Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - Episode 347 - The Shinmiyangyo Incident ft. The Worst of All Possible Worlds

Episode Date: January 27, 2025

Support the show on patreon! https://www.patreon.com/c/lionsledbydonkeys Check out The Worst of All Possible Worlds: https://www.worstpossible.world Joe is joined by the cast of The Worst of All Possible Worlds to talk about the time the US attempted to open Korea with gunboat diplomacy in 1871. Sources: Thomas Duvernay. Sinmiyangyo: The 1871 Conflict Between the United States and Korea Eric Niderost. Military Heritage Magazine. August 2002. Vol 4, no. 1 http://webarchive.loc.gov/all/20100407175236/http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online/marine_amphib_korea.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20041011181532/http://www.kimsoft.com/2000/sherman.htm https://hsp.org/blogs/hidden-histories/the-other-korean-war-a-little-known-conflict-in-american-history

Hey everybody, our merch store is restocked. So if you missed any of the live shows, specific merch, at wherever date that we went to and you couldn't make it to, it's all on our merch store, LLBDmerch.com. So get your orders in while they last. We only have certain sizes and certain numbers and whichever one it happens to be. So if you want something, get your order in.

Once again, that is LLBDMerch.com and the link will also at Bydonkeys podcast. I'm Joe and with me today are Josh, Brian and AJ of the worst of all possible worlds. We're on a trading ship heading towards Korea in the 1800s. Oh boy. We've been hired into the crew for various reasons. AJ and Brian have been hired as onboard entertainment as her employers want to be the first person to import the musical Hamilton to Korea. I don't know the courts to that shit. We could do it come on how does a bastard orphan son of a whore and a Scotsman that's really hard to do on Zencast. I'm so sorry. Who's ever editing this?

I have been brought aboard because I have one dream in my heart, to be the first shawarma salesman in Seoul. Yeah. Hell yeah. Josh told everybody he spoke Korean because he went through a K-pop phase and therefore he's our cruise translator. However, things quickly go awry when he voices his dislike of Jungkook, leading to all of us being quickly murdered on the spot. Come on, I would never do that.

I'm sorry, you wrote the script here, I feel bad attacking you, but I would never attack Jungkook. Come on. I'm gonna be honest with you, when I was writing the intro, he's the only K-pop person I could think of. Oh, got it. He's all I got. That is the beginning of and ending of my knowledge of K. Most people might not know this but Josh was actually a huge

SNSD girls generation fan back in college. Yeah, I actually did go through a kpop phase That is outstanding cuz I actually wrote this intro for a completely different cast Yeah, cuz I actually wrote this intro for a completely different cast of people and just randomly plugged your names into it when we worked on coming out of the show Yeah, no, that's the reality of the situation is that Girls' Generation, all nine of them are my beloved Yeah, Josh doesn't have favorites No, well it has to be all nine because for any point you say anything bad about a kpop star you will be murdered That much I do know that much I do know and I would say I have nothing those strong opinions nine because at any point you say anything bad about a k-pop star you will be murdered. Oh yeah. That much I do know.

That much I do know. And I would say I have no strong opinions towards or against Jungkook. I know I need to throw that out there. Fellas, how are you doing? Welcome back to the show. We're doing great. So excited to be back to talk about this topic that I have no idea what it is. That's the fun part. I'm so thrilled to just be taken through a history lesson

by one of my favorite podcasters. Oh, well, thank you. I look forward to letting you down. Pfft. Shut up. Hold on, I'll just go back to Hamilton. You know, nothing could be worse than me doing Hamilton. You know what's actually really funny?

It was like, I was trying to think of how I could plug in like theater and musical and like also kind of annoy you guys and I just immediately defaulted to Hamilton. How does an orphan bastard son of the Cho Son Empire blah blah blah blah I don't know. And I also have never once heard a single song from Hamilton. I was going to ask your thoughts on it actually. My knowledge of Hamilton is equal to that of K-pop. What is Hamilton but the K-pop of Broadway? That's so true. That's not true at all. I don't know why I said that.

If you say a bad thing about it, you will be murdered. No, K-pop was the K-pop of Broadway. You remember that? Did K-pop go on Broadway? There was a musical called K-pop. Yeah, it started out as an immersive musical off-Broadway at Ars Nova, but then they just turned into kind of a regular musical. And in both cases it was like fine. It was kind of like the Motown setup. Yeah.

And then it closed very quickly. Yeah. What did an immersive K-pop musical involve? Like a lot of physical abuse. Basically. No, yeah. They would take like groups of people who were supposed to be, it was like you were getting a backstage tour of a big concert as like what do they call them the stands? Yeah, right, but like in Korea whatever that term is where you have the glow sticks and everything and They take you backstage and you see how things are getting prepared for the concert And you just see how everyone is being like horrifically abused and then when they brought it to Broadway They were like actually it's about family and they just like made a totally different show.

Oh, so now it's the spin up of fast to the face. Yeah. And I also have to admit something. I only know immersive theater exists because of your podcast. Fellas, as I'm sure most of you are aware once upon a time the US fought a little war called well the Korean War in the 50s there for a couple years my grandpa served in Iceland during that war yeah very useful the brave Icelandic North Korean everyone forgets about the fourth mash spin-off which is all just

about AJ's uncle. But what if I told you this wasn't the first time Korean and American forces fought one another? I would believe you. What if I told you is only a couple of years after the Civil War? Oh, that seems early. Yeah, interesting. Was this connected to Commodore Perry or kind of okay. What we're going to be talking about today

is known as the Shinmin-Yanggo Incident. And for that, we have to jump back in time to the 1800s. But the seeds of what some people call the First Korean War, I think that's a bit too strong personally. But they had been there for a while. For a bit of a background, Korea had been under the reign of the Joseon dynasty,

Joseon also being the name for the nation of itself, but in American writing, they still called it Korea, but weirdly Korea spelled with a C. Yeah. Whoa. Yeah. We've evolved to a K in the years since. Well, something again, in so much of this, like a lot of this language also is still used by like hardline, like weird Korean alt-right guys.

A lot of them apparently will be like, I am a son of Chosun, rather than being like, I'm from Korea. And if they do do Korea, if they use Korea, they spell it with a C so that comes earlier in the alphabet than Japan. I'm envisioning like a South Korean nationalist who's also a sovereign citizen in this way Yeah, kind of like that was at the Reichsburgers in Germany that believe that only like the the Imperial Germany is still exists and wasn't officially It's weird. They're like German citizens and it's all tied up in like masculinity and all that shit, too Yeah, and also copious amounts of racism. Oh, yeah Yeah, I think it like the U S probably spelled Korea with the C because to an American or English speaking your Choson sounds like

it starts with a C. So like that fuck it. It's a C. Yeah. Fuck your J. Oh sure. Yeah. But they had rules since the 1300s and to make a very, very long story short, they adopted a policy very similar to that of the Tokugawa Shogunate over in Japan. That is, isolationism. And honestly, it's Korea. Who could fucking blame them? Yeah. They've been invaded by all of their neighbors multiple times over the course of Korean history. Not to mention, by the time that we're talking about, Western powers had begun to encroach directly into the necks of the woods. Making them even more worried about some new asshole showing up on their front door.

And their foreign trade was limited, very limited, outside of some small deals with their historical dickhead neighbor and overlord, China. Though they did do their best to have friendly relationships. Even if they weren't doing deals, they weren't like ignoring people or committing acts of violence like the Tokugawa Shogunate Famously if you washed up there, they would kill you. Yeah in Korea. It was more like hey, we're cool You're cool. Just stay the fuck over there. Yeah, which you know much kinder. I think ultimately Yeah, yeah, and I mean it worked longer. Yeah I do think the funniest thing about like the Tokugawa policy was that the only people who

were able to come over at all worth the Dutch. And I was like, for some reason that worked out. They're the only people who trusted the Dutch and it worked out for them. The weird part about the Dutch thing is, is because the Japanese at the time didn't understand the difference between Protestantism and Catholicism. They just thought Christians were Catholic because all of the early missionaries to Japan were Portuguese and Spanish missionaries. So when they were crushing down on Christian belief and the spread of Christianity in Japan, the Dutch were like, well, they came up with this test. They was like, you have to walk over this painting

of a saint. Oh yeah, I'll do that any day. You were a Christian. I'll do that any fucking day. I'll do that seven out of seven days. I'll walk on a saint, no problem. Yeah. The Dutch are like, yeah, bro, we got you.

