Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 6 - The Mongol Mass-Beheading of Nishapur

Episode Date: October 24, 2016

The Mongols sacked many cities over the course of their reign, but perhaps none so brutally as the Persian jewel of Nishapur in 1221. When they were done, giant pyramids of human heads stood where a majestic, cosmopolitan, Silk Road oasis had flourished only a few short days before. Be glad, so glad, you never lived on the wrong side of Genghis in this unbelievably bloody edition of Timesuck.

Remember that one time you got so mad that you asked your dad to murder every man, woman, and child of an entire city, then behead all of them, then pile all of those decapitated noggins into giant skull pyramids around the outside of the city. Your dad's army just burned to the ground. And then remember when your dad did that? I can't possibly know all the details of your life, but I do know that you haven't had that life experience because it's only happened once in recorded history, April 1221 in the ancient Persian city of Nisha Puer. Being the daughter of Ganges Khan had tremendous benefits if you were a vengeful, bloodthirsty sadist like Togachar apparently was, work can wait. It's time for a very bloody,

Mongol horde at their most destructive edition of Time Set. You're listening to Time Set. Yeah. Wait. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. All right. First, I want to take a second and just to talk about like why we're talking about this just horribly bloody just gory topic and it's it's because I was trying to do a bit not trying to do actually ended up doing a bit on my on my new album Don't wait to bear go get it if you haven't got it People seem to like it, but there's this bit on there, it's track number five,

it's called whiskey, lodin' and saw, and the premise is, I get irritated when people complain about the supposed good old days being better than today, because that's just almost universally false. It's like certain things may have been better at certain times in history, but overall, the farther you go back, just the worse it was to be a human.

There was consistently less education. There was blips. It was a roller coaster education. The dark ages in Europe would be worse than education was during the height of some of the antiquity kind of empires of Persia you know, Persia and Greeks and stuff, but nowhere near today. I mean, as smart as like the Greeks were, you know, they didn't have, they didn't have the web,

they didn't have the level of science that we have, I mean, they just didn't have it. And there was, and there was less medicine, you know, they didn't have antibiotics and all this stuff and blah, blah, blah. And yeah, it just was worse. You know, basic, you know, human rights, you know, slavery was incredibly widespread for people of a variety of, you know, races and creeds.

And it just, you know, murder was commonplace and brutal murder. And just to kind of make this point, this battle of Nishipur did not stay in the bit. But I just did some googling. This was like, you know, I don't know, two years ago. I did some googling about history's worst atrocities. Like what are the worst things that have happened to people in history, things like the Holocaust, and just widespread horror, you know, like under the Camille Rouge, in Cambodia,

the killings under Stalin. And I came across this one historical moment that I'd never heard about. And it was kind of hard to find, it took some digging to really find out more about it. But it was the Battle of Nisha poor, the sacking of the city of Nisha poor, which a city I hadn't heard of by the Mongols,

who, you know, they sacked a lot of cities and did a lot of killing, like so much that they reduced the carbon output considerably during the time they lived in like they killed so many people they reduced pollution in a weird way and uh but this one battle stood out because of the sheer volume of death in a very short amount of time.

And then also just the way the people were killed and then what was done to their bodies after they were killed. And the reason it all happened, it's just, it's so fucked up that I, it doesn't feel real, even though this is, documented by numerous historians, by people of the day documented this in other battles, but guys fucking unreal.

So, strap in for today's episode. And before I get into this battle of Nishipur, I want to just give a quick backstory on the military savagery of Genghis Khan and his height. And so, a little bit of facts about him. Genghis, he consolidated the Mongol Empire and came to power in 1206. The dude died in 1227. By which time the Mongol Empire ruled from the Pacific Ocean to the Caspian Sea and empire twice the size of the Roman Empire and Muslim caliphate. Like a story in this, not totally sure how he died, but it looks like, you know, injury sustained from Fallen Alpha Horse the year before, which actually horses is like a weird theme

with Time Suck last episode. About the big one came, turns out that rumor got started about the earthquake from a dude who fell off a horse's dream. So, you know, careful around horses. But we think that, but we do know that, we don't know for sure if that's how he died, but we think it could have been that or, you know, it could have been that or it could have been injuries sustained in some battle or poison or something. But what we do know is in 1221, he was like full on, expand the Empire mode.

