Speaker 1: Hey everybody, Hey, hey, hey, hey, welcome back to the show.
Speaker 1: What is that Hey, oh no, it's Jimmy. Well it's
Speaker 1: the Roots. It'll give it to that is cooler than
Speaker 1: Jimmy Fallon. I guess well, I'm excited. It is late
Speaker 1: November and you all know what that means. It's almost
Speaker 1: my birthday. It's truly a day to give thanks for
Speaker 1: um I do all the time. Twenty two can't believe it?
Speaker 1: Am I talking about the year or my age? Who's
Speaker 1: to say? Who knows? It's not his age? Now we
Speaker 1: all know age is just a number and a feeling
Speaker 1: in your body. That's what I've learned greatly with the
Speaker 1: feelings in your body. Yeah, but that's okay. I'm excited,
Speaker 1: uh for my birthday? Hey, how's you know? Everybody out
Speaker 1: there's got a birthday. It's not that special. Um I
Speaker 1: hope yours is great? Maybe it's today. Happy birthday to
Speaker 1: all the people whose birthday is today, and you can
Speaker 1: go back and relisten to this episode on your birthday
Speaker 1: and it'll be like I personally wished you a happy birthday. Wow,
Speaker 1: what a good job watch. This is gonna be our
Speaker 1: most replayed episode of all time. All right, put a
Speaker 1: put a pen in that we'll come back to this.
Speaker 1: But I think this is a great episode to be
Speaker 1: our most listened to episode of all time because it's
Speaker 1: a very cool story, very exciting, another one that just
Speaker 1: started small and just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger,
Speaker 1: because Imperial China is just the most fascinating place. I mean,
Speaker 1: talk about Game of Thrones style drama going on. My god,
Speaker 1: it's that times ten. I can't believe it. And I
Speaker 1: we say this all the time on our show, and
Speaker 1: one of these days, somebody's got to give us a
Speaker 1: TV contract, But this one, oh man, I'm seeing an
Speaker 1: easy ten seasons out of this. Easy. That's if we
Speaker 1: cut half the characters. Oh my god, it's so good
Speaker 1: because this is the story of Emperor Schwan Song in
Speaker 1: eighth century China, and this guy was part of the
Speaker 1: Tongue dynasty and he had many many lovers throughout his life.
Speaker 1: He was married, he had consorts and concubines, as a
Speaker 1: lot of the emperors did back then. Um, but they
Speaker 1: were not just lovers. They were all working behind the scenes.
Speaker 1: This is definitely one of those scenarios where behind every
Speaker 1: great man there was eight or ten scheme and women
Speaker 1: trying to take control of themselves because they did wield
Speaker 1: a lot of power. Um, and we're gonna hear all
Speaker 1: about their various machinations and schemes. And I'd say we
Speaker 1: just dive right into it because this story is wild.
Speaker 1: Let's go hey their French, come listen well, Elien Diana
Speaker 1: got some stories to tell. There's no match making a
Speaker 1: romantic tips. It's just about particulous relationships of the might
Speaker 1: be any type of person at all, and abstract concept
Speaker 1: are a concrete wall. But if there's a story, were
Speaker 1: the second glance ridiculous roles a production? If I heart Radio.
Speaker 1: The Tongue Empire in China was an imperial dynasty that
Speaker 1: lasted for about three hundred years between six eighteen and
Speaker 1: nine oh seven a d. And this is one of
Speaker 1: China's greatest periods. It's considered to be a golden age
Speaker 1: of culture and China earned a reputation during this time
Speaker 1: across the world for their contributions to arts like poetry
Speaker 1: and music, and one of the rulers most dedicated to
Speaker 1: being a total art boss was Emperor Schwan Sung, who
Speaker 1: started his rule in seven twelve a d. He was
Speaker 1: born with the name Lee Longi. And this guy was
Speaker 1: the grandson of Empress woos E Tien before him, and
Speaker 1: she was a very intense and badass empress and the
Speaker 1: only woman to legitimately rule China in all of its history.
Speaker 1: And we are going to do an episode about her.
Speaker 1: Don't worry, She's got so much has been on the
Speaker 1: list for a long time. Yes, the end of her
Speaker 1: rules spoiler alert was in seven oh five, and it
Speaker 1: left a real vacuum for power and things got a
Speaker 1: little rocky after that. So, after a few complicated years
Speaker 1: of classic royal familial politics, Lee Long, along with the
Speaker 1: help from his aunt Princess Taiping, helped put his father
Speaker 1: back on the throne as Emperor Rougeong in the year
Speaker 1: seven ten. But Long and Taiping were really the ones
Speaker 1: in charge here. The emperor didn't do anything without consulting
Speaker 1: them first. When his advisors came to discuss political affairs,
Speaker 1: his first question was always uh, did you ask Princess Tayping?
Speaker 1: And if they said yes, he said, okay, did you
Speaker 1: ask Long? And then he would make his decision based
Speaker 1: on whatever they thought. Wow, So like the ultimate like
Speaker 1: not even ask your mother, but go ask your aunt
Speaker 1: and then go ask my son. Go ask your aunt
Speaker 1: and then ask your cousin. I love an emperor. That's
Speaker 1: clearly like, I don't want this, Yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: like the chair and all the stuff, the job. He
Speaker 1: didn't really too, I mean, you know, didn't want to
Speaker 1: get too into the history. But this is his second
Speaker 1: time being emperor. He was emperor before and got knocked out,
Speaker 1: came back. Is a lot going on back then, no wonder.
Speaker 1: He was kind of like, I thought, I was done
Speaker 1: with this whole thing, So why don't y'all do it? Yeah,
Speaker 1: Princess Taiping want to be in this position, so if
Speaker 1: she wants it, she can handle it. You go ask her,
Speaker 1: let her deal with it. So, with Long and Typing
Speaker 1: both being consulted on everything, naturally, the two of them
Speaker 1: were locked into a power struggle as well. Yeah, Typing
Speaker 1: herself had been involved in like two cups already, so
Speaker 1: she was pretty good at getting clean. Yeah, you want
Speaker 1: a coup, Tai Ping, you needs, I got, I got revolutions,
Speaker 1: I got over throwing, I got it all. In fact,
Speaker 1: by the year seven eleven, she had accumulated so much
Speaker 1: power under Emperor Ruzong's rule that she had his administration
Speaker 1: cleaned out and just replaced everyone with chancellors that she liked.
Speaker 1: But Lee Long had also been instrumental in putting his
Speaker 1: father on the throne, and he had already been named
Speaker 1: his heir, even though he wasn't Ruzong's eldest son. But
Speaker 1: like even the eldest son said, yeah, it shouldn't be me,
Speaker 1: it should be Lelong. Make it that guy. He said,
Speaker 1: I don't want it either. Dad's right. This job sucks,
Speaker 1: little bro. You know what you're doing. Why don't you
Speaker 1: take it? Get all these cou cou queens running around.
Speaker 1: I don't want to be everybody's getting coued on. So
Speaker 1: this guy was in line for the throne, and Princess
Speaker 1: Tai Ping got the scheme in and dropping hints to
Speaker 1: the emperor that maybe leel Gee wasn't so trustworthy. He's
Speaker 1: like your son, he's scheming against you now. At this time,
Speaker 1: Lee Long had a wife named Princess Wong, but being
Speaker 1: a young fancy prince himself, he also had consorts and
Speaker 1: concubines galore, plenty of girlfriends, run around, side pieces, et cetera,
Speaker 1: and a favorite of his, young Guipan, got pregnant. But
Speaker 1: Long was really worried that Princess Taiping, you know, wouldn't
Speaker 1: want him to have a bunch of sons, and that
Speaker 1: she might target his lover if she found out because
Speaker 1: Lee Long had two sons already with different consorts. She's like,
Speaker 1: that's too many sons. She's like, you got too many. Yeah,
Speaker 1: too many people could grab at this power. I'm not
Speaker 1: trying to hear that. It is so interesting. They like
Speaker 1: they play such a long game. Um, you know, so
Speaker 1: someone can see, like, if you have a son today
Speaker 1: fifteen sixteen years from now, that's a powerful enemy of mine, right,
Speaker 1: And I gotta think sixteen twenty years ahead sometimes because
Speaker 1: that's how long some of their schemes take to play out. Crazy.
