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[Assistant] So, Sun Xiu summoned Ding Feng and brought him up to speed. Ding Feng said,


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[Assistant] My lord, have no worries. I have an idea that can rid the kingdom of this evil.


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[Assistant] Tomorrow is the start of the year-end festival.


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[Assistant] You can hold a feast for all the officials and summon Sun Chen to attend. I will arrange everything else.


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[Assistant] That night, a violent gale whipped up, blowing sand and pebbles into the air and uprooting old trees. When morning came, the wind died down, and an envoy brought a decree to Sun Chen, summoning him to the palace for a feast.


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[Assistant] As soon as Sun Chun got out of bed, he fell over as if someone had pushed him. That put him on edge a little bit.


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[Assistant] Then, a dozen or so envoys crowded into the room to accompany him to the palace.


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[Assistant] My brothers and I control the Imperial Guard. Who would dare to even come near us? If anything goes wrong here, start a fire inside the compound as a signal.


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[Assistant] So, Sun Chun headed to the palace, where Sun Xiu left his seat at the banquet to personally greet him and offer him the seat of honor.


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[Assistant] Sun Chen tried to stand up, but Sun Xiu stopped him, saying,


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[Assistant] We have plenty of troops outside, no need to worry.


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[Assistant] Before Sun Xiu was even done talking, Jiang Bu stomped in with sword in hand and accompanied by 30 some armed guards. As they rushed in, they shouted, We have an imperial edict to apprehend the traitor Sun Chen.


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[Assistant] Before Sun Chun could react, the guards had already seized him. Sun Chun now kowtow to Sun Xiu, pleading, I am willing to return all my possessions.


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[Assistant] But Sun Xiu was not going to show him any mercy. He immediately ordered the guards to drag Sun Chen outside and behead him. Zhang Budan announced to Sun Chen's followers that they were only after Sun Chen, no one else, and that put their minds at ease.


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[Assistant] Next, Zhang Bu asks Sun Xiu to take his seat, while Ding Feng and company brought in Sun Chen's four brothers. Sun Xiu ordered all of them, along with Sun Chen's entire clan, executed in public. The final headcount totals several hundred.


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[Assistant] But, that wasn't the end of it. Remember that Sun Chen's clan first came to power when his elder brother Sun Jun staged a coup some years ago to kill Zhu Ge Ke, who was then the top official at court.


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[Assistant] Sun Jun was already dead at this point, but Sun Xiu had his body exhumed and beheaded.


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[Assistant] At the same time, he ordered proper graves built.


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[Assistant] For Zhuge Ke and other victims of Sun Jun and Sun Chen.


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[Assistant] Those who had been exiled because of their connections to Zhuge Ke and company were now allowed to return home. And finally,


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[Assistant] The old general Ding Feng and others who helped carry out the latest coup were handsomely rewarded.


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[Assistant] The kingdom of Wu then sent an envoy to the court of Shu to inform the Shu emperor Liu Shan of the latest change in administration in their allied kingdom.


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[Assistant] When the envoy returned to Wu, Sun Xiu asked him for his impression of the current state of Shu. The envoy said,


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[Assistant] Recently, much of the affairs of state have been handled by the eunuch Huang Hao.


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[Assistant] As the saying goes, the sparrows in the eaves are unaware that the mansion is about to burn down. Hearing this report, Sun Xiu sighed and said


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[Assistant] If Zhuge Liang is still around, things would never have gotten this bad.


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[Assistant] He then wrote another letter to Shu, telling them that Si Ma Jiao will usurp the throne in Wei any day now, and then he would no doubt invade Wu and Shu.


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[Assistant] As a demonstration of his might. So they better all be ready.


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[Assistant] When the Shu commander Jiang Wei heard about this message, he immediately decided to use it as a justification for mounting another northern campaign.


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[Assistant] In the year 259, Jiang Wei appointed the generals Liao Hua and Zhang Yi as his vanguard and mobilized 200,000 troops. As he prepared to set out, he discussed with the general Xia Houba where to strike first. Xia Houba said


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[Assistant] Qi Mountain is a good place to deploy an army. We should advance through there. The late Prime Minister made six incursions through Qi Mountain precisely because nowhere else would do.


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[Assistant] Jiang Wei agreed, so his army marched toward Qi Mountain once again and set up camp at the mouth of the valley.


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[Assistant] Waiting in his camp at Qi Mountain was Deng Ai.


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[Assistant] Who had been busy organizing the Wei troops in the area.


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[Assistant] When his scouts reported that the Shu forces had set up three camps at the mouth of the valley,


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[Assistant] Deng Ai went to a high vantage point to check it out for himself.


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[Assistant] So as it turns out, the Shu forces had subcamp exactly where Dengai wanted them to.