I mean, they really just were so focused on just conquering, fucking everything. Like, they just wanted all of it. And there was an expansion area that would continue well past his death in an empire that at its height, this is so impressive between 1270 and 1309 would encompass over 16% of all the land on earth. Second only in history to the height of the British Empire, which in 1920 actually, I thought it would be earlier that they could build more. But 1920, they

controlled over 23% of the earth over a quarter of the population. But a lot of that British land was like Canada, which most of that land, Canada's uninhabitable New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Australia, Australia, most of it is very rural. Land masses mostly unpopulated, and also inaccessible and unknown to the con like you know like they

literally didn't know about the Americas so if they would have known them about them you know they probably could have taken some boats over there and just fuck shit up because that's just kind of what they did so really like in in terms of dominating the known populations of your day like no one ever dominated the earth like the 13th century cons. And Genghis Khan himself, just while he was in power, conquered more than twice as much land as any other conqueror in history.

And so I'm just, this is kind of setting the backstory for this battle of Nisha Pura. And here's how he did it here, like I was fasting, like we know how did they conquer so much. And a lot of it was they were masters of horseback archery And here's how he did it. Like I was fasting like, you know, how did they conquer so much? And a lot of it was they were masters of horseback archery in an era when most armies were stationary. So you know, you're some, you know, you're some dude, you're some 13th century archer and

you're in your little row of other archers and you got your chainmail and you got some guy go and you know, fire. And you know, you're shooting off these straight arrows, usually towards an advancing army who is just marching forward, which how much with that fucking suck. Like, I've thought about that, just an army's general back then. Like, part of like strategy for these kings was like, yeah, fuck it, we got a lot of dudes, we don't need to feed all of them. So let's just let's march them forward. And it's, you know, what? A lot of them are definitely going to die, but they don't have unlimited arrows. So we'll just keep marching and marching and

marching and televentually, you know, through attrition, we'll make it to their ranks. And we'll chop them down. Which is all fine and dandy. If you're the king and you're thinking of it in like this board game, the strategic kind of wave like you know or chess which yeah, I've got him to get rid of the pond who cares But if you're the pond Like how did more of these guys not revolt? I guess they didn't revolt because they knew they would just be killed But wow that just sucks that sucks like that's that's a that's a life if you're this guy and you're like Seriously, we're just gonna or it's gonna walk you know that they're you're like, seriously, we're just gonna walk.

You know that they're shooting arrows, like 40 yards ahead. Like you'd have to know that you'd have, I mean like a 99% chance that you were just gonna die and gonna die horribly. I mean, I think about that too. Like I would never wanna die in war of any kind, but I would much rather be like,

I would think be shot by a heavy artillery gun or a blown up, then die from arrows. Cause I feel like an arrow is not a quick death. I mean, if one gets in the eye, sure, but otherwise, like you just get an arrow and like, you're, I don't know, shoulder or whatever, and then you're laying there in the middle of the killing fields,

being like, just waiting for the next Barrage of arrows and then maybe one gets in your leg and you're like fucking could you just aim a little bit closer to my face Just get it over with So anyway side note that just that sucks If you ever get a time machine Don't be a foot soldier and In medieval times For any king.

Shitty job. Shitty job. Like if you think like, ah man my job sucks, my boss is a dick. And you know, fucking health insurance is not what I want to be. And you know, it's like how come you gotta wait? You gotta get, you know,

there you gotta work there for a year to get your vacation. You can fuck bullshit. And maybe it is bullshit, but you know, less bullshit than your job being to march to certain death Arguably a much much worse job so The Mongols they were like no, we're not just gonna march forward into certain era

We're just they got these fast. They use smaller, and they would just kind of flank around, and they would just do different maneuvers and these guys were used to shooting these arrows, and they just slowed down how many guys you could shoot with your arrows. And then these guys were really good shots on the go, so then they would get behind you or the side of you and just fucking light you up

with these arrows. Which had to have been terrifying for these guys to see, even more to, you know, for the guys doing the shooting because that, that job would be better than advancing. Like, if you're gonna pick one of the, you know, war jobs, I would rather be the dude in a line of archers shooting for the guys marching

than to be one of the guys marching, like hands down. If they're like, hey man, we got sign up sheets, you can be, you can be swordsman marcher or you can be a hangback archer. I'd be like, yeah, I'm gonna focus on the bow. I'm gonna focus on my arrows. But then, you know, you think you got the cusch job and then you see these assholes, swarvin' around their ponies, and you know, and shooting like next generation, you know, you're playing Xbox, you know, or You know, you're playing Xbox, you know, or super,

and you're playing Super Nintendo, and they got some PS4 shit, and you're like, well, that's not fair. So that's how they did it. That was a lot of how they did it. And they just, you know, they were better at just, you know, basic strategies and stuff as well. They had like, you know, good, good generals and such. And then there was just momentum too.

