The History of China - The History Of China Podcast/POA Crossover!| Puttin on Airs w/ Trae Crowder & Corey Ryan Forrester

Episode Date: April 27, 2025

I'm on with Trae Crowder & Cory Ryan Forrester to talk wild & crazy stories about China.Please forgive the tech difficulties!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKVpUmzGr8o Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an AirWave Media Podcast. everywhere you shop. With the best playlists, you never miss a good song. With this card, you never miss out on getting the most points on everyday purchases. The PC Insider's World Elite Mastercard, the card for living unlimited. Conditions apply to all benefits. Visit pcfinancial.ca for details. And it's King decides on a new title for himself because the title of King is not nearly fancy enough. So he pulls back from thousands of years even before him to these demigod rulers. So he takes the title of Huang and the title of Di, both of which are references to these two different gods or demigods and puts them together into Huangdi, which becomes divine sovereign or divine thearch, or we translate it over to emperor. Kings are always like that. I can't imagine getting in a position of leadership and just being, and there's been like call me a la jesus from now on

i'm the official a la jesus of this tech company or whatever you know it's a wild move dude what's up airheads it's time once again welcome back to the virtual Airstream studios. We got another stirring rendition of putting on airs for you. The Eastern edition this week as we're talking all things China. Well, not all things, just a few particularly wild things about China and Chinese history with the host of the History of China podcast, Chris Stewart, who is, you may have already ascertained from that title I just gave you as a bit of an expert on China and Chinese stuff. And, you know, I think we all know at this point, pretty fascinating.

He tells some pretty wicked and metal ass stories from Chinese history. And we barely scratched the surface, but it was a good time. But before all that, before we get to all that show, how are you doing over there? Buddy, I'm good. You know, I mean, you know, this is my Super Bowl week, baby. This is it's Masters week. So I'm super, that's right. I'm super pumped.

I got up early this morning and I watched the part three contest with Bane. Don't you have a bunch of like plans for me and you this Saturday? Yeah, yeah. I knew we got a show that night. I mean, aren't you going to miss a lot of it on Terry because of. I am. I am, but I'm a professional, so it'll be fine. I'm going to like when me and you are number one when we're recording the podcast, I have like you can't see it right now, but I have a TV right here.

You know what I mean? So I mean, I'll just have it on. And the thing about golf, other than like, you remember when I did, dude, I did a podcast when Georgia was in the national championship. Right. This very podcast. And, but the difference is like with that, I literally couldn't have been able to do it because football is way too, this is happening. This is happening. This is exciting. I can have the masters on in the background and just check on the score from time to time. And that will be enough to get me through Saturday's moving day, which is a very important day for those of

you that don't know you've got the Thursdays the opening round then Friday is the day where everybody's vying to make the cut which means making the weekend. Saturday is called moving day because it's like okay I got to go out here and play my ass off, that way I'm in contention on Sunday. I wanna be as far up the leaderboard as I can so that I can make some moves. While moving day is important to me, it's not near as important to me as A, this podcast, and B, hanging out with my best friend.

You know what I mean? So Sunday, it's not fucking up Sunday, Sunday's the day. You know what I mean? Sunday's the day, so it's not fucking up Sunday. Sunday's the day. You know what I mean? Sunday's the day. So I'll be fine. Plus, I mean, we're not doing all that stuff to later in the afternoon. I'll be able to like some of these people are teeing off at seven in the morning. And I've got the SPS plus app.

So like I'm going to see a lot of golf before you even get to my house. OK, well, that's good. I don't want to want to run. Nothing. No, you wouldn't. Buddy, you listen, me being in your presence. I don't want to want to run nothing. No, you would buddy you listen me being in your presence What you know, this is also me this this is me sort of being like listen, man If it would help you out for us not to do shit that day. Yeah, it's a sacrifice I'd be willing to my for you. So you enjoy your Saturday

I will gladly not do shit all day long. Of course, I would love to do a bunch of shit. That's why I'm here to do shit. OK, but like you want to not. OK, but OK, but like, OK, but like, I know I understand you, but like while we're talking this out, I know you're kidding, but like in the event that I did say, yeah, that would hit like you'd still come here.

Right. And we'd like. I'm staying there that night. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Well, then we'll just fucking buy it by ear. No, no, no, no, no, no. Listen, actually, you know, one of the few things I do actually like to do is do a podcast in person whenever possible. I'm usually the one with me, you and Drew or anywhere together rarely anymore. But still, I'm normally the one who's like,

we're going to a podcast, right? No, I want to do it. It does. It does. I like this show more than I like golf. And that's saying a hell of a lot. I really like this show a whole lot. I talk about it all the time. Talk about it.

Yeah. So China, you sort of well, this now that would be a spoiler if I asked you what you feel like you already know about China, because you cover that with Chris, you tell him exactly. I did. By the way, about China. But do you think of China as fancy? You know? Yeah, I do. But like it's we get into this in the in the interview.

It's I think of it as fancy, but like in this but in a magical way, you know what I mean? Sort of like what Chris was saying, he's like, it's always, you know, he's like, he's like, part of my job is convincing people that this is a real place that exists. And it's not just a bunch of people floating from tree to tree. Like, I do think of it that way. Like, like, I know, like, like, when I'm watching Game of Thrones, I'm like, this is, this is if England had dragons.

But whenever I see the same thing done to China, I'm like, this is China. This is just China. It's just me over there. Like in my mind, they did have dragons. 100%. Well, I mean, hell, maybe they did, you know. I think, I don't I think I don't know. I don't know. Why not? Yeah, sure.

Right. They could. Well, you know, you know, like the amount of time between the Tyrannosaurus Rex and the Stegosaurus is is the is longer than the time between us and the in the fucking Rex Rex. Well, like we're closer in time to what you're asking the T-Rex was to the Stegosaurus. What if there's time like we we can't what if there's shit we just don't know? And that's almost certainly true. It's almost certainly so what if there was what if before the Stegosaurus

another that amount of time had happened and it was dragons? It don't even have to be necessarily earlier than the Stegosaurus. It could just be like the I'm pretty sure the vast majority of things that's ever lived like we don't know shit about them. You know, because likely to get fossils, like to get fossils, you could tell stuff about it's like extraordinarily rare circumstances that have to occur. It's just we're dealing with such an insanely long time frame that over a long

enough time period, enough animals get caught in enough fucking mudslides or whatever it is exactly that has to happen that later on we got the bones to look at. But most things that's ever lived and died, they just like right away. Yeah. It was like, so we don't know the arc, you know? And obviously yes, that the dragons were not on the arc. Hey, how do y'all Christians what what about birds? It's so funny that you say all of y'all Christians like

obviously in Jess, because I grew up in the church. So I don't know if you know this, but on YouTube, if you go to your page, there's this little there's this new little thing that says inspiration. And I was like, I'm gonna click that, see what it is. And you click it and it's like, what it does is based on your channel, it gives you inspiration for videos that you might want to make.

And the third one, okay, mine was, the first one was talk about biscuits, right? Then the second one was talk about biscuits, right? Then the second one was talk about your your faith as a Christian man and your love for religion. And the third one was talk about your your transition from to being a transgender. And I know what has happened here is that I uploaded so many of my pastor pity things to YouTube that it doesn't pick up sarcasm like it just thinks that I'm a Christian or whatever. But anyways, what was your question as a Christian? How do you all do about birds?

You just say they didn't maybe they don't know. They flew above it. They flew above the water. You dumbass. Yeah, but like, wouldn't they wouldn't that give them a crazy event like they they would be they wouldn't face any of the consequences of the flood the way everything else did. Yeah. And that's why they didn't have to be on there. I know. But wouldn't that make a difference with them?

Like, wouldn't they be, you know, in some sort of better position or something? Like, wouldn't we be ruled by birds now? I guess it was only six thousand years ago. That's not long enough for the birds to develop. And yeah, that also is not true. You know, like sailors often, it depends on the bird, but they see birds and they're like, okay, we, there might be land nearby because they can't just stay on some. Yeah.

They can't just stay over water. So even that is like, so what do they did? He round up to a beach bird to him like bird cages. It's a bleak. I was bleak and he was in there and shit. Yeah. And I guess the penguins got to just kick it, you know, because they can just be in the water. Right. But not the whole time, though.

They got to come up. They do got to come up. But they can, though. You know what I mean? Well, he probably just had penguins on there, too. Yeah, I'd say he had penguins. He put out is that he like, is there a list in the fire? I don't remember.

Well, I thought they just said it was all of them. It was all of every animal. Yeah. Coming along to about to wherever the fuck. But like, yeah. I'm saying, did they all come to it? He like put up a a signal or something and like penguins waddled up from Antarctica to wherever he was at over there.

And where was he at? Like Egypt? Yeah. I mean, like Palestine. Yeah, right. Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah. Over that way. Yeah.