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[Assistant] Before the Shu army had showed up, Deng Ai had dug an underground tunnel from his own camp to the mouth of the valley, where his enemy's camps now sat. As things stood, that tunnel ran right through the left camp of the Shu forces.


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[Assistant] Deng Ai now ordered his son and a lieutenant to each lead 10,000 men to attack the camps from left and right. And then, he ordered another officer to take 500 men and sneak through the tunnel into the Shu camp around 9 o'clock that night.


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[Assistant] Meanwhile, in the Shu army's left camp, the two generals in charge of that wing of the army slept with their armor on that night because their camp had not yet been completed and they were worried that the enemy might try to raid them before they were entrenched.


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[Assistant] And sure enough, all of a sudden, chaos broke out in their midst, and by the time they got their weapons and horses, they were also under attack from outside. With enemies outside and in, the Shu officers could not hold their ground, so they abandoned the camp and fled.


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[Assistant] Meanwhile, Jiang Wei got word of the chaos breaking out in his left camp, and immediately figured that Deng Ai had somehow snuck troops into his camp.


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[Assistant] He immediately got on his horse and held his ground at the main tent. He ordered that anyone who moved without permission would be executed.


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[Assistant] Next, he told his men that if they see any enemies approach their camp, just shower them with arrows and crossbows, no questions asked. Then he sent word to his right camp and told the men there to stay put.


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[Assistant] And just as Jiang Wei expected, the Wei forces made a dozen or so attacks on his camp, but they were repelled every time by the arrows. This lasted until dawn, at which point the Wei forces no longer dared to attack, and Deng Ai called his men back to camp. As he did so, Deng Ai said, Jiang Wei really learned Zhuge Liang's ways well.


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[Assistant] Jiang Wei now sent a letter to Deng Ai challenging him to battle the next day, and Deng Ai said, sure.


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[Assistant] And, unlike the last time they did this, Deng Ai actually showed up this time, the next day.


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[Assistant] The two armies lined up in front of Qi Mountain.


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[Assistant] Jiang Wei deployed his men in the eight-fold formation that he learned from Zhu Ge Liang.


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[Assistant] When Deng Ai saw this, he too lined up his men in the same formation.


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[Assistant] Jiang Wei now rolled forward with spear in hand and shouted,


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[Assistant] You can copy my formation, but do you know how it transforms?


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[Assistant] Dengai laughed and said, Do you think you are the only one who knows this formation? I can set it up so of course I know how it transforms.


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[Assistant] So Deng Ai now rode into his formation, told the guy giving signals to wave the command flag this way and that, and the formation turned into one with 64 gates. Deng Ai then rode back out and asked Jiang Wei, What do you think of that? Jiang Wei was nonplussed.


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[Assistant] That was not bad, he said. But do you dare to pit your formation against mine?


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[Assistant] Dengai said sure, so the two sides now march toward each other, with their commanders directing traffic from the center of each formation.


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[Assistant] As the two formations collided, both held their forms.


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[Assistant] But suddenly, Jiang Wei waved his flag, and in the blink of an eye, his formation turned into one known as the Coiled Serpent, and it trapped Deng Ai in the center.


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[Assistant] Now, Deng Ai did not recognize this formation, and he began to panic as the action got hotter. The Shu forces were gradually closing in.


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[Assistant] And Deng Ai and his men were unable to break through. All they heard was the Shu soldiers chanting, Deng Ai surrender now! Looking skyward, Deng Ai sighed and said,


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[Assistant] I got too full of myself for a moment and fell for Jiang Wei's trick.


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[Assistant] Just as the situation was looking dire, an army suddenly crashed in from the northwest corner.


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[Assistant] Recognizing that these were Wei soldiers, Deng Ai immediately took the opportunity to fight his way out of danger.


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[Assistant] The guy who saved him turned out to be Sima Wang, the commander of the town of Changcheng, who was once saved by Deng Ai. So he now returned the favor.


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[Assistant] But while Deng Ai escaped with his life, he lost his camps at Qi Mountain as Jiang Wei's troops took control of those. Deng Ai was forced to fall back to the south bank of the Wei River and pitch camp there. Deng Ai now asks Sima Wang.


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[Assistant] In my youth, I traveled to seek teachers in the south of Jing province. I became friends with a couple of well-known scholars and discussed this formation with them.


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[Assistant] What Jiang Wei set up today is called a coiled serpent formation.


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[Assistant] If you attack it from anywhere else, it would do nothing.


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[Assistant] So I attacked it from the northwest and was able to break it. Deng Ai offered his gratitude and said


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[Assistant] Even though I studied the formation, I don't actually know how it transforms. Since you know its secrets, how about we go back tomorrow and try to reclaim our camps at Qi Mountain? But Sima Wang now began to hedge.


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[Assistant] I don't know if my knowledge is enough to fool Jiang Wei, he said. But Deng Ai has something else in mind to see what he is up to.


