at Tannenberg in World War I oh fuck so like Samsonov and von Renkenkampf could probably get like a

bit of a high five from people who really support the Russian Revolution because without their incompetence maybe it doesn't happen quite that way like you get you can accidentally because without their incompetence, maybe it doesn't happen quite that way. Like, you get... You get an accidental assist. Good job, guys. Now, after this battle on March 10th ended,

it was only about a month away from May 28th, which was the destruction of the Russian 2nd Pacific Fleet at Tsushima. After that, it was all but certain that the war was over. And not in the way Russia or any European power ever thought was possible.

Not only was Russia several times the size of the very new Japanese empire, but they thought of themselves racially superior. The idea that a traditional European power could lose a war to any Asian army was thought to be incredibly ridiculous until everybody watched it happen. And you're probably thinking, why didn't Russia just pour countless troops into the region to

fight with their much, much superior numbers? And it's true russia did not use the vast majority of their military in this war there's a very good reason for that maybe they could have if it wasn't for the incredibly incredible unpopularity of the czar himself we talked about how important the japanese population thought the war was like remember protesting in favor of war protesting in favor of overseas empire the exact opposite could be said for russia and like it's weird like one thing that uh someone brought up and there is some historical evidence to back that up as much as there's historical evidence to back up any dumb ass thing that czar nicholas did is that this was a war to try to shore up support for his government. And that's possible. Wars totally happen for that reason.

There's a very good argument that can be made that that's why Margaret Thatcher committed to the Falklands War, is to shore up support for a very, very unpopular government. But in Russia, nobody could give a shit less. Nobody cared about the war at all, outside of the inner circle of like the russian nobility in the czarist court while it was the peasantry that was being conscripted and sent to die in huge numbers and like that attitude that we talked about in uh like napoleon's invasion

of france where like people would like it when you got conscripted into the military, like, oh, you're dead now. Like, that was still a thing. So, like, but, like, conscription numbers would go up or go down depending on how many people they needed for war. So, like, the idea that, like, okay, so now they're really, like, being sent to die for something that, like, does not matter. It's weird how that can upset some societies and others are totally fine with it, America. That might have not pissed... That was a good one. That was a good one.

Everybody gets one. Now, maybe it would have not been so unpopular if the czarist government was attempting to stymie the news of constant russian failures but he was not doing a good job it was embarrassing and you know when you're an autocrat or you know a king or whatever you want to fucking call yourself an authoritarian and like an autocrat if you if you're one of those people and like you're supposed to be a strong man right you're supposed to like you rule by being the strongest um person you can be and

that's why all these people array themselves with military medals despite never you know serving in the military like czar nicholas has where they uh surround themselves with the military to make themselves look good but and this is something that people have pointed out after the Soviet-Afghan wars. The invincibility of the Red Army was destroyed because it was embarrassed. And that was the one thing that tied everything together. And that was like the Tsarist army looked awful. So people were like, well, if he doesn't have that

and they're that bad, what does he have? And like, if you combine that with all of the other problems that were still in Russia before the war started, like the Imperial government being horribly corrupt, the, the economy and free fall, like they were pretty much completely supported by like German debt.

Not to mention violent oppression, which is the only way that the Tsar kept people in line. All this combined together into violent insurrections in the revolution of 1905 that began in January and only got worse at the defeats of Tsushima, Mukden, and others. So the idea of the defeat at Mukden, like, okay, now I need to like turn the tat. Like I need to open the faucet all the way up for the Imperial army.

Uh, well, but Oh shit. Now we have all these revolutions at home. I need the army at home. Um, so obviously sending more troops away to war was a no go as he, he needed to shore up his defenses at home to stop him and his family from

getting shot in a bay and ended death in the back room by revolutionaries. That would happen in a few years anyway. The Tsar knew he had to end the war and bring soldiers home because the only thing that ever does that is civil disobedience and

insurrection. Weird. Japan had clearly won the war and they really were all about this new empire. But the problem was the stress of fighting their first true peer-on-peer war had severely strained their economy, and they became over-reliant on foreign debt from the U.S. and the U.K. Furthermore, their supply lines had all been pretty much tapped out. Fighting a war overseas is really fucking hard. And remember the rapid revolution that

that japan went through militarily in order to get to this point like this is all only a couple decades removed from one another um they'd won but they also need to end the war and get their shit together both sides accepted president teddy roosevelt's offer to mediate the negotiations in new hampshire and maine of all places weird like Like, I don't know why I find that part weird, but it's like, yes, come hang out in fucking, I don't know, I can't even think of a town in New Hampshire. But like, let's hang out in Cincinnati, Ohio. Like, what?

So that way everybody can come together and have skyline chili or something. I don't think that's, I don't know. Japan had leaned on the U.S. as a pro-Japanese voice throughout most of the war. And it's true. The U.S. was. And they used them as a pipeline to get messages to the Tsar to sue

for peace or ceasefires. Something they had done on several occasions. But the Tsar had ignored them every single time because he was sure that he could win the war until he watched his entire navy get ethered and lose every single land battle.