Speaker 1: So Lee Long is like, well, let me get ahead
Speaker 1: of it, and he starts to prepare a stew that
Speaker 1: an ancient Chinese medicine was thought to terminate pregnancies. But
Speaker 1: he took a little nap while it was cooking, and
Speaker 1: he dreamt that a god came down and flipped the
Speaker 1: stewpot over, so he woke up. He told his close
Speaker 1: friend Jean Shwo about the whole situation and the dream,
Speaker 1: and Jean Shuo responded, quote, it is Heaven's will, you
Speaker 1: should not worry. So child was born. His name was
Speaker 1: Lisa Chung, and of course he grew up to really
Speaker 1: like Jang Shuo, who saved him from becoming a stew baby. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I heard that story that you talked to my dad
Speaker 1: out of giving my mom this stew Thanks. But it's
Speaker 1: kind of sweet too, because I think that Lee long
Speaker 1: G at this point like really loved Yanguipan because he
Speaker 1: wasn't worried about him having another son. He was more
Speaker 1: worried about her safety rights. You want to give her
Speaker 1: that stew be like, if you're pregnant, you're in danger. No,
Speaker 1: I I see, I can see what he thought he
Speaker 1: was up to. Yeah, sure, but he turned out okay.
Speaker 1: Both Li Sa Chung and Young gay Pin they turned
Speaker 1: out okay. She did not go for them. Okay, cool
Speaker 1: if you let them relax. But in late seven twelve,
Speaker 1: Princess Taiping started making moves. She went to the Imperial
Speaker 1: astrologers and she sort of strongly suggested that they go
Speaker 1: tell Emperor Ruzong, Hey, uh, you're a constellation in the
Speaker 1: sky is a little off. It sort of suggests that
Speaker 1: something about your leadership will change very soon. So they
Speaker 1: went and told him that Princess Taiping is thinking that
Speaker 1: the Emperor is going to hear this and think, oh shit,
Speaker 1: my son is probably gonna try and overthrow me. I
Speaker 1: better cut him loose, because again, KU's all the time.
Speaker 1: I mean, his grandfather overthrew the emperor. He overthrew the emperors,
Speaker 1: so logical conclusion, my son will do same. Well. Emperor
Speaker 1: Ruzong was tired of that ship. He was so sick
Speaker 1: of cuse and he decided that instead of fighting it,
Speaker 1: why don't we just get ahead of it. He said,
Speaker 1: if my rule is about to change, let's not wait
Speaker 1: for a coup to happen. I'll just go ahead and
Speaker 1: hand over the throne to my son now in an
Speaker 1: orderly transition. Then prophecy comes true. Bang bang boom, nothing
Speaker 1: bad happens, easy, beasy lemon, squeezy yeah, typing. Of course,
Speaker 1: it's super pissed. That's the opposite of what she wanted.
Speaker 1: She's like, no, don't do that, that's the last thing
Speaker 1: you want to do. Because she goes to her room
Speaker 1: and she's like, learned a lesson about cous today. Don't
Speaker 1: try to overthrow a guy who don't want the throne
Speaker 1: in the place. Seriously, dear diary. One lessons about cous
Speaker 1: by princess typing by the expert herself. Expert herself. Well,
Speaker 1: the Emperor, of course insisted, no, I'm doing this. I
Speaker 1: don't care what you say, and he retired and he
Speaker 1: gave the empire to Long g who became Emperor Schwan Song. Well, obviously,
Speaker 1: within a year, Tai Ping is plotting a coup against
Speaker 1: Emperor Chuan Song. Girl can't help it, okay, she's like,
Speaker 1: this is what I do, all right, I may as
Speaker 1: well deny my own breath coming in and out. It's
Speaker 1: cool to coup. She had that on her t shirt.
Speaker 1: So and for Schuan Song regularly took this like herbal viagral,
Speaker 1: so that he could keep up with the many many
Speaker 1: ladies that he was constantly entertaining. So Taiping was plotting
Speaker 1: to get one of his ladies in waiting to poison
Speaker 1: him with this tinctir. But word got out. People caught
Speaker 1: wind of the plant, and they advised him to act first.
Speaker 1: So long story short, he sent a bunch of soldiers
Speaker 1: out and caught or executed all Tai Ping's advisors and
Speaker 1: chancellors that she had in her pocket. Princess Tai Ping
Speaker 1: fled to a temple in the mountains, but emperors one
Speaker 1: song ordered her to commit suicide. This was like a
Speaker 1: common alternative for aristocrats and high ranking officials because emperors
Speaker 1: didn't like ordering their execution. I guess it felt a
Speaker 1: little off, like, yeah, like the family is around it
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving and you're like take her out back and shooters.
Speaker 1: Kind of yeah. It was like you take yourself out back,
Speaker 1: and you would do it. It's weird. They had the
Speaker 1: death penalty for commoners, but it was like ghosh for
Speaker 1: an emperor to order death, so it was like, just
Speaker 1: go kill yourself. Then I didn't do it. It's so weird.
Speaker 1: My hands are clean. It's very common and in at
Speaker 1: least in the history I read, every time someone was
Speaker 1: ordered to do it, they just did. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: they're probably like, well, I'm gonna If I don't, they'll
Speaker 1: just kill me anyway. So I've got my honor to keep,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't want to also be treason this
Speaker 1: and defy the emperor's order. Wid all right, I get
Speaker 1: I say, probably would send someone with the message like, hey,
Speaker 1: you've been ordered to commit suicide and we will stand
Speaker 1: here and do it well, because otherwise it feels like
Speaker 1: a really easy one to be like, Hey, well you
Speaker 1: dashed off a letter the Emperor that I am fully
Speaker 1: dead on no problem whatsoever, and I will just take
Speaker 1: my ass to the next town. Here's a nice crisp twenty.
Speaker 1: Why don't you tell him that I cut my own
Speaker 1: bowels open. I'm about to go open a t shop
Speaker 1: somewhere something. My name is now Lucy, and I don't
Speaker 1: live anywhere near here. You've never heard of me before.
Speaker 1: But this is so interesting between the two of them.
Speaker 1: I think there was so much tension between the Emperor
Speaker 1: and Princess Taiping, like that had obviously been there for
Speaker 1: a long time, and I think it was one of
Speaker 1: these situations where they were just waiting for the right opportunity,
Speaker 1: and I think Princess Taiping jumped the gun a little
Speaker 1: bit and the Emperor was able to go, got you,
Speaker 1: Now I can order your death. M She's like, wow,
Speaker 1: charge it to the game now. With Princess Taiping gone,
Speaker 1: now emperiss when Song's rule was secure, World History dot
Speaker 1: Org says that due to his early policies in reforming
Speaker 1: laws and streamlining bureaucracy and providing for the people, Juan
Speaker 1: Song is one of China's greatest monarchs in history. His
Speaker 1: first twenty eight years were called the Cai Yuan period,
Speaker 1: and it's considered among China's most prosperous and wealthy eras. First,
Speaker 1: he wiped out a bunch of unnecessary bureaucrats who had
Speaker 1: over the years all like basically bought their positions of power.
Speaker 1: And after that he made it nearly impossible to purchase
Speaker 1: political power anymore. Funny that that's important. Yeah, it's like
Speaker 1: you are all unnecessary. You just paid to be here.
Speaker 1: He reminds me. I'm my high school football team because
Speaker 1: it was such a like I went to kind of
Speaker 1: a rich school and uh, and the football was like
Speaker 1: the most important thing. And there were kids who, you know,
Speaker 1: their parents made a little donation and they ended up
Speaker 1: on the team and for four years they didn't play.
Speaker 1: We had like forty people on the sidelines on our
Speaker 1: team to play, but it was on their college apps.
Speaker 1: You know, just about to say that's been for that
Speaker 1: college application. It was crazy. I remember going to those
Speaker 1: games and sitting and being like, what are those fifty
Speaker 1: people for? And it was like, yeah, they're they're on
Speaker 1: the team, but they won't play so weird, So schwe
Speaker 1: Song kicks all these guys off the team. He revitalized
Speaker 1: the capital city's canal system, which had fallen into ruin
Speaker 1: under previous leaders, and he brought a lot of surrounding
Speaker 1: areas under China's rule. He expanded the Tongue Empire to
Speaker 1: about four million square miles, which is nearly twice what
Speaker 1: it was. This is, of course, both diplomatic and a
Speaker 1: little militaristic action that ended up doing this naturally. Emptuan
Speaker 1: Song was not just a ladies man and a savvy ruler.
