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

#5 Most Impressive Dynasty: The Han

Good Friends:

As my longtime readers may have noted, something has been wrong with the Yan Xishan Blog lately. Earthquakes, Tang dynasty magistrates, and dumbass laowai have been distracting me from my primary goal for the year. Well, I suppose my primary goals for 1941 should be wiping out the wife-sharing ideologues and convincing the 小日本儿’s to return the panties of our good Shanxi women and get the hell back to their little island chain. But beyond that, I have been attempting to educate my soldiers (and by extension the uneducated masses of the so-called “internet”) about the wonders of Chinese imperial history. I fear a future where people learn about our past from pasty-faced intellectuals who can never understand that killing peasants is not only essential in the state-building process, but fun as well! Why just last week… wait, I am getting off track again. You can see how this could happen so easily with a Great Man such as myself. Speaking of which, I am thinking that once the war is over, I will put my visage on every single monetary denomination. But for the fiver, I am thinking about this for the image: me, giving Zhou Enlai a noogie. Shit, I am getting off track again. I need to stop holding special 8:00 AM happy hours.

But this conception of myself as a Great Man is relevant to today’s topic. As I explained to my JPA troops in my most recent lecture, a truly great dynasty is defined by great men. And there were many great men in the #5 Most Impressive Chinese Dynasty, the Han. First, let’s take a look at the map:

Not bad. I have seen better, but compared to the Sui, that is nothing to sneeze at. Now, who were these great men of the Han? The first in my estimation is Liu Bang, the founder of the Han. He was of peasant origin, which is rather problematic in my estimation. As a social climber, I can dig his rise to power, but as someone who is currently the ruler of millions of peasants, I do not want them getting any big ideas. Liu Bang became the ruler of the realm by putting the beat down on the great general Xiang Yu. During the critical battle, he duped Xiang Yu into thinking that his own men had turned on him. Liu Bang did this by having his own men sing the songs of Chu, where Xiang Yu hailed from. Interesting, huh? I should note that I have some long term plans that require my JPA troops to learn Carmen Miranda songs. Just in case, you know.

My other favorite Great Man of the Han was Wudi, a later Han emperor. He was a man of action, and a great role model for powerful Chinese men everywhere. Here is a man who would never be seen holding a clutch purse. Instead, he expanded the Chinese state to the largest it ever had been, at least up to that point. What a stupendous feeling that must be… unfortunately for me to have that feeling, I think that after I unify China, I would need to then go ahead and annex Sibera. Besides being a conqueror, Wudi also knew how to get up in people’s faces. This was no distant Laozi-style ruler, but one that got right up in a peasant’s grill and said: Hey little buddy, instead of letting the market tell you how much grain costs, how about I just tell you instead?

Now, there are many other great men of the Han, espeically if we consider the warlords that emerged at the end of the period.  I am talking, of course, about men such as Cao Cao (holy shit Cao Cao just showed up at my Taiyuan palace).  But let me tell you, dear reader, no matter what radical revisionists such as Kenny Pomeranz might say, Wang Mang was no great man.  He was a punk usurper, plain and simple.  And anyone who mentions land reform, as he often did, was obviously a Commie Pinko.  I would have had him quickly introduced to my famous hay chopper.  If it was good enough for Liu Hulan…

Well, there you have it kids–a few great men of the great Han dynasty.  I am pretty sure there were some pretty groovy chicks during the Han–I hear there was this one chick Ban Zhao who could teach other chicks to be good wives, that sounds pretty cool.  Overall, what a fucking great dynasty.  But still not the greatest.  I mean, Wang Mang pretty much screwed up the second half of the thing, plus there was this whole Confucian emphasis that threatened to limit the power of the emperor.  Don’t worry folks, the best is yet to come.  Stay tuned for my future post on the #4 most impressive dynasty.

YXS

#7 Most Impressive Dyansty: the Zhou

Eternal Fans of the Powerful Yan Xishan,

I know what you are thinking. It probably goes something along these lines: “Damn Yan Xishan, how can you keep me waiting for so long between your brilliant posts? My life is fucking stupid without your wisdom to brighten my day!”

Yes, I know it has been a long time. But what can I say, I have been distracted as of late. First, Wang Jingwei is attempting to bribe me, hoping I will join up with his puppet-ass state. No way that will ever happen–Yan Xishan put Shanxi together proper like, and Yan Xishan only trusts Yan Xishan–but it is fun to get his hopes up. Shit, he has not been this optimistic since Hu Hanmin got sent to Russia back in 1925. I will probably string him along for a few more weeks, as I am quite enjoying the sake he has been sending me. I have also been a bit busy with one of my newest JPA recruits. I will not go into detail, but let’s just say she sure knows how to polish my Mauser. Hmm, that is kind of filthy. Let’s just say she sure knows how to establish hegemony over my territory. That does not quite work…. Let’s just say she sure knows how to dredge my wasteland, reclaim it as a productive agricultural field, rent it out at high rates, and avoid taxes on it to boot.