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[Assistant] Tune in to the next episode of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms podcast. Thanks for listening.


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[Assistant] Before we continue where we left off, I have a quick announcement.


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[Assistant] We are rapidly approaching the end of the podcast. I still have a few more supplemental episodes that I want to put out, but we are looking at no more than five or six regular episodes remaining, if that.


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[Assistant] I do plan on doing a wrap-up episode at the end of the whole thing, and as part of that episode, I will answer any questions you may have.


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[Assistant] Now, I've gotten a number of questions about whether I'm doing another similar podcast after this one, and I will address that in the wrap-up episode, so no need to send in more questions about that. Also, please listen to the 100th episode Q&A first, just in case the question you want to ask was already answered there. Alright, on with the show!


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[Assistant] Last time, the Kingdom of Wei had sent the generals Zhong Hui and Deng Ai to lead two large armies to invade the riverlands. Zhong Hui kicked down the front door to the region of Han Zhong and was cruising along when he suddenly ran into some spooky supernatural stuff around Dingjun Mountain.


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[Assistant] He asked around and learned that this was the final resting place of none other than Zhuge Liang.


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[Assistant] This must be the work of his spirit. I need to personally go offer sacrifices to him, Zhonghui said.


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[Assistant] So the next day, Zhong Hui prepared a first-class sacrifice and went to Zhu Ge Liang's grave. He prostrated and offered up the sacrificial items.


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[Assistant] And no sooner had the ceremony ended did the violent winds stop and the ominous clouds dissipate, replaced by a light breeze and drizzle, which soon gave way to sunlight.


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[Assistant] The Wei troops were all delighted by this turn in the weather, and they offered up their gratitude before returning to camp.


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[Assistant] That night, Zhong Hui was sleeping in his tent, when suddenly, a light breeze swept into the tent, followed by a man donning a headscarf and wielding a feather fan.


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[Assistant] He wore a crane pattern robe, white shoes, and a black sash. His face was like fine jade, and his lips were daubs of red. His eyes were bright and clear, and he moved with the light grace of a divine immortal.


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[Assistant] Zhong Hui stood up and greeted the man, asking, Sir, who might you be?


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[Assistant] The guy was like, dude, have you not been listening to the last 147 episodes of the Three Kingdoms podcast?


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[Assistant] I was honored by your visit this morning. The man said, I have a short message for you.


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[Assistant] Even though the rights of the Han are at an end and heaven's mandate must be followed, the people of the Riverlands have suffered much during this long period of war and should be pitied. Once you have entered their territory, please do not slaughter the civilians.


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[Assistant] And with that, the visitor flicked his sleeves and departed. Zhong Hui tried to keep him, but suddenly startled awake. He immediately realized who the visitor was, so he ordered his troops to erect a white banner that said,


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[Assistant] He also sent out the order that wherever they went, whoever kills a single innocent would pay with his life. And what do you know, that worked. Wherever they went in Hanzhong, the people came out of the towns to welcome them.


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[Assistant] Zhong Hui put all their minds at ease with kind words and his army did not bother any civilians. A poet later wrote


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[Assistant] The ghostly myriads circling Mount Dingjun made Zhonghui pay due homage to its potent god, who in life guided the fortunes of the Liu, and whose words from beyond will save the folk of Shu.


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[Assistant] While Zhong Hui was steadily advancing, Jiang Wei was getting restless at his base at Dazhong, waiting for the emperor to mobilize defenses as he had recommended.


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[Assistant] But when word reached him that the enemy was coming his way,


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[Assistant] When the enemy arrived, Jiang Wei went out to face them. The commander of this Wei army rode out and shouted,


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[Assistant] We have an army of a million men and thousands of top generals advancing on 20 fronts. We are already at your capital. If you refuse to surrender and remain obstinate, you will be going against heaven's will.


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[Assistant] Jiang Wei was enraged and rode forth to take on the enemy commander. Within three bouts, his foe turned and fled. Jiang Wei and his men gave chase for about six or seven miles when they were suddenly accosted by another enemy force led by the governor of Longxi.


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[Assistant] Such vermin are no match for me! Jiang Wei scoffed as he continued his advance. A few miles later, he ran into the army led by his long-time nemesis, Deng Ai, and the two sides scrummed. Jiang Wei was invigorated as he fought Deng Ai to a standstill after a dozen bouts or so.


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[Assistant] But just then, the sound of gongs and drums rose up from behind, and Jiang Wei quickly ordered a retreat.


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[Assistant] But it was too late. Word arrived from the rear of his army that the camps at a key location nearby had all been burned by the enemy.


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[Assistant] Shocked, Jiang Wei left a lieutenant in charge of the fight against Deng Ai while he rushed to save those camps.