The penguins came to Palestine and got on the boat, but only two of them. He couldn't just put a signal up. He'd have to send out invitations like you or like the first maybe first come first served the first two penguins that show up get a ticket to the boat or he makes them fight to the death to earn their place on the boat. I don't know. There's got to be some kind of like did you ever hear DJs? Did you ever hear DJs bit about this? Penguins? How they got on the arc? No, just about the arc or whatever. Like I don't remember the first part and I'm going to butcher this, but he was like, he was talking about Noah and he was like, this son of a bitch walked in BC Birkenstocks all the way to Antarctica, wrestled not one, but two polar bears, drug their asses

all the way back over to the Middle East. Now that right there is a bad ass son of a bitch right there. Yeah, yes, I can remember that. By the way, so Mark said there weren't, is a bad ass son of a bitch right there. By the way, so Mark said there weren't like so it was all A.I. that dire wolves are back. No, it ain't A.I. They what they did is I mean. So they are. You know, I mean, it is disappointing.

If you like, I saw that. Hell, yeah. But so what it is is they use like genetic modification stuff, which we've had around for a little bit now to modify the genes of the DNA or whatever of gray wolves and they which are extant, right? They exist. We have gray wolves. They modified the genes of gray wolves and said like, well, what we've done is we studied the ancient DNA we've recovered from fossil records and stuff of dire wolves. And we've modified the gray wolves genetically to where we've turned them into dire wolves, right? But people that know wolf stuff are like,

I mean, right. And like there ain't no motherfucking way y'all could have done that because all of the did all that Jurassic Park shit ain't really real. All the DNA we do have DNA from dire wolves, but like. Not nearly complete enough for y'all to even know what changes to make to a gray wolf to turn it into a dire wolf. So I saw the scientists said this wolf scientists said like

what they've done is they've taken gray wolf embryos or whatever, and they've modified them slightly to be more like what we think. Dire wolves were like what we saw on there. I don't even think they're going to be like that big or nothing. But it's like they just they did that. They did. They took their best guess. It's like this is probably what dire wolves were. And they took gray wolf DNA and embryos and stuff and did that to them.

And they were like, we've made. They also put them in regular dogs, by the way, to be born, which is wild. But that dog was used as. OK, anyway, we that dog was used as. Okay. Anyway, we've got dire wolves now, but, uh, but it's kind of, it's like, I mean, it's iffy at best, you can choose to believe it, you know, they're not the same as regular lives.

I mean, that's true. So. Add it right. But see, then now we're playing God even more. Like obviously we've been playing God in terms of like, you know, making golden doodles and all that type of shit. But I guess the thing with this one is like, this, the way that you just described that feels closer

to Jurassic Park type shit. And like, that's what it is. And like, so like how long though, before they're like, well, fuck it, let's make, let's replicate what we think a T-Rex would have been. And then you got fucking Elon, right. And one of them motherfuckers into CPAC. OK. I would argue that the story as we

as it was presented to the world was Jurassic Park shit. Right. And the reality is that it's not as cool or whatever word you want to use as what happened in Jurassic Park shit, right? And the reality is that it's not as cool or whatever word you want to use as what happened in Jurassic Park. It's like you just said how long before they like let's do a T-Rex. Well, like I said, they there's no like we have gray wolves. And they were like, this is close to a dire. We don't have that for a T-Rex. What? Check.

That's what they say is the closest living thing to a T-Rex. But look at a gray wolf versus a dire wolf. Look how much more shit you'd have to do to a chicken Yeah, even a proxy Hold on now. All right, hear me out. Let's cook. Let's get in the lab. All right get you a chicken Get you a Komodo dragon get you an elephant Get you a rhodo dragon, get you an elephant, get you a rhino, chop it up, see what happens. You know what I mean?

Just an amorphous blob laid out. Just an abseil of abomination of god. Yeah, it's like that thing that kind of a Cronenberg monster. Qua, qua, quavo, not quavo. That's a rapper. Who's the rapper? What's the name of the little dude that comes out of the fucking outside of the victim's torso and total recall?

Quack, quack. In the very call the Arnold movie. Quano is it what it is? So what? What? Yeah, hold on. Yeah, like some that type of shit. Quite quade.

You know, go to. Yeah. Yeah. Quat. Yeah. Yeah. So I said Quanto. I mean, hell, that's pretty close. Yeah. No, no. I think it's actually pronounced Quanto. I think you're right. Quanto.

Anyway. Yeah. I totally recall it. Movie hits. Anyway, we does. So, yeah, you can. Again, they're not that gray wolves. They are different. So, yeah, you can again. They're not that gray wolves. They are different.

So we can just say they're dire wolves, but they're like designer dire wolves. Obviously, they're not the or the wolves. Yes, they're not. It's not really they the company that it claims we brought. We bought actual dire wolves back from extinction. And that is not really technically true. They've played God to bastardize a whole new type of wolf

that they say this is basically what dire wolves are. But, you know, I mean, hell, that's neat, too, I reckon. You know what else is neat is this conversation with Chris Stewart, who is a host of the podcast, The History of China, knows about all things China. I will go ahead and tell you all as we get into this. We have some technical slash internet issues. I still thought it was a very engrossing conversation and, you know, we navigated it pretty well.

But you are going to run into a little bit of that. And Burns is going to fix it. I mean, yeah, some of it, I still think people are going to be able to tell. So I'm just acknowledging it up front. No, I agree. I'm just saying most of the credit will be on burns, but I still think we handled it. Credit or the blame is the case. Maybe the blame or the blame.

Anyway, we'll see y'all at the other side of this, but enjoy this interview with China know it all. Chris Stewart. I mean, that in a hidden way. Here he goes. Here's Chris. As a kid, I sure was fat. Who we I was. Tell you what, this ain't my, this ain't a therapy session. I got reason for saying this as a kid as a fat kid. One of my absolute favorite things especially back in the day, you know sugary

cereal boy, po it up. All the anything fruity, chocolatey, pebbly, circly, donaty, whatever you got, cookie. Give it to me. I want it. I'm fat. I want it. And, you know, as an adult, I still think nostalgically back on those breakfast items, but I realize as an adult,

I'm a grown up, you know, you can't eat all that sugar. For breakfast, you need some protein. You need some good, good, not all the bad, bad. And you didn't know sugary cereals. They just, they just mostly bad, bad. It's fine for kids, but as an adult, you know better, but that's fine for kids. Well, it is like, we all agree. Yeah. I mean, all of our kids are fat, but you know, anyway. Uh, but you think my cereal eating days are over at least cereals that hit. But then you find out about magic spoon. I tried a nostalgically delicious cereal that tastes just like all your childhood

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he sort of looks like like a mannequin, but like one that like ain't been fed enough. You know what I mean? He just don't hit, you know what I'm saying? And me, for instance, the shirts that they normally make, I actually look really good in the chest and all that stuff. But then my belly be hanging out the bottom and stuff like that. But there has been a solution and it's true classic because they got one mission and that's to make sure that guys look good and feel even better. And brother, let me tell you something. They have nailed it. The fit, the feel, and the price. You can change your entire wardrobe and the entire way you look because it's not just tees. They got hoodies,

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It's like Joe said, they're snug where you want them to be and loose where you want them to be. It's like the parts you want to look good, they look good, and the parts that look like garbage, they're hidden creatively with the effortless tailor-man ship. Tailor ship, they tailor them very well. They're shir- I don't know the word for that, but they do a good job of it over there.

True Classic. So it's time for you to forget overpriced designer nonsense and skip all the cheap throwaways to true classic delivers premium essentials built for real life. So grab yours at Target or Costco or we'd prefer head to true classic dot com slash P.O.A. That's true classic dot comic.com slash P O A to get the hookup today. Chris Stewart is with us, everybody. A Chinese historian, a China historian.

What's the right way to put, you know, because you are not, you're not Chinese, but you are a historian of China. I'm glad you know this is a great start for me. Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, how do I say that right, Chris? I am a podcaster on Chinese history. There you go. Podcast on Chinese history. That's a good way to put it. Yes. The history of China podcast, very in-depth, scholarly, academic, like exhaustively researched, the hell of an undertaking that we set on here every now and then China or Chinese history will come up in some, you know, vague way.

And I'll be like, you know, I want to, I want to learn more about Chinese history, but it's very daunting because I'm a Western pig and you know, in the West, we don't know of it. We don't know anything about the East really, generally speaking. And they've got to, it's when you start looking at their history It's obviously expansive. There's a lot there and it goes back a long way And so, you know how what made you go down that path to begin with? Well, you're absolutely right on all accounts when it comes to the amount and the sheer depth of

it, it's a lot to get into. I got into it with the same sort of hubristic Western confidence that I think a lot of us do anything with, which is just, ah, how hard could it be? I was listening to some podcasts on my commute to work when I was in Shanghai and thought, ah, that sounds like something that would be interesting. I didn't see anything that some podcasts on my commute to work when I was in Shanghai and thought, oh, that sounds like something that would be interesting. I didn't see anything that was in the market at the time. I didn't look that hard, granted. I didn't know it too.