Now that we are all caught up, here is my latest JPA history lecture in my “Top Dynasties” series. We are at number seven, and (drum roll please) the number seven spot goes to the Zhou dynasty. Now, I am sure Confucius is spinning in his grave (unless the Commies have somehow managed to dig up his grave and use his bones as drumsticks in their hippie drum circles) as I write this, because that damn Kongzi was all about praising the Zhou dynasty to anyone who would listen. I have already explained how Confucius was a punk here and here, but suffice it to say he was, like all educators, a total assfrog. So you will have to forgive me for disagreeing with Confucius and telling you that the Zhou dynasty was not the imperial equivalent to sliced mantou.

Why was this the case? First of all, the Zhou founders were moralistic bastards. They overthrew the Shang because they were power hungry, but used sissy moralist rhetoric to justify their actions. Thus they called out the Shang for loving to party, and those of us who love booze and whores have been fighting for repsect ever since. Check out this painting of the Shang rulers:

Now, I do not know about you, but if you ask me these guys look like they know how to party. And while they seem a bit tame when compared to myself and my inner circle, I bet they could at least go a few rounds before passing out being dragged out of my Taiyuan citadel.

Having unjustly overthrown the good-time-party-boys of the Shang, the Zhou had to explain why they did so, and what they came up with was the “Mandate of Heaven.” Basically, this theory holds that Heaven is always judging you, and if the ruler has too much fun Heaven finds some one to replace him. In retrospect, all I can say is what a bunch of fucking idiots. Sure, Kings Wen and Wu, you sure explained why you did what you did. But guess what? Now every hungry peasant with a half-assed army is going to be trying to overthrow you and every other ruler, claiming to have the Mandate of Heaven backing them up. Way to think that one through buddy. Bad enough to think Heaven is up there judging me for doing body shots of fenjiu with various ladies with low moral standards, but to think that this sort of behavior would make me lose power? Total bullshit, but thanks to the Zhou there is probably some starving peasant, standing in his own filth, ranting about how they are the new Son of Heaven.

Now, why is the Zhou even on this list? Well, one reason people love the Zhou is because it lasted so damn long–1122 BCE-256BCE–but let’s not kid ourselves. They Zhou ruling house was only in power for a small part of their dynasty. This brings us to the real reason this period rocked–lots of small states fighting for control of the world (in other words China). Sound familiar? Yes my dear readers, there is much in common between the latter part of the Zhou (known as the Warring States period) and the current warlord era (soon to be known as the Rise of Yan Xishan Era). In both times we see great men enjoying the hunt, the battle, and the spoils of war. All this death and destruction made for some great philosophy, which you can learn about here. But beyond that the Zhou saw the rise of the autocratic state, focused solely on destroying other autocratic states. Without their advances in taxing and recruiting peasants, where would I be?

I tell you where I would not be–kicking back in my war room, getting an anmo from a young JPA recruit, and getting my beer served by a robot. Thanks for that King Wen. I am sure that is what you had in mind when you cut off the head of the last Shang king.

YXS

New Year’s Eve=Disappointment

Fellow Fans of Shanxi,

I was hoping to use this opportunity to wish all of you a most happy 1941 (or whatever year you are choosing to celebrate out there in the web-o-sphere), but my heart is heavy with frustration, and I must vent.

As you must surely know, I am not adverse to finding excuses to get loopy on fenjiu or the local Shanxi pijiu, and as such I had high hopes for this New Year’s Eve. I had the whole night planned in excruciating detail, with everything leading up to a buck-naked sparkling fenjiu toast with the three leading ladies of the local qinqiang opera circuit. They are known as the san guniang, and they are famous for both for their lovely eardrum-shattering timbre as well as their depraved bisexuality. I have already traded some of their panties to the Japanese Guandong Army for a truckload of shiny new handguns, so you can imagine how much fun my night would have been.

Would have been being the operative term. My current US military attaché is such a stubborn punk–he makes “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell look like Honey Joe. He went on and on about how his hearing aid had short-circuited the last time we entertained the san guniang, and insisted on what he referred to as “Plan B.” Reluctantly, I agreed to let him plan the evening. Well, he contacted Jiang Jieshi for some entertainers, and Jiang passed the buck to Li Zongren, the Guangxi warlord, who like me is a “general” in the Guomindang. Shit, if Li Zongren did not set out to ruin my night! He sent us what he insisted were Guangxi’s finest exotic dangers, but if that is true I feel sad for the Guangxi power-holders. These women seemed to think that by merely standing near a pole while naked they were real strippers! Where were the acrobatics? Were they not aware of our great nation’s long tradition of acrobatic performances? Pathetic. I would rather get a lap dance from Ding Ling.