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[Assistant] But he was accosted along the way by another enemy force. The commander of that force did not dare to fight Jiang Wei, so he turned and ran. Jiang Wei gave chase, but when he tried to go up a hillside, he was forced back by a hailstorm of boulders and logs. So Jiang Wei turned and headed back the way he came.


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[Assistant] But along the way, he received word that Deng Ai had won the day and was now advancing in mass. Soon, Deng Ai's forces arrived and surrounded Jiang Wei.


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[Assistant] Xiang Wei and a number of riders managed to break through the enemy lines and sprinted back into their main camp to await reinforcements.


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[Assistant] But while he was waiting, Jiang Wei got more bad news. Urgent dispatchers arrived, informing him that Zhong Hui had sacked Yang An Pass. Of the two generals defending that critical pass, Jiang Shu had surrendered, and Fu Qian had fought to his death.


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[Assistant] The region of Hanzhong now belonged to the Wei and the two nearby towns of Lecheng and Hancheng had also surrendered.


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[Assistant] The only other general in the area for Xu could not hold his position and had fled back to the capital Chengdu for help.


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[Assistant] Stunned by this development, Jiang Wei immediately ordered his troops to break camp and move out. That night, as they were marching, they were blocked by an enemy force. The enemy commander traded just one blow with Jiang Wei before turning to flee. Jiang Wei pulled out his bow and took aim.


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[Assistant] Now, Jiang Wei is usually a dead-eye shot, but on this occasion, he fired three straight arrows and all three missed the mark.


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[Assistant] Infuriated, Jiang Wei snapped his own bow in half and gave chase.


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[Assistant] But suddenly, his horse lost its footing and threw him to the ground. The enemy commander now turned to attack, but Jiang Wei leaped to his feet and stabbed his foe's horse in the chest.


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[Assistant] The enemy troops now swooped in and rescued their commander while Jiang Wei got back on his horse. He was just about to give chase again when word came that Deng Ai was approaching from the rear.


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[Assistant] Now, Jiang Wei was facing enemies both in the front and back. He decided he would fall back and go take back Han Zhong instead. But scouts soon informed him that his path of retreat had been cut off by Zhu Ge Xu, the imperial protector of Yong province.


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[Assistant] So Jiang Wei now pitched camp by some hills, while Zhu Ge Xu garrisoned his troops at the head of Yinping Bridge, another critical location that had fallen to Wei.


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[Assistant] Even though the enemy has blocked the bridge, Yong Province must be lightly defended right now.


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[Assistant] General, if you cut through Konghan Valley and make straight for Yong Province, then Zhu Ge Xu will no doubt redeploy his troops from the bridge to go save his home base. Then, you can lead your troops and make a dash for the Sabre Pass and you would be able to reclaim Han Zhong.


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[Assistant] So Jiang Wei did as his lieutenant suggested. And sure enough, as soon as word of this movement reached Zhu Ge Xu, he was in a panic.


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[Assistant] Yong province is my responsibility. If something were to go wrong there, the court will blame me, he said.


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[Assistant] So, Zhu Ge Xu left only a small force to hold the bridge, while he led his main army to go save Yong Province.


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[Assistant] Well, the joke was on him. Jiang Wei had only headed about 10 miles in the direction of Yong Province before he turned his army around, figuring that that was enough to induce the enemy to leave the bridge.


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[Assistant] Sure enough, when they returned to Yinping Bridge, the bulk of the Wei troops there had moved out. Jiang Wei didn't even break a sweat as he scattered the remaining defenses and set the enemy camps on fire.


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[Assistant] By the time Zhu Ge Xu heard about this and came back this way, Jiang Wei had been gone for half a day already, and Zhu Ge Xu did not dare to give chase.


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[Assistant] Having slipped across the bridge, Jiang Wei marched on and soon rendezvous with his veteran warhorses, Zhang Yi and Liao Hua. Zhang Yi told him,


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[Assistant] Huang Hao listened to the words of a sorceress and refused to dispatch troops. When I heard that Han Zhong was in danger, I decided on my own to mobilize the troops. But by then, Yang An Pass had already fallen.


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[Assistant] Then, I heard that you were trapped, so I was coming to help you.


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[Assistant] They now combined their armies and headed for Baishui Pass. Liao Hua suggested that since they were under attack from every direction, they should fall back to the Saber Pass, the gallery road that led from Hanzhong to the Shu capital Chengdu. But Jiang Wei wasn't sure. Just as he was deliberating,


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[Assistant] Where came that Zhong Hui and Deng Ai were coming his way on 10 fronts?


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[Assistant] Jiang Wei wanted to divide his army to go fight the enemy, but Liao Hua said,


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[Assistant] The roads around Baishui Pass are narrow and numerous. It is not a good place to fight. We should fall back to save the Saber Pass. If that falls, we are done for.