Um, but I thought, ah, you know, I could do something that'll just, I'll be able to knock it out and maybe 10 or 20 episodes and that'll be fine. And here I am about 14 years later and about 300 episodes later, still very much in the middle of it all. Right. Right. Yeah, actually, I listened to your first episode and it was, I even texted Trey because in your first episode, you said something, I'm paraphrasing, but like, it feels like an act

of insanity to try and learn about something that's 5,000 years long, you know, and I texted that to try and I was like, that is literally what we tell everyone when they're like, why don't you do China? Why don't you do, you know, whatever. And it's like, where do you begin? Like, wait, like we're going to get here and then you pull this stream. And also I'll be honest, I assumed you were going to be Chinese. Uh, totally did, you know, uh, uh, which is good because some of my jokes are going to play better later cause they won't offend you.

Um, Oh good. Well, on that note, though, I mean, I did, it's sort of a touchy thing, but I did at what some point want to ask and Corey has brought it up now. Like you said, you've been doing it for 12, 13 years, whatever. I think you started back in 2013 and it's like, I feel like in 2013, it had not yet started culturally. This thing we're like, do you, do you ever get flack from people now for being like a white guy doing the history of China podcast?

Cause it's like, I could see a certain faction of, of a liberal dumb in particular who would be like, where do you get off that type of thing? But you started at a time before anyone ever really did that. I feel like, but then that's happened since since then so does that ever come up for you? I've kind of been sort of podcast grandfathered into being yeah sort of like older than most of that But I get it especially when it Comes out from time to time like it like it's some vast secret that I've been keeping this entire time You know Chris Stewart

Really tiny sounding name, right? But it does come out, you know, he's a white guy, right? It's like yeah, I've been very clear about that and I try to get through it and over it when it comes up I just think you know the sources that I draw from the the information that I'm presenting is Very well backed up very well sourced. So that kind of obviates any criticism.

My counter argument to it would be like I did a piece on Martin Luther King Jr. because last week was like the anniversary of his assassination. I did a piece on him and I had, and mostly was met with positive reviews or whatever But I have had people be like, you know, where do you get off telling this story? You know as a white guy or whatever and I'm always like here's my thing if we Whenever white people never talk about anything but white stuff We also get flack for not acknowledging the other things that exist and I would rather err in that space You know what what I mean cuz like it would be worse if you Chris Stewart was

just like I don't give a fuck about China you know what I mean that would be like way worse I 100% agree I think you know information and history and culture is is meant to be shared and and appreciated by people who aren't a part of it and if you only look at your own culture it it's it's navel gazing. It's it's incestuous. It's you're not going to learn anything new. So I think it's real important. But it's also like what Mark Twain said that the the enemy of bigotry is travel. And I've always thought that like a modern day interpretation is like, look, everyone can't travel because it costs a lot of money. but you can read about other places and it's the same thing. So I think what you're doing is great is all I'll say. Go ahead. I'm sorry for interrupting you.

Not at all. No, all I was, um, all I was going to say is just, uh, well, I forgot. So I guess we can just, it wasn't that important. Well, that's all right. I wanted to know before you started, you said for a little more background, you said you were living and working in China. So I wonder if that was like the origin of your just general interest in it. But also when you started the podcast, like I know you said you were naive

about the undertaking it would be, but like, did you have any kind of foundation of knowledge about China? Were you just like had the idea to learn it all and take people with you on that journey and started from like nothing, you know? Fortunately, I didn't start from nothing. I did my undergraduate in history and I focused on contemporary Chinese history, the 20th century and Neo-Confucianism, which is older than that, even though it has Neo in the name. I learned Mandarin as my minor in college, and then I went to China and worked there first at briefly at a university, then for little kids, then I got up to high school doing world and US history.

So from an educational and pedagogical background, I've got a background there, And then from the content standard, I've got some background there too. Yeah. What, what made, but to begin with, when you were in college, like what, uh, you know, what was the spark of your interest in, uh, yeah, China period? Um, it's crab rangoons. That was it for me. Yeah. Um, it's crab rangoon. That was it for me. Yeah, that was it. Yeah. No, I mean, movies crab rangoon.

Yeah. No, it was, I was, I was tired of taking a French language in high school. And so I, I went to, uh, Oregon to go to college there and they offer Japanese and Chinese language courses there. And I thought, well, I'll choose something interesting. And it was kind of a coin flip and I chose Chinese. And from there, it just kind of went that direction and I got interested in the culture and in terms of my history studies, that's where it focused in on as well.

What? Go ahead, Corey. No, no, you go ahead, please. Please. I found or I've gotten the impression that like, again, like I said, a lot of Western people don't know shit about Eastern history And there's like it seems like anytime there's a story about I don't know just about anything anything culturally significant You can come up with it feels like if you know the Western version of it It's like oh, but that happened in China a thousand years before that or whatever Or it's like everything had already like happened in chat

But we just don't even know about any of that. Like, is that sort of true? Like a portion, a huge portion of my job overall, uh, communicating to the, the Western audience or, or any non Chinese audience about it is convincing, China convincing people that China is a real place that exists and is full of people who have lives and isn't just a magical made up fairy tale land. Right. Um, it does seem that way in the movies that I've watched. It's when they fly on the trees and jump over with this. Yes. And I find that to be in a word neat. I enjoy that.

Those are fantastic. And those are some of the like the Robin Hood kind of stories that come out of what's called wuxia or swords and sorcery stories. They're fantastic. So here's what I know about China. And I'm gonna need you to fill in the gaps on literally all of the rest. I made a list here. Things I know about China. Great noodles. about China, uh, great noodles, um, big ass wall. Oh yeah. Um, rats, rats have their own year.

That's kind of cool. Jackie Chan. And so anyways, if you could just fill us in on the rest, that all the other 5,000 history or your history of it, besides what Corey just said about it, I'll say they said your rats have their own year. Is it the year of the snake now or is that or did that? Uh, I believe it is, you know, let me just, uh, you don't know off the top of your head what goddamn year it is. Boom. Gotcha. Gotcha. Bitch. That's why we had you on the podcast.

I think it's a horse. You know what? I'm just absolutely stumped. Well, what's funny about that is I just remember why I thought that is I saw someone. Snake. Oh, it is snake. Oh, OK. Maybe that isn't what it was. Yes, I thought we should do his podcast. I saw someone post a picture of an old Houston oilers hat that had a snake winding its way through the oil derrick on it.

Ben's fire. They when the people posted are like, what the fuck is the snake about? And some people in the comments, right? Maybe it's because it's the year of the snake. I was like, oh, yes. So this is like for the Chinese market of Tennessee Titans, Houston. Yeah, right. And that in China, I don't know.

Most people in China. Right. I was like, yeah, the worst team I could choose., I was like, I don't know. The two dumbest people in China. Right. I was like, I don't, yeah, the worst team I could choose, but it's like, I don't think that's it. But that, but that person saying maybe it's cause it's the year of the snake right now is literally the only reason that I was even possibly aware of that. But yeah, anyway, two years after year of the dragon, it's just the worst dragon. So yeah.

Mm hmm. It was like two years after year of the dragon. It's just the worst dragon. So yeah What what decides what year it is like like does it just because it doesn't completely Rotate like after this it's always this or is it sort of like how like how a farmers almanac works where it's like Well, this happened in July. So this is gonna happen in September and you know what I'm I know that doesn't seem to make sense But you get where I'm going with that? Oh yeah, yeah, I do. It's um, it's a cycle of 12 and a cycle of, um, of five elements. So 12 animals, five elements. And so it's a 60 year rotation. Okay.

Okay. What? So each, each animal gets paired with an L element for any given year or I'm not following what you said. There's five elements that are toiled by animals. If you've ever seen Avatar, the last Airbender, it's like those elements. So it's like air, fire, water, metal and, sorry, earth and depending on that, either wood or metal.

It might be metal though. I can't decide if snake is fire or metal. But it changes so every animal at some point gets to be every element. Nah snake ain't never wood. I disagree with you there. Snake is never wood. Well you disagree with all of China. You don't disagree with Chris.

You disagree with the entirety of Chinese culture. And who he represents. Is who you disagree with the entirety of Chinese culture. It's who you disagree with. This white man represents all of their official envoy here today. Yeah. Oh, literally. Yes. Uh, we come in commerce. I told you one of the things I want to just because again, what are we going to do?