Because when they would take over an area, then they would make those guys fight for them. And so part of it was just numbers after a while too. They just generally had the bigger army. And back then, strength and numbers for sure. Now it's like you can overcome numbers with weaponry, but when everybody has basically the same weaponry, numbers are generally gonna win.

Numbers plus strategy there. I bring all this up. I bring all this up just to demonstrate that facing gangus in 1221 was like stepping into the ring with Mike Tyson in the mid 80s. Like going in, you just know, you have to know, like, fuck, Vegas odds are really against me. You know, I don't know what the odds were back,

who the odds makers were then, maybe Sodom, or so I don't know if that was about, but whoever, if there's odds makers, you're getting like a one in 50, one in 75, one in 100, one in 1000 chance of a victory. I mean, to engage was just suicide. Everyone was fucking annihilated over and over. Everyone had a plan, a lot of people fought back

until they had a plan, just kinda like with Tyson until Ganges hit him in a mouth, and then their plan fell apart. And just before Nisha Puer, Ganges killed between 700,000 1.3 million people in the sack of Merv, another Persian Silk Road trading city, kind of down the road, because that Nishipur was in modern day Iran

along the Silk Road of Marco Polofame. And it was like, you know, yeah, there was a fair amount of cities in that area along this well-traveled road of, you know, people bringing goods back and forth between Asia and Europe. And they heard him coming. Like, you know, yeah, Merv was sacked

after Merv refused his messenger's request to hand over their most beautiful woman and bow down to his rule. And yeah, which is typical. I mean, basically, like that was kind of the deal he would make you. His basic policy, he would send emissaries to your city, tell you to surrender, give him, you know, you gotta give him some of your beautiful women his clan, fight for him in future battles, hand over your most skilled tradesmen and artists to work

for his empire, give him a large chunk of your royal wealth, distribute, and let him kill a few people, a few of your people, maybe even some royals possibly, to kind of test your obedience, make sure you didn't fight back. And if you didn't like that policy, if you didn't like basically giving him all of your best stuff, letting him be your ruler, you're no longer the ruler if you're in power at the time, and letting him, you know, kind of selectively just kill some people

as like a test. If you're like, that's, that's, I don't like that at all. That's plan A. Plan B was, he would kill everyone, just to kind of, other than maybe a few of the best craftsmen, few of the best artisans, but everybody else, fucking die, surrender or die, that was kind of their unofficial motto. And they were so feared, there's these historical tales of lone Mongol soldiers riding

into villages, just kind of executing peasants at random as a test of loyalty. And basically daring the rulers of these villages to fight back, and a lot of times they wouldn't, because they knew if they killed that Mongol soldier, if that guy didn't come back with a report to his camp, then the whole camp would come to their village and just fuck shit up, like really aggressively attack. And that was part of their strategy actually was to spread fear throughout the land, fear that I'm sure reached Nisha Puer.

And revenge was a common motivation, describing the revenge extracted by Genghis Khan for the killing of several Mongol trainers at this ancient scholar, Juni wrote, in retribution for every hair on their heads, it seemed that a hundred thousand heads rolled in the dust. I mean, these dudes were scary. An Arab chronicler, chronicler,

a bin al-atheor wrote, in the countries that have not yet been overrun by them, meaning the hordes, everyone spends the night afraid that they might appear there too. And it's scary as they were that they weren't generally torturers, which I don't know if it was an unusual per se, but there was a fair amount of these empires back then that would like like Vlad the impaler type stuff

would really torture you, like Vlad the impaler type stuff would really torch you like Vlad the impaler would you know put thousands of people on poles like impaled like up through them watching bleed out as he like would like like who's known to like snack. Just you know you fucking sandwich helped his digestion I guess to watch people suffer extremely which you know to me that's that's almost like scarier in a way, but like, but he just, you just knew you were gonna die. I think the really scary thing about the Horge was how much they dominated, like, like, Vlad and some of the other guys

