#3 Most Impressive Dynasty: The Qing

Greetings Peoples of the Internets:

Recently I have been chatting with my old rival and drinking buddy, Zhang Xueliang.  Of course, we have to have these “chats” via telegram, as that old mouth breather Jiang Jieshi has kept the Young Marshall under house arrest ever since the so-called “Xi’an Incident.”  But he has to be released pretty soon, I mean how long can the Generalissimo hold a grudge?  Anyway, Xueliang was telegraphing (is this what kids mean by texting?) how he just cannot wait to get out and get back to his homeland up in the Northeast.  I had to stop him right there.  Who the hell wants to go to Dongbei? Motherfuckers been wanting to get up out of there for centuries!

Seeing how ignorance was everywhere, I knew that it was time for the introduction of the #3 most impressive dynasty of all time, the glorious Qing.  As all but the most moronic know, the Qing dynasty was founded by the Manchus, bunch of gross barbarians who were able to parlay their excellence in horseback riding and archery into the temporary dominance over the great Han Chinese race.  Crazy, right?  But truth be told the Chinese empire has long been troubled by the dirty and unwashed barbarian hordes to the north.  Ever since the Xiongnu delighted to our fine silks and princesses, it has been one long struggle to remind the barbarian that yes, you can ride horses better than we can, but no, you are still a damn barbarian so keep out.

Patriotic Masturbation

Dearest Readers:

My deepest apologies for not updating my “blog” sooner, but I had been away from Taiyuan, which, I am proud to say, is quite lovely this time of year.  Just this morning I was lounging on my extra large kang, watching a private performance from one of my favorite local opera stars (a lovely lass, but only when in full make-up, a long story indeed), looking out into the frigid city, which was choked with coal smoke, and I exclaimed how happy I was to be back in Shanxi.

You see, I have just returned from a super top-secret meeting in Chongqing with my fellow KMT leaders, deciding on how to best pretend to resist Japan while secretly crushing the Red Menace.  I cannot tell you the details of the plan, but it involves this odd creation I learned from your internets, some sort of food that is passed off as Chinese food and has the odd moniker “Orange Chicken.”  Perhaps you have heard of it?  We certainly do not have it in China, but I plan to have my chefs perfect this dish and introduce it into CCP territory, starting with the Jin-Cha-Ji base area.  After eating this crap, it is just a matter of time before Mao and his wife sharing peasant hordes drop dead from malnutrition. Surely this is the most brilliant military plan ever hatched over hotpot!

This Shanzhai Shit is Getting Out of Hand

Loyal Readers:

Once again I must take off my warlord hat and put on the refined headgear of your informed social commentator.  Why, you ask?  Because this shanzhai shit is getting out of hand.  Oh, you probably figured that out from the title of this post.

First, what is shanzhai?  Shit, if you do not know, you may be beyond help.  Shanzhai literally means “mountain fortress” but thanks to the intertube world is now used to refer to knock-off goods, and can also be translated into the American slang term “ghetto.”  BTW, if you are not familiar with this word, you must be living in a cave.  A dank, stinky, Yan’an cave filled with wife sharing, pill-popping, yangge-dancing dumb-ass peasants.

Secondly, how do we know that the shanzhai craze has gotten out of hand?  My first clue was the fact that during a recent Chinese autoshow, half the cars were knockoffs of Western models.  Here is one example:

Looks vaguely familiar, no?

My second clue was when the New York Times, the “Grey Lady” herself, starting talking about how shanzhai China has become:

Technological advances have allowed hundreds of small Chinese companies, some with as few as 10 employees, to churn out what are known here as shanzhai, or black market, cellphones, often for as little as $20 apiece.

Although shanzhai phones have only been around a few years, they already account for more than 20 percent of sales in China, which is the world’s biggest mobile phone market, according to the research firm Gartner.

Now, we all know that the NY Times is a tool in the Jiang Jieshi and Guomindang machine, so for them to call out China, in the middle of a fucking war, says something.  BTW, what the fuck is a cellphone?  I digress.  Did I mention the shanzhai soy sauce made from human hair?

Now, many of you may be wondering why I care so much about this shanzhai shit.  Well, let me level with you.  Yan Xishan has been holding down Shanxi for decades.  As I stated before, I am the real revolutionary.  I helped bring down the damn Qing dynasty!  But with this shanzhai shit, I fear in the future my memory will be overshadowed by some shanzhai revolutionary.  Sun Yat-sen, Jiang Jieshi, even (gasp) that infamous peasant fucker Zhu De.  I thus call on my Chinese brothers and sisters, let us be a little less ghetto, a little less nongcun, and a bit more Taiyuan.