We're not going to cover all of Chinese history sitting here. So it's more broader questions. I already told you in the emails we shared about you coming on here. We got like 20 minutes. I can get through it all more broader questions. I already told you in the emails we shared about you coming on here. We got like 20 minutes. I can get through it all. All right. Well, you can speed run it if you want to, but this shows about, you know, fancy shit. So usually when it comes to history, in terms of fanciness, we talk about emperors and

courts and things of that nature. And so I told you like, I know, cause I know there's a bunch of them, the most like sort of for black of a better way to put it game of Thrones, the type stories from Chinese history. Cause a lot of people know game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin, like he really pulled a lot of that shit from actual like European and UK history, the war of the roses and that type of thing. So the equivalent of that, but from Chinese history, just a few anecdotes or whatever that are particularly wild or dramatic or theatrical or you know whatever dealer's choice but we could start there.

Absolutely and I came up with a few ideas to start us off with but there's a lot of choice so I figured you know starting towards the beginning is a pretty good place to start so So why not start with the first emperor, the guy who kind of set off the whole thing? If that sounds good to you guys. Sounds great. Oh yeah, dude. It's your show from this point on. Like go ahead. Wonderful. All right.

So I'm talking about the first emperor of China, also known as Qin Shi Huang. And he comes right at the end of what China occasionally goes through, which is a titanic, earth-shattering civil war that lasts for several hundred years. Sure. Known very conveniently as the Warring States period. And at the end of this, this small emergent state to the far west of China arises, develops, and becomes militarily very powerful. It's called Qin. It conquers all of its foes one by one using amazing strategy and also great economic reforms and systems. its king crowns himself as the new ruler of this newly reunified empire and decides on a new title for himself because the title of king is not nearly fancy enough. Sure. So he pulls back from

thousands of years even before him to these demigod rulers that once- That's crazy. That's so crazy to me that ancient China is like we ain't old enough we gotta draw from thousands of years ago we have to go back yeah yeah so he takes the title of Huang and the title of D both of which are references to these two different gods or demigods and puts them together into Huangdi which becomes divine sovereign or divine the arc or we references to these two different gods or demi gods and puts them together into Hong, which becomes divine sovereign or divine the arc or we translated over to emperor.

OK, he's nice humble guy possessed of humility. This guy, these kings are always like that. I can't imagine getting in a position of leadership and just being and it's been like, call me Allah Jesus from now on. I'm the official Allah Jesus of this tech company or whatever. And I love the phrase. Like, oh, he was a benevolent King. I'm like, no, he weren't.

He was still a King. Like he could still have you murdered if you didn't give him enough pence. You know? Okay. So that's, so that's where emperor comes from. So that's, uh, that's fine. So anyway, I keep going then what he do. So he decides that, uh, well, he's going to change, uh, the entire economic

and weights and measure system. So he, he, uh, makes everybody build all new roads, which are perfectly straight. He, uh, changes all the coins in the weight system. Pretty, pretty close. And he starts to build what he's gonna be spending the rest of eternity in, which is his tomb. So he builds a giant mountain out of earth and then builds a city underneath the mountain about 40 meters below the surface of the earth,

city underneath the mountain about 40 meters below the surface of the earth. Fully decked out miniature of the capital city. That is crazy. Like how did they always talks about the pyramids and shit? And look, maybe the pyramids are even crazier than that. But like blowing out an underground layer in a mountain thought that long. It was that is this different from where the terracotta army is or? It's adjacent. It's right by, it's right by those terracotta soldiers.

That's so nuts, man. They just did this in that show. They literally just did this in that show Paradise and this it's set in modern times and all the scientists are like, we can't fucking do this shit. We couldn't do that. Yeah. What are you talking about? And apparently Allah Jesus dude was like, we sure can.

The key is massive amounts of totally forced slave labor. Slavery. It's always slavery. That's always the answer. Yes. Right. Yeah. We were going to tell you, you didn't even have to mention that.

Everybody assumes. Of course. It's a given, right? Yes. Um, so, and this is, this is where the first Great Wall of China that you so conveniently brought up comes from as well. It's actually a linking together of former kingdom or state walls to try to keep out the foreigners to the north, which it doesn't work surprise right so the one and only time that was no it was actually started then like its origins come from literally the start of this emperor

the the wall that you know that you've seen in pictures and paintings is actually the third or fourth rebuild of that okay but that's. That's the initial the initial long wall. And then he decides after he's pretty well into his massive mausoleum construction with tens of thousands of people working on that at all times, he decides that actually, he doesn't want to die at all. So he's going to decide find a way to live forever. He doesn't do this in a small way. Instead, he starts casting about for people who can sell them ways to live forever. And some people get him to design and have constructed a giant fleet filled with about 5000 people that's going to go sail

across the sea, find the island where the immortals live, bring some of them back and so they can teach this king how to live forever. They did some more ones they're looking for some, you know, supposedly they became Japan. Oh, okay. All right. How about that? Makes sense. Cause they never came back. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I mean, that's a long trip back then. Yeah. That happened a lot back then. A lot of never coming back happened, but yeah, I thought about that a long time.

We're like somebody, let's say hypothetically, like you've got a buddy, like you live in America and it's like, you know, 1700 whatever. And he's like, you know, I've decided I'm going to sail to China and just live. It's like you may as well have a funeral for that dude. Like you're never going to see him. China. If he's like, I'm going to Missouri in a wagon train, you ain't ever going to see that motherfucker ever again.

Ever. Yeah. Right. So anyway, that's one of the things I really like about American history was for the most part of it. Uh, if you really fucked up your life, or screwed it up rather. No, you can say it. You can curse.

Thank you. You could just hop onto a wagon or a train and just disappear and start again. Yeah, for most of it. And it always worked out. Always. Never got eaten by your fellow travelers or died of dysentery or none of that shit. Or got exploded with fellow Chinese people in a cave in San Francisco. Got scalped or nothing.

Nothing bad ever happened to those people. But yeah, it was good to have him as an option. Okay, so he's looking for immortality. One of the things he did, he got a fleet of 5,000. Like you said, no small, this dude does everything big. Of course, right. This is the first Texan. That's who this guy was. Yeah, dude does everything big. Of course, right. This is the first Texan. That's how this guy was.

Yeah, he does everything. But, but fleet, 5,000 people looking for the island of immortals, which we now think became Japan, which is super cool. And then what else do you do? Uh, so when he figures out that they don't come back, um, he gets real sad and he starts looking for another option and he, finds sort of the the RFK junior of his day, which is Daoist alchemists who tell him that the true secret is you've got to make yourself physically like eternal

elements in nature. So like gold and silver, they don't rust, they don't decay. So you got to make yourself like them. And they just so happen to have this Tincture made out of quicksilver mercury That you know he can take In a regimented fashion that will render him into this immortal sort of being

Beyond death turns out. Yeah, it just kills you. Yeah, just makes you turn blue and die. That's all. That's all mercury does. But what's so funny about these types of ancient medicine things I think about all the time is like this is happening thousands of years ago at the beginning of imperial China or whatever. And yet people all around the world were drinking mercury and shit for like so

much, I feel like we only really stopped like exactly the last hundred years or something. It's like everyone who ever took it turned blue and died. And yet people kept just drinking it medicinally or whatever. It's like, I would really took us a long time to hammer out that whole medicine thing. Yeah. I get to wonder there's people, you know?

Yeah. Well, we've had a whole bunch of them. That's how we've done that. True. Most of them we have. Well, almost all of them have died at this point, but, um, yeah. Uh, okay. So that killed him.

So he had two shots at it. One of them, he made Japan. That's a pretty good spinoff, but then the other one, he drank mercury and died. And that, that's how it ended for him. So if he had done them in the,ff. But then the other one, he drank mercury and died. And that that's how it ended for him. So if he had done them in the if he had tried the other one first, no Japan, somebody would have made Japan eventually. It was pretty inevitable. Yeah. Would have been Korean maybe. Yes. So he he dies. He has to be secreted back his body has to be secreted back to the Capitol

because they're afraid that if the people learn that he's dead before he's, you know, entombed then they'll get angry because he's been making a lot of these people angry with the wall building and the tomb building and all that stuff that he wasn't paying anybody for. Hello, my name is Matt. And I'm McKinley. We are the Father-Son team that brings you History Dispatches. History Dispatches is a short daily history show where we talk about topics from all over

the world and all throughout history. We talk about people, places, events, and even objects. While anything is fair game, we have a soft spot for the weird, the wacky, and the obscure things you may have never even heard of. Do you have any examples? How about Wozztek, the bear who rose to the rank of corporal in the Polish army, or the Great Emu War? Or how about the biggest treasure take in the history of piracy?

That sounds cool, but do you have a story about the head of Oliver Cromwell, or one about the ancient library of Alexandria, and a story about the first woman to Cromwell, or one about the ancient library of Alexandria, and a story about the first woman to climb Mount Everest would be cool. Well, we got those as well. Every weekday there's something new and fun. Sweet. So how do I get this trove of goodness? All you have to do is go to historydispatches.com or just look for history dispatches in your

favorite podcast app. Huh, that's weird. We got a guy like that. Huh. That's weird. We got a guy like that. Funny. They do tend to get angry when you don't pay them. So afterwards his son becomes the second emperor, but it's the wrong son. The son that was supposed to inherit the throne is assassinated because some of the people didn't want this guy.