Though the Tsar knew he needed peace, he refused to agree with giving up any territory, paying any reparations, or any kind of limitation to deploy the Russian military into the Far East. So he just wanted people to stop beating him. He didn't actually want to admit defeat. That's what that is.

There's absolutely zero concessions in any of the things that he wanted. This is how the war started, remember? Japan's like, hey, can we do this? And maybe you give us this slice of Korea? They're like, no. Okay, well, can we do this?

And maybe you give us this slice of Korea? No. Okay, I guess I have to shoot you now. And after hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and he's lost his navy and there's a revolution at home, he's still doing the same thing. I'm starting to think Zarniklas is a fucking idiot. He has to be. Japan's pointing out all this shit like,

hey, remember when we stomped you right here? I don't remember such things. I had telegraphs proving that our victory. The Japanese emperor is just pointing to it like, scoreboard, scoreboard. And then this guy with his shitty telegraph is like, no, look, look, victory. Ah, yes, but you see, we're white. You can't help with that. Fuck.

You can't military defeat racism, unfortunately. You can try, and you should, but you can't. But... Somehow it always comes up. After 12 separate meetings, the Russians finally agreed to accept the Japanese control of Korea and pull their forces out of Manchuria. After a few more meetings,

the Japanese pressed the issue on reparations, blaming Russia for the war. Which, I'm not going to take sides on that one because they're both fighting a war over a country that is not their own. They're both bad people here. Fuck them both. They

finally dropped the idea of reparations but instead settled for control of a few small islands. They finally agreed and the Treaty of Portsmouth was signed on September 5th 1905. And the treaty all but ended any Russian expansion into the Far East and gave Japan the title

of Imperial Power of the East. An all but name because nobody was going to recognize their power because of racism. But the problem was everybody had to recognize their power because of racism but the problem was is everybody had to recognize them as the eastern threat like now that's the main reason why like the u.s was not pro-japan they were anti-russia so like supporting japan to own russia to get them out of the east because the u.s saw russia as a competing imperial power, which they did not see Japan as,

and you could argue they didn't even after they won. Um, yeah. Um, but the people of Japan, uh, is a group of people that I did not think would be unhappy about winning this war,

but they were, this led to, uh, the, the, the, the, the,

the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,

the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,

the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,

the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,

the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,

the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,

the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, Smith led to huge amounts of riots because the Japanese thought that they didn't get enough, which, I mean, you could argue that they didn't. Normally, when you absolutely destroy an imperial power like that, you take some good things. They didn't really get a whole lot.

But the Japanese people rioted, leading to the deaths of 17 people and the collapse of the government. Like, the prime minister had to resign. This also is considered what is known in Japan as the collapse of the government. The prime minister had to resign. This also is considered what is known in Japan as the era of popular violence. Because Japan is really good at naming stuff. It's a time when Japan was routinely rocked by violent riots

over things like inflation, labor disputes, and the cost of rice. It was like, well, we have a problem with the government time to burn shit down thankfully that never happened again right no not at all uh though this treaty would eventually lead to several things japan was now a world power that much could not be argued though the west would argue that and when japan threw their lot in with the allies during world war one they would once again be fucked over when it all came down because of So the West would argue that, and when Japan threw their lot in with the Allies during World War I, they would once again be fucked over when it all came down because of racism. But more importantly, their expansionist ideas would not slow down.

Why would they? They had nothing standing in their way in the East now. Russia isn't a threat anymore. We already destroyed them. And then they got wrecked by revolution, like now they're even less of a threat. The treaty led directly to the annexation of Korea in 1910 and the various terrible crimes that would occur there. And while the international community did nothing. Indirectly, their victory in this war would lead to their expansionism into direct conflict with the same country that helped them negotiate peace, the U.S. Without Russian competition in the region, the Japanese could expand their grasp over China and Southeast Asia,

eventually leading to the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II. This expansionism would eventually end in nuclear hellfire in 1945. There's a direct line from Japan winning this war to us nuking Japan. It sounds like it. It sounds like these postholes are falling in pieces together. What it pretty much comes down to is, like, if they had lost, they would have to reevaluate their expansionism policy. Not to mention, like, in the game of imperialism,

whoever's winning and, like, whoever's the biggest kid on your block gets to dominate the others. I don't think Russia was ever going to win this war, and winning the war certainly wouldn't have stopped the Russian Revolution from happening. But hypothetically, when the Soviet Union took over, they would have still been the big kid on the block in the East, and it would have checked to Japan. I'm not saying it's a good thing. I'm just saying it would have still been the big kid on the block in the East, and it would have checked to Japan. And I'm not saying that's a good thing. I'm just saying it would have significantly altered Japan's history. Right. I wonder how that would have turned out. I think, I don't like to play what-ifs with history,

but, like, I think Japan still fights in World War I on our side, and I think without Japan, because the main reason Japan came in direct conflict with the United States was over the second Sino-Japanese war. Because we were actually upset with what they were doing in China and threatened to stop giving them oil. Japan has no oil of their own. Their entire war effort was based on imports from the United States,

for the most part. So that eventually led to, fuck you, Pearl Harbor, to yada, yada, yada my way through all sorts of horrible history. But it's hard to see how Japan attempts to dominate China if they get checked by Russia, because there's a good chance after that Russia dominates China, and Chinese history looks much different as well. So who knows?