YXS

Meet China’s Next President!

Hello Peoples of the Internet:

Just a quick thought here–how much fucking longer am I going to have to wait before Jiang Jieshi steps aside and allows me my proper moment as ruler of China?  Granted, I do have Shanxi, and I love it here.  You have never lived until you spend a summer here in Taiyuan, the weather is awesome.  But Shanxi is just the first step to my national leadership.  Hell, even Henry Luce knows it, and he is so far up Jiang Jieshi’s ass that by comparison, Zhou Enlai seems like he could give a fuck what “Chairman” Mao thinks of him.  Check out this recent cover of Time Magazine:

OK, maybe not that recent, it is from May, 1930, over ten years ago.  But look at that promise, I am to be the next president of China!  It says so in print, so it must be true.  BTW, how awesome do I look?  My moustache is so full of awesome, no wonder Zhang Ailing keeps sending me love poems.

So it is clear that I will be the next leader of the most kick-ass civilization ever known to mankind, that of the great Chinese race.  But when?  How much longer can we suffer through this farce of division between the GMD and the Pinko Menace?  For China’s sake, I hope not long.

YXS

#4 Most Impressive Dynasty: The Tang

Gentle Readers:

Last night, gazing over the beautiful Taiyuan skyline as the sun set to the west of my fortified palace, watching the sun dip below the fragrant haze created by my coal mines, my mind wandered and I began to ponder some of the big questions that have been on my mind since I was a young lad.  Who or what created us?   Was Hong Xiuquan fucking crazy, or was he actually bat-shit crazy?  Why is it that I was destined for greatness, while peasants are destined to farm using their own shit as fertilizer?  Who put that stick up Jiang Jieshi’s ass?  Does Mao Zedong realize that with his accent, he sounds like a little bitch?

As I pondered my role in this world, and my status as a great Chinese leader (and the #1 Chinese thinker), this led me to a new line of inquiry: What is it that defines us as Chinese?  Not in terms of nationality, as this is a simple question.  In terms of nation, China refers to the great Han race and all those minorities lucky enough to be crushed by our superior numbers and hot pot technology.  No, as I pondered the meaning of “Chinese,” I was reflecting on the role of culture.

Now, when I was a young man, Chinese culture was a simple matter.  Drink tea, quote Zhu Xi whenever possible, eat rice, cripple your daughter by binding her feet, and repeat until you croak and your many sons mourn you for three years.  But within my lifetime, so much has changed!  Sure, we still got the rice thing, but nowadays Zhu Xi is out, and Ibsen is in.  And if you bind your daughter’s feet, you are considered a serious asshole.  A few decades ago, if you could not freely pontificate about the “investigation of things” while your womenfolk hobbled about within the seclusion of your estate, you would not be considered Chinese.  These days?  So much has changed!

Now, of course I am thankful for this change.  I mean, I rule Shanxi, so the whole end of the imperial era thing has kind of worked out for me.  Plus, I like a real active sex partner, and women with bound feet really cannot do some of the real freaky shit that I enjoy.  Yes, I know, this makes me a feminist, don’t remind me.  But if we cannot take Chinese culture and fossilize it, how can we ever be sure how to separate the great Chinese from the dirty, stinky, and typically hairy barbarian?  After worrying about this for a few hours, I finally relaxed, thanks to two things.  First was a stiff fenjiu cocktail, second was my memories of the #4 dynasty of all time, the great Tang dynasty!

The Tang was truly a great time.  First, as you can see, this was a large dynasty, one that extended a Chinese bitch slap all the way into Inner Asia along the Silk Road.  But what really appeals to me about the Tang was that this was a different China, one would have been unrecognizable to my parents and their generation.  That punk Zhu Xi had not yet put the Neo in Neo-Confucianism.  Women did not yet bind their feet, which meant when you sexed up Yang Guifei, she could do all your favorite positions!  Perhaps most importantly, China was open to other cultures and ideologies–Confucianism was actually taking a back seat to Buddhism!  Crazy.  But if China was culturally so different during one of its greatest eras (specifically, the #4 era ever), then China can change and grow!   This is great news for my plan to replace tea drinking with bourbon guzzling.