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[Assistant] Jiang Wei agreed, so he let the army tour the Saber Pass. As they approached, they were suddenly greeted with the sound of horns and drums and the sight of numerous banners as an army blocked away. But fortunately, they were on the same side.


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[Assistant] This force was led by the Xu general Dong Jue.


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[Assistant] When Dong Jue heard that the enemy was coming on 10 fronts, he led 20,000 men here to hold the Saber Pass.


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[Assistant] He now welcomed his comrades into the pass and told them, while weeping, how Huang Hao had told the emperor to not mobilize his defenses.


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[Assistant] Sirs, do not be concerned, Jiang Wei said. As long as I draw breath, I will not allow the way to gobble up our kingdom.


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[Assistant] Let's hold a saber pass for now and devise a plan to repel the enemy. But Dong Jue said, this pass is defensible.


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[Assistant] But there is no one defending the capital Chengdu. If the enemy launches a sneak attack there, all will be lost.


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[Assistant] Chengdu is protected by mountains and cannot be easily taken, Jiang Wei said. We don't need to worry about that.


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[Assistant] Just as they were talking, word came that the enemy commander, Zhu Ge Xu, had arrived.


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[Assistant] Jiang Wei was like, oh, perfect, I've been sitting on this volcano of rage for days with no one to take it out on. So he immediately charged out of the pass with 5,000 men and crashed into the enemy lines, wreaking all sorts of havoc and putting Zhu Ge Xu to flight for 10 miles.


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[Assistant] Jiang Wei's troops killed countless enemies and seized lots of weapons and horses before returning to the Saber Pass.


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[Assistant] Meanwhile, the Wei commander Zhong Hui had pitched camp a few miles away from the Saber Pass, and Zhu Ge Xu now came to see him. Zhong Hui was infuriated when he saw Zhu Ge Xu.


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[Assistant] I ordered you to hold Yinping Bridge to cut off Jiang Wei's path of retreat. Why did you lose it? And now, you advanced your troops without my orders and brought about this defeat.


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[Assistant] Jiang Wei is crafty, Zhu Ge Xu said. He pretended to be on his way to attack Yong Province. I was afraid that the province would fall, so I went to save it. Jiang Wei used that opportunity to slip away. I pursued him to Saber Pass, but was defeated by him again.


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[Assistant] Uhm, that's not exactly helping your case there, buddy.


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[Assistant] Zhong Hui was fuming and ordered the guards to execute Zhu Ge Xu, but Wei Guan, the army supervisor, said


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[Assistant] Even though Zhu Ge Xu is at fault, he is under the command of General Deng Ai.


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[Assistant] If you execute him, it might damage relations between the two of you. But Zhonghui shot back.


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[Assistant] I hold a clear mandate from the Emperor and the Duke of Jin to conquer Shu. If Dengai himself commits a transgression, I would execute him too.


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[Assistant] That said, after much pleading from his officer corps, Zhong Hui relented and decided to just throw Zhu Ge Xu into a prisoner's cart and have him shipped back to the Wei capital for Sima Zhao to deal with. He then absorbed all of Zhu Ge Xu's troops into his own army.


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[Assistant] When news of this reached Deng Ai, he took it in stride and responded in a calm, reasonable manner.


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[Assistant] If you don't tolerate the small things, it will ruin the grand scheme.


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[Assistant] Father, if you and Zhonghui do not get along, it will no doubt affect the affairs of the state. I hope you can let this go for now.


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[Assistant] That helped Deng Ai calm down a bit, but he was still holding a grudge. He now went to see Zhong Hui with a dozen or so riders.


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[Assistant] When Zhong Hui heard that Deng Ai was coming, he asked how big a force he had with him. When told that it was just a dozen riders, Zhong Hui ordered a few hundred armed men to line up in and outside his tent to send a message to Deng Ai.


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[Assistant] When Deng Ai arrived, Zhong Hui welcomed him into the tent.


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[Assistant] Deng Ai did the whole, who, me? Oh, I've got nothing valuable to contribute, dick. But Zhong Hui insisted, so Deng Ai said,


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[Assistant] In my foolish opinion, we can lead an army through the back roads at Yinping and make a sneak attack on Chengdu. Jiang Wei will then have to redeploy his troops to save the capital, and then he will be able to take the Saber Pass.


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[Assistant] That is a brilliant idea, Zhonghui said with apparent delight. You should leave your troops and go at once, and I will wait here for your good news.


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[Assistant] The two then drank a cup of wine and said goodbye. No sooner had he returned to his tent did Zhong Hui say to his officers,


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[Assistant] Everyone says Deng Ai is talented, but from what I can tell today, he is a mediocrity.


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[Assistant] When his man asked the reason for that harsh assessment, Zhonghui said,


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[Assistant] The back roads at Yinping traverse treacherous peaks. If the enemy stations just a hundred men at a key location and cut off his path of retreat, Deng Ai and his men will all starve to death. I will just keep advancing along the main road, and there is no way my conquest will not succeed.