While my attaché seemed impressed, he passed out long before midnight. I dismissed the Guangxi strippers and sold them to Japan for ammunition for my handguns. I did have some fun shooting into the air at midnight, but beyond that, what a waste!

YXS

Remembering a Fallen Warlord–Feng Yuxiang

Loyal Readers,

Being back in Taiyuan is great–how I survived those long months of near captivity in the United States, not to mention my near disastrous campaigns out in the Tibetan highlands, I have no idea. I swear I may never leave my beloved Shanxi. My wives–at least those who were not pimped out to the peasant hordes–are keeping me loopy on fenjiu while my favorite qinqiang opera stars “perform” for me all night long. Damn it feels good to be a warlord.

But my good fortune has a tinge of sadness as I think of a former colleague who no longer shares the good warlord life. I speak of Feng Yuxiang.

As my more thoughtful readers might remember, I had suspected that my boy Yuxiang (no, not the fish sauce) might be in charge of Beiping, but I now know he is in charge of jack shit. You see, that pussy whipped cut-and-runner Jiang Jieshi is determined to keep Feng Yuxiang out of power. What a fall from grace… Feng and I were once within a battle or two of pushing Jiang Jieshi into an early retirement… who knows, maybe he could have gone to the US and learned how to use a fork. Jiang lucked out, and while I am still firmly in control of Shanxi, Feng does not have two Mexican silver dollars to rub together.

Now, Feng Yuxiang and I have had our differences. He has been at times known as the “Christian General” and the “Red General.” That tells you he is something of a moralist, and he loves to get on his high horse and tell people not to whore around, drink, or gamble. Fuck that! What is the point of being a warlord if I cannot get loaded with some whores and double the Shanxi treasury playing mahjong? As for the “Red General”–it is true that Feng spent way too much time in “mother Russia,” and since he was not banging Russian whores, you just have to think he is politically suspect.

But to be without an army, without a territory? Just too sad. Fuck, I am a bit depressed. Time to go do all the things that would make my former ally pray to his Western gods.

YXS

A Forced March Looms

Readers,

This campaign has been a particularly brutal one for myself and the JPA.

The JPA, my prized fighting force, is in ruins, although my most loyal soldiers remain.

Me? I have barely been able to get my drink on. Staying with local warlord Ma Bufang is killing me–he expects me to conform to his Muslim beliefs while we negotiate. Eating spicy lamb kabobs without cold beer is like executing commies without using my patented Hay Chopper Chop. Ridiculous! Not that you could get a cold beer anywhere in this part of the world–the idea of refrigeration is almost as alien to these people as bathing. These negotiations, meanwhile, are going nowhere. While he is supposedly part of the KMT, all he cares about is his clan power. Just goes to show you what being an ally of Jiang Jieshi gets you–jack shit.  Although since allies of Mao Zedong get the clap from sharing those peasant wives, maybe jack shit ain’t half bad.

With this in mind I am breaking off negotiations with Ma Bufang. Before I leave Qinghai, however, I will tell him to keep an eye out for the Communists, and tell him to plant more trees.

The time has come to march on Taiyuan, there is no turning back now.

YXS

I’ve Made a Huge Mistake

So I show up at the residence of Muslim warlord Ma Bufang last night, intending on getting him drunk so he might agree to lend me some of his soldiers to aid my retaking of Shanxi. I brought a huge bottle of qingkejiu, the local Qinghai booze.

Much to my chagrin, I quickly learned that Muslims are not fans of the sauce. Whoops.

I attempted to quickly diffuse the subject by switching topics. I told old Ma Bufang that he should seriously plant some trees to improve the daily lives of his subjects. I think he might have bought it.

Update y’all soon.

Bai Bai Dalai, Ni Hao Ma Bufang

My Dearest Readers,

After enduring weeks of near starvation, subsisting solely off Yak and Yak-By-Product, the great Tibetan experiment has come to an end.  Due to the machinations of the 13th Dalai Lama, myself and the remnants of the once mighty JPA were expelled from the Tibetan highlands yesterday, although to be honest this comes as a relief. Yes, I had been hoping to rally my Tibetan cousins to fight for me, but the thought of drinking any more yak butter was creating certain mental imbalances that could not be ignored. And the JPA! Perhaps if the yak meat was sliced razor thin, then dunked in a blazingly spicy broth that ensured epic laduzi–well then they might have been able to survive the thin air.  As it was their health and spirits were at an all-time low.