Now, the Tang is often considered to be the #1 dynasty of all time.  Close, but not quite.  How can we overlook the fact that the Tang was breifly usurped by the only female emperor in Chinese history?  Thanks to the so-called Empress Wu, the Tang has a black eye that cannot be covered up.  Good thing that I am a feminist, because I can come out and say what all Chinese men know, even us feminists: Women cannot rule All Under Heaven!   All Under My Pants, yes, but not All Under Heaven.

YXS

JPA Recruit of the Month: Chen Yi

Hola fellow travellers of the “Net”:

How time flies these days!  Sometimes I fear I have just too much on my plate: fighting the Commies, suppressing the local press, ignoring Jiang Jieshi’s pleas for help, not to mention the everyday problems that pop up in running my beautiful Shanxi!  It is a wonder I have any “me time” at all, but I do what I can.  After all, the young ladies of Taiyuan are not going to sexually harass themselves.

But time certainly has flown, and I just realized that I have fallen behind in my JPA recruitment quotas.  As my loyal readers know, I have made a commitment to bring the best and brightest into military service.  Thus last month I drafted Wendy Deng, to serve alongside our first recruit Xiao Yun.  This month’s choice was a no brainer, as I went with a young woman who is truly sympatico with me in terms of her views on foreign relations.  Chen Yi, report for duty!

Some of you might know Chen Yi as Rola Chen, famous for being a “Super Girl.”  If you do, for shame!  There is no reason to know anything about this girl except that she enjoys lying around in her swimsuit with Chinese and Japanese flags to keep her ass from sticking to what appears to be a couch made of fine leather.  Now, I do not care if this girl can sing, or if she has any real talents at all.  All I need is a new ambassador to the Japanese here in North China.  My last envoy, believe it or not, puked on General Miyashiro after a long night of sake bombs and uni.  So much face was lost!!!

Luckily, we all know that the xiao ribenr is a horny, dirty, and perverted beast.  Until now I had no way to really capitalize on this fact, excepting my highly successful “Panties for Guns” program.  For while the fine ladies of Shanxi were willing to provide me with used undergarments to help defend the realm (I also provided them with noodle coupons), they always drew the line with crossing enemy lines.  Chen Yi, however, is the kind of solider that is willing to compromise herself for the greater good.  Congratulations on being inducted to the JPA, Chen Yi–I see great things in your future.  Oh, be sure to bring lots of panties.  Something tells me that you are going to need them!

YXS

A Warlord Gives Thanks

Faithful Readers:

As the cold frost of the Shanxi winter rapidly advances, spirits here in Taiyuan are still high.  True, the JPA have exchanged their hot pants for a more insulated long pants uniform, but the fit is still tight.  Kudos to the designer of our military garb!  True, he is a notorious homosexual, but his rampant misogyny means he truly enjoys outfitting our Shanxi ladies in the most exploitative of outfits.  You think a feminist was behind the phenomenon of women’s clothing with words on the ass?  I think not.

My US military advisors are in a particularly fine mood, as they prepare to celebrate yet another American holiday.  Sometimes they baffle me, with all of their many celebrations, none of which (as far as I can fathom) involves sweeping the graves of their ancestors.  Earlier I have blogged about my encounters with Halloween and the most odd “four and twenty” holiday.  True to form, my advisors have been encouraging me to adopt Thanksgiving here in Shanxi, in order to (in their words) prove our “civilized” status.  Please, our coal mines are more than proof of our fine civilization?  Plus, do you not see the ancient Shang dynasty ding I use as my ashtray?  Check it out, and yes this is my actual ashtray:

As I have told my American “friends,” the Chinese race cannot and will not simply import this barbarian holiday.  I have, however, implemented a “Thanksgiving with Chinese Characteristics.”  What does this mean?  First of all, no turkey.  What a disgusting food, most foul.  We will however, feast in our own unique way.  Inspired by the American creation of the “turducken,” I have commissioned my palace chefs to create a super jiaozi.  According to my own design, it will work like this: First, take a cabbage and pork jiaozi, than put that inside of a lamb and carrot jiaozi, and then put that inside of an egg and tomato jiaozi.  Then, deep fry that sucker.  Oh yeah.  Far superior to turkey.  The JPA, however, will most likely insist on mala hot pot.  Sad but true: I have lost more soldiers to explosive diarrhea than to actual explosives.

We will also follow American tradition by giving thanks.  I will start:

I am thankful for holding down Shanxi, the most wonderful place on earth.

I am thankful for being able to fly under the radar.  While Mao Zedong and Jiang Jieshi fight it out, I will bide my time and most certainly emerge the victor of All-Under-Heaven.