I think all these world wars still would have happened. It would just have been interesting where Japan ended up in all of them. Maybe Japan would have been an ally. Because without the conflict over China, there would be no reason for them to fight the United States. Fuck, yeah, you're right're right also small side note here and one i have to do a shout out to our producer nate for bringing this to my attention the war didn't all didn't lead to all imperialism and nuclear-based war crimes instead it kind of led to manga and anime and explicit anime porn uh which i sent to nick you're welcome there's um

there was uh so during the during the war newspaper artists in japan did engravings to depict battles for news or more likely propaganda oh yeah it was normal for japanese artists of the day to make normal korean or Chinese enemies look like incredibly racist caricatures of in these same pieces they made Japanese soldiers look slightly more European or white because internalized they Japan was attempting to make themselves look like the people they wanted to become and wanted to be seen equal as which as the imperial powers of Europe. Nobody ever accused of racist imperialism of being smart, okay? But during the war, they were fighting white Europeans, so they couldn't make the Russians look like the shitty racist uncle's sketch of a Chinese person.

So they drew the Russians as white, but hyper-Europeanized their own features as Japanese soldiers, making cartoonish exaggeration of eyes that are almost akin to Kabuki actors rather than normal-looking people. And there's wild political cartoons of ships, like dudes, like giant people with ships for heads getting in fist fights um which

i'm going to call the first ever mech battle that would be fucking awesome you have the russo japanese war to thank for gundam and evangelion so like and like the the weird point why didn't you send me any of that i had to send you you sent me some crazy shit and the reason why there's a reason why um i sent that to our producer as well, and he could not stop laughing. It was probably not late at night for you, but it was definitely late at night for me. See, things are different.

And it's weird. I've seen a lot of war propaganda and war art in the act of doing this podcast over the almost three years now. But this is really interesting in that it's war propaganda that is pro-japanese that simply depicts graphically a japanese and a russian soldier vigor vigorously butt-fucking one another yeah it's not like i thought like oh this is like a rape joke like this is gross but it's not like, I thought I'm like, Oh, this is like a, a rape joke. Like this is gross, but it's not like, um,

uh, it was translated into Korean and like the, the, the, well, there's like text on the side of it and it was translated. It, that was,

uh, the Japanese translated into Korean and, a fan of the shows. It was a former Korean linguist, uh, for the U S Navy and translated that to English. And it, all of it pretty much shows is like they're romantically having sex.

And it's like, and it's from, yeah. And it's like from the time of, and it makes absolutely no sense. That's confusing. It's so bizarre. Huh?

Um, I would say I'll post that to the... One of them didn't look willing. I mean, they're both fully clothed, which was weird. It was like one of those drop-the-pants situations. Through the old underwear hole. They're caught in the throes of passion, clearly. So I guess we can close this segment with saying, Russia sparked war against Japan in a long enough timeline

that led to the creation of hentai. You're welcome. It's now my wallpaper. Nick, we do a thing on the show called Questions from the Legion. It's back. For people who are probably wondering where those from on the last three hours of the show.

We don't do them at the end of every series episode because we have enough stuff we have to cover. So at the end of a series, we we cover them. And so we got quite a bit. If you would like to ask a question from the Legion, you could email me or you could slide a DM into our podcast Twitter. You could go into the podcast subreddit. You could go into the Discord. I keep forgetting we have a subreddit. I'm still not sure who made that.

So this question comes from the Discord. What meal hasn't been made into an MRE that you think would be a good candidate for being turned into one? Oh, fuck. I could tell you one that I would love just to see what they would do. I want to see Mexican street taco MREs. Mexican street taco MREs?

Oh, boy. I want to see that. That sounds like a surefire way for disappointment. Yeah, for fucking sure. Just like how the pizza slice was one. I haven't seen MREs in quite some time because I have the privilege of being a civilian. I know they've updated a lot,

but fuck, the Mexican street taco one's good. Sushi, fuck it. Just line me up with foodborne illness and kill me, fam. Just Fuck it. Just line me up with foodborne illness and kill me, fam. Just do it. Or like a micro brew kit in an MRI pack.

Oh, God. Ooh. I could imagine with the sushi one, they would just throw the fucking tuna meal kind of in there. All right, do it yourself. You get the star-kissed tuna packet, a thing of rice, and some seaweed. Oh, cool. Lemon pepper sushi.

So, Nick, thanks for joining me. Everybody, thank you for joining us on this four-part series. Yeah, I'm getting tacos now, just so you all know. I'm probably going to get sushi, actually. Huh. Until next time, I don't know what a good way to end this one is. Don't

make, I don't know, don't create hentai. I don't know, people like hentai. Create hentai. I don't know, fuck it, make hentai. And we'll see you next time.