So he's knifed off screen. And this other son, I was going to say like, I wanted to ask earlier. And, and just a small quick aside, like, obviously I assume in these hundred years wars, it's a bunch of swords and stuff like that. But when you said assassinated, like had they gotten to the whimsical blow darts yet? Did that, is that a Chinese thing? I don't even know. gotten to the whimsical blow darts yet? Did that is that a Chinese thing?

I don't even know. To me. Yeah. To me, that's China. In, in the, in the tomb of the first emperor, there's supposed to be a mechanical crossbow booby traps that are poison tipped. We don't know if they're actually there, but it's written about. Boom. We don't.

Okay. Well, that's not a. Boom. We don't. Okay. Well, that's not a blow dart. I find out Chris. True. I had to blow darts like, I mean, I think of like, uh, you know, um, jungle peoples, I don't know how to put it like tribes and you know what I mean? Like, uh, yeah. I remember Jamie Foxx had a bit about being blow darted in Africa.

Right. It appears to have been invented in Southeast Asia. Okay. All right. There you go. Uh, in, in ancient times, all right. Cause they had the, I was going to say that they had the bamboo. Oh yeah.

Bamboo. That does make sense. So, uh, if I may suck my dick. Okay. Good job. Ouch. Now, uh, uh, That does sound like something that the armies that the Chinese were fighting in the South would have been fighting

against is the the poison tip blowdarts. For the record Southeast Asia is very jungly, am I wrong? That's true. We can both be right. Vietnam, I'm saying the South-East part there's a lot of jungle there and I said jungle peoples. That's what I said. So, okay All right. I just said I think about you. I said, okay Chris is right. We're both right. Yeah. Thank you Chris Okay, you know keep going So his son takes over and his son's a moron as son always sometimes are classic classic tale that tale as old as time quite literally And even worse the advisor this evil

Unic named Zhao Gao Is now the other way you cut my dick off Oh gosh. Yeah, what's left to live for other than just revenge chicken wings I guess there's also that yeah So he can he decides that he's going gonna take full power and just use this little dumb guy as his Puppet, but he's got to get he's got to get enough power and control So what he does he plays kind of a rather famous

trick where he has the Emperor convene as grand court and counsel and all the advisors come in and they assemble and Zhao Gao says, well, I've got a gift for you, your majesty. And here it is. It is a perfect fine, beautiful horse and horses back in the day were better than gold. So China, the horse was no, no, no. Yeah, go ahead. So in in walks this this animal handler with an animal behind him, but it's clearly not a horse at all. It's in fact, a deer with antlers and spots and you know, it's a deer. And the Emperor says, What's this was

kind of tricking me with it's a joke. I can see you tell me this is a horse. It's not in the and Joe Gao says, Well, no, you managed to have seen a lot of horses in my day telling me this is a horse. It's not. And the, and Joe Gauss says, well, no, you're mad. See, I've seen a lot of horses in my day and this is a great horse, but I'm no expert. Let's ask the assembled officials here. What do you guys think? Is this a horse or is this a deer? And they hold a little, a little vote and some of them vote.

Yeah, it's a deer. Some of them say, no, it's a horse. Some of them are smart enough to not say anything at all. And Joe Doug, I'll just says, okay, okay. And he jots down who votes for who. And then he has the ones who said, no, that's really a deer. He has them murdered in their sleep. They then reconvene.

Yeah. All right. They reconvene and hold a second vote. Oh yeah. Now that one. They figured out which way the wind was blowing and that Dao Gao was the one actually in charge. The good news is, the news at least, is that very quickly thereafter the people get very tired of what's been going on, the chaos that's been unfurled upon them, the constant wars and fighting

and the massive tax increases. They start a huge rebellion, overthrow the entire dynasty. And so this very first and somewhat still say even most important of the dynasties of China lasts a grand total of about 10 years before it collapses. Wow. And mismanaged. It's funny that people like all the people are like, I'm sick and tired of all this war

and violence and death. And it's like, you know what that means? I'm starting a goddamn rebellion. And it's like, which I mean, that's all you can do. I certainly get that. Exactly. No other option, but it's still just kind of funny. It's also that Jiao Jiao guy. That horse deer story at the all time. I was like, what master stroke is this? Right. Is this man cook this fucking little thing? This Chinese little finger cooked up here.

And then it's just like, I'm just going to fucking kill everybody. Disagree with me in their sleep until people until people learn not disagree with me no more. And it's like, I mean, you know, if it ain't broke, you're right. Yeah. Right. And argue with the results. But you're subtle until you don't have to be. And yes.

And then you just move. I'm asking about a specific, what are the tech people like to say, move fast? Exactly. I'm asking about a specific person, you know, about, uh, first of all, a quick divergence, because I'm like to say move fast and exactly. I'm asking about a specific person you know about uh out first of all a quick divergence because I'm gonna say this earlier tell me if you think there's anything to this just with how uh western centric western people tend to be I think one of the issues with like Chinese history and western people and us not knowing shit about first of all we're not ever taught but I think another element of it is it's like, it's kind of inherently hard for a lot of honkies

like us to follow because it's like, just the way naming conventions and stuff work over there. Like it's hard, you know, a lot of the name, I don't even know how to pronounce them right. And then if you, you I trust do pronounce them right, but you say the name, but then I could read it and not even recognize that as the same name you were saying because we're all just so dumb about, you know, China.

China talk. China talk, exactly, yes. So it's like, you think that's a big part of it or am I just, that's just me being stupid? It is a big part of it. Chinese language is particularly difficult because it uses tones, which are really hard for non-tone speakers to deal with or grasp. And that's just literally the way the word moves and sound as you say it.

So there's that. But then there's a lot of things sound alike. Chinese is a very homophone rich language. So there's a lot of words sound alike. Chinese is a very homophone rich language. So there's a lot of words that overlap with each other. And then it is just a very alien and exotic way to be speaking for an English speaker because it's just going from this very different basis point of where it developed. Yeah, we've talked about that on here before. Trey made the good point of where it developed. We've talked about that on here before, like Trey made the good point of like,

you know, I can go to a Mexican restaurant and order a Mexican dish that, and say it in the Spanish way that it's written and not sound racist, but in order to speak Mandarin, you've gotta make those tones. Like you've gotta sound Chinese to do it because it doesn't make sense otherwise.

So like, that's why me and him have always been like, well, I'm definitely not gonna try to say some Mandarin words because I'm just gonna look like I'm doing a very bad Chinese accent, but like, you have to do it. Or you're just, you're gonna butcher the shit out of it and know that you're doing it. So you're either going to like sound stupid cause you know you're saying it wrong or you're going to be worried if you're not like an expert, if you're not

fluent like our boy here, you're going to feel like you sound like you're doing a bad Chinese impression or something. I saw this story get posted on Reddit the other day from Chinese history. And I knew you were coming on. I was like, well, I'm definitely going to ask him about about that because it's definitely pretty game of sounds in my opinion and again I'm gonna butcher all these names, but in Lou Z

L U Z H I and an empress or the wife of an emperor an Empress Dowager Lou Z from Lujia I've got the I've got the book on her. Oh, what'd you say Luja? Is that say that I said? I'm Luja. Yeah, okay. The story in particular is one where Wrong. Yes, okay Well, you're talking about wrong sons or whatever story where her husband heard like dead husband he had all these consorts and a harem and concubines and Most of them she was okay with. The one concubine in particular, concubine QI, who she resented because their sons didn't get

a, there was like a dispute between her sons. So the Empress Lou had the concubine, had her hands and feet chopped off, her eyes gouged out, her ears burned off, her nose cut off, her tongue cut out, forced her to drink a potion that made her unable to speak anymore and threw her into a turlet while calling her a human swine. So she ended up okay? Yeah, yeah. So walk it off. Walk it off. Roll it off. Can't she play, God damn it.

Yeah. Can't you play? Anyway, so that's pretty hardcore. So I was just wondering if you were if that's the story that stuck out to you, if you're familiar with it already, if you had some other context or thoughts on it or anything, because that's some wild shit right there. Absolutely, it is. Empress Liu is very infamous across Chinese history and in the way that most famous women in China are famous, which is as the cackling evil bad guy. We got that too.

Dan, you spelled out basically what she's the most infamous for, which is yeah, turning her, her, the target of her jealous rage into her personal pin cushion. Which is, I mean, it's it's brutality almost beyond right. Yeah. So how go ahead? Seriously, do we take that kind of depends on do you want just, you know, a great story? Or, you know, how much can a human body actually endure before it just gives up? We want the great story. You know what I mean?