I am thankful for the recent influx of sex workers into Taiyuan.  Prices are down, choices are up, and thanks to their inexperience, VD rates are at an all time low.  Thank you, rural unrest!

I am thankful that my Beerbot is still functioning.  If it breaks, I am pretty sure that no one here in Taiyuan will be able to fix my most precious servant.

Finally, I am thankful for booze.

YXS

Defending Shanxi

Dear Readers:

Sometimes I wonder if I will ever be able to rest.  I mean, sure I take constant vacations, and even when I am on the clock I am usually passed out or on the way towards oblivion.  But even when I am holed up in my Taiyuan stronghold with one of my many wives or a collection of unfortunate peasant girls, I am always thinking about the greatest place on earth, my lovely Shanxi.

There are those who do not share my love of Shanxi, and as such they attack me, the JPA, and the good (read stupid) peasants that farm and pay taxes.  That is right, I am taking to you, the Chinese Communist Party.  Oh, and you too, Jiang Jieshi, don’t think I forgot how you tried to punk me in the 30s.

Recently, the anti-Shanxi voices in my head just seem to get louder and louder.  Take this example here, of a girl who has decided that she should marry a stinking laowai because “China does not have any men suitable” for her.  Now, normally I do not care about such silly statements.  As a warlord controlling vast resources, I have all the women I need, both foreign and domestic (BTW, same goes for my booze).  Plus I have met plenty of laowai men through my contacts with the US military, and so for any woman who would want to marry one of these half-baboon creatures, good luck.

But this woman crossed the line with this statement:

China definitely does not lack rich men, but have a look at what kind of people they are. How many of them succeeded due to their own effort, ability or honesty? If they are not brick-moving labour contractors, then they are coal-digging boss from Shanxi, or they are corrupt. They are neither civilised, nor do they have a good bearing. How am I supposed to converse with them? To be honest, they will regard it as art if you are able to hum a few lines of pop music.

Hold on there girl!  Why did you have to drag the good and honest coal-digging bosses of Shanxi into this mess?  Why, some of my closest friends are coal-digging bosses of Shanxi!  They are hard workers, who demand nothing but the best from their workers, even if that means creating dangerous working situations that result in multiple and preventable deaths.  Are we supposed to just give up on cheap and dirty coal power?  Ha!  You think power comes from the sky like rain or sunshine?

Moreover, we Shanxi men are men of culture.  Pop songs?  Please, you truly do not understand these great men, who delight in five-hour long operas, best viewed with a bottle of fenjiu in one hand and an underpaid and possibly diseased sex worker on your lap.

In the end, I am conflicted.  On one hand, women like this, so ignorant of Shanxi, should be shown the door and invited to leave China for whatever third-rate first world country will take them.  Might I suggest Canada?  On the other hand, that such anti-Shanxi sentiment is spreading is troubling to say the least.

Will it be my responsibility alone to restore the good name of Shanxi to the internet?

YXS

How to Succeed in China

Friends, Followers, and Fanboys:

This past few weeks some of you have been writing me for advice–and why not?  If you need to turn to someone, it makes sense to make it the Model Governor myself, and I am used to many of you seeking me out to help you with your various problems, even if it means taking time out of my daily routine of boozing, whoring, and finding new ways to infuriate the various Song sisters.  So I am thus putting aside my current project–getting Song Ailing to invest big bucks in the “Taiyuan Lake Housing Development Project”–to address a concern of many of my readers.  Namely, how does one succeed in today’s China?

This is a serious question, especially given all the turmoil in today’s China.  Armed conflicts, ideological disputes, natural disasters, and totalitarian leaders; the path to the top is rocky indeed.  That was true for me, and it is still true for you young bucks fighting for your first Mexican silver dollar.  Thus I present to you, the patented Yan Xishan three step process to succeed in today’s China:

1.  Let someone else do the hard work.

2.  Steal everything you can from them.

3. Profit!!!

This my friends is the Chinese way of career success.  It was true for Jiang Jieshi, who watched Sun Zhongshan and the Comintern build up the KMT, then took that shit over once Sun died, leaving him in charge of the Northern Expedition.  And this is not just a strategy for world leaders (hey, if FDR is going to pretend Jiang Jieshi is a Great Leader, I can too!).  As my gemen’r Boyce noted a while back, it works for the owners of booze-holes in Beiping.  And it just happened again in that fine city, with the creators of the magazine “that’s Beiping” being forced out by their publisher, who will now publish their own version of “that’s,” profiting on all the work done by the folks they just screwed over.