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[Assistant] So, Zhong Hui sent out word for his men to start constructing siege equipment to prepare for an attack on Saber Pass.


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[Assistant] Meanwhile, after Deng Ai left Zhong Hui's camp, he asked his entourage, What do you think about the way Zhong Hui treated me? His entourage all said,


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[Assistant] He doesn't think I can take Chengdu, but I will show him.


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[Assistant] Upon returning to camp, his son and other officers asked him how the meeting went. Deng Ai told him,


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[Assistant] I shared with him my sincere thoughts, but he viewed me as a mediocrity.


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[Assistant] He thinks that he has done something amazing by conquering Han Jong.


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[Assistant] If not for me keeping Jiang Wei occupied, how could he have succeeded?


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[Assistant] If I can take Chengdu, it would trump his conquest of Hanzhong.


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[Assistant] So that night, Deng Ai ordered his army to break camp and advance toward the back roads at Yinping.


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[Assistant] They pitch camp more than 200 miles away from the Saber Pass. When Zhonghui heard that Deng Ai had indeed gone off on his proposed trek through the mountains, he just laughed and mocked the man's foolishness.


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[Assistant] We'll leave Zhonghui in front of the Saber Pass for now, and follow Deng Ai on his quest. After sending a message to inform Sima Zhao of his plan, Deng Ai assembled his officers and said,


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[Assistant] We have a chance to launch a sneak attack on Chengdu and establish eternal fame. Are you with me?


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[Assistant] So Deng Ai ordered his son Deng Zhong to lead 5,000 men and move out first. They did not wear any armor and carry tools for cutting across hills and building bridges. Deng Ai himself led 30,000 men, with everyone carrying provisions and ropes.


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[Assistant] As they marched, he stopped every 30 miles or so to build a camp and leave 3000 men.


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[Assistant] They set out in the 10th month of the year 263, toward Yinping.


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[Assistant] After covering more than 200 miles of uninhabited terrain over the course of 20-some days, they found themselves surrounded by towering cliffs and sharp gorges. By now, after all the camps he had left along the way, Deng Ai only had about 2,000 men with him.


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[Assistant] As they approached a peak called the Heaven Scraping Mountains, the terrain became too treacherous for horses, so Deng Ai left his horse behind and climbed up the peak on foot.


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[Assistant] When he reached the top though, he found his son and the vanguard sitting around, weeping.


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[Assistant] We have already traveled hundreds of miles to get this far. On the other side of this cliff lies our destination. We cannot retreat now.


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[Assistant] He now told his men to get the Tiger's Cup. You must venture into her lair. We have come so far. If we succeed, we will share in wealth and fortune.


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[Assistant] We will follow your command, General. All the men shouted.


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[Assistant] What followed next was beyond belief. Dengai first told his men to slide their weapons down the steep cliffside. Then, he wrapped himself up in a blanket and rolled down the cliff. Uh, so were the rest of us supposed to do that?


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[Assistant] I guess so. We did just declare that we would follow his orders. Dang it.


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[Assistant] So the rest of his men followed suit. Those who had blankets wrapped themselves up in it and rolled down the cliffside,


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[Assistant] Those who did knock tied ropes around their waists and climbed down the cliff.


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[Assistant] Now, the novel doesn't say, but I'm guessing more than a few probably didn't make it down in one piece, but amazingly enough, most of them apparently did.


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[Assistant] Regrouping after that suicidal move, Deng Ai and company were just about to resume their journey when they noticed a stone tablet standing on the side of the road.


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[Assistant] It's said, written by Zhuge Liang, the Marquis of Wu.


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[Assistant] The lines that followed read, When two fires first spring forth, a man will cross. Two warriors contend. Soon they will die. Shocked, Deng Ai prostrated in front of the tablet and said, The Marquis of Wu is truly divine.


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[Assistant] It is a shame that I could not have you as my teacher.


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[Assistant] After a bit, they came upon a large empty camp. His men told him,


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[Assistant] When Zhuge Liang was alive, he stationed a thousand men here to defend this location. But Liu Shan has abandoned it.


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[Assistant] See, this is why you do what Zhuge Liang says.


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[Assistant] Deng Ai could not help but sigh at his good fortune, and he told his men,


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[Assistant] So this force of 2,000 advanced on foot and traveled through the night to attack the city of Jiangyou.


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[Assistant] This city was being defended by an officer by the name of Ma Miao.


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[Assistant] He had gotten word that the eastern half of the riverlands had fallen, so he prepared his defenses. But he only paid attention to the main road, and with Jiang Wei holding down the saber pass, Ma Miao figured that he was pretty safe and did not worry much.