We might be a little bit beyond the pale there. So Empress Lu, she was in the dynasty that came after the Qin dynasty, which is the Han dynasty. So four million years later. And she's actually in this case actually not that long. There's just one you know minor little cataclysmic civil war in between and then within about a decade the Han dynasty comes out of the result of that within about a decade the Han Dynasty comes out of the result of that and she's the wife of the of the of the Emperor obviously. Okay, I was about to add that.

But as the Emperor died. Like in England for instance, like, you know, you had Queen Elizabeth, but her husband was not called the king. You know what I mean? Like she was the queen. She's the one that held the power. And over there, it's like there's an emperor and then is his wife just naturally called emperor or were they super, you know, I guess our term for it would be woke and they actually let the woman have power and she was just the straight empress. And the ironic thing is, is that, you know, all these

negative personality traits and cunning and manipulativeness and wanting to have personal power that we not we, but the historians have long said is terrible when a woman has this. Well, those are the exact same things that they praise if it's a man. So it seems to be just whether or not there's a wheelie between the legs that determines whether it's good or bad. Yeah, there's a whole thing with, I've read before that there's obviously all these cultures that developed independently around the globe over human history, right? They're very different. There's so many striking differences between many of them in many ways, but one of, if not the only thing that's essentially universal is that women are not allowed to hit in these races. The patriarchy,

basically, that all of the, any culture in any part of humanity that evolved or developed, almost all of them subjugated women, even if they had nothing else in common. So it's like, you know, men knew what we were about from the jump, I guess. You had to maintain job security. Yes. Yeah. It also makes you think like, well, you know, guess that's how it ought to be. If we all came to the same conclusion.

I think what it is, is like, this is it's funny because the book I was reading this in a book is like is by a smart person who's saying it's like and no one can agree on why this is. Was it was it sapiens? Yes, it was. Yeah, I remember this. Maybe to me, I was like, well, I mean, we're stronger. Exactly. It's like, it's just a physical reality that they can't help. We are literally stronger than them and every man in every culture that was true. So, I mean, what more do you really need to know? They didn't have any other real choice, but I don't mean the men did.

I mean, like when things are much more brutal, they just really wasn't shit women could do mend it. I mean, like, when things are much more brutal, they're just really what and shit women can do about it. And guys have always been kind of bloodlusty, or whatever. And, you know, power hungry and all that stuff. So it's just like, to me, it makes all the sense fucked up. But it makes all the sense in the world. I don't find it like confusing or even particularly fascinating at all. It's to me, it's like, well, yeah, obviously, that's how it went. Right. But what do I know? Yeah, that's it. I think you hit the nail on the head there as to why so yeah men can usually just physically

dominate the women that are near to them and so they've kind of been we've all been kind of riding that hotel ever since um but it is funny that in in chinese history especially we kind of almost see an inversion of that a lot of the time, where Chinese men and women after the warring states, and I knew we were going to get here. You called it. After the warring states, though, you get this this weird inversion of who's in power, where if you look in like Europe, or, or the Islamic world later on, you know, it's it's typically the warrior classes that are in power, the king becomes king because he's

the best warrior, typically, and then the lords and nobles and knights are there because they're good at killing people, at least initially. But what you get in China very early on, and it lasts through today, really, if you go into a military job, you're kind of seen as not like not as good, not as awesome. Military is for losers who can't pass their exams. Right. Yeah.

Right. Right. Because we did go through like a little bit for long period of time for foreigners and criminals. Right. Yeah. Right. Right. Because we did go through like a little bit. For a long period of time, it's for foreigners and criminals. Right. I was about to say, because like in America, we went through that a little bit. Like, and it was kind of sparse, but it's like George Washington was the first president because he was a badass on the battlefield. And then that wasn't always the case. But it's like, it was definitely the case for like Ulysses S. Grant. And then it was the case for Eisenhower. It was the case for and a lot of people I know, like literally, there's so many people I know that they wanted

to hide their racism by saying like, they're like, No, no, no, I have no problem with Barack Obama being black. I just think that in order to be president, you should have served in the military, right? Like, I, you should have served in the military, right? Like I think you should have some sort of military background. And you saying like, back then, the biggest warrior would become, you know, the ruler. It's like, I'm not saying that's great, but elections haven't been going so awesome either. So maybe we should just go back to that and just let the most badass Mel Gibson and Braveheart, some bitch settle it out, you know?

Well, it's also funny that like not to, you know, not to get super into politics, but it seems it's funny that that seems to be another page that I guess Donald Trump has taken out of China's playbook. And that like, he's like, you know, soldiers are all fucking idiot losers, right? They suck. And the whole idea of rights are we're supposed to support the troops. He's like, they're dumbasses. Fuck them. They wanted. We were supposed to support the troops. He's like, they're dumbasses. Fuck them. They wanted a Camaro.

Come on. So anyway, oh, I guess he's just getting lined up. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, but no, that's wild though. So listen, Chris, let's say I'll say this. So obviously, you know, we've had a couple of technical difficulties here and out of all of the 5,000 years we've gotten like two good stories so far, but they have hit for me. I wanted to say, um, I wanted to, you know, throw it to you one more

time and say, if there's one more like particularly wild story that you think would be good that you want to tell us, then please go ahead and do it. And then we'll we can go and let you go and then we'll definitely bring you back. Again. Yeah, I want to do a part two. There's I mean, we could do multiple parts if you if you're up for it, because I mean, I know we ain't even scratching. Absolutely surface here. But anyway, so yeah, if you got another one for us, hit us with it, because they've all hit for me so far.

Oh, yeah. OK, well, let me flash forward in time for you then. And again, sorry about the the tech difficulties. Now you're on my end, but I'd be happy. Not your fault. We're glad we're glad that they happened because Burns, our editor, he doesn't do enough and we need him to earn the money that we so generously give him. He's overpaid and well of course underappreciated but that's like rightfully so.

So Burns, have fun with him. He's absolutely just dog shit. Borderline worthless. Asshole. So have fun with this one Burns. Pompous. Anyway, all of that. Go ahead.

Burns, I'm sure you're doing a great job. fun with this one, Barnes. Compass. Anyway, sorry. Go ahead. Burns, I'm sure you're doing a great job. So to flash forward in time, we're going to go more than a thousand years in the future from where we just were. We're going to go to the the 1300s and the

collapse of the Mongol Yuan dynasty and the rise of the Ming dynasty Dynasty and the rise of the Ming Dynasty after that, where the Chinese take back control of China from the Mongols. Excuse me. Very nice. Well done. So we actually go to, after the death of the guy who took it back, the Hongwu emperor, we get to his succession and we get one of his sons who's the Prince of Beijing.

Beijing's not the capital at this point, so he's just up there in the north by himself and his name is Judy, which yeah, Judy. And so that's where the Judy cop comes from. I knew it. It was stupid, but I like it. I'm for it. Yeah. His brother, Nanji, and he decides that he's tired of people making fun of his name. In spite of his name, he is a hugely militaristic warlord. And he thinks that his dad picked the wrong successor because his dad picked his nephew,

who is this bookish, educated poetry writing, you know, Yeah. Or however you say it in China. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so, um, Judy, the Prince of Yan, decides that he's going to wage war on his own nephew, marches down to the south capital, Nanjing, burns the capital down with his nephew inside of it. Uh, and then says, oh, what happened? I don't even know what happened. My nephew was maybe what was in there. I don't know. What a tragedy. But

anyway, it looks like I'm here and I guess I'm the only one alive. So I'm in charge now. Right. And everybody says, yeah, you just conquered the entire country with your army. So you are in charge. Yes, sir. That's how China babe I be. And so he and so he decides that he's gonna call himself Yongle, Yongle which means eternal happiness. The emperor of eternal happiness. Isn't that nice? And as a first act in his new and exciting reign era he decides he wants to have the baddest speaker in the entire country come and basically give his opening ceremony address. And this guy is this poet scholar named Fang Xiaoru.

He's been living out in the mountains and hills for a long time, because he just didn't want to be a part of all this nonsense. So he seeks him out, says, Fang, you gotta come, you gotta be my guy, you gotta give a speech, write me a poem, tell everybody how awesome I am, because I'm Chinese, I'm not Mongol, so you're cool with me, right? And Fong Xiaoru is well

respected because he's this Confucian scholar. And what Confucians like more than anything is people who don't lie and people who tell the truth and people who stand against power bravely even if it puts them at personal risk. And so, Fong says, no, and also leave me alone and lose my number. And the new emperor persists and says, no, you got to come. And he says, no, I will never do it. And here's why, because I think you suck and I hate you. So he's then brought to the capital to explain himself.

And the emperor tries to convince Fang to basically take the deal. Got to take the art of the deal. Look, I've got all the deal. You've got to take the art of the deal. Look, I've got all the power. I'm being just like this ancient figure who's protecting the realm from chaos. So won't you be my guy? And he says, well, if you're this ancient figure, then where's your nephew?