So what do we learn from all of this?  First, never start anything by yourself.  It is a lot of hard work!  Perhaps the stress might kill you–look what happened to that old fool Sun Zhongshan.  You might spend all of your time getting girls drunk and ready for their foreign hookups, like the bartenders at the former Shooters.  Hell, you might spend all of your time policing an increasingly mindless online forum.

No, instead of doing the hard work, might I instead suggest taking an secondary, behind the scenes role?  And thus just wait until you can steal everything, claim it as your own, and coast your way to the top?  Listen kids, it is your choice, just don’t say I never warned you.

YXS

PS: To get a feel of the old Shooters, look here.  Just be ready to feel really dirty.  Here is a preview of what awaits, complete with a future JPA buck private:

#6 Most Impressive Dyansty: the Ming

Sons and Daughters of the Order of Yan Xishan,

Welcome again to my ongoing rundown of the greatest dynasties in the history of the world’s most awesome and super-duper civilization, that of the Chinese. Did you know that we invented everything? We did. Name a thing. What was that you said? Gunpowder? Kites? The Hay Chopper Chop? We totally invented all of those–hell, I was even personally responsible for one of these inventions, and you can be sure that it was not the kite that sprang from the mind of your favorite warlord.

Now, it is true that our rate of inventions has slowed down a bit. Ever since the Song dynasty, China has been plagued by a horrible curse, for you see we are forced to deal with millions and millions of poor peasants. With so many of these damn peasants, all of whom were willing to labor all day for peanuts (or the equivalent rate in rice), there really was no need to develop new agricultural techniques or pretty much any other labor saving device. Hell, it seemed downright anti-Confucian to deny our beloved peasants their enjoyable back-breaking labor by re-inventing the water wheel. But as I explained in my recent lecture to the JPA, this does not mean that Chinese invention stopped. No, we glorious Chinese turned our keen minds to other forms of invention.

So it was with the founder of the Ming dynasty, ranked number #6 in this definitive countdown of the greatest Chinese dynasties to ever rule All Under Heaven. For this great and wise man, known to us as Zhu Yuanzhang, recast the imperial state. First, a bit about the man:

Zhu Yuanzhang, as you can see, was no 花花公子. He was even more pockmarked than Jiang Jieshi’s favorite Shanghai gangster. In that sense, I have trouble relating to him, for I am a dapper gentleman of the highest order. Well, that is not entirely true–I should not really say that I am a gentleman, only that I know how to act like one when needed. I am, however, a damn fine looking man–although I am not sure why I need to remind you of this, you have seen my photos.

Anyway, Zhu Yuanzhang was ugly, but he was a genius. He basically re-invented the imperial state, creating an autocratic and authoritarian regime that power hungry and paranoid rulers have been enjoying ever since. In the past, emperors had to listen to their ministers. But once Zhu solved this problem by cutting off the head of his government; he did so literally, making me think he would be a fan of my patented Hay Chopper Chop. I mean, once the Prime Minister has no head, how the hell is he going to complain about the increasing diversion of flood control funds into the fenjiu shush fund?

Alas, the state he created was not without flaws. First, it was small:

I mean, it could be worse. But really, what happened to West China? Tibet? Hello? Anyone there? It seems Zhu Yuanzhang misunderstood “All Under Heaven” as meaning “This Small Pathetic Part of All Under Heaven.” Trust me, that is not a mistake I will make. As I noted after meeting the Dalai Lama, I am still undecided about invading Tibet. On one hand, having it does make the map much more impressive. On the other hand, yak butter tea (ugh, I just threw up a bit). In any case, Zhu Yuanzhang never even dared to venture west as I have, and for that I look down at him like the pock-marked porcine caricature that he is.

The real problem with the Ming, however, is that Zhu Yuanzhan’s offspring were royal fuck-ups. They make Puyi look like Kangxi, if you get my meaning. When you put all power in the hands of the ruler and reduce the officials to a bunch of yellow bellied fools dragging their coffins to court, you best have a damn competent ruler. But Zhu Yuanzhang’s descendants were not fit to manage a Shanxi noodle shop. Take for example Zhu Houzhao, better known as the Wuzong Emperor. Houzhao didn’t like to study, loved war games, and boozed his life away. Now, I imagine you are wondering what could be wrong with boozing–nothing in the abstract, but ol’ Wuzong got so loaded he fell out of a fishing boat and died from complications. Now, if you are too stupid to figure out how to safely pass out on your kang, how the hell you gonna run a damn empire?

Indeed.

YXS

PS–Note to self, make sure my offspring are not total fuck ups.