Speaker 1: He was also an outstanding calligrapher. He loved music and art.
Speaker 1: He's a big horse guy. He owned a troop of
Speaker 1: dancing horses according to history dot com, and he brought
Speaker 1: a renowned horse painter named han On into his court,
Speaker 1: who would become the most famous horse painter in Chinese history.
Speaker 1: I mean, this guy parties. This is a pretty cool dude. Also,
Speaker 1: fun fact, there's a crater named for hang Gon on Mercury.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's shaped like a horse. Yeah, that would be
Speaker 1: kind of cool. Let's go check it out, Speculation Station.
Speaker 1: It's shaped like a horse. Don't tell me any different.
Speaker 1: U Schwan Song was also an extreme poetry fan. You
Speaker 1: know how we feel about poetry around here, So he
Speaker 1: invited a poet named Lee Po into his academy. And
Speaker 1: Lepo writes beautiful, evocative, very visual poems. But he also
Speaker 1: writes a lot of verses about being drunk. And we've
Speaker 1: got to pepper this episode with some of these pickled poems.
Speaker 1: So let's go down the poetry corner and here the
Speaker 1: mountain drinking song from Lee Po to drown the ancient sorrows,
Speaker 1: sweet dre hundred jugs of wine there in the beautiful night,
Speaker 1: we couldn't go to bed with the moon so bright.
Speaker 1: Then finally the wine overcame us, and we laid down
Speaker 1: on the empty mountain the earth for a pillow, and
Speaker 1: it's a blanket made of heaven. He's straight up like,
Speaker 1: I'm going to write a poem about how we passed
Speaker 1: out in the mountain last night. Without going into our tents.
Speaker 1: We drank a jug of wine I doubt I've had
Speaker 1: that night we blacked out. I mean, we had a
Speaker 1: blanket made of heaven, and I don't remember what it
Speaker 1: felt like. Alright. So Schwanzong and his wife, remember who's
Speaker 1: now Empress Wong Um. They had a strong relationship for
Speaker 1: a few years. And while there's not a lot of
Speaker 1: information about her, we don't even know her given name,
Speaker 1: we only know her empress name um. It is said
Speaker 1: that she was instrumental to his rule. She provided a
Speaker 1: lot of cow soul and suggestions that helped him in
Speaker 1: his early years. She even apparently played a part in
Speaker 1: helping Schwan Song's father take the throne before him, and
Speaker 1: she helped him deal with Princess Tai Ping. She's an
Speaker 1: not that coup action too, al right. It really feels
Speaker 1: like she probably should have written some of this ship down.
Speaker 1: She was pretty cool, lady. Empress s Wong never gave
Speaker 1: the Emperor a son, but she did raise his son,
Speaker 1: Lisa Hung that he had with a different concert young weepen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the stew baby, the stew baby, Yeah, he had the
Speaker 1: stew baby. She raised him, Yeah, and c Chung got
Speaker 1: a great education. Schuan Song really admired him. Now. There
Speaker 1: is a ranking system for consorts inside the palace that
Speaker 1: the Empress of course absolute top of the list, number
Speaker 1: one woman hbi C. As soon as Juan Sung was
Speaker 1: named emperor, he elevated his wife Princess up to empress
Speaker 1: as well. Now under that there are four consort rankings Noble, Pure, virtuous,
Speaker 1: and then able. Under that there are nine imperial concubine
Speaker 1: rankings like Lady of bright deportment or Lady of cultivated
Speaker 1: beauty or complete countenance. And then there's a few more
Speaker 1: even below that, like the Lady of handsome fairness, for
Speaker 1: the Lady of Talents, or the Lady of Treasure, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 1: Lots of titles. This is really reminding me of the
Speaker 1: David Mammitt movie State and Maine. They're making a movie
Speaker 1: and the guys like, oh, I think I'm an associate producer.
Speaker 1: He's like, yeah, everybody's an associate producer. It's what you
Speaker 1: give your assistant instead of a raise. It feels like
Speaker 1: there's like, I don't know, make a bunch of titles
Speaker 1: to make him think that there's a good job. These
Speaker 1: are all I mean, it's just like a ranking system
Speaker 1: for all his girlfriends. Basically, Wow, imagine being the Lady
Speaker 1: of treasure it sounds big, but it's not the able
Speaker 1: consort as ahead of me. But one of his favorite
Speaker 1: ladies was a woman named Choo, and she went from
Speaker 1: being a prostitute who could sing and dance to all
Speaker 1: the way become the second highest ranking consort in the palace,
Speaker 1: really climbed that ladder. And she was the one who
Speaker 1: had his earliest sons. Remember he had two already when
Speaker 1: Lisa Chung was born, and one of them, Lie Ying,
Speaker 1: was named Crown Prince and heir to the throne in
Speaker 1: seven fifteen. He was also not the oldest son there
Speaker 1: was technically one. His other brother was one year older
Speaker 1: than him, but that guy had a serious injury and
Speaker 1: that was like took him out of the running basically, okay,
Speaker 1: So no one was worried about him coming out of nowhere.
Speaker 1: No Li Ying was firmly in that position, all right.
Speaker 1: So yeah, we've got a lot of players on the
Speaker 1: board here. Ember Schwan Song is married to Princess Wong
Speaker 1: or Empress Wong. Now together they're raising his son, Lisa Schung,
Speaker 1: this stew baby, and the Emperor's with Consort Joo is
Speaker 1: Crown Prince Lee Ying. Everyone's getting along. Things are going
Speaker 1: great palace, Christmas is are lovely whatever. But another consort
Speaker 1: was about to rise to the top, and she was
Speaker 1: ready to bust heads and take what she wanted, take
Speaker 1: no prisoners. Her name was Consort Woo, and we'll learn
Speaker 1: about her right after these words. Welcome back everyone. Let's
Speaker 1: head back to leave Hoose Drunken Poetry corner with a
Speaker 1: verse called Drinking in the Mountains. Mountain flowers open in
Speaker 1: our faces. You and I are triply lost in wine.
Speaker 1: I'm drunk, my friend Sleepy, rise and go with your
Speaker 1: dawn lute, return if you wish. And this one's great
Speaker 1: because he's like, I'm real drunk, all right, why don't
Speaker 1: you go and then get some music start the party over.
Speaker 1: I love it. I love it. I also love that
Speaker 1: the last poem was called the Mountain Drinking Song, and
Speaker 1: this one is called drinking in the Mountains. Like Lepo's like, right,
Speaker 1: what you know, I like two things. I like mountains
Speaker 1: and drinking in the mountains. He's probably like, I like
Speaker 1: drinking any place, but I live in the mountains, so
Speaker 1: I also love this. It is mountain people like Appalachian
Speaker 1: mountain people like them. I'm drunk, my friends sleepy. Why
Speaker 1: don't you go and go come on back with a
Speaker 1: guitar and we'll have us a good old I'm ready
Speaker 1: for the Appalachian version of Leapo if anyone wants to
Speaker 1: mountain folks, They're so similar everywhere you go, love it whatever,
Speaker 1: whatever the mountains, whichever mountain um. These Leapo poems about
Speaker 1: drinking are hilarious and wonderful. But he does have some
Speaker 1: beautiful poetry. To go look it up. Because I was
Speaker 1: reading them and I was like, damn, this is gorgeous, man.
Speaker 1: But then I kept finding other more and more poems
Speaker 1: about drinking, and I'm like, okay, buddy, well this is
Speaker 1: a sidetrack. But that's one of the things I love
Speaker 1: so much about Chinese and Japanese culture was that everybody
Speaker 1: wrote poetry. It was just like a thing everyone did.
Speaker 1: And so you have so many people who are really
Speaker 1: very good poets who would write beautiful literature poems you
Speaker 1: know that you would want to like read for ages.
Speaker 1: And then there were some people were like, I wrote
Speaker 1: a high ku about sucking my wife behind a bar
Speaker 1: last night, you know, like it just like the most ridiculous.
Speaker 1: So oftentimes they were just for comedy. Reasons. There's just
Speaker 1: a form of entertainment and I just love that and
Speaker 1: it would be so fun to bring it back. Make
Speaker 1: everybody write a quick poem about whatever they feel like,
Speaker 1: and lea po somehow did both, somehow some people can do.