really were terrifying too. But I feel like maybe you thought, like, you have a chance to kind of defeat them, more realistic chance, more realistic odds. But they did do some scary stuff. Like this one historian, J.J. Saunders of the Mongols said, this is a quote of his, there is something indescribably revolting in the cold, cold savagery with which the Mongols carried out their massacres. The inhabitants of a doomed town were obliged to assemble in a plane outside the walls,

and each Mongol trooper armed with a battle axe was told to kill so many people, 10, 20 or 50, and then as proof that the orders had been properly obeyed, the killers were sometimes required to cut off an ear from each victim, collect the ears and sacks, and bring them to their officers to be counted. A few days after the massacre, troops were sent back into the ruin city to search for any poor wretches who might be hiding in holes or sellers. They were dragged out in slain as well. They had sacks of ears.

That is like the most, I've watched a lot of shows like Dexter and Things, when you got these serial killers. No one's gone that far. You know, there was a Jack the Ripper. There wasn't, you know, Johnny ear sack. Johnny ear sack would be the most terrifying if you know, Johnny Ear Sack. Johnny Ear Sack would be the most terrifying, you know, it sounds like an urban legend.

Something something you would, people would scare kids back at, you know, ancient times like, yeah, well, hey, you eat your food, you eat your food, Billy, or old Johnny Ear Sack. He's gonna come over and take your ear, his tribute, cut your fucking head off, okay? So eat your porridge, unless you want your ear to go in the sack.

I mean, that was like some dudes' reality. There was a lot of dudes. There was these soldiers. And what's weird about it is like they killed so many towns that you know like they just got so jaded towards it. It's just like human nature. Like at first it's gotta be a little weird to be, oh God, I can't, it's so horrific.

To like a real person to kill him, to kill him. And then you know, I cut their ear off. And then you've cut so many ears that your knife is a little dull and you got sharp in your ear knife. And then you, so I wanted to do a sack. That is the grossest thing. And then you just bring this sack, and then you, like I get you dump it on a table.

You know, and it's like, here they go. Here's your ears. And you know, you know, like, there was probably some sort like, Mongols that were lazy. There had to be an occasional lazy Mongols like, fucking 50. I got to kill 50 dudes. My arms tired from killing the last village. I'm gonna kill 25 dudes, and I'm gonna take both ears and just put both of those in the sack And hope they don't notice that there's a lot of left and a lot of rights. There was other people, there would probably like conversations like two soldiers walking back to some, you know, to the county station, each with a sack of ears and just be like, what?

So how's your wife? You know, how's the kids? Ah, it's good. Oh, hey, oh shit, ah, shit, I'm kind of dang it. I gotta hold on. Wait up, wait up. I just, I dropped it. There's a hole in my sack. I just noticed I dropped a couple of years.

So I'm gonna go back and pick those up. You know, so I hit my quota. Ah, unbelievable. That's a, this has happened. This has happened. Okay, but again, you know, it wasn't torture. So I guess that's somehow that's the bright side. So that's gang, so I'm just, I know it's gory, but I'm painting a picture of this is Genghis.

And he is down the road from Nisha Puer in 1221. And before we get into like why he went so crazy on them, because the whole head pyramid thing that I referenced earlier, that was not the norm. That was not the norm, and not the norm for him to kill basically everybody in a city of that size. Like I think even in Merv, I think he did spare some a few people, I don't know, maybe not. But the head pyramid just makes the craze here. So here's Nisha Puer, I hadn't heard of it.

It's an ancient city, Northeastern Iran, a few hundred thousand today, origins go back to at least third century AD, if not all the way back to pre-recorded history. There's just for the archeologist debate over how long there was a human settlement there. It meant the fair good city of Shippur was part of the Sassanian Empire, the last Persian Empire to proceed the rise of Islam, one of the major empires of the world, over 400 years, for over 100 years. During the time of the Romans, it was religion initially was Zoro's trinism,

ancient pre-Islamic religion by Iran that survives kind of there in isolated areas and more approximately in India today, where the descendants of the Zoroastrian, Iranian kind of immigrants are noticed parseys. So it's actually an ancient religion that goes back 2000 years BC, an influenced Judaism, Nostecism Christianity, Islam with its kind of notions of messinism,

heaven and hell, free will. Variety of rulers and shorter lived dynasties took over the air around Nishipur, so there was like turnover and kind of rulers, but it saw like a very little major bloodshed. There was a couple, you know, big battles, but nothing like that was going to come up in 1221. They had some earthquake problems, you know, kind of reference in the last episode too. They kind of had their own big one. A few generations before 1221, that was kind of like the quake in 1906 of San Francisco. Like, it did a lot of structural damage.