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[Assistant] One day, after drilling his troops, Ma Miao returned home to drink with his wife. His wife, Lady Li, asked him,


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[Assistant] But even so, you're defending a city and must not take that lightly.


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[Assistant] The emperor listens to Huang Hao and is drowning in wine and women, Ma Miao told his wife. Disaster is not far off. If the enemy arrives here, I will just surrender. There's no need to worry.


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[Assistant] He had barely finished saying those words before his wife spit hit his face.


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[Assistant] You are a man, she reproached him angrily. And yet, you have no loyalty and no honor. The state has squandered its benevolence on you. I am ashamed to see you.


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[Assistant] Those words left Mamiya humiliated. Just then, a servant burst into the room.


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[Assistant] Oh good, something to break up this awkward situation. What've you got?


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[Assistant] The Wei General Deng Ai appeared out of nowhere with 2,000 men and has stormed into the city, the servant reported in a panic.


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[Assistant] Stunned, Ma Miao promptly went out and did what he said he was going to do, surrender.


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[Assistant] He prostrated in front of Deng Ai in the main hall and said while weeping,


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[Assistant] I have long wanted to surrender. I am willing to lead all the city's civilians and troops and surrender to you, General.


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[Assistant] Deng Ai accepted the surrender and absorbed the troops in the city into his own ranks and appointed Ma Miao as his guide.


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[Assistant] Just then, word came that Ma Miao's wife had hung herself.


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[Assistant] Deng Ai asked Ma Miao why she did that and Ma Miao sheepishly told the truth. Deng Ai was moved by Ma Miao's wife, who showed far more backbone than her husband. So he personally attended her funeral. When the people of Wei heard about this, they all sighed deeply. A poet later wrote,


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[Assistant] The Han's rights overthrown, Liu Shan gone astray, Heaven sent Deng Ai to seize the West. More than all its captains of renown, Jiang You's Lady Li proved worthiest.


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[Assistant] Having seized Jiang You, Deng Ai now sent word for all the troops he had left along the way to rendezvous there and prepare to move on Fucheng, the next target.


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[Assistant] One of his officers, a man named Tian Xu, said,


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[Assistant] We have traversed treacherous terrain to get here and are exhausted. We should rest for a few days before advancing. But that did not please Deng Ai at all.


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[Assistant] But relented after much pleading from the rest of the officer corps.


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[Assistant] Deng Ai rushed his army to Fucheng, where the officials and civilians were all caught off guard, and they promptly surrendered without a fight.


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[Assistant] News of this development flew into the Shu capital Chengdu. Liu Shan hurriedly summoned Huang Hao, but Huang Hao told him


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[Assistant] This is a lie. The gods will not let your highness down.


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[Assistant] Oh, that's right, the gods. Let's ask them what to do. Liu Shan now wanted to summon the sorceress again, but lo and behold, she was nowhere to be found. I guess the gods told somebody to get out of Dodge. Meanwhile, one urgent report after another flew into the capital.


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[Assistant] Bearing worse and worse news, Liu Shan now did the desperate thing of holding court to ask his officials what to do, and all they did was look at each other in silence.


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[Assistant] To see how Liu Shan would try to get out of this pickle.


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[Assistant] Tune in to the next episode of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms podcast. Thanks for listening.


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[Assistant] Welcome to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms Podcast. This is a supplemental episode.


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[Assistant] In this episode, we will take a look at the real-life Si Ma Yi, the architect of the Si Ma clan's rise to power in the Wei court.


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[Assistant] Sima Yi was unceremoniously introduced in the novel. In episode 48 of our podcast, he appeared in a passing mansion where he was one of several guys that Cao Cao promoted while beefing up the civil administration.


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[Assistant] I made a note at that time that you should pay attention to Si Ma Yi, but in the novel, there was no such call out. He just kind of snuck in there and lay low for about half the novel before rising to prominence after Cao Cao's death.


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[Assistant] While it may appear that Sima Yi came out of nowhere, in reality, he definitely had a reputation that preceded him.


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[Assistant] The Sima clan was a prominent family even before the Han dynasty.


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[Assistant] After the fall of the Qin dynasty, the predecessor to the Han, the empire fractured into 18 small feudal states, and one of Sima Yi's ancestors was the ruler of one of those states.


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[Assistant] Their state later became part of the Han Empire, and the Sima clan remained one of the most powerful families in the empire.


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[Assistant] Members of the clan served in the government for generations. The several generations immediately preceding Sima Yi served in various generalships and governorships, while Sima Yi's father was a superintendent.


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[Assistant] Coming from this illustrious lineage, Sima Yi did not exactly fly under the radar. Even in his youth, he was said to have been crafty and often concerned about the empire, which was teetering at the time.