Speaker 1: Get you a poet who can do both. That's what
Speaker 1: Schwan Song did. He was like, get this guy in
Speaker 1: my court. He is now poet laureate. Laugh, he makes
Speaker 1: me cry. That's what I want. Okay, So back to
Speaker 1: our drama are soap opera here, Embers one Song is
Speaker 1: ruling over a golden age of culture and art and poetry.
Speaker 1: He's doing it all with Empress Wang by his side.
Speaker 1: His super smart son Si Chung is doing great, and
Speaker 1: his other son, crowned Prince li Ying, is a suitable
Speaker 1: heir to the throne. But another consort was working her
Speaker 1: way up the ranks. Consort Wou Embers one Song, now
Speaker 1: in his thirties and nearing his tenth year in power,
Speaker 1: was spending less and less time with his wife, Empress Wong,
Speaker 1: and more and more time with Consort Wu. Now none
Speaker 1: of his previous consorts had gained favor over his wife,
Speaker 1: but now things were changing. Maybe this is because Emperor
Speaker 1: Schwan Song was just one of those guys who always
Speaker 1: wanted a younger, hotter, newer model. You know, he refused
Speaker 1: to be happy with the woman he married as she
Speaker 1: aged a real DiCaprio time. Or maybe it's because Consort
Speaker 1: Wou was the grand niece of Empress Wu Zetian herself,
Speaker 1: and she was extremely ambitious and thirsty for power. Now,
Speaker 1: Schwansong had always favored his wife, even though he could
Speaker 1: literally bang anybody he wanted, like anybody could be like,
Speaker 1: I don't like it too bad. And while Wong hadn't
Speaker 1: provided him with a son, which he did resent, they
Speaker 1: raised she shung together as their own, and everyone in
Speaker 1: the palace loved Empress Wong, including most of the other consorts.
Speaker 1: But Consort Woo had her eyes on that throne, right,
Speaker 1: And that's just what I'm thinking here, is like some
Speaker 1: people said that, like, well, Empress Wong was getting older
Speaker 1: and he was just you know, he wasn't like an
Speaker 1: her as much anymore. But I'm like, it's not like
Speaker 1: he was resigned to only sleep with her for the
Speaker 1: rest of his life and he didn't like that she
Speaker 1: wasn't as hot as she used to be, you know, like,
Speaker 1: it's not like he had any indication that he didn't
Speaker 1: like her a lot, because for a long time he
Speaker 1: really did, and he had all these other options. So
Speaker 1: I kind of speculations station. I think Woo had more
Speaker 1: to do with it than than Wong's just aging it
Speaker 1: was suggested, but we'll see. I kind of agree, because
Speaker 1: isn't the point of the empress is you know you
Speaker 1: you don't want to be constantly changing your empress. You
Speaker 1: would choose her for different reasons. It would just be
Speaker 1: like the hottest one that does change. You want to
Speaker 1: be like, this is the smart one. She's you know,
Speaker 1: got an even temper. She's not gonna coop me out
Speaker 1: of her with some other dude like that would be
Speaker 1: more important. I think qualities in an empress, Well, the
Speaker 1: Emperor and Consort Wo. I keep almost saying Constance Wu, well,
Speaker 1: I can't wait for Constance Woo to player and in
Speaker 1: our movie that we're going to make our ten season
Speaker 1: thank you. We have so many ten seasons shows of
Speaker 1: make That's why no one's called us. That's too long.
Speaker 1: Cut it down to five, all right. Well, the Emperor
Speaker 1: and Consort Wu had several children together. Of course, as
Speaker 1: he and many of his concubines did. It's estimated he
Speaker 1: had over fifty children with various consorts, but the first
Speaker 1: three of their children actually died early in their childhood.
Speaker 1: But their fourth child was a son named Lie Mao
Speaker 1: or eventually his name was Lie Moo. They changed their
Speaker 1: names all the time, but let's just stick with that
Speaker 1: for now. Um. Now, this kid, the Emperor asked his
Speaker 1: own brother, the Prince of Ning, to raise him, so
Speaker 1: he went off to live with the Prince of Ning
Speaker 1: and his wife, and all the while, Consort Wu is
Speaker 1: doing that thing where she just kind of tries to
Speaker 1: casually talk shit about Empress Wong without you know, actually
Speaker 1: being treasonous. You know, she's got to kind of carefully
Speaker 1: just poison the Emperor's ear a little bit. It's about
Speaker 1: his own wife gradually taking more and more of the
Speaker 1: Emperor's time, trying to drive a wedge between them. You know,
Speaker 1: I imagine like a like, don't you wish your empress
Speaker 1: was hot like me? You wish your empress was a
Speaker 1: freak like me, because you know she probably was probably
Speaker 1: a freak. Yeah, I could totally see them like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, hanging out in bed together like consort. Woo,
Speaker 1: your hair is so beautifully long and flowy like a waterfall,
Speaker 1: O Emperor, anything you like must be correct, So I'm
Speaker 1: so happy to please you. If only the Empress had
Speaker 1: such long, thick hair is mine. It's just too bad.
Speaker 1: But I suppose she has many other wonderful quality. You know,
Speaker 1: it's always the ship like some like you're too good
Speaker 1: at that? Watch out right? You want to consort? My husband?
Speaker 1: Try it? I dare you try it? Ladies all come,
Speaker 1: want to give Diana an opportunity to try and scheme
Speaker 1: against you. I've opened a terrible Pandora's no, Diana, I'm
Speaker 1: only sleeping with these five other women so that you
Speaker 1: can try and scheme against them, testing your skills. I
Speaker 1: just want to see your skill. Well, Wong was not
Speaker 1: having it. She's hearing all these jellyfish stings coming from
Speaker 1: this bitch. She's like, mmm, I've done nothing but help
Speaker 1: this emperor. I helped put his dad in power. I
Speaker 1: helped put him in power, I helped him make the
Speaker 1: make him the great ruler that he is today. I'm
Speaker 1: raising his son by another woman. What more I got
Speaker 1: to that's true? So she starts telling him about himself.
Speaker 1: She's like, hey, don't forget, I'm your wife. That bitch
Speaker 1: sucks a little less subtle than well, she don't have
Speaker 1: no treason. She can be a little more flat about it.
Speaker 1: But maybe she should have been a little more subtle
Speaker 1: because he argued about it with the Empress. Um, so
Speaker 1: this just pushed them further apart. She should have been like, oh,
Speaker 1: don't I smell nice today? Oh? Yes, you smell quite lovely.
Speaker 1: Oh it's too bad consort who stinks like rotten fish
Speaker 1: all the time. Now, before long, Schwan Song was looking
Speaker 1: for a way to depose his Empress, and he was
Speaker 1: mostly blaming it on her failure to produce him a son,
Speaker 1: which again is weird to me because he already had
Speaker 1: like all these sons, and one of them was already
Speaker 1: the crown Prince. I mean, it's just convenient, exactly. I
Speaker 1: really think this is more of Consort Wou pushing him
Speaker 1: to get rid of her somehow, and he was, you know,
Speaker 1: he's kind of fed up there, like fighting. They're an
Speaker 1: old married couple, and he's like, yeah, this hot young
Speaker 1: girl is right, yeah, you know, old like us. So
Speaker 1: the Emperor went to a close associate of his name
Speaker 1: Young Choo, and he said, hey, man, uh, I kind
Speaker 1: of want to depose my wife, you know, get her
Speaker 1: out of power, strip her of her empress titles. She's
Speaker 1: really she's just kind of cramping my style, okay, And
Speaker 1: Jung Jao is like, yes, I'm on it, let me
Speaker 1: go figure some stuff out. But apparently this dude had
Speaker 1: loose lips, because a short while later, Empress Wang's own
Speaker 1: brother in law came to Empresschwan Song and said, uh, hey,
Speaker 1: this guy Jung Joo is talking about deposing your wife
Speaker 1: and the emperor. You know, he thinks fast. And he's like,
Speaker 1: whoa what that's crazy. I can't believe he would say that.
Speaker 1: And everyone's like, yeah, this guy sucks. You need to
Speaker 1: exile him. And Schwan Song is like, yeah, well you're
Speaker 1: right about hey, Jung Jao, you can't be talking ship
Speaker 1: like that. I'm exiling you forever. Get out of here by.
Speaker 1: But all this made Empress Wang feel real nervous because
Speaker 1: she's always looking over her shoulder. She knows moves are
Speaker 1: being made against her. She's the O. If she could
Speaker 1: only have a son, her safety would be assured. So
Speaker 1: she went to her brother Wong show Ye for help.