I mean, a lot of people did die in that, but they quickly rebuilt it. Like, they were always able to recover quickly until the Mongols got there. And it was a good place to live by everything I read, everything I found, but it was a fertile plain, well irrigated. They had really good irrigation for their day, farming flourish, their silkweaves were known throughout the modern world. They had a walled city center surrounded by walled suburbs. It was fucking dope. It was like an ancient San Francisco. There were very cosmopolitan, very tolerant.

After the Muslims took over, the very tolerant of other religions, there was an ancient form of Christianity that was still like an Eastern form that was allowed there. Judaism was allowed there. And for the most part, like, yeah, they had the taxes and different things

and different rulers, but it was a very prosperous, well-educated, full of a lot of artists, a lot of poets. It sounded like a very cool place to live. And it goes back and forth. Nobody really understands exactly how many people were there. Accounts vary from 170,000 to 1.7 million. So regardless of a big, a big cosmopolitan city, and they're doing great, and 12, 20 life is good. And then Ganges Khan shows up.

And here's why he got so mad at this battle. What happened was, like I said, as I described early, they would send emissaries early on to kind of ask you to bow down. And the little emissaries initially who came didn't want to. They love their city. They thought foolishly, like many cities before them, they would be fine. And gang has come by the way.

I didn't, I remember reading this, I didn't mention this earlier, but he never lost. His record was he was undefeated. There was one group that gave him problems in Russia. This, I'm blanking on the name, but there was like one, but then he like, you know, he went back like the bulgers, I think, I wanna say I think it was the bulgers, but then he went back and squashed him later.

So it's like, you know, he had one maybe fight that was like a draw, and then he went back a couple years later and, you know, whoop their ass. Or, but he, so it was crazy that, and everybody would hear about these, you know, word would get out, but still, you know, I get it from the rulers part, like they don't want to give up control,

but you know the peasants were like, ah, can we please maybe negotiate with them? Please don't hurt the emissaries, please. Like they knew. So he sends this emissary and one of them is his favorite son-in-law. Goes there, Takashar's, his daughter's husband, and that dude gets killed in a little skirmish during the initial part of like, hey man, just give us all your stuff.

And that's what set it off. So she got really upset and she begged her dad to just kill everyone. She wanted the whole city decimated and she wanted their heads piled into pyramids. That was her request. And I'm gonna read you, this is from a book that I lost the reference, unfortunately, I actually erased it, but this is a book on historical accounts that I was able to find

on Genghis Khan that goes into more detail of what's happening here. So famous is the city of the Great Poe. This is Nishapur in Palamath, Omar, Qiyam, renowned for his religious scholars, and a center of Sufism. Nishapur was wealthy city, with fields of rice and cereals, its carpet making and distinctive ceramics, its cotton factories, glass blowing, manufacture of metal and stone vessels, musical instruments, turquoise mines in the suburbs,

sumptuous houses, exquisite gardens, general opinions, like it was fucking sweet, like a paradise of the times. Possibly the most beautiful city in all I ran, certainly in Muhammad's Empire, Nishipur was a watery delight, 12 canals, 70 water mills, bringing the precious liquid to a population of some 170,000, and again, that's debatable. This is one book. It fluctuates wildly as far as at least that many people or or or quite bigger

You know it was was harmed in 1208 by a calamitous earthquake But poor nishipu can have had little conception of the hell that was now to descend on it once the citizens saw the size of Taluouse army, oh, sorry, Toulouse was the son, son-in-law. They sent envoys, both Iman's and oligarchs, to ask for terms, but Toulouse was constrained by gangus's rage over T'quare and his coat of vengeance, so it could offer him nothing.

Okay, a little confused about that, but in the case of the Nishipurians had done themselves no favors since before Toulouse arrival, they had been attacking Mongol outwriters and scouting parties. So, yes, they were getting into these skirmishes, skirmishes, and the ferocity of the Mongol onslaught was such that, though better defended than Merv, it lasted just three days. And the three days is also debated. Sometimes some scholars as quickly as one day.