If you're protecting the line of kings, then where's your nephew? If you're protecting the line of kings, then where's your nephew? The implication being, I know you killed him, everybody knows you killed him, and you've taken over. You're no protector at all. This pisses off the Emperor, so he decides to threaten him with the ultimate legal punishment, which is the nine family exterminations. Yes. Corey, did I bring this up to you recently? I think so. Yeah, it's in the... Yes, yes. I can't remember if I... We keep a list of things to talk about on here and on my list for so long has been the nine

familial exterminations and I couldn't remember if I even actually ever brought it up or not, but either way... So I'm excited. So go ahead. Oh yeah. Oh, it's very exciting. So the nine familial exterminations is where they round up your entire family, your father, mother, grandfather's, grandmother's children, grandchildren, uncles, nephews, you know, the whole bit, the women and children. You think it's our axis that we don't know the definition of the word family? You think that's what's happening?

I think he's just illustrating that it's everybody. Yeah, right. Everybody. Those are the nine levels that it goes to, both forward and backward. Round them up, sell the women and children into slavery, and all the menfolk get to have their heads cut off while you watch. And then the last level of those nine exterminations is you. So after watching your entire family be sold into slavery or died, you are then tortured to death as well.

Sounds fun. Feng Xiaoru says, oh, you think you're such, you're so intimidating. You think you're going to get me to write you a nice poem by threatening me. Tell you what, forget about the nine levels. Why not make it 10? You know, you coward. So, um, the emperor does. And in the history of China, and I think the world, we have the 10 familial exterminations, which was all of the above. But then also the emperor decided to go and find all of the scholars and officials that Fang Xiaoru had ever worked with and all of the students that

he'd ever taught and have them executed as well. of the students that he'd ever taught and have them executed as well. So in all, I think it was about 900 people died as a result of Fang Xiaobu not wanting to write a nice poem. And it gets even better from there. He prepared a very special way to dispatch Fang himself, which was this giant Fong himself, which was this giant paper cutter, like a human-sized paper cutter. Oh, wait. Cut him apart at the waist. Oh my god. Yeah, boy. In just one big chop.

Oh, Jesus, with pain? And that happens in the throne room, and as Fong's top half is bleeding out onto the palace floor, the story goes that he takes his finger and with his dying action dips it in his own pool of blood and writes the word usurper on the floor, just to illustrate that even at the end, he wasn't going to call the emperor anything but exactly what he was.

That's gangster. And that is exactly like the Philadelphia Eagles not going to the White House. The same thing. Well, it's funny to me, like, that dude clearly kept it real, for sure. But I think some of those students and colleagues of his was like, I had this guy for one semester 15 years ago. And then you find out it's like, thanks a lot, professor. Just like just write the fucking poem. Right. Or don't or don't. You could just not do it.

It's not that big of a deal. You don't have to add a minimum addendums to the right. You just don't write a poem. Kill your whole family. But you didn't have to drag me into it. But yeah, like I want you to make a tan pussy. Yeah. Hey, why don't you kill everyone I've ever known? I don't teach you a lesson.

You piece of shit. Yeah. Every said, but yeah, what did you think from that reminds you of that bit from a, the old Chappelle show where it's a, when keeping it real goes wrong. Yes. That's exactly what this was. Absolutely. And it also reminds me of that famous headline.

What's she going to do? Stab me. It's like quote for man style. Yes, dude. That was amazing to. Yeah, that was great. Last words. We appreciate that.

Chris, these are all great. Like I said, I want to be back in the future to hear some more. But before you go to like, tell everybody, plug your ship, your podcast, whatever social media, whatever you want people to know about you, where to find you at all that. Awesome. Well, thanks guys for having me on love to be back anytime. You can find my show the history of China podcast by

me, Chris Stewart's. Accept No Substitutes for that very creative name. You can also find me online, THOC, at whatever the blue sky suffix is. Don't look for me on Twitter. It's not worth it anymore. I agree. In my in my opinion. But that's basically my social plugs. So, yeah. Although that is where we found each other. So I am glad for it in

that respect. That is true. So yeah, that is true. So I, I rescind that partially. Yeah. I, I, well, I sent you my number, but I really, I mean it. I want you to come back on anytime, anytime you got anything to plug, anytime you are thinking about your China stuff and you're like, oh, that'd be good for putting on airs. holla at you, boy. So we appreciate you, man. Thank you. And please have a great day. Yep.

Thanks Chris. All right, y'all listen up, make this your best season yet with nutritious two minute meals from factor eating. Well, it's never been this easy. Just heat them up and enjoy giving you more time to do what you want. I've been a devotee of factor since I first found out about them. They're doing podcasts and they sent us a sample, but this is two years ago or more. And my wife went ahead and signed us up as subscribers the very next day.

And I was going to do it myself, but she beat me to it because that's how hard it hit. Both of us. The main thing I love about factors, it's like, you don't have a lot of time during the day, but you still want to eat something that, you know, that hits, you know, some garbage frozen job from the save a lot or whatever. You want something that's like good for you and tastes good, but also that's quick. And that's a hard combination to come by. Generally, let's be honest, but factor has cracked the code. That's exactly what they are. And that's exactly why it hits for me. So now you can get outside instead of spending all your time prepping meals and cooking indoors. Factor's meals arrive fresh and ready to eat,

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Man, I'll tell you what. One good thing Factor did is it made me realize that I'm out near like cauliflower rice as much as I like regular rice, man. Like it's really it's really good stuff. And you can also lose eight pounds in eight weeks. I think Trey touched on that a little bit, but like that's a realistic goal and you can do it just with the keto meals.

And again, you ain't even got to make them. Like, cause that is a hard thing, you know, when you're losing weight, like everybody wants to do the meal prep and all that stuff and like, that's great. But but look we live in a world that is so fast paced and i'm sorry to say that ain't going away anytime soon matter of fact it may even get worse so it's just a way easier and cost-effective way to do it and there's no waste so reach your goals this year with ingredients that you can trust and convenience that cannot be beat whether you're wanting to do calorie smart protein

plus get that pump like me bro or you know keto or whatever. Eat smart with factor. Get started at factor meals dot com slash factor podcast and use the code factor podcast to get 50% off your first box plus free shipping. That's code factor podcast at factor meals.com slash factor podcast to get 50% off plus free shipping on your first box. You can't beat it. So you might as well eat it. Now I'm saying Hi y'all and we're back. See, I'm fine. Told you about that fucking getting paper cut to death. That ain't it. Also getting turned into like a fucking blind mule and toilet torso. That don't hit either. A lot of that stuff don't hit. A lot of history just don't hit.

No, we actually have a shirt and a hat and a coffee mug at stay fancy marks.com that suggests the past. Somebody was at my show and a meet and greet last weekend wearing a past on his shirt. So that was fun. Number one seller. Yeah. All right. Makes sense. Past it don't hit. Anyway, we appreciate Chris for being here. We're going to do a couple of y'all's air males and then get out of your hair for this week, I reckon. Yeah, this one right here, stop me if you've heard this one before, because I can't remember if I read this last week. I had it starred, but I think we ended up having to rush through. Does the subject line, group sex with the Kentucky head hunters mean anything to you? No, I don't think so. But my God, go ahead. I haven't even read it.

I just saw the, you know, sometimes I just see the headline. I'm like, well, sometimes I think everyone who lives the show knows that that's how you operate. That's why they put more time into the subject lines than the bikes because they know that's how you go. But you know, well, sometimes I click them just to be like, is this 19 paragraphs long? And oftentimes they're,

heard you talking about do Ms. Walker on an episode. My dad was a big KHH fan. And I swear to you from my entire childhood, I thought they were going to do Ms. Walker. I seriously thought they were going to get a burger and some cheap whiskey and then just wear Miss Walker out like cheap sneakers. Anyway, love you in the show, Cody Bacchus. OK, well, that's good.

Bacchus, I know that's a great name, right? Yeah. Is that is that a username or an alias? Because that's almost perfect right there. Bacchus with that debauchery you just described. I will say I thought from the subject line group section, I thought you're going to tell us that yo mama sucked every headhunters dick or whatever. Back in the eighties or something. I thought that's where, well, you know, I thought that too, which is why

I clicked that quick as fuck, but it is funny. Let's all go down to do miss Walker. So y'all thought that was a, that was on a other podcast. That was on a different podcast, but the Kentucky Headhunters were country band Davis Walker was their hip. They're from. Around the same neck of the woods where I grew up, Dumas Walker was Dumas Walker's was in my hometown when it existed. So they're kind of like local boys.

So that's kind of crazy that that place ever closed down. Like you think that song would keep them afloat. Yeah, the thing is, I don't know when that that song obviously was a known hit in my already closed. I OK. So yeah, that song came out in 1989. So I don't I don't even remember what. So when that song came out, it might have still been opened. Open by the time I have a living memory of this song.