Speaker 1: Show He's like, okay, I got a great idea. How
Speaker 1: about magic? So he went to a Buddhist monk named
Speaker 1: ming Wu and they started doing some old school mystical ship.
Speaker 1: They offered sacrifices to the Big Dipper and a Chinese
Speaker 1: constellation called nand then they brought the Empress an amulet
Speaker 1: which was made from wood that had been struck by lightning.
Speaker 1: And I carved the symbols for heaven and Earth into
Speaker 1: the amulet alongside the Emperor's name, and we're like, okay,
Speaker 1: this is how you get a son. Just wear this amulet.
Speaker 1: I would love an amulet native wood that's been struck
Speaker 1: by lightning. I mean, at least there's vibes there. That's
Speaker 1: something cool and hard to find and kind of awesome.
Speaker 1: I can see that being statistically feels very unlikely to
Speaker 1: get struck by lightning. Again. True, it might be like
Speaker 1: a nice talisman against a disaster. With my luck, I
Speaker 1: would put that on and immediately get struck by lightning.
Speaker 1: And they'd be like, well, exception proves the rule. There
Speaker 1: was actually a lightning rod in the annual Oh geez,
Speaker 1: very rude. Well, Okay, so this little magic spell they
Speaker 1: cooked up was not exactly cool behavior because it sort
Speaker 1: of looked like trying to use magic to circumvent the
Speaker 1: will of the gods. Like if she wasn't naturally having
Speaker 1: a son, it wasn't meant to be, and now they're
Speaker 1: trying to use magic to undo that. There's not a
Speaker 1: ton of clear reasoning behind this in the research, but
Speaker 1: whatever happened, this little magic stunt must have been enough
Speaker 1: for Emperor's one Song to use against his wife, because
Speaker 1: once word of this magic got out, her brother's show
Speaker 1: Yee was immediately exiled and Empress Wong was deposed. She
Speaker 1: was brought down to the rank of commoner and sent
Speaker 1: to live in a lesser palace. On his way to exile,
Speaker 1: her brother, show Ye received the order to commit suicide,
Speaker 1: and then only three after Wang was deposed, inn she died.
Speaker 1: And we don't really know how, but it said that
Speaker 1: the emperor always regretted his actions. He felt bad about
Speaker 1: deposing her and exiling her to this little palace somewhere.
Speaker 1: He was like, actually was kind of a good ruler
Speaker 1: when Wong was here. Yeah, fell badly about what I did, right,
Speaker 1: So I'm thinking speculation Station. Maybe he expressed that he
Speaker 1: felt badly. Maybe he was talking about how this seemed
Speaker 1: like a bad idea, and Consort Woo decided, well, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go take this lady off the board for good.
Speaker 1: Ohring her, you can bring her back. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: happened before. We've seen in other kingdoms where I remember
Speaker 1: in Thailand. I mean this was much more recent. But
Speaker 1: that guy like kicked his wife out and then brought
Speaker 1: her back and the reinstated her. Stuff like it could happen.
Speaker 1: So again, speculation Station, Consort Wou killed that woman with
Speaker 1: that personally fetched and definitely true. She sent someone one
Speaker 1: of her little minions. Well, I think that's probably more.
Speaker 1: She didn't do it herself, but I think I think
Speaker 1: you're right. She probably ordered someone to do it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I want that the Empress to know it was me.
Speaker 1: Tell her, well, whatever happened, Concert, we definitely did it.
Speaker 1: But whatever happened, Consort Woo now had the Emperor's full attention.
Speaker 1: There was no woman more powerful than her at the palace.
Speaker 1: She was elevated to the rank of Huife, which was
Speaker 1: the highest ranking consort only beneath the title of Empress,
Speaker 1: to Woo. All that meant was that she had one
Speaker 1: more stare to climb, And we'll hear about a whole
Speaker 1: new batch of schemes that she cooked up right after this.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Tongue Dynasty, where Consort Woo is
Speaker 1: making dangerous moves to bring herself into power. So before
Speaker 1: things get too dark, let's go down to poetry corner
Speaker 1: and hear another drunken verse by Lee po called a vindication.
Speaker 1: If Heaven loved not the wine, a wine star would
Speaker 1: not be in Heaven. If Earth loved not the wine,
Speaker 1: the wine spring would not be on the earth. Since
Speaker 1: Heaven and Earth love the wine, need a tippling mortal
Speaker 1: be ashamed. The transparent wine, I hear has the soothing
Speaker 1: virtue of a sage, while the churchid is rich, they say,
Speaker 1: has the fertile mind of the wise. Both the sage
Speaker 1: and the wise were drinkers. Why seek for peers among
Speaker 1: the gods and goblins? Three cups opened the grand door
Speaker 1: to bliss. Take a jugful. The universe is yours. Such
Speaker 1: is the rapture of the wine that the sober shall
Speaker 1: never inherit. I love this straight up, like it is
Speaker 1: so cool to get drunk, that sober people ain't ever
Speaker 1: even gonna know. Sober people have not the key to heaven.
Speaker 1: I do, and it's right at the bottom of this bottle.
Speaker 1: Didn't Benjamin Franklin say, alcoholist proof that that gods love
Speaker 1: us and want us to be happy? That sounds like
Speaker 1: this is what I mean. This is a whole other
Speaker 1: topic we could go on and on about, but so
Speaker 1: fascinating to me that every culture, all across this globe,
Speaker 1: independently of each other, found out if you let this
Speaker 1: grape just go bad, it looks you up in the
Speaker 1: best way. That is something that is so universal. Literally
Speaker 1: with human beings. We want to get wasted, Yes, we
Speaker 1: want anything, but our standard reality took one look around
Speaker 1: and we're like, na, this is no. Let's try something else.
Speaker 1: I don't like it all right. Well back to the
Speaker 1: story now, concert Wou was so close to being named
Speaker 1: empress she could almost taste all her rivals have been
Speaker 1: taken out. She had the emperor's favor, and in the
Speaker 1: year seven, Schwan Song decided he wanted to elevate her
Speaker 1: to the rank of empress. All her dreams were coming true,
Speaker 1: but his officials were like, wait a minute, hold on
Speaker 1: their partner not so fast, because remember, Consort Woo is
Speaker 1: the grand niece of the Empress Wo Zetian, and Wu
Speaker 1: Zetian tried to eliminate the entire Tongue dynasty and rename
Speaker 1: it for herself before she was overthrown, so her family
Speaker 1: still have a lot of beef with the imperial throne.
Speaker 1: So his chancellors were like, guess what. The people of
Speaker 1: China don't like the Woo's and more specifically, they don't
Speaker 1: like Consort Wu. She sucks. Everyone knows it, everyone but you,
Speaker 1: I guess. So this is really not a smart move.
Speaker 1: You know those people where it's just like you know,
Speaker 1: someone's dating someone and everyone in your friend group hates
Speaker 1: this person, but they just they just can't break them up,
Speaker 1: and you know you could. SE's so clear that they're
Speaker 1: like manipulating them and using them to get what they want. God,
Speaker 1: it's hard. It's so hard because then you do so
Speaker 1: often they will break up and you get to say
Speaker 1: all your true feelings and then they don't, and you're like, well,
Speaker 1: I supposed to do. Don't let me make a speech
Speaker 1: at your wedding. I get now. His advisors also pointed
Speaker 1: out the obvious political struggle that would come with naming
Speaker 1: her empress, because the Emperor had two sons with Consort Wu,
Speaker 1: but he had already named his son lie Ying the
Speaker 1: crown prince and heir to the throne. If Consort Wu
Speaker 1: was named empress, things we're gonna get messy around the
Speaker 1: line of succession. She's gonna want her son to be
Speaker 1: emperor next, and then it's gonna put you boy, lie
Speaker 1: Ying in danger. So the Emperor heard all this, He's like,
Speaker 1: all right, you right, you right, you right, Okay, bad move,
Speaker 1: no doubt, won't name her empress, but everybody listen here
Speaker 1: and listen good, y'all are basically going to treat her
Speaker 1: like an empress. Okay, everybody in this palace. She is
Speaker 1: your empress in all but name. Okay, she is number one,
Speaker 1: she's HBI c's you wait on her hand and foot,
Speaker 1: and you do what she says. That's right. But obviously,
Speaker 1: Concert Wou was not thrilled about this little compromise because
Speaker 1: she's been working towards that empress title for a while.