But what they're saying here is the Battle of Nishipu were able to open it and began with a furious cannonade. And from both sides, Nishipu's defenses included 3000 javelin throwing, ballistic and 500 catapults. So they did have, you know, they had, they're shit together. They were for their day an organized army.

There's a walled city. But the Mongols brought the same number of catapults in Balsa and 700, But the Mongols brought the same number of catapults and Baal's in the 700 Noptha Hurling Trebuchets, 4,000, 4,000 scaling ladders, 4,000 of those ladders to run up against the wall. 250,000 large stones for the Trebuchet to the catapult and stuff to get thrown against the wall, 2,500 sacks of earth fulfilling up moats.

That's fucking incredible, man, how efficient they were. Think about it, man, they had dirt500 sacks of earth fulfilling up moats, that's fucking incredible man, how efficient they were. Think about it, man, they had dirt, sacks of dirt to fill up the moats. I mean, these guys, terrifying, just the efficiency of this army, and all that assault ordered by Tuluui on all four quarters of this city, so I'm sorry, Tuluui is not the son of law.

I don't, this is fucking name doesn't matter. This isn't about him. Not really, just about what happened. So some dude, the assault lasts an entire day at night. 66 breaches in the walls, just over 24 hours of brigade of 10,000 Mongols was inside the city. The inevitable result was a ferocious street fighting where every house was contested, every block involved

in bloody hand-to-hand combat. Think about that. Think about that like, oh my god, I'm gonna get back to that just a second. The battle inside the city began on a Wednesday, it was finally completed by Friday night. Since more and more Mongols continued to pour through the breach, there could be only one ending

by Saturday morning, Mongol death squads were roaming the streets, including a special core of killers led in person by, okay, it was to Quar. Tukwuchar, Tukwuchar, there we go. That was the Sun Law. Led in person by the widow, oh my God. So she came in with this death squad at the end,

screaming for vengeance. The resulting massacre lasted a full four days. As it murved, survivors tried to hide among the bodies and the rubble, but most were winkled out, executed. Oh my god, others died of starvation and thirst in their caverns, as they hid in subterranean hideouts. And then the mongrel was piled up three pyramids of skulls from men, women, and children, respectively.

Oh my god, they had one pyramid for the dudes, one for the women, one for the kids' heads. A whole pyramid of kids' heads. That's not something I'm making up. This isn't the Stephen King novel. Obedient to gangus is orders that no living thing was to be spared. The killers even wiped out dogs, cats, and rats. Oh man, it even sucked to be a rat

and they should pour that day. And then out of the population of 170,000, and I'm again, I'm gonna go plus, 400 hand-picked artisans survived, which was typical Mongol fashion. They're like, okay, you got a really good skill, we can make some money off of, you didn't have anything to do with this.

All right, we're gonna like, because you're really good at this thing, we don't need more peasants, but you can live. Holy shit. I mean, think about that. I mean, like, imagine this now. Now this is like, it's like you live in San Francisco, let's say like we're gonna go West Coast. You live in San Francisco and there's

very cosmopolitan city where, you know, it's not about fighting, it's about art and culture. And then you hear about some, uh, some dipshits in Canada, you know, those fucking ferocious Canadians, dipshits in Canada, you know, those fucking ferocious Canadians, the Canadian horde, the bunch of Canadians that horseback start, they burn Seattle to the ground, and then they just obliterate Portland, and then they get Sacramento, excuse me, and they get all these cities, and then, and now they've sent some people after all, you've heard about all this, and now they've come to your town, and they're like, hey man, surrender,

or you know what we're gonna do. And then you got some dipshit mayor who's like, oh, no, oh, buddy, no, no, no, no, no. We're saying Francisco, we don't fucking, we do what we want, okay? We're smart, yeah, city, we like our life here, and why don't you go fuck yourself? And you know what, that guy, the important guy,

the leader of this horrific army, we're gonna kill his son-in-law, okay? Get out of here, go on, scat. And then you're just some citizen of this place, and you're like, oh God, like that can't be good. Like, you know, like if we're gonna go Trump, you know, it'd be like if Trump, you know, just pissed off, like drop some bombs. It's just for fun, unlike China and Japan and North Korea and Russia and Britain and just was like fucking with everybody. And then all those people are now coming towards us and you're just a citizen going like

God damn dude dude Why did you do that? They're gonna kill all of us now and Then all of a sudden you just see this horror coming and at this point you know that there's no surrendering Like there's no there's no like sorry. Can I be on your side? You know like like and if you don't have a skill, if you're like, ah, I'm good with the shovel, nope. Uh-uh, you're fucked.