So let's say 93 94 when I'm seven years old, the actual place, Dennis Walker's was already closed. Yeah, you just think it would have held up. Anyways, subject line re K-pop brain aneurysm. Hey, Corey and Trey, I got a story related to strokes and shit rewiring your brain. My girlfriend's aunt had a brain aneurysm several years ago. Among taking away her social filter and just becoming more irritable, there was one very peculiar and quite notable change.

It made her, a white woman in her 70s from Southern Illinois, an unabashed K-pop stan. And when I say stan, I mean every family gathering I've been with her at has involved her blasting K-pop on a Bluetooth speaker whenever she gets moments to herself, because she still has the wherewithal to know that not everyone's into all that, including me to be honest. So it was funny to hear about your friend that had a stroke and became a math whiz.

Uh, cause I was like, Hey, I heard something like that. Maybe not as crazy though. Too long. Didn't read my girlfriend's aunt aunt's brain bleed told her to love K-pop. Well, that's hilarious. Cause I've often thought, you know, in order to be into that shit, you'd about have to have a fucking brain aneurysm. I, that hits.

That's funny. I'll tell you this. I took this happened to me with so many things ever since I got the damn thing, but I took a K-pop ride on my Peloton and I came out the other side of it with a, with a greater appreciation for now. Look, I don't still ever really listen to it outside of that, but it kind of did it for me in that context in that moment. It was the only thing that made me sort of understand.

I was like, I could see how this, this shit sure is catchy. So, um, if I ever, if I ever catch you jerking off to a squid pussy, then I'll know you're going too far. I ain't going to do all that, but I looked up the Dumas walkers, um, wiki and the guys at Kentucky head hunters says, Ihunters says, I mean, I knew Dumas Walker obviously was a person in the place his name for him. But, you know, I've talked before about how I'm from where I'm from. We're real big into marbles.

We got home with multiple marbles champions. So it says, I don't I don't even think I knew this part. The song refers to a retailer and legendary world class marbles champion named Dumas Walker from Moss, Tennessee, which is where my daddy's from. Moss is outside of Salina who owned a package shop near the Kentucky, Tennessee state line. So the package shop, dude, no way.

My drunk ass stepdad. Nah, it just, it had to be different when my drunk ass stepdad used to work at a package store right on the state line and I'd go out there with him and I'd sell beer to Rednecks when I was eight years old or whatever, like because he'd be fucking drunk in the back. And I'm like an eight year old working to register and pulling out beers from the beer cave and all that shit. But it had to just be a completely different.

I started wondering, I was like, did it close down and somebody reopened it? And because you would just reuse the name Demas Walker, wouldn't you? Like, of course. Like, wondering, I was like, did it close down and somebody reopened it? Because you would just reuse the name. Domus Walker's wouldn't you like, I mean, of course, like, yeah, I don't know. It is where I need to talk to uncle town or marbles. Are marbles still big there? I mean, they were pretty big when I was a kid. I've mentioned before recently on one of our podcasts, when I was a kid, there was a girl, a Salina girl who was like the LeBron James with marbles.

And she was a she was in sports illustrated for kids and shit. That's when I was in school there. So it was like, I mean, yeah, it was still a thing. I met a friend to Drew Schumacher or something who his dad and him randomly, they grew up playing marbles. And when I told him I'm from Salina, he was like, oh, shit, I play marbles. Y'all are fucking. It was like, y'all are taking seriously now. Not like he had actually no one's ever'm from Salina, he was like, Oh, shit, I play marbles. Y'all are fucking. He was like, Y'all are taking seriously now.

Now, like he had actually no one's ever heard of Salina, but this guy who was from elsewhere, but played marbles was like, Damn, you're from Salina again. It's like the canton, Ohio and fucking marbles. I guess it's weird. But, you know, I mean, my buddies never really thought we all did play it a little, but we didn't really. I was just thinking about like a really sad essay to be written on all the factories

being closed and it being titled the day Solana lost its marbles. Lost its marbles. I mean, yeah, I mean, it is kind of true because I've said before, it's like when all that shit went down, everything went to shit and like the football team used to be good and then they wait, they started not hitting. And it's like, it was everything. And it did. I think that did kind of happen to marbles too. It also just kind of died off.

People was too busy, you know, being on pills and shit to do marbles anymore. But anyway, I don't know. Last one, subject line. All right, this is my last time suggesting this for Trey. Maybe, which subtext here I assume means I've gotten several emails that I've just looked over. No, you've probably read it and I've probably said, yeah, I'll talk about that. Then I

just don't. Okay. That's what I'm expecting to have happened. Hey fellas, this email may be too boring to read on the show. We'll be the judge of that. But I still think it's a fantastic story for Trey to tell when he wants to talk about someone with a dark sense of humor that's as big as his multi-million dollar bank account. It's also its own Venn diagram, maybe. I've sent it over to you once or twice before and I'm convinced I haven't heard you tell the story because you didn't see it because there is no way it's not good enough for the show. It's got a Canadian puck-like figure, women of ill repute, and a baby-making derby worth $7 million in today's money.

Basically, in 1920-something, every line in a dude's will was a troll. He gave his shares of a brewery to anti-alcohol preachers, and his stake in some sort of gambling operation to some stick-asses against gambling. He also gave his vacation home in Jamaica to three men who he knew abhorred each other. But what he did with his cash, $7 million in today's money, was a legend that turned infamous. He left his fortune to the Toronto woman who had the most kids in the ten years after he died. Since no one really knew about this contest until five years after it started, the top three contenders were women who lived in the slums, were Catholic, and had spaghetti and potato people names.

And at least one was unmarried and had kids from GASP, two different dads. Spoiler alert, she couldn't afford to divorce the dude who walked out on her and their 1,100 kids. Something the WASP leadership in the city would not let stand. In the end, the poor woman didn't get a dime of the dude's money, though a lawsuit against the government garnered a couple of them a modern day six-figure payout, and the millions went to non-Catholics who didn't need the money as much and who gave birth to fewer kids than the ladies who originally led the race. This American life just reran the episode from which I first heard this story.

It starts around the 20 minute mark. And she shared the link here, wishing you both the very best. Uh, well, I mean, that story does hit. I think we've just told it. You just, I mean, you gave it to Choder read and then he read it. So I don't know what we've done. It was supposed to do with it. But I am glad you did because that's a super hitting piece of airmail.

Like that's, that's really insane and awesome. But thank you. You can send us your own airmail at putting on airs at gmail.com. Also go to stay fancy merch.com and get some shirts. Tell everybody where you're going to be, buddy. Tonight, if you listen, this the day comes out, me and Drew will be in Knoxville together and tomorrow, Saturday, April 12th, me and Joe will be in Chattanooga together. Those shows are both sold out.

So if you got your tickets already, come see us if you do. And if you're in Oregon, I'll be there next week. And then Houston at the end of the month. And then after that, Seattle, Vegas, San Diego, a bunch of places. Go to Tray Crotter dot com. Check them out. Come see me make it hits. Also, Trash Daddy, which is on Tray Crotter. There's a link to it on Tray Crotter dot com, too.

Yes, absolutely do that. We love Corey dot com is where all my bonus stuff is. And also, since Trey is is gonna be with me this weekend, I'm going to convince him or make him against his will, live stream some of the Masters coverage with me between our recordings. And I will be doing that throughout the Masters, definitely most of the day, Sunday.

And I will be streaming until there is a green jacket awarded and that go that'll be streaming on all of my platforms but if you don't follow me on YouTube go ahead and head to my YouTube page that way you'll get the notification and all that stuff and also I just wrote a thing for the Atlanta Journal Constitution it's out in print It's also on their website. So go to ajc.com. It's about being a man, which, you know, I'm more than qualified to write about.

And yeah, there you go. Stay fancy, motherfuckers. You. You. Here's Lydia Loveless. One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four. Royalty and rednecks are like they both like cutting and picking fights. Here's Lydia Loveless. When they're wrong, they'll take you to a magical place Where if you call someone a cut, nobody cares They keep it dabbing air at putting on airs

Putting on airs, putting on airs, putting on airs Hey everyone, it's Dan Sousa from America's Test Kitchen. I'm super excited to let you all know that we're launching a new video podcast that takes you behind the scenes into the messy, imperfect, but riveting day-to-day life right here in our Test Kitchen. Not only do I get to talk to my colleagues about the latest taste tests they attended, I just came from a tasting of salted caramel apple pie bars and then roasted garlic, so I apologize. Or about a recipe they're developing. The thing about this recipe is it's a secret.

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You definitely said it. Thanks, Sam. Make sure to subscribe to In the Test Kitchen so you don't miss an episode. You can watch In the Test Kitchen on YouTube and Spotify and listen to it wherever you get your podcasts. Can't wait to see you in the Test Kitchen.