Put down the saint picture, I'll tap the inch on the bitch. However, if I were to do it, I would immediately burst into flames. Right. Yeah. Actually, the new Hulu adaptation of Shog would immediately burst into flames. Right. Yeah. Actually, the new Hulu adaptation of Shogun does a really good job of explaining that. It's so good. Yeah.

And one of the famous arms of Western imperialism, like we just talked about, was of course Christianity. Missionaries had arrived in China and Korea over the years, and when Korea watched as the resulting Taiping Rebellion melted several million people over the border in China We did a long series about that You should go listen to it Korea reacted by completely outlawing the religion of Christianity and organized the slaughter of Thousands of Christians who at the time are mostly attended to by French missionaries who were also killed I think more people should take this approach. I think we need purges of Christians more broadly

I'm this is all Yes, this is not on our podcast So I thought you were gonna say we need to bring back the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in this case. I would say yes Oh, we can do that too. There's much grass. I've yet to eat We're gonna bring that back. We're gonna start spelling Korea with the C. We're like, we're really bringing back the C. Yeah, the French showed up and began shelling Korean shores. No real effect as a punishment for the slaughter of their missionaries there,

leading to the Koreans to come to the conclusion that their policy of isolationism as well as killing the Christians was probably the right one. Yeah. Yeah, which like who could debate that? I mean, I imagine 19th century shelling of a shore is just like you're shooting cannonballs at sand. Like take that. You have to remember where like Seoul and Pyongyang are. They're on the very large rivers. That's true. I forget that people live near water on purpose. Famously.

Brian plays Civ 5, but in the hardest way possible. And then if that wasn't hard enough, Commodore Matthew Perry of the United States Navy rolled up to Japan and forced them to open their ports at gunpoint. The things happening in and around Korea are only reinforcing the fact that Korea really doesn't want to hang out with anybody else? Yeah. We're fine the way that we are. Please stop fucking with us.

Yeah. Please. Jesus. Again, we're cool with you. Be cool with us, but be cool over there. Otherwise we will kill all of these Christians. And that's a goddamn promise. We will kill the first French person we see. Unfortunately

for that they're dealing with the Americans who are just like, alright, do it. Do you know how big our gunships are? We can shoot so many cannonballs at the sand. Nobody hates the French as much as we do. Maybe just the British. Now the US did want to open to Korea, much like they

just did Japan. But it wasn't like the US did want to open to Korea much like they just did Japan, but it wasn't like the US Navy was the world-crushing powerhouse superpower that we all know it as today. It was the opposite of that. It was barely a Navy. Expeditions going all the way to Japan were not easy for them and it would take a lot of time to get around to do. However that didn't mean businessmen in the US when willingly pick up were, let's call it slack, and effectively privatize themselves some naval warfare. That led to a Boston businessman named W.B. Preston to put a bunch of guns on his merchant

ship. Oh yeah, I loved his work in The Music Man. Well, you got trouble my friends, trouble with capital C. That rhymes with G and that stands for gun. You got crubble? Right here. You Koreans got grubble. With a capital G that rhymes with C and that stands for Korea.

For Korea, there we go. Now the name of his boat was General Sherman. The SS General Sherman. Which is weird because again this is only a couple years after the Civil War. Sherman is alive. With a capital C. It's like why are you naming your weird privateering boat after me? Hey buddy, just want to let you know, named my boat after you, no big deal.

If you want to write me back sometime, that'd be fine. Do you like me? Circle yes or no. Was the intention to just like, burn a bunch of shit? Was that the idea there? Well, we'll get there. Okay. Let's say their goal was to be, what if Commodore Perry was crowdfunded.

Okay. An Indiegogo for the invasion of Korea. Korea hadn't been slaughtering merchants and traders like Japan would have, but there were risks. There was a good chance that the Korean Navy would just kind of go out and sink them or take their boat and kill them, which had happened to others. But if you're a businessman, there's massive riches in a market pretty much untapped by any power outside of China. Right. And that meant he didn't really give a shit about any kind of possible risks. He contracted over to a British company called the Meadows Company to stock the ship with cargo to trade. Then he hired an American whose

name is just Page, the captainate. Wait his name was just like he was like Prince? He went by a mononym? From what I could find he went by Page. No fucking way. Hell yeah. I look I'm going to assume he had a first name I'm also gonna assume it's cooler if he did. For the sake of comedy I'm also going to assume he had a first name, I'm also going to assume it's cooler if he did. For the sake of comedy, I'm also going to assume that he only had one name. Diamond Dallas Page perhaps? The Hangman Adam Page maybe? They hired a British quartermaster to run the supplies and they staffed it with Chinese

and Malaysian people do manual labor because of course they did but then there was an Anglican missionary named Robert Thomas from Wales Thomas had a different function on this trip other than just clearly being a missionary that was he insisted He was a translator Which is where I got the bit from in our opening. It wasn't just me being stupid. There is a small problem with that. Thomas did not speak Korean. Okay, that's what I was hoping to hear.

This is no. He had never been to Korea. Oh God. Yes. He spoke Mandarin. Okay. Oh no. Did he legitimately think that they just spoke Mandarin

there or was he just bullshitting? He thought it was the same. Okay, okay. They all look the same, they better all sound the same. Right, right, right, yeah. It's like when that guy that we all know, we've all heard of, just like maybe goes to Brazil and assumes they speak Spanish. Yeah. Oh, sure, sure, sure, yeah.

As soon as the ship reached the Taedong River, Korean scouts were watching it, worried that it was another French warship coming around to bomb them again, so they sent an emissary to ask, what are you all doing? Thomas stepped forward to speak with them, of course, completely botching his job because he might as well have been sitting there spitting gibberish at them, because these Koreans did not speak Mandarin. Meanwhile, everyone on board is trapped with guns and

swords. Also, the USS General Sherman had once been a Navy gunship. So it looked like a warship. It looked exactly like the French warships that the Koreans had seen before. So one Chinese laborer who spoke very, very little Korean, helpfully explained effectively the only sentence he could say was no war, trade. Where is the bathroom? Excuse me, where is your library? What is bibliotech in Korean?

I can just imagine that like Anglican guy, this dude gets on the boat and he's like, okay, here we go And then he just hears words. He's never heard in his life. Yeah, and just oh no Instead of realizing he's wrong. He's just screaming at them in Mandarin Because every like account that I've heard is that this man didn't talk he yelled Sticulated wildly and remember the whole time he's carrying a gun. Yeah, wow. Just the world's angriest Welshman speaking Chinese at you. Maybe they just can't hear me yet. Maybe if I just yell a little louder. And he's yelling Welsh accented Mandarin and them waving a sword around and this Chinese labor is telling them

No war just trade. Meanwhile, the Koreans are looking like everybody on this motherfucker is strapped There's cannons on this boat. It's shaped like a warship Hmm. Now the emissary Politely explained to that foreign trade wasn't allowed and only the king could change that. This led Thomas, the missionary, again to begin screaming at him and what he thought was Korean. The emissary who was clearly the most patient man in all of the world, explained to the Chinese laborhood a loose grasp on Korean that look we're not going to do any business with you, but we will send supplies to your ship. So you have enough to go home. Sure. Right. You could stay at anchor for a day and then please kindly fuck off. Pretty

good deal. You know, that that's, that's more, more than they need to be offering. I feel I've learned from this story in particular that Koreans are apparently the most patient people Because the ship takes the supplies pulls up anchor and instead of going back towards the United States or China Continues right down the Tay Dock River in what? No after this the emissary and other Korean officials get on their boat and chase after them Continuously telling them in the nicest way, guys, please don't go down there, could you please leave? Again and again the crew just ignores them.