Speaker 1: I kind of get it. Nobody wants to be like,
Speaker 1: you're the CEO of Disney and name only Yeah, I
Speaker 1: would take it. I would be the CEO of Disney
Speaker 1: in name only about all that name and salary maybe,
Speaker 1: but you know they're gonna do some ship and then
Speaker 1: let you like usher you in front of everybody to
Speaker 1: be stone. Yeah, but I still got that like billion
Speaker 1: dollars a year. Right, that's true. And maybe you get
Speaker 1: to go to the parks for free. Thought about that.
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, CEO Disney has to get free park admission, right,
Speaker 1: What if Bob Chappick right now is like three hundred
Speaker 1: dollars all right, Now he's got a pet, and now
Speaker 1: he's got a problem with it. So Consort who was
Speaker 1: not super happy about this, but she's adaptable. She knew
Speaker 1: she didn't need the title to get everything she ever wanted.
Speaker 1: So her mother was made a lady, her brothers were
Speaker 1: given official positions at court, and her sons and daughters
Speaker 1: were made princes and princesses. And Schwan Song's chancellors were right.
Speaker 1: What she really wanted was to make her son lie
Speaker 1: Mao the new crown Prince and heir to the imperial throne.
Speaker 1: But she needed a little more help to get him there.
Speaker 1: And that brings us to this week's villain of the week,
Speaker 1: Lee Lynn Foo, Oh, Lee Lynn Fou, This squirrely little creep.
Speaker 1: He had risen the ranks in court through good connections
Speaker 1: and pure luck and not the scheming and wheeling and dealing.
Speaker 1: His uncle was Jiang Jiao, if you remember, he was
Speaker 1: the Emperor's friend who took the blame for trying to
Speaker 1: depose Empress Wang the first time. Now, Lynn Fu was
Speaker 1: nicknamed God New, which I looked at translations and as
Speaker 1: far as I can tell, it means like a knee
Speaker 1: or a knee like bend. So maybe this guy was
Speaker 1: like crooked. He was always bent over, or maybe he
Speaker 1: was like always kneeling down to get what he wanted,
Speaker 1: and maybe he was always on his knees to get
Speaker 1: what he wanted. And what I'm saying, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, Oh my good. They called him can New,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't seem like it was um a kind nickname.
Speaker 1: They sort of used it disparagingly, but he also owned it,
Speaker 1: like the penguin in Gotham. But crooked makes a lot
Speaker 1: of sense. Yeah, I think crooked. I had a history professor,
Speaker 1: by the way, who I loved because actually he would
Speaker 1: call Lee Po this whenever he had an alcoholic historical figure,
Speaker 1: he would go, he's a bit of an elbow crooker.
Speaker 1: Oh that's good. I always liked that. Yeah, I know
Speaker 1: it's not really related, but well, this guy lind Fu
Speaker 1: nicknamed Canu, he applied to a low level position at
Speaker 1: the Ministry of Justice called the simin long Gen, but
Speaker 1: the Chancellor at the time said, quote, people who are
Speaker 1: to serve as long must have good talent and virtues.
Speaker 1: Is no long He ain't got no talent or virtues.
Speaker 1: Flynn Foo's like, am I at my roast right now? Interview?
Speaker 1: All the high ups are roasting him. But he also
Speaker 1: had connections. Somebody must have been pulling some strings for him,
Speaker 1: because just a few days after the Chancellor said that,
Speaker 1: lind Fu got that position anyway. Okay, So with friends
Speaker 1: in all the right places, Linfu worked his way up
Speaker 1: the ranks until he was working under the staff of
Speaker 1: lie Ying himself the crown Prince and heir to the throne.
Speaker 1: So he's already trying to get as close to power
Speaker 1: as possible, and he could smell it when other people
Speaker 1: were doing the same. So after Empress Wong was deposed
Speaker 1: and consort who started making moves. He wanted in on
Speaker 1: the action. This guy's like an ancient Chinese Veris from
Speaker 1: Game of Thrones. He had a bunch of eunuchs around
Speaker 1: the ballast bringing him all the whispers they heard his
Speaker 1: little sparrows, so he used them to get a message
Speaker 1: to Consort Woo like he I worked for leaguing, great
Speaker 1: guy and everything, but something is just kind of telling
Speaker 1: me little gut instinct that Li Mao would be such
Speaker 1: a great emperor. So if you would be interested, check
Speaker 1: yes or no and return messengers sent the un back
Speaker 1: to me in the Unich back with he stamps a
Speaker 1: big yes on the Unix head. It's like, oh, brands
Speaker 1: it into for Unix. But man, it is like game
Speaker 1: with her, like all these that's what the power is,
Speaker 1: you know. It's how often do we see this? Again?
Speaker 1: A lot of TV shows that we watch now where
Speaker 1: the servants you know, have all the info, they know
Speaker 1: the dirt. Hell, yeah, get on their side, you get
Speaker 1: what you need. It's very true, very true. That's still
Speaker 1: true honestly. I mean, if you think about being a
Speaker 1: server or something like how often you go to like
Speaker 1: a fancy party at a hotel or whatever. If you know,
Speaker 1: the server or the maitre d you know, like whoever
Speaker 1: is in charge, you can get back wherever you need
Speaker 1: to go. I don't thank you where you need to go.
Speaker 1: You were working a catering gig and you came back
Speaker 1: and you said, hey, I just guess what I heard
Speaker 1: Chap X out Bob Iger's coming back. And I was like, damn,
Speaker 1: you heard that. I heard the call. Well, concert Wo
Speaker 1: now had a really good player in her pocket in Linfu,
Speaker 1: and she started advising him him on who he should
Speaker 1: support that could later help him out. So he would like,
Speaker 1: go recommend some minister to be appointed that she gave
Speaker 1: him my heads up on, and then later that person
Speaker 1: would remember him and say, oh, yeah, you you spoke
Speaker 1: up for me when it came down to my nomination.
Speaker 1: Maybe I owe you a little favor. The world is
Speaker 1: built on little favor. Oh exactly. It was a long game,
Speaker 1: but by the mid seven thirties, lin Fu is close
Speaker 1: enough to Emperor jue Song that he was able to
Speaker 1: just flatter the guy constantly. Oh Emperor, oh, you smell
Speaker 1: so nice today. That was a very good decision. Emperor, Oh,
Speaker 1: I love the way you wear your shoes. Whatever, it took.
Speaker 1: Blattery will get you everywhere, especially with one's song, and
Speaker 1: between this and Consort Wose influence, Lin Fu became one
Speaker 1: of the emperor's favored advisers. Now it was all about
Speaker 1: convincing him to switch his airs. And then in year
Speaker 1: seven thirty six, the perfect situation arose. Lie Ying met
Speaker 1: up with two of his brothers, Lee Yao and Lee Jew,
Speaker 1: who were both princes born of two different consorts. Together
Speaker 1: they started talking shit about how their mothers, who were
Speaker 1: all at different times favored consorts of the Emperor, had
Speaker 1: all lost favor to this consort Wou. Lady. You know,
Speaker 1: basically they're like man Dad's new girlfriend sucks, like pretty
Speaker 1: harmless stuff. But this guy Young Hi, who was a
Speaker 1: male consort for one of Consort Wo's princess daughters and
Speaker 1: a total wet blindness, overheard them and he goes running too.
Speaker 1: Consert Woo telling her all about it, she probably had
Speaker 1: to hide the biggest smile of her life. She's like,
Speaker 1: finally my time has gone. She called Lie Ying to
Speaker 1: come before her and the Emperor. As soon as Ying
Speaker 1: walked in, she burst into tears and starts yelling at
Speaker 1: him like all dramatic, like, you know, it's one thing
Speaker 1: to insult me. I'm used to it, But in doing so,
Speaker 1: you've defamed your father, the emperor. I just don't know
Speaker 1: how we could move forward from this actual age. Oh wow,
Speaker 1: you are too good at this. In another time it plays,
Speaker 1: I might have been a consort, you could have really
Speaker 1: been the power behind the throne. Doubtful. I feel like
Speaker 1: I'd be one of those consorts who's like, I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna like hang out and clean things or whatever. You'll enjoy.
Speaker 1: It depends if you got bored enough for not because
Speaker 1: like you know, I don't think you've I don't think
Speaker 1: you would have felt like getting up and doing all
Speaker 1: the work, but not that you're not a hard worker.