And then they're assaulting the city just systematically, just ladder after ladder after ladder, endured in the moats and rock after rock after rock hitting your wall. And then all of a sudden these mongles pour into the city, you know? I mean, I guess you wouldn't have the walls. It's a big, like a San Francisco,

like into the suburbs, you know, through Oakland. You know, they're just, they fucking annihilate Oakland and now they're coming across the bridges. And you just, you have to get out of your, you know, you have to leave Starbucks and hop out of Pete's coffee or, you know, whatever little cafe, you know, you're leaving and you're heading out from your loft and you got your stick. These guys have much better weapons and guns and you're better to even though it's

modern to go with the swords and he's like maniacs with swords and arrows are coming for you. And you have to like just try to fight, and you know you're gonna die. You know you're gonna die. And then, oh, and then what if you're like one of the last ones to die, and you just see them hacking heads off everybody? Un-fucking-believeable.

And incredibly, after all this, other cities, afterwards, still fought back. Still were like, no, no, we know he did the Nishipur, but we're gonna think that we can fight back too. And I just bring all this up, kind of a new this episode, like the bit I wrote earlier, just to point out that we have it better today, regardless of like in our current political landscape

of his Hillary or Trump, it's not going to be, it might be bad. My things might get worse, but they're not going to get niche up or worse. Like I feel like I can very confidently say that in my lifetime, no matter how long there is, there is not going to be I am not going to see a pyramid of tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of human heads. I'm not going to see a city just just raise it in that manner. And I know that we've done more recent atrocities, you know, not to make light of like you know Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But again, I would rather look up in the sky and see a bomb coming and be like, ah, shit. And then have, I don't know, 10 seconds of panic

and then just blast wave, nuclear just incinerate me. You know, if I had to pick, I would way rather have that. And then to look, you know, in Santa Monica right now, recording this, I would then look down on Santa Monica Boulevard and just see 10,000 motherfuckers on horses who are the like, I know are the most ruthless people in existence. I've heard about them my entire life,

like riding boogie men coming for me like my fear of like clowns, it would be willing to like 10,000 clowns on horseback with swords like evil like Pennywise motherfuckin just coming and they're just gonna cut the heads off my family. So you know next time you're like man I can't get this app to load or Skype keeps on who's using Skype. FaceTime, you know man man, it's Face time, it's, I gotta call Comcast again.

It's just like, something's wrong with my signal. Fuck, I hate the shit, man, and just life is so hard. No, it's not. Not nearly as much as it used to be. Okay, so top five takeaways. No matter how bad your job is, not as bad as having to gather a stack of ears.

That's number one. Number two, no matter what tragedy of experience, at least it's involved everyone you've ever loved are known having their heads cut off and stacked into pyramids in your home reduced to rubble, as I just explained. Number three, gang as con is interesting, it's interesting to read,

you know, it's interesting to read about him, but doesn't sound like a guy you would ever want to meet or even be related to. You know, he obviously loved his family, but you know, if you're his son or daughter, you're expected to be part of this colossal bloodlust. That's your destiny. No thanks.

Number four, as I just said, life is infinitely, infinitely better today than it was in the 13th century. And number five, careful on horses, if they can kill Ganges Khan, they can kill your ass as well. After all that, thanks for listening to this time suck. We're in a little bit longer than I would like, but if you like it, do me a favor, man, talk about it. Tell your friends, rate it wherever you listen to it.

So, you know, takes a second to give it a little rating. So others can see your rating and decide to listen to it as well. I really enjoy doing this. I want to do it for a long time. I'm into it. I hope you're into it. And, you know, and keep coming back. And if you want to reach me, you know, like with a question about one of the shows,

maybe some historical thing, I got wrong, something you thought I should have added, a question you have. Man, don't hesitate. Leave a comment on my Facebook page, Dancom is comedy, Instagram, Dancom is comedy, Twitter, et cetera. You can just go to Dancom is.tv

or timesockpodcast.com to find links to all of that, or just email me directly, Dan at Dancomans.tv. And the final thing, you know, don't aspire to go out there building any head pyramids, okay? It's old news. It's been done. And whatever you do, do not stop listening to Time Sun. [♪ Music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background