The ship starts making stops along the river into local towns. Thomas gets off the ship and begins preaching to the confused masses who came out to see them. Oh my god. Inman-gren. Not a single one of these motherfuckers can understand what he's saying. Oh my god. No. Even better, he grabs crates of Bibles and begins throwing them out and they're all in

English. Yes! Yes! That is the power of the word. It is. Yeah. This is such a fucking Christian brain thing to be like, the word of the Lord, thanks be to God, as contained within this very volume, will be enough just by virtue of the fact

that it is a thing that is printed. We were just talking about the Gideons on our podcast. This is a very Gideon moment right here He's just like send me to your nearest hotel in Chinese Gideons place Bibles in the Netherlands or is that strictly an American thing they go all over the world I'm sure they focus more of their efforts on like Africa And I guess I'm just asking when you stay somewhere. Do you usually find a Gideon's Bible in your drawer? I'm trying to think. I know I saw a Bible the last time I stayed in the hotel, but I'm

pretty sure it was a King James. Yeah. So that would be, that might be because they, they do King James and new King James. That's what they distribute. So that might be almost certainly Gideon's is like the organization we were talking about this Brian And it's it was started by two traveling salesmen who traveling salesmen in Wisconsin who Didn't know each other and then decided to share a hotel room together and then had a very stimulating evening reading the Bible. Yes. Imagine you just like a Korean villager on the Taydung River and some guys screaming in man and just like Peyton Manning's a Bible directly into your soul. Oh, right. Yeah. Yeah.

It's like, damn, what's that? Oh, I'm sure there's also like, if he was just yelling at them in English or Welsh, it would be kind of a neutral bizarre obnoxious thing But him yelling at people in Mandarin probably got people kind of mad. Oh, I would imagine Yeah, cuz like China and Korea already have what a hell of a history It's like right now we do not have a good relationship with people who say the words you're saying right now nor will we ever. Do you think that Tim Tebow ever threw a Bible like a football? I bet he did.

Yeah, but it was probably intercepted. It's just like, what do we do boss? Do we take these to the bibliotech? And he's like, no, burn every copy. By the end of April, the ship had reached Pyongyang, and the crew was greeted by the deputy commander of the area's military, a guy named Yi Hyeong Ik, who greeted them with more supplies, and once again kindly told them, guys, you're getting pretty fucking annoying, please leave like we asked you to.

Hello, I'm the national badass, Here's some food. Please go away So the crew told him no He said fine. Let me send word to the king and see if he'll give you permission to stay also You can get off your ship and go into town, but please don't leave here Wow This time they did listen they remained in Pyongyang Okay, okay where the crew got blind fucking drunk and began firing guns wildly into the air There's also rumors that they kidnapped a woman yeah Surprised if it was just one honestly yeah, yeah me too The next day they then pulled up their anchor and left once again ignoring the Koreans directions

I mean not unbelievable up their anchor and left, once again ignoring the Koreans directions. Unbelievable. Come on! I mean not unbelievable. Very believable. At this point they've kind of just like, well they've let us get this far. Yeah, I've listened to this podcast long enough to be like, okay, yeah, there's a pattern here that I'm recognizing. No one just pulls into Pyongyang and starts firing guns into the air. There's a story that got there. Ye and another Korean official, Ahn Sang-Hup, got on their boat and chased after them again, catching up to them on the morning of August 28. The armed crew of the General Sherman rammed the Korean ship and boarded them and kidnapped the two Korean officials.

For God's sake! This is so uncouth. Why? Like, these people have been so generous to you, you are a terrible guest. Yeah, that's not very cash money of you guys. What was the intended outcome? What were they going for here? I think they were looking at, like, kind of muscling their way into getting an audience

with the king. Sure. Right. Now what that would achieve? Nothing. Unless the king spoke Mandarin, which I assume he did, honestly. Sure. Right.

But it was never going to happen, of course. Like, Korea was a very well-developed bureaucratic system in place. Like, there's multiple imperial bureaucratic dickheads. They're gonna throw at you to slow you down right and eventually break your will to you give up and go away Yeah, Kings love it when you send gunboats up their rivers and absolutely I want to talk to those Yeah, they got moxie I like to cut your chip boy. It strikes me that it's just like, it's one of those situations where like, they've just been getting so much kindness.

They're like, well, how much more of this can we get? Like how far can we push the envelope on here? I would a hundred percent believe they took all this kindness for weakness. Yes, yes. It was like, these guys are giving us supplies and telling us they're like, please chill out because they couldn't possibly stop us

They should have just had like taken one guy off the boat and brought him over to the Christian mass grave and just been like This is what we did to you motherfuckers last I'll give you a basket of potatoes, but just like look at this giant mound of Christians here Actually, this is where I get to say hold that thought Word quickly gets out about the fact that two envoys have been kidnapped by the strange foreign boat that's been firing guns into the air kidnapping people. Because up until this point, as this boat's been traveling down the Tay Dong, people were leaving their village and waving at them. Because it's like, what the fuck is that?

This is crazy. But now, people people are lying the river to boom them by the Korean countryside and people like throwing bricks and rocks that rules this is what captain diamond Dallas page decides that it's probably time to leave like I feel like we're at a terminal decline of American-Korean relations at this moment. We should probably leave. So he tries to turn the boat around and runs his ship directly into a sandbox, so sticking it in place.

And Thomas is like, I've got the perfect idea. He runs up and starts performing Hamilton in Mandarin and then gets beat in the head with a break. The King of Korea at the time was a child so his regent, the Tae-Won-Gun, sent a letter to the governor of that area telling him, I've seen enough, take these motherfuckers out. Korean soldiers moved in to fight but they outnumbered this boat crew by like the thousands to one.

Sure, woah. But they outnumbered this boat crew by like the thousands to one whoa But they're armed with weapons dating back to the 16th century So it's yes spears and shit against cannons and very early matchlock weapons Yeah, at best yeah, I played god mode of Civ 5 I understand These are not guns that have rifling I'm assuming these are definitely not and they certainly don't have like up-to-date artillery which the general Sherman the boat not the man is full of the man too actually he got very explorative later in life it was sort of a goatsie situation he just yeah put them all up in there more More like Boatsie.

There's a reason they called him cump, which they did. That was his nickname. His nickname was gape. Oh God. Moving on. Gaped, cump Sherman. He capes and then he comps and then he's sure Gaping my Sherman till I come Extremely loud correct buzzer. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, I'm not proud of that one fucking ding sound for match game So people line the shores start shooting at them Meanwhile the Sherman screw opens fire with their modern rifles and cannons cutting swaths through the Korean soldiers.

And that's when the Korean Navy pulls in and the Korean Navy is famous for probably one thing that people are worth turtle ships. If you look at anything to do with the Korean Navy, it's just like revolutionary armored ramming ship from like 200 years before this happens. Right. Yeah. Yeah. From back when ramming was the main thing you did. Yes. It fucked up the Japanese invasion with the samurai invaded and these turtle ships are blown apart in seconds by modern artillery. So the Koreans accepted we probably can't do these guys with guns. Let's go back into our you know, quite dated Webitoire and see what we can find

General counsel bugs been again. They came up with fire ships So they light up a fire ship and pick it down because river the Sherman is stuck. They cannot move Because remember, the Sherman is stuck. They cannot move. So it hits it, catches the Sherman on fire, and weirdly, Yi, the emissary that has been kidnapped all this time, jumps to safety. Nobody else manages to pull this off. The ship catches on fire. Most people burn to death. Thomas, the missionary, is reported of standing at the very front of the boat and throwing Bibles off into the distance as he's lit on fire is

So funny. Yeah, that's how a paladin actually dies The power of God does it save you just die horribly a few crewmen were able to jump into the water and swim to shore At which point they were literally torn apart by angry Koreans who'd been watching the whole battle. I would imagine so. I mean, these guys, like, you want to talk about just a guy who you want nothing to do with. These guys were at every possible opportunity making the situation worse for themselves.