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[Assistant] At that point, Cao Cao was not yet Prime Minister, but had already begun his ascent up the political ladder. When Cao Cao heard about Sima Yi's reputation, he wanted to bring Sima Yi onto his personal staff.


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[Assistant] But Si Ma Yi did not want to serve under Cao Cao, so he claimed that he had been paralyzed and could not serve.


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[Assistant] Cao Cao was naturally suspicious, so he sent someone to spy on Si Ma Yi at night. Si Ma Yi, well aware that Cao Cao might be keeping him under tight watch, laid motionless in bed all night long, and that fooled the spy, who told Cao Cao that Si Ma Yi was indeed paralyzed.


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[Assistant] Fast forward seven years, and Cao Cao was now the Prime Minister. And through the grapevine, he had learned somewhere along the way that Sima Yi had miraculously gotten better from his paralysis. So now, Cao Cao made another offer to court Sima Yi.


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[Assistant] Well, court may not exactly be the right word for it. Let's just say that Cao Cao made Sima Yi an offer he couldn't refuse, not if he wanted to keep his head. Given the choice of serving or dying, Sima Yi chose the pragmatic path, and that was how he came to be in the Han court.


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[Assistant] This is the point where Si Ma Yi first appeared in the novel. He started out as an attendant to the Crown Prince, and then moved on to various other positions. But gradually, Cao Cao began to have second thoughts about this guy he tried so hard to recruit.


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[Assistant] He detected that Sima Yi may be harboring uncommon ambitions. Cao Cao warned his son Cao Pi that Sima Yi was not one to take orders from somebody else forever, so best be on guard against him.


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[Assistant] Fortunately for Sima Yi though, he was on very good terms with Cao Pi, so nothing really came of this.


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[Assistant] Now, in the novel, we didn't really hear much about Sima Yi after he began serving Cao Cao.


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[Assistant] But about a decade or so later, he did pop up briefly. In the year 219, the Xu general Guan Yu began attacking Cao Cao's holdings in Jing province and was proving so successful that Cao Cao considered moving the capital to stay out of potential harm's way.


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[Assistant] But Si Ma Yi was among a group of court officials who talked him out of that idea, and they suggested that he ally with Sun Quan to take on Guan Yu. Cao Cao did that, and sure enough, Guan Yu ended up dead by Sun Quan's hand.


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[Assistant] But that was kind of it for a while as far as Si Ma Yi's time in the spotlight. We know he served in some fairly high level posts during the reign of Cao Pi, but the novel doesn't really talk about him until after Cao Pi died and his son Cao Rui came to the throne.


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[Assistant] When Cao Pi died in the year 226, the Southlands decided to take advantage of the change in leadership


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[Assistant] To launch an invasion against the Kingdom of Wei.


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[Assistant] Sima Yi commanded one of the defense forces, and he defeated an army led by Zhu Geqin, for which he was promoted to the general of the chariots and cavalry.


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[Assistant] A couple years later, he made his lightning-quick strike on the renegade General Meng Da and put him down.


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[Assistant] A couple years after that, in the year 230, Sima Yi got involved in military action against the Kingdom of Shu for the first time, when he and the Wei commander Cao Zhen launched an incursion into Shu territory.


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[Assistant] That ultimately ended unsuccessfully because of rain.


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[Assistant] Now you may be asking, wait a minute, in the novel, Sima Yi had been involved long before that.


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[Assistant] Well, that may be how the novel told it, but there doesn't seem to be any historical records mentioning Sima Yi's involvement in either that battle or in Zhu Ge Liang's Second Northern Campaign, both of which preceded Sima Yi's unsuccessful incursion into Shu territory.


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[Assistant] But after that point, and all the way until Zhu Ge Liang's death in 234, Si Ma Yi was in the thick of the action, along the Shu and Wei border, turning back one incursion after another from Zhu Ge Liang.


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[Assistant] Eventually, Sima Yi outlasted Zhu Ge Liang as the latter died on his final northern campaign.


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[Assistant] Now, in the novel, Zhu Ge Liang played one last trick on his nemesis by having his men put his wooden sculpture on a cart to make Sima Yi think that Zhu Ge Liang was still alive.


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[Assistant] Well, that sort of happened. Minus the sculpture.


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[Assistant] Sima Yi did indeed give chase when he heard that Zhuge Liang had died and that the Xu forces were on the retreat.


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[Assistant] But the Xu forces had prepared for that possibility. When Sima Yi got close, the Xu forces made it look like they were turning around to strike. Sima Yi saw that, thought that he was running into an ambush, and called for a retreat.


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[Assistant] After Zhuge Liang's death, Sima Yi continued to show off his military chops. In the year 238, he led an army to the northeast to pacify an insurrection by the governor of Liaodong, Gongsun Yuan.


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[Assistant] The following year, the Wei Emperor Cao Rui died and his young son Cao Fang stepped into the throne.


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[Assistant] Just like