Speaker 1: But it would have been worth it. You know. It's
Speaker 1: a lot of responsibility, although you do like taking on
Speaker 1: more responsibility than you actually like. That is true, And honestly,
Speaker 1: if it was if I was like, if I could
Speaker 1: convince myself for my son, this is for my son,
Speaker 1: could have China, Like, I probably would do a bunch
Speaker 1: of crazy ship if it's just for me, I would
Speaker 1: not bother. That's true. You do not take care of yourself.
Speaker 1: If I thought it was like a bigger picture situation,
Speaker 1: I could probably do all kinds of weird shit. Well, okay,
Speaker 1: so Empress one Song is super mad about this. You know,
Speaker 1: his son, the crowned Prince, the future of the Empire,
Speaker 1: is out here talking shit about consort, who is supposed
Speaker 1: to be basically be the empress at this point, and
Speaker 1: he considered deposing lee Ying, stripping him of that title consort. Woo.
Speaker 1: Of course she's just like drooling all over herself at
Speaker 1: this point, like, yes, this is it. I can wait,
Speaker 1: We're almost there. I mean, if you think that's the best,
Speaker 1: of course you should. I hate that it's come to that, damn.
Speaker 1: So he's like he's like about to sign the paper.
Speaker 1: But his senior chancellor, Jong Xu Ling said, hey, man, look,
Speaker 1: I'm going back through the history books here, and every
Speaker 1: time a crown prince gets replaced, the empire ended up
Speaker 1: taking a serious hit. It's not a good move. We're
Speaker 1: always like, we're losing states. There's a lot of people fighting.
Speaker 1: It gets ugly. It's a bad idea. So I think
Speaker 1: we should stick with what we got. So John managed
Speaker 1: to keep le Ying in the line of succession, which,
Speaker 1: of course meant that leland Fou had to get rid
Speaker 1: of John oh Man, he put himself on the crossfire.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. And within a year and through some
Speaker 1: very complicated schemer that I swear to you could play
Speaker 1: out as an entire season art on this show we're
Speaker 1: talking about. Look into this history between leland Fu and
Speaker 1: and Jong Ju Lin because it's wild, it's so schemy,
Speaker 1: it's such good soap opera drama stuff. Um. But at
Speaker 1: the end of it, leland Fu managed to accuse Jong
Speaker 1: of factionalism, and the emperor demoted him. And this moment
Speaker 1: mint him demoting Jong is believed to be the beginning
Speaker 1: of the downfall of shuan Song's reign, crumbling from its
Speaker 1: once golden age. Historians Seema Guang wrote quote, after Jong
Speaker 1: Ju Ling was demoted, officials were all concerned about keeping
Speaker 1: their positions, and honest words no longer had a place
Speaker 1: in government. And we've seen what happens when honest words
Speaker 1: no longer have a place in government. Let this be
Speaker 1: a cautionary tale, but it won't because it already happens.
Speaker 1: They learned anything just keeps happening. Honestly, I don't think
Speaker 1: it's ever stopped happening. It's been happening since the dawn
Speaker 1: of time. True, very true, but this got particularly ugly
Speaker 1: at this point. Just couldn't trust anybody anymore. Well, Woo
Speaker 1: and lyn Fu had everything in place, and in seven
Speaker 1: thirty seven they made their big move. Wu sent a
Speaker 1: message to Lie Ying and his the same two brothers
Speaker 1: who were talking about her before, and said, quote, there
Speaker 1: are bandits in the palace, please report at once in
Speaker 1: full armor. So all three men stowed it up. They
Speaker 1: charged into the palace, hundreds of warriors behind them, riddy
Speaker 1: to fight. And guess what concert. Wu went straight to
Speaker 1: the emperor like, oh my god, your three crazy sons
Speaker 1: are back. They're trying to do what treason? And he
Speaker 1: asks his unix, who are like yeah, they they're definitely
Speaker 1: here there in full armors, swinging their swords around. So
Speaker 1: young we the same wet blanket who rat it on
Speaker 1: them for talking shit about concert will last year's Like wow,
Speaker 1: formal accusation of treason against those three. So schwant Song
Speaker 1: heard all this and he ordered the royal guards to
Speaker 1: disarm the three princes and their armies. And the three
Speaker 1: princes are getting you know, just rammed into the corner.
Speaker 1: All their swords are getting taken away, and they're shouting like, no,
Speaker 1: you're we're being wronged. Let me speak to my father,
Speaker 1: Let me speak to my father. But Woo's allies kept
Speaker 1: them silenced. Chuan's on consulted with his chancellors. But of course,
Speaker 1: guess who was the most powerful dude in court right now,
Speaker 1: Lee Lynn Fu Well Lin Fu turns the Emperor, who's
Speaker 1: facing this very difficult decision about what to do, and
Speaker 1: he said, quote, this is your Imperial Majesty's family matter.
Speaker 1: We will not interfere, oh, which is so tricky because
Speaker 1: he's basically saying, like, hey, Emperor, if your family matters
Speaker 1: to you more than the empire, I am not going
Speaker 1: to get involved. Like you totally make that decision for
Speaker 1: yourself if you want to favor them over you know,
Speaker 1: this whole treason accusation that's on you. So he's basically
Speaker 1: making it so he has to do something about it.
Speaker 1: It's so gross. He's such a like grima worm tongue,
Speaker 1: like that little finger. Yeah, like I just whispering things
Speaker 1: to the king and making him do shit. And so
Speaker 1: without speaking King to the princes, he deposed all three
Speaker 1: stripped them of their powers and ordered their deaths by suicide. No,
Speaker 1: not all three of his sons. Sad I'm a little
Speaker 1: maddish one song. It feels like he's kind of got
Speaker 1: his head up his ass to the end of his
Speaker 1: reign here. They've really later part of his reign here.
Speaker 1: There's definitely like you can't not blame him for making
Speaker 1: all these terrible decisions that he made, but he is
Speaker 1: also like being so hardcore manipulated right now. But he's
Speaker 1: fallen for it too. I mean, there's there's an element
Speaker 1: of it that's like willingly that that is. I guess
Speaker 1: that's where I get a little mad, because I'm like,
Speaker 1: surely it isn't that part of being a king, queen, emperor, president, whatever.
Speaker 1: People are going to try to manipulate you to their
Speaker 1: own ends, and you need to have a strong enough
Speaker 1: sense of yourself and whatever that you can not play
Speaker 1: into their hands. But you know, as you say that
Speaker 1: he's got all these people run around, he probably does
Speaker 1: that know half of anything that's going on, right, and
Speaker 1: they're so good at it. It's one of those things
Speaker 1: too where it's like, well, yeah, he could go out
Speaker 1: and protect his son, but after everyone has said all
Speaker 1: the things they said. Does that not look like he's
Speaker 1: ignoring his advisors and just doing, you know, treating putting
Speaker 1: his family first, which an emperor can't do. There's some
Speaker 1: I don't want to get too spoiler early, but it
Speaker 1: reminds me of some of the stuff in towards the
Speaker 1: end of House of the Dragon in the first season.
Speaker 1: Not to just bring it back the Game of Thrones again,
Speaker 1: but but similar kind of stuff where you know, she
Speaker 1: had a decision to make and once someone said, hey,
Speaker 1: let me do it. Uh, you know, she couldn't say
Speaker 1: no because then it looked like she was protecting her
Speaker 1: family and not being a strong ruler. So even though
Speaker 1: it was definitely the wrong decision, she wasn't really able
Speaker 1: to make the right one without looking bad. I think
Speaker 1: there's some of that in there too, but he's definitely
Speaker 1: is not blameless in this well. Unfortunately, due to his
Speaker 1: stupid decisions, the Crown Prince is now dead, so of worse, Immediately,
Speaker 1: Consort Woo and Leland Foo start dropping hints that her
Speaker 1: son Lee Mao should probably go ahead and be the
Speaker 1: crowned Prince. I mean, he's standing right here, why not?
Speaker 1: But Schwan Song was pretty depressed by all this, which
Speaker 1: why not three of his sons are dead his favorite
Speaker 1: wife died years ago. Like he's making the bad choices,
Speaker 1: so he didn't rush into any decisions about his air.
Speaker 1: Over the next few months, it said that Consort Woo
Speaker 1: was haunted by visions of the three princes, and later
Speaker 1: that year, only in her forties, she became inexplicably ill.