So we left, traveling by yak-pulled carts to Xining, the capital of Qinghai. Departing Tibet I had time to ponder this great land and came to some conclusions. The first is that yaks are the stinkiest when you travel behind them. The second is that having young boys become monks, such as is the practice in Tibet, deprives them the chance for free thought. What a brilliant way to pre-indoctrinate the masses! I will look into this in the future. Finally, reincarnation is also pretty sweet. The only problem is that once you are Yan Xishan, you can only go down in the next life.

Now that I am in Xining, I am making plans to meet with Ma Bufang, the local warlord. Perhaps he will be able to assist me in my drive to Shanxi. He is a Hui, one of China’s many ethnicities. The Hui are Muslims, so I am expecting a warm welcome, complete with lots of booze. Expect an update shortly.

YXS

A Train Ride too Far–the JPA in Shambles

YXS Loyalists,

As you must surely know, I recently embarked on a campaign to retake my homeland of Shanxi from those perverted wife-sharing Commies (they are actually currently sharing one of my own wives–luckily I am pretty sure hooking up with dirty peasant revolutionaries is grounds for divorce in the Shanxi legal code. If not, I will just add that when I get back).

After feasting with my US military advisers a few weeks back, I was shocked to see that they had no interest in helping me retake Taiyuan. I would have to go it alone. I gathered the JPA and set off on the slow train, with a brilliant stratagem in mind. I would take the JPA past Shanxi and into Shaanxi (yes you noob, these are two different places). Then I would strike from the West, where the Commies and their Comintern overlords would never see it coming.

Confident in my plan, I decided to enjoy the train ride. Is there a more beautiful place than the North China plains? I say not! As is my custom, I began to relax with a bit of booze. But the beer on the train was warm–backwards! The Model Governor does not drink warm beer! The train must be under the control of Feng Yuxiang, that guy would not know modernization if it mechanically bit off his ass. Luckily I had brought ample amounts of fenjiu, that Shanxi salve for all that bothers a modern warlord.

Alas, this is when things got out of control. I should have known better than to drink with the JPA. Pretty soon I was doing body shots, drinking fenjiu out the bellybutton of one of my quartermasters, a young Miss. Liu. Next thing you know, I wake up under the bottom bunk! That was like the xia xiapu. To my horror, we had long since passed both Shanxi and Shaanxi and were nearing the Tibetan highlands. To make matters worse, the JPA, deprived of their beloved leader, had lost their collective senses and debarked the train at various stops. All that was left was my reserve of crack troops that serve as my personal bodyguards/qi collection vessels. As well as Miss Liu, who was kind enough to accompany me to the xia xiapu.

I am attempting to regroup. It will not be easy. The locals here cannot understand my flawless Shanxi Chinese. But bringing down the Qing dynasty was not easy either. And I did that–BTW you can thank me the fact that you do not have to wear a queue. I used to have to rock one of those when I was pretending to be a Manchu loyalists–trust me, the ladies were not fans.

See you in Shanxi.

YXS

PS: Help another loyalist such as yourself by voting for Beijing Boyce (first member of the YXS Blogroll) in the 2007 China Blog Awards. Information can be found at his site here:

http://www.beijingboyce.com/2007/07/obama-schmama-make-boyce-your-choice/

Who the hell is running this place?

Loyal Readers,

You ever feel like the whole world has gone crazy, except for you? Ever felt that you are the only point of sanity in a world gone mad, which makes you look like you are the crazy one? That is what I am going through. My quest to contact Beiping’s current ruling warlord is getting nowhere. People here just don’t seem to understand me–and I know it is not my Shanxi accent. They certainly know what I want when I am ordering up my kaoya or an Sunday afternoon handjob in the local barbershop. But once I ask about which warlord is currently ruling over Beiping, as well as how I can find him, everyone looks at me like I am crazy.

This is only the tip of the crazy iceberg here in Beiping. A few nights ago I traveled with one of my military counsels to a local watering hole frequented by foreigners. Not my style–I would much prefer to relax with a bottle of fenjiu while listening to a quick five-hour qinqiang opera. These crazy foreigners were wasted, dancing on the tables and taking pictures of themselves–you can probably find them on flickr. All the meanwhile, there is a war going on! They better hope the Commies don’t take Beiping, or there will be hell to pay. Maybe they can look at thier drunken photos while reforming themselves through labor.

The worst part is that I ended going to get some jiaozi with some of these fools. After we ordered our food, they demanded that their food be MSG free. Yeah, because after drinking 40 beers and sucking down two packs of cheap-ass counterfeit smokes, you certainly don’t want any MSG. That would kill you!

Anyway, once I get back in power things will change, let me assure you.

YXS