They could have left so many times. They got so many gifts. They got so many supplies just like go home, dude We gave you our finest beep-and-bop. Why are you? Now it took time for word of the fate of the Sherman and her crew to get back to the US government via Now it took time for word of the fate of the Sherman and her crew to get back to the US government via diplomat stationed in China. And when they finally did, the diplomats didn't believe the stories because they sounded ridiculous. They said that a western ship crashed in Korea and its crew had been killed. Previous to this, the Korean government had a policy specifically towards American seamen that like they would treat them well, they would supply them and then tell them to leave.

The American sea crew had never been killed by Koreans up until that point. So the diplomats in China were pretty confused and in disbelief. I mean just a month before the General Sherman got clapped, this exact thing had happened. An American crew washed up there, Koreans like, hey, nice to meet you. Have some food. Get the fuck out. Don't come back. Bye. Yeah. This is something that happened all the time. So in 1867, the U S sent the USS Wachusets from its base in China to Korea to just see what the fuck had happened. Korean officials confirmed that yeah, the Sherman sank and then they didn't say anything else. But not for the reason that you think.

Oh no. Okay. The Chosun government believed that like, you know, it wouldn't be popular that they killed a bunch of Americans and also Brits. But like, they thought that the reasons for doing so were legit and the US government would have absolutely no reason to object to the right to murder a bunch of assholes who were doing Kidnappings and drive-by shootings down the Taydung River I mean, I understand why they might think that but then you've never met the United States of America I also agree with you on that

The Choson government was more afraid of like even if it was cool with the US government They would have to pay a massive fucking restitution check to the government. So they're like we really can't afford that at the moment let's just not tell them. Boat sank. Whoops. Boat sank. Everybody disappeared.

It's a ghost ship. It's crazy. We love them so much particularly that one white guy who wouldn't stop rapping we loved In Mandarin in Mandarin He old machine gun Kelly we killed that Now I guess back then be flintlock George or No Americans made contact with other Choson government agents, emissaries, whatever,

who kind of let slip that it didn't sink as much as we attacked it, but they deserved it and a few of the men are still alive in captivity. Now there's no evidence that any of them were taken alive, but there seemed to be something of a game of telephone with the Choson government emissaries. Like I heard someone was captured must be true, right? So the next year another ship the USS Shenandoah under the command of John Bebinger was John sorry, I'm sorry one more time John Bebinger so true

Sounds like what you call for play with some sort of insect and I would know a lot about that She's be binger on my John like hump He was sent to create a try to gather more information about the possible captives, but at this point nobody was talking anymore Unfortunately for Korea by the time this mission was met with failure, word got back to the US government, then led by Ulysses S. Grant, who was president. Grant took a very, very, very different stance towards Korea than other presidents had done. In contrast, previous administrations were kind of happy to slow-roll relations with Korea, speaking with the king, offering gifts, and attempt to,

you know, slowly whittle them down with kindness. And then they would eventually allow American trading. Because like the kind of goal was American foreign policy at the time was not set towards empire. And they wanted to kind of play themselves off as like, yeah, you see everyone else doing this shit. We're not. We're the cool ones.

Didn't work. But that was the plan. In the before times. And then America decided Empire's great, so they started taking one. Grant was not that guy. He was utterly and completely on board with effectively doing Commodore Perry shit all across Asia. He wanted to force them open at gunpoint.

Now he just so happened to have an excuse to pull the trigger on the whole thing. Cause even back then he kinda had to have a reason, fake or real to start that he couldn't just go like, we should attack Korea with a C. Wow. So this was like the original USS Maine. Yeah, kind of. Yeah. It didn't go quite that Korea with a C. Grant ordered the Minister of China, which was back then an ambassador was called, named Frederick Lowe to put together a squadron of warships to sail to Jayak Island at the mouth of the Han River, which led to Seoul. There he used a demanded treaty with the Korean government, officially outlying a policy towards shipwrecked crewmen. Now the obvious point was it was a threat. Five advanced warships and over 1,000 marines commanded by John Rogers set sail in 1871.

And the whole point of this is like, yeah, we're here to sign this treaty regarding shipwrecked crewmen, but also now while we have your attention, that kind of thing. Here's a gun. A short time later, three Korean envoys went out to meet with the ship's crew. And since Lo was on the USS Colorado with his secretary who spoke Mandarin, a language that these envoys did speak this time around, there was no communication barrier. If they're like actual diplomatic envoys, it makes sense that they would have command

of Yeah. And I may have, I may not have described what happened accurately before. They were not like envoys of the king that were sent out to meet with the dickheads and the general Sherman. Those were like assistant branch managers of Korean local government offices. Oh, okay. Right. The Michael Scott came to greet them. Yeah. Yeah. Because like the Korean government, this is not an official mission from the US government. So the Chosun government's like, I don't know, send Steve from a county.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Finally, my big break. Yeah. This time things were a little different. There's no communication barrier. However, Lo got pissed when he discovered these envoys did not have the authorization to sign or write a treaty with the US government at all. Each time they simply shrugged and said, well, foreign policy is the territory of the king. Only the king can do that. So Lo gave them their official excuse for being in the neighborhood. We're not here to threaten you, rather we're here to survey the area on Kanghwa Island

to make it safer for seafaring ventures in the neighborhood in the future. Kanghwa Island also happened to be the home of a massive fortress complex built to guard the mouth of the Han River, the main approach to Seoul. So they were in effect looking the Koreans in the eye and saying, let us scout your defenses. The Koreans once again shrugged and said, fine, you can do that. We'll give you supplies and then you can go back to China. I'm going to go ahead and venture a bold guess here that they did not in fact go back to China. They did eventually I will say

eventually is a worrisome word it's load-bearing. Yeah, some things probably happened in between many things This fortress complex is the pride of the Korean military and the island had once been attacked and occupied by France So Koreans we had gone into overdrive to reinforce, build it up, arm it, man it, and build something that could withstand the force of what they saw as modern conflict, at least so they thought. And the island was home to four different forts on the main approaches to the island. A fifth, Citadel, was at its very center, and they're all joined by a series of causeway walls meaning each fort would be able to support the other while under attack.

In short, it's a bad time for anybody who attacks it. The only weak point of the fortification itself was the same weakness the Koreans ran into when they were forced to deal with those assholes in the General Sherman. All of their weapons were horrifically out of date. On the 1st of June, the US dispatched four small, very small boats called steam launches guarded by the gunboats the Palos and the Monocacy to conduct the survey that they said that they were going to do. And to be fair, they did conduct a survey.

They were measuring the depth of the water, the distance of all of these rocks and shoals that were in the area, and so they could map it for later. Then out of nowhere, Korean gunners in one of the island's forts, a fort called Byung-do Donnae, opened fire on the survey boats. It's kind of up in the air why? It seemed to be something of a warning shot, like you're getting too fucking close. If you're mapping out the depth and so forth of all of these

things that are right at the mouth of the river, that is quite possibly, uh, could, I think it easily be seen as, Oh, they're trying to really get a sense of where our defenses are at. So that, Oh, for sure. Yeah. Right. No doubt. That was 100% like, you've stayed a little too long. It's become more evident what you're up to now. Right. Right. Back up. Yeah. And the Koreans didn't hit any of the boats. They did come very, very close. They missed all of their shots near Mrs. Splashed into the ocean and swamp the

decks of these smaller boats, sitting sailors slipping and falling and smashing their heads off of equipment, which is actually how the only two American casualties of this bombardment got her was a slip and fall. and smashing their heads off of equipment, which is actually how the only two American casualties of this bombardment got hurt was a slip and fall. Oh God. It's never a good result of your ambush when the only harm you caused could be prevented by some OSHA regulation.

But that's why I tend to default to the idea that it was like, they were warning shots. Yeah. These cannons are very, very, very out of date, but these ships were very, very close. Right. Right, right, right. If they wanted to do. If they were warning shots. Yeah, these cannons are very very very out of date But these ships are very very close right right right if they wanted them they could Exactly yeah, probably through sheer law of averages. I mean they shot them for like 15 minutes Yeah, they would have hit them at least yeah these ships are not like sailing across and they're just going you know They know what they're doing. Yeah, it's not like they got speed

Yeah, you said this was like these were pretty big, like fortifications too, right? Like they had a proper battery. Yeah. I mean the proper battery, but very, very out of date. Yeah. I mean, but these guys knew how to use these very, very out of date weapons. Right. So they should at least like wing someone. Eventually the gunboats move into position and open fire on the forts. The Palos is slowed down because it crashes directly into one of the rocks they were supposed to be surveying.

But after taking fire the Kryn forts run their guns back into the forts to protect them and then that's the end of the firefight. Admiral Rogers and Ambassador Lowe were furious, framing the entire thing as having been attacked for no reason whatsoever. So now while commanding a military mission with the goal of forcing Korea to open themselves to American trade, Lo decided this slight of course required a military response to preserve American honor. USA, USA, USA, we're just going to have them sprain our ankles and we're just going to have them, uh, uh, sprain our ankles and then

we're just gonna let them get away with that. We're going to have them get some, some, some bruises on their coxas. No, this is America. God damn it. We never lose unless we're fighting against Canada. Are you doing a George C. Scott there? AJ? It's just my default guy.

We have to close the slip and fall gap. Hahaha. I will not let Jebediah Smith from Massachusetts have a sprained ankle suffered because he was not wearing non-slip shoes due to Korean gunfire. You know, I sprained my ankle the other day, about a week ago now. Yeah, it's unpleasant.

Yeah, he was invading Korea. Yeah, I was. With a C. It was crazy. And let me tell you something. Yeah, that shit fucking hurts. Yeah. I wonder if we got a Purple Heart for it. You know what? Listeners of Lines Led by Donkeys,

please submit my information to, I don't know, whoever it is that gives out Purple Hearts. The Army? I don't fucking know. The military in general. There's enough of them to go around. You could just wear one. It's fine. You could just get one off of eBay. You could just buy one off Amazon. Send me one. That should have to rip it out of Barney's chest every single time. It regenerates. But like, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Barney the dinosaur.

That took me a second. Okay. Purple hearts grow out of Barney the dinosaur's flesh like a chia pear. Sure, yeah, okay. And you have to harvest the succulent dinosaur. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's very painful and he's awake the whole time. Oh yeah, yeah. But he's always smiling, it's weird. Yeah, and he's singing I love you the whole time.

I love you, please don't do this. Ah! However, he allowed a waiting period before, and before he's gonna go get your righteous American revenge. He wanted to give the Korean government a chance to issue an official apology, which of course Lo could then leverage for concessions from the government that get what he wanted in the first place. Ten days passed and the Koreans refused to speak with him until the military governor

of the fortress finally did send a letter saying, in short, you deserved it. He also helpfully noted the rejection of any international relations and trade, as that was all settled doctrine of the king, and it would not be changed. Here's the thing though, of course the Koreans knew the real reason why the Americans were there, but there's an added wrinkle to this. Lo knew the Koreans were not going to negotiate with him, evidenced by the fact that they had just bombed him. However, there was more going on.

Lo knew America needed to respond with violence at that point for one major reason. The US mission did not come from the United States, and come from American bases in China. Oh. Who, surprise, surprise, was not a huge fan of any imperial power at that time for good reason, and they certainly were not happy with Americans dicking around with people that they saw as theirs to dick around with. Yeah.

So Lo was worried that if the US did not respond to getting shot at by blowing up a huge chunk of Korea if they could, it would make them look weak to the Chinese. He even wrote, quote, if the squadron retires now, the effect upon the minds of the Koreans, spelled with a C, and I fear upon the Chinese also will be injurious, if not disastrous, to our future prospects in both countries. He even admits that they were never going to open Korea up to trade to do this. They were never going to be like, oh, you shot at me. It's time to open up because again, the French just did this.

Right. This is also a question that I have is like, to what extent was this policy coming straight from like the White House in the War Department, as opposed to really, really cracked guys who were like in, US guys who were like in China and so forth, being like, oh, we understand the situation around here and our need to project power. Grant really, really was on board with the gunboat diplomacy.

Sure. 100%. Yeah. He wanted them to do that. He loved Asia. He's sort of known for a diplomatic visit he did to Japan where he like saved no theater and things like that. Like he was really quite obsessed, but like, yeah,

what's the end goal with Korea in particular? Are we looking to do just what we did with Japan? Are we looking to colonize like with the Philippines or is this everyone just sort of playing it by ear until the catastrophe occurs? It certainly wasn't a colonization effort. It was more of like nobody had opened them yet like Japan. If we do it, we'll get the monopoly. Okay. Okay. And not to mention, you know, this is the era of everybody stealing as much China as they can. Right. It'll give them an even better position to do that as well.

And most importantly, to low at this point, blowing someone up was more important than anything they needed to show American power over weaker nation, weaker state, whatever it might be. That was on his bucket list. He's like, before I die, I need to blow somebody up. Yeah. The Koreans use this waiting period to reinforce the island, sending hundreds more men and thousands of pounds of gunpowder in to supply it so they can defend it. Right. Among the defenders, they sent the best that Korea had to offer. Heroes of the kingdom that had been given credit for fighting off the French a few years before, who were a band of tiger hunters who lived in seclusion in the mountain.

What? Yeah. Shit. Fuck. Yeah. Quint lock. George never stood a chance. Jesus. They were armed with axes. Axes. Yeah. Yeah. The pictures I've seen in their dual wielding axes. Oh my God. This is the Korean like dirty dozen. Like, yeah, I mean, that's absolutely not going to be effective against like a lever action rifle. But you look cool as shit. The Korean government also sent in tons of like crossbowmen, which are kind of more useful than sending someone with like

ancient arquebuses to shoot at people. I mean, they're great for protecting cities in like the early game in civilization, I can tell you that much. Yeah. And they kill a Marine pretty good if you hit them with like in the face. I will say that if I were on a boat doing a naval battle with a giant fortress

and the guy next to me gets a full ax to the face, I'm gonna pause my attack and probably run away. I will say this might be the only conflict in Marine Corps history that a guy watches his Marine next to him get killed with a crossbow bolt to the throat. Lo enacts a plan that he already had in his pocket when the mission had started. Their only goal would be to obliterate the fortress complex and occupy the island. The idea was if they managed to do that, which of course they thought would be very very easy, the Koreans would have no choice but to cave to American demands quickly. So Marines and sailors were packed

into 22 small landing boats, which were little more than wooden dinghies. Then those were tied to the side of the gunboat Palos. However, it turned out that tying nearly 700 men and small wooden boats to the side of a gunboat was not exactly what the palos was made for and it began to dangerously lift to one side. Please tell me it capsized. Please please please tell me it capsized. It didn't. Oh. But like it like slows to a crawl Korean cannons open fire on them But because the cannons are so out of date. They can't really do a whole lot and the Monocacy's main Modern 9-inch guns quickly take out the Korean guns opening fire on them if the Koreans had like even a dozen modern Cannons there'd be a lot of fucking dead Marines sure

yeah on that beach of this island they could have easily repulsed this entire attack with modern weapons it not even like modern so far as peer to what the Americans were using but even like a brown best musket or something anything however this did not mean things are gonna be easy for the Marines as the Palos got closer they cut the Marines loose, who were then meant to paddle the final leg to shore. However, something the survey team failed to notice during their unofficial scouting mission was the southern edge of the Island was covered in mud flats.

Oh, so when the Marines jumped out to begin their assault on the southern portion of the Island, they sank in that shit up to their knees If that wasn't bad enough they began unloading their artillery which immediately sank up to the axle Everything got swallowed by the murder pudding If only they'd finished that survey this wouldn't have happened Are just friends peace survey. The Marines landing would have almost certainly been destroyed right then and there if the Koreans

had thought to protect this beach. Even with their out of date weapons, I mean, they're stuck in the mud, they're sitting ducks, but the Koreans plan for defending the mud flats boiled down to, no one would be dumb enough to land sure we don't need to put anybody down that way so the Marines struggled up the beach only a few Korean defenders are left on that side and that's when a Marine got a skull ventilated with a crossbow bolt cool cool what a way to go I'm not getting the dinosaur heart now. You know what I don't love kids? Crossbow bolts in my skull. The Marines struggle for pulling their artillery up and out of this mess. They don't lose too many people, but the mud was so thick it literally undressed them as they march.

Oh, so they became nude? Oh my god! Nude from the waist down. Oh that rules! They're porky pigging it all the way up on the island. They Donald Ducked it. They're all naked from the waist down. They lost boots, gators, his fucking pants.

This is such a beautiful mental image. All of these marines just dicks waving around crossbowed in the head the bear is dead that is the most marine way the Marines can be dressed it's just dicks out unexplicably naked from the way yeah if their first target was a fort called choji not that there was any overall plan, mind you. The only plan that Lo had was, get on that beach. Choji just happened to be the first fort that Marine Captain, name alert here, McLean Tilden.

That was the first fort that McLean Tilden saw and just kind of pointed in that direction for his minute. Kind of just threw his dick in that direction. It's like that way I'm helicoptering towards your position How you doing? My name's McClain Tilden. I just got back from South Korea And I'm here to tell you about the time that I spent up to my nuts in the goddamn mud. I have a question though.

If helicopters hadn't been invented yet, what would you call spinning your dick around in a circle? A flippity flop? Whirly gigging? I'm going with whirly gigging. Whirly gigging, that's it, whirly gigging. I like that. Or wagon wheeling, you know?

Wagon wheeling, yeah. Wagon wheeling. Rock me mama like a wagon wheel He just wagon wheels his dick in a general direction for his men to attack and they attack up choji now they found choji Completely abandoned and as soon as his men were rushing forward They saw the Koreans even left the cannons in place so they kick him over the side of the fort into the sea Tilton and the rest of the Marines, you know saw the abandonment of this fort as a sign of the fort into the sea. Oh shit. Tilton and the rest of the Marines, you know, saw the abandonment of this fort as a sign

of the like, they're terrified of superior American firepower and the training of the American Marine. Nobody is able to stand up to me, McClain Tilton. It's simply too much for them to handle. My dick, too small. My nuts, much too large. The Koreans are mocking me due to a specific ailment I have where the balls are on top and the dick is on the bottom.

Like Gonzo the Great. They keep saying I'm no meat and all potatoes a typical Irish dinner Now part of this is true the Koreans did not the balls on top part I can't confirm or deny that It's true. I saw it McLean till then falls on top. Yeah. Yeah balls on top till then Nicknames back then were crazy, right? That's my buddy, Kump. That's my buddy, Balls on Top. That's my buddy, Flintlock George. Let me show you this trick called a wagon wheel. I learned it.

It works better if you're muddy. Muddy wagon wheel. Now part of this is true, the Krenes did know that hanging out in their fort and exposing themselves to more advanced guns was not a great idea, so they simply didn't. They retreated into the mountains of the island with their strength virtually intact. The same thing happened at Dukjin fort where Tilden and his men ran over there to find it empty, cannons still in place. And this is where Tilden decided to take a closer look at the weapons that the Koreans

were using. It turned out he had not on purpose assaulted the oldest operating defensive network in the world because many of the cannons at Duke Jean Fort were stamped as being manufactured in 1313. Holy cow. So that'd be what 550 ish years old at this point and still being used. The newest ones were from the 1600s. Oh no. I noticed that Cho-Gin that's a fort that was built in the 1650s. Yes. So they're staffing 200 year old fortresses with, or they're installing 500 year old cannons and 200 year old fortresses and still kind of holding their own better than you'd expect

with shit that old. You know, it's kind of a flex when you get invaded and like something you could like shit talk to them with like, man, I got cannons in this for older than your country. Fuck off. None of this stopped the Marines of course from chucking these precious antiques directly at the ocean. Oh yeah. No one ever accused the Marines of being smart.

Thankfully a tradition that they no longer have. They also kicked them into the sea while pantsless like, or did they like find pants in the fort that they had to then kind of squeeze on? I would like to think they just put on some looted pants. Now these sports, the ones that Koreans they bailed out of were always going to be the easy ones ones even if they had turned into an actual fight, which was ahead of them in the next complex known as the Gwangbong So, where the majority of the Koreans had been stationed or pulled back into. Most of these were in Fort Seoldeum-mok. The forts themselves would be a problem, but so would the terrain.

As anyone who's ever been to Korea can attest it's quite a mountain this country is It's pretty fucking unforgiving and this is a long time ago So it's even worse I mean you go around there now and it's actually quite a bit of fun to walk around because you know They have so many roads and paths and things like that and all of the cities and in the parks, but I cannot Imagine what it would be like navigating this terrain I cannot imagine what it would be like navigating this terrain, not knowing it because they wouldn't have surveyed any of it and just being like, yep, here we go. I mean, this puts you at a tremendous disadvantage. Yeah, it's 1871 and everybody's trying to kill you.

Weirdly, some guy, Flintlock George, stumbling around still manages to run into a strange English teacher in Itaewon. It's the weirdest thing. Was the English teacher an American? He only spoke Mandarin. On top of all this, it's made worse by the fact that it's summer. It's June.

Korea in summer is hot as fuck. It's disgusting. It gets so fucking humid, even up in the mountains. And the Marines are wearing wool winter uniforms. Oh God. Combine that with the horrible mud. So imagine if you will, the refreshing gust of wind they would have gotten once their pants are ripped off. Oh, that would have felt right through there. Maybe the mud was called the dunk your balls in a little dropper into the cool mud till then having to stand on his hands to get his balls in the mud. And the Marines found themselves marching through this like sticky baking hellscape of mountains and brush, all trying to pull their artillery

closer and closer to the fortress complex while bands of Korean soldiers launch hit and run attacks out of the mountains at the Marines. Then the Marines are passing out from heat streak in the middle of battle. This is typically where I tell you the Marines begin suffering just horrendous casualties from guerrilla attacks and they almost certainly would have if it wasn't for one small problem, again weapons. The Marines are armed with Springfield Model 1871 breech loading rifles. It's accurate, it can be loaded quickly for its time and it had a range that far out shot

the damn antique flintlock muskets that the average Korean soldier was armed with. And to make matters worse for the Koreans, some Marines had brought their own guns, namely lever action Spencer repeating rifles, pure cowboy shit that could fire as fast as he worked that lever. Not a good recipe for success if you happen to be a Korean soldier in this situation. So when the Koreans launched their attacks on the Marines, they would have to get so close for their weapons to be useful that by the time they got in range, they

already gotten speed holes punched in them connected to God's Wi-Fi sent to the large Korea with a C in the sky. So while the attacks were annoying, worrying, they didn't really do a lot. I mean, if they had advanced weapons, it could have caused some real fucking problems because the attacks themselves were well coordinated and organized. In one case, they had surrounded the Marines artillery position and could have wiped them out, but instead they'd got annihilated with direct fire from cannons because they'd get so close. But you know, instead they launched masterful attacks and then they were for naught. The marines eventually climbed their way to the hill opposite Sandalmach and dragged their artillery into position. Meanwhile the navy sent ships around to begin

shelling the fort. Soon the marine field pieces opened fire as well and the fort began to be blown to pieces. This went on for hours until the Marines began to prepare for their ground assault. As the cannons went quiet, they were surprised to hear the Korean garrison still alive and behind the still standing walls, chanting and singing. To a lot of the Marines and sailors who had served in the American West in the ongoing slow rolling genocide of the American native people. This sounded like a death song, you know, like a war cry in the many native cultures. They would do a death song to sing before their impending death. Right. While the Koreans are probably certainly not doing that because

they're not native Americans. They were singing something probably called a hog oak or like a chant to honor the dead that had probably Been killed in the artillery bombardment. Okay, and this scared the shit out of the Marines Because it seemed like goddamn we've been blowing up these guys for hours now They're fucking spitting bars at us right right and if you're singing just before if they're thinking it's a death song That means they're coming down right now. Yeah, right. Yeah, they're gonna fight Yeah, like they're not running away this time But the Marines were ordered to attack which would force them to run down the hill they were on Crossover ravine then assault back up a hill where the fort was again

This is a little of those situations where if the Koreans had modern weapons, they would have been stacking bodies. Yeah, right. But their out-of-date muskets and cannons were wildly inaccurate when they tried to open fire. And this goes back to an episode we did on the invasion of the Ryukyu Kingdom. The Sondalmak was a well-built fortress,

but it was out of date, and it had a very key weakness. It did not have gun ports. So that meant the defenders had to completely expose themselves and stand up on top of the walls to aim down at the Marines. Then the Marines weren't just launching like a Zerg rush. It wasn't like an all out frontal assault. They were doing something that we call bounding Overwatch or one group moves while the other group covers them sure okay? So well the Marines stood up to shoot at the closest Marines

They got torn to shit by more accurate gunfire from further away than they could hit So it only took one whiff of that for the Koreans to be like oh can't fucking do that Because basically you had those Americans who were at the higher position on Overwatch sniping the dudes as they popped up in front of the wall basically. Yeah, so instead of doing that the Koreans would have to just blindly fire their muskets down the hill, down the wall, and they couldn't really hit anything. And then when the Marines got really close, they began dropping rocks on their heads, so that's kind of fun.

They just turned into tactical Donkey Kong. Were the Americans really suffering anything in the way of casualties as they progressed inland? Wounded? Yeah. Yeah, sure. That's about it. Okay.

Not a lot dead. The real fight is coming and that's where the Marines would suffer their only real casualties because the Marines stormed the walls and soon their advantages are gone because the Koreans they see the Marines up close and they don't flee they pick up any weapon they have some you know ones aren't with flintlock muskets they have a really really big drawback as well they don't have bayonets so they're forced to use them as clubs however some Korean't have bayonets. Oh no. So they're forced to use them as clubs. However, some Korean soldiers have spears. They have swords. They've accents. They have

knives, anything they get their hands on, any tools, whatever. And they try to force the Marines back. One Navy lieutenant named Hugh McKee was the first one over the wall. Sword in one hand revolver in the other. The picture of the swash buckling Marine with his dick out still. He's immediately impaled through the dick and balls with a spear and die. He literally got spit. Oh my God. He was later awarded the medal of Honor. It was shaped like his dick, unfortunately. I don't make the rules. The Marines assumed the Koreans would break off their defense after a short fight, but they didn't.

They refused to budge, fighting with the Marines hand to hand, tooth and nail for nearly a half hour, dying by the hundreds. With the only prisoners being taken, those two wounded to continue fighting. And even then, the Marines had to like wrestle them to get them to quit fighting. The Koreans lost two hundred and forty three men in the defense of the fort, while the Marines lost only three with another ten wounded. And another huge part of this is like bayonets. I mean, like they brought clubs to a spear fight. And again, you know, with these lever action weapons, you can still just keep firing them with the trap door weapons.

You can reload them very quickly and still have a gun as well as a spear. Cause you have your bayonet. They came 200 years out of date for this fight. It is really funny to be like Johnny bad-ass walking in there without your pants on, your gun and your saber, and you're the only guy who dies. Yeah. I mean, it's easy for everybody to remember you. Hey, remember that guy that died? He was the only one.

Also the die in the most embarrassing way. Truly. In some parts, like in firsthand accounts, the Marines like fully write that he was impaled through his genitals. That's crazy. Of course, there's very major, your femoral artery is very close by. And firsthand accounts the Marines like fully right that he was impaled through his genitals Of course, there's very major your femoral arteries very close by So, of course it goes through his dick and or balls and goes into his femoral artery and he bleeds out well in the more Historical prim and proper takes like he was wounded in the groin like I know what that means when everybody writes that nature Yeah, right do guys junk blown off or in this case speared off?

Imagine being a veteran of the US Civil War and dying from a spear wound in Korea. Like as you're bleeding out, you have like, well, I've had a weird ride. Were most of the people in this unit Civil War vets, like pretty much all of them or dependent on the rank, the rank and file? No, because they would have been too young. But the officers and NCOs, like the sergeants and whatnot, yeah. They had all fought in the Civil War. On both sides, because history is fun.

Right, yeah. With the capture of the fort, the US controlled Korea's fortress island, and Lo decided they'd bloodied the Koreans' nose to the point that they'd have no choice but to come to the table and talk. Not to mention, among the 20 prisoners they had taken was the deputy commander of the island. It's a big deal. That's a good bargaining chip.

Nope. Low sent word to the Korean government and they just didn't... they ghosted him. Regarding the prisoners, Low writes them again. And the Korean government does answer and says, They're cowards, you can keep them if you want them. Damn, wow. Lo and Rogers are completely baffled. They have never met the defense of,

Nuh-uh, go fuck yourself. They were completely unsure what to do in this form of tactical ghosting. Rogers insisted they could keep attacking Korea and if they get a few thousand more men from their garrisons in China, they could march to Seoul. Low, and most importantly President Grant, thought, that sounds insane, we're not going to do that. Remember, also, it's 1871. The US is a lot more concerned with westward expansion and killing all the people that live in that direction. Then they were trying to figure out how to launch a war on the other side of the world.

So the Americans just left. They packed their ship and sailed back towards China and the Koreans effectively won with the power of just ignoring them until they went away. Wow. Wow. Yeah. Now the Korean government considers a massive victory, which it is. It sounds good, but in actuality, this ended up being something of a double edged sword. Right. Hear me out. The Chosun government, the Chosun imperial court of the time was not in a great place. Their voices within the imperial court that kept warning people, foreigners keep showing up, our military is badly out of date, we're surrounded by fucking enemies. Japan is really getting too heavily armed over there. Like we need to modernize. We need to have our own Meiji restoration. Like they literally pointed to Japan said, we need

to do what they're doing. We need to do it now. We need to open up to France, the United States, someone get their guns and their training because like we have no choice. However, before they kicked the Americans out or before the Americans left, whatever way you want to take it, France had done the same thing. They'd take over that same exact island.

And again, they left. So I imagine a lot of people were like, well, why would we need to modernize when we already won twice? It seems like what's going on is working pretty well for us. Yeah. Exactly. I feel like that can happen too when you have like a child king or a child emperor of a place or a king who's like otherwise infirmed in some ways that like, yeah,

it all just sort of ends up in the hands of the top level bureaucrats who are thereby tradition and their entire rule is based on upholding just the way things are. There's no executive making a singular decision of like, here's how we need to change things. Yeah. I mean, like the king, he's a child. He's unable to navigate these waters. His regent obviously is on the side of how dare you besmirch our heroes by saying that they need to be modernized. You know, like the region compared to tantamount to treason.

Wow. And so we're all in agreement. If they come back, just stab them in the dick. Like that's it. But I can also see then how this yeah, greases the skids for the opportunity for a newly armed to the teeth Japan to just come in and roll over. Yeah, and who's to say, I mean, we'll get to when that's coming, because it's coming a very short time later,

just four years after the Americans leave, Japan shows up. They do their own version of gunboat diplomacy at the exact same island the Americans had, and Korea capitulates. They sign the Korea-Japan Treaty of 1876, forces the country open, and shifts it to the Japanese Empire's sphere of influence where it would remain until the end of World War II. So like even if they do start modernizing, there's not a lot of crazy to do in four years.

This is one of those situations, it's just like adding shit to the pile but you know the end and the u.s. never got involved in Korea again yeah that's that right yeah and nothing bad ever happened in solar pyeongyang ever again everyone got a nice Barney heart when they got back home that That's right. Fellas, we do something on the show called Questions from Legion. Questions from Legion. If you want to ask us a question, support the show on Patreon. You can ask us in our Patreon DMs or in our Discord, which you'll also have access to.

And today's question is, what's part of the podcast you're most proud of, like a milestone or a unique aspect that you think you do that? Nobody else does and you fill that niche like what is it for you guys? Oh for our show for us No, I mean, I'm gonna answer it too, but you know, we're in the unique situation or we have two different shows That's true. Um, well, I think that the thing that I feel good about with our show Is that we've always been a show about media and media narratives, but we cover it, I think, in a way that is different from other shows. I think most other shows are about like the thing itself as opposed to what the thing

represents more broadly. I also am really proud of just kind of some of the feedback that we've gotten from our listeners where one thing people regularly say is that our show inspires them to create their own art. I think that's awesome. Like that's what I want to see. I think we live in an era where people are, there are too many people making art that is not like, there are too many people making art that is not like there are too many people making terrible fucking shit that isn't even art uh whether it's your ai generated slop or whatever the fuck else yeah anything that just sort of goes for clicks over anything else over any actual like seems desire to do something anything at all yeah yeah And I think that there are a lot of very creative people

who do want to create, who have a fear that what they do is not going to be good enough or big enough or whatever. And that creates a barrier to even starting to make a thing. And so I feel really, really fortunate that one of the biggest impacts of our show has been prompting other people to make their own shit and share it with the world. Yeah. I think something I'm probably the most proud of when it comes to this show. The show's been going on this year will be seven years.

Nice. Wow. Which is crazy to think about. And we only started doing live shows last year. And I think the moment, I mean, it's just not really weird because obviously like this is my full-time job I make a living doing it and I'm very like endlessly I can't I'm so happy about that I can't even put it into words but the thing I'm most proud of is I had to be convinced by Tom and Nate that doing a live show in London was a good idea and then we ended up getting this space that seated 170 immediately sold out. Hell yeah. So we decided to add a second night immediately sold out. Hell yeah. And like,

I've never been so proud of anything I've ever touched. Then like so many people there were not from London. They weren't from the United Kingdom. One person flew from Japan. Whoa. Wow. did they weren't from the United Kingdom one person flew from Japan whoa wow absolutely wild like and I'm so proud that I could say that I had a hand in creating something that brings people joy or makes them laugh and for the first time ever I got to experience that in person like a crowd of people laughing at what we do yeah and that is it's like a feeling that is yet to be replicated in any other live show we've ever done.

Not because the live shows aren't as good. It's just because it's that first one. Yeah. You never forget your first time. Exactly. Unfortunately. Just as awkward as every other first time. Unfortunately, I regret to inform you

that you're now a theater person. Yeah. Yeah. I have been told. we do have costumes and everything now. Hell yeah We've done a few live shows now and all but the ones in London. We've had a costume I think we had a pretty similar experience when we did our live show in Colorado Springs last summer. Yeah. Where with that one, I mean, what do you guys tell the story? I've been talking a bunch.

I mean, that was another one where we had people traveling from like multiple different places, from Iowa, from New Mexico, Utah. San Diego. San Diego. St. Louis. I think there was Nebraska in there too. Yeah.

And just being able to see how this thing reached people enough that they, that they wanted to make that trip. Yeah. You know? Yeah, exactly. That's, it's a crazy feeling of like that you had a hand in making something like this because I, before I became a podcaster, I was an author and I did okay, sure. And like occasionally I did book events and someone would come to the book event like a convention specifically to get their book of mine sign. I was just like, holy shit, this is amazing.

This is such a good feeling. But it'd be like one person. Yeah. You know, everyone else is just like happening by your table, which is fine. But the fact that there was one person was just like, this is all worth it. Like this makes everything okay And then you know seven years later You know 300 some odd people in a weekend come to see you and it's an amazing feeling and not to mention everybody is super cool Everybody was like hanging out afterwards in London. We all went to a gay bar afterwards. Oh hell. Yeah, it was great It was fucking wonderful. I got way too drunk

With Tom in London last time I was over he was telling me a little bit about the live shows and just how much fun that was And the less said about the experience in Belfast the better Like most experiences in Belfast were you there in the 80s what happened? Lovely place. I don't remember much from the show. I was told it was funny and not for the reasons I intended I mean look would you do enough shows? I guess you'll eventually eat shit, right? But no, I mean it's it's incredible I think it's something I'm very proud that I can make people laugh. Yeah Yeah, I've always been that guy my whole life where I've always wanted to make people laugh

I've always been the annoying person in class because I wasn't paying attention and also I probably needed therapy Both of those things are still accurate No, it's a it's a great feeling and what unique aspect do we do than any I have no idea I'm gonna be completely I don't know what is unique about this show what is unique is that people like it and I'm very happy with that I think it's a pretty unique topic I don't know of another podcast that that goes into the whole like military comical and horrifying military failures throughout history thing I always like a podcast that is informative I always need some of that and it's it and it's a great listen.

Yeah. Oh, thank you. I'm glad that however many people have listened to this episode, I'm endlessly thankful and I don't even know how to put in words of how happy I am to be able to do this. But it is a thing that exists and people like it. So I'm very proud of that. Hell yeah. But guys, you host a show that we've already been talking about. Plug that show. Oh yeah. So we do a show called The Worst of All Possible Worlds, where we do weekly case studies in the pop culture of the dying empire. We are going to have an episode by the time I think maybe this releases

or around the same time that this releases, where we'll be talking about a video game that is very near and dear to your heart, Joe. I cannot wait. A game called Final Fantasy 7. Okay, great, great. We can talk about it. Okay, I don't know.

And you're going to be on it, Joe. You're going to be on that episode. You should listen to it. I have opinions on a game that I played when I was 12. And have replayed a lot, from what I understand. We spend a lot of our show with opinions on things that only Josh and I experienced when we were 12. That's right.

A very small group of weirdos who grew up evangelical. This month we're also talking about the MASH. We're going to be talking a little bit about MASH, the TV show, not worming in in on hell of a ways territory. You guys are going to come at a very different angle. But yeah, it's a long show. It's, it's one of the, it's not an hour long show. It's usually like two to three hours. It was four.

I mean, I can't say how did you guys go four hours? I once talked for around seven hours on this Well, they broke it up into seven episodes of my defense for our one was with Scott Benson And we can just he he can talk for a really long time. Yeah, we just yeah Yeah, he just goes you wind that guy up. He'll just go also about 40 minutes off. It was pre scripted Yeah, AJ had written basically an entire like movie inside of that podcast. But yeah, I mean if you're also if you subscribe to the Lions Led by Donkeys Patreon, you may have previously heard us of course on the episode about Pearl Harbor.

Yeah. And honestly, I feel like that episode is a pretty good feel for like what it is that we do on our show. Yeah, because we don't forget we do a Pearl Harbor episode every single year. Yes, right. And we'll continue to do so until we run out of Pearl Harbor material, which is apparently a very difficult thing to do. Not going to be a problem for a guy like me. Yeah, there's a lot of Pearl Harbor material. Hey, if you run out of Pearl Harbor material, you just have to crowdfund a second Pearl Harbor.

There we go. I guess you could start watching 9-11 movies. Those are all terrible. Michael Bay's not taking my calls anymore ever since I insulted Skibbity Toilet. Michael Bay's not taking my calls anymore since I rejected the cum parachute. But yeah, the worst of all possible worlds is the name of our show.

Worstpossible dot world is our website And if you really love what you hear, we also have a patreon which is patreon.com Worst of all thank you guys so much for coming on. It's been a pure unadulterated joy like like a spear through the nuts Not even an upside-down one just a regular old nutsack This is the only show that I host and you're already listening to it But consider supporting us on patreon makes everything you do here possible and you get almost seven years of bonus content and every episode early as well as ebooks audiobooks discord access first dibs on live show tickets and merch and the a wagon wheel yeah

Your choice which which kind? And until next time, I don't know. Kill Flintlock George. Fuck that guy.