Speaker 1: In December she passed away, and many say she died
Speaker 1: of fright. Wow, she got that ghost sickness. She had
Speaker 1: a dream where they were like, oh, one to three
Speaker 1: Princess Aura before you, and then she had a second
Speaker 1: their head. Every day after that, she's like, just kill
Speaker 1: me now. Oh no, I'll never get three princes out
Speaker 1: of my head. Well this was a real kick in
Speaker 1: the pants to all Lynn Fu, because without consort who's backing,
Speaker 1: his machinations became more obvious and he started to fall
Speaker 1: for the emperor's favor. Chuan Song posthumously honored Consort Wou
Speaker 1: by naming her Empress jen Shun, which means the virtuous
Speaker 1: and serene Empress. That is hilarious. He says that in
Speaker 1: someone at court is like I feel like he turned
Speaker 1: to them and he's like, what would be the funniest
Speaker 1: possible thing we could name? This is part of it too,
Speaker 1: because I'm like, it's almost a bigger diss that he
Speaker 1: named her empress after she died. I mean, it wasn't
Speaker 1: because back then, like this was definitely an honor to
Speaker 1: have your family, you know, you have your name in
Speaker 1: the books forever. I mean her Wikipedia page now is
Speaker 1: under the name Empress jen Shun not not Constance woos
Speaker 1: so Um. But but still it does feel like kind
Speaker 1: of a dig, like, Okay, now I'll make you empress
Speaker 1: now that you did, and I'll call you virtuous and serene,
Speaker 1: right sarcasm, It's a backslash s stream sarcasm. But even
Speaker 1: though he named her empress, he was pretty sore about
Speaker 1: everything that went down with his sons, and he refused
Speaker 1: to put any official state mourning periods in place for
Speaker 1: her death, and everyone was like, do you we didn't
Speaker 1: want to mourn her. Yeah, So I mean speculation station. Again,
Speaker 1: it feels like this is kind of a this is
Speaker 1: kind of a dig, like he was not really honoring her.
Speaker 1: He was kind of acknowledging that he was piste off
Speaker 1: how she treated him. When Lee maw her son was
Speaker 1: once again suggested as the heir to the throne, the
Speaker 1: emperor said, you know what, no, I'm not doing it.
Speaker 1: Put my foot down. I know who my heir is.
Speaker 1: It's my boy Lee Sash, the stew baby who was
Speaker 1: raised by me and Empress Wang. He's real smart, he's
Speaker 1: real savvy. I like him. I'm making him a crown
Speaker 1: prince and heir to the throne. And he was crowned
Speaker 1: in seven Nice there you go, say, hold out true
Speaker 1: and the best decision that has made in many years
Speaker 1: many It sort of makes me feel like Empress Wog
Speaker 1: was even more instrumental than people say, because after she died,
Speaker 1: he immediately was like kind of doing some dumb ship.
Speaker 1: It's like clearly she was there being like babe, what no,
Speaker 1: let's do this insteady. Now, after he crowned Saschung Juan
Speaker 1: Song really started to slip. It said that he brought
Speaker 1: tens of thousands of beautiful women into his palace to
Speaker 1: please him, and many of them were never allowed to leave.
Speaker 1: Pretty creepy. But then he met young Guife who would
Speaker 1: capture his heart for the rest of his life. But
Speaker 1: that distracted him from his duties and left a power
Speaker 1: vacuum that our friend Leland Fou was all too happy
Speaker 1: to that guy. That all ended in tragedy and was
Speaker 1: documented in a poem called a Song of Everlasting Sorrow,
Speaker 1: and we will hear all about that in our next episode. God,
Speaker 1: there's so much more, isn't that what you wanted to
Speaker 1: start with the song of Everlasting Sorry? Yeah, I found
Speaker 1: the Song of Everlasting Sorrow and was like, oh, here's
Speaker 1: a cool story. And then I found all this this
Speaker 1: concert Woo and Prince and Empress Wong and all this stuff.
Speaker 1: Is there's so much leading up to it that it
Speaker 1: had to be a prequel episode, basically when you did
Speaker 1: Calico Jack and you found out that whole thing about
Speaker 1: oh his parents, parents and their spoons situation. I love
Speaker 1: when one story leads to another, like yeah, it's so great,
Speaker 1: and this one is like, it's the same guy but
Speaker 1: everyone else while Leland Fu is coming back, of course
Speaker 1: to I guess he's the villain of the week um
Speaker 1: and he will be back to cause a lot of trouble.
Speaker 1: And it's just so interesting to see that period. Like
Speaker 1: we said, when Leland Food got jung Uh demoted. I mean,
Speaker 1: there are many places where things started to go downhill,
Speaker 1: but that was really the lynch pin where it just
Speaker 1: it was never coming back after that, and the Talent
Speaker 1: dynasty never really uh ascended to its heights again. Well,
Speaker 1: and you see it, like they said, he got rid
Speaker 1: of all the people who would just paying to be
Speaker 1: there for for power and position, and things were going
Speaker 1: great because you actually had people who knew what they
Speaker 1: were doing, wanted the same things as you, like all
Speaker 1: that sort of thing, wanted what was best. And then
Speaker 1: the minute you turn it over to people who were
Speaker 1: just looking out for themselves, that's when everything starts crumbling.
Speaker 1: It's like one of the easiest things to see and
Speaker 1: one of the hardest things to do. I guess if
Speaker 1: power is to be like I know exactly how it
Speaker 1: should go, and people are hard, people are hard, and
Speaker 1: there's always somebody scheming for power, and sometimes those people
Speaker 1: are really good at it. Because if you can read people,
Speaker 1: if you can know how to talk to them and
Speaker 1: tell them what they want to hear, and if you
Speaker 1: know how to make promises that you don't necessarily have
Speaker 1: to deliver on, you get a lot done. Some call
Speaker 1: it lying um the names should be Liland Food. Take
Speaker 1: that just from centuries later. He's like, but you're still
Speaker 1: saying my name r Q, bitch. I guess we are. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what if what today right now, in this room, in
Speaker 1: our lives would be different if Leland Food didn't sucks
Speaker 1: so bad, you know, or if concert we would never
Speaker 1: come along, or if he gave the stew to that
Speaker 1: to his consort and Lisa Shung wasn't born. I love
Speaker 1: those little things, and I mean I don't love them,
Speaker 1: but I'm fascinated by those parts of history where like
Speaker 1: this one, dude, I mean, it really shows you one
Speaker 1: person can make such a difference, because you know, China
Speaker 1: might be a completely different country today, which of course
Speaker 1: would mean the world is a completely different place today
Speaker 1: had this one little dick not come in to screw
Speaker 1: things up for everyone, little dick. I love this stuff
Speaker 1: and I can't wait for the next episode. Chinese history
Speaker 1: is so rich, oh my god, with this kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: because of course it goes on, it goes back so long,
Speaker 1: but and it's so meticulously recorded. But like you said,
Speaker 1: so much soap oppera Shenanigan's happening. It's just like insane.
Speaker 1: It's true of so many royal families. And then what's
Speaker 1: interesting is like when you we've seen this on this show,
Speaker 1: when you get down into just like a regular as
Speaker 1: person's household, some of this stuff is just as dramatic
Speaker 1: on such a smaller scale, but it's just as rich
Speaker 1: and interesting. But there is something about it when it's
Speaker 1: in these palaces with all these you know, the consequences.
Speaker 1: The states are so high when you're literally talking about
Speaker 1: a world power and and two people like trying to
Speaker 1: undermine each other for it. Right, concert WU is out
Speaker 1: here like this is for me and everyone else is
Speaker 1: like no bit changes everything for everyone? Right. I love it.
Speaker 1: We hope you loved it too. You'll have to let
Speaker 1: us know. Please do reach out. Our email addresses ridic
Speaker 1: Romance at gmail dot com. That's right, or you can
Speaker 1: find us on Twitter and Instagram. I'm at Oh Great,
Speaker 1: it's Eli, I'm at Danamite Boom, and the show is
Speaker 1: at dict Romance. Follow along. We love hearing from y'all.
Speaker 1: Whatever you got to say, send it our way. Throw
Speaker 1: us a rating on Apple podcast. It really helps people
Speaker 1: discover us and start listening. And I guess until next time,
Speaker 1: We'll see you the next one. Love you so long. Friends,
Speaker 1: it's time to go. Thanks so listening to our show.
Speaker 1: Tell your friends, neighbor's uncles, and dance to listen to
Speaker 1: a show ridiculous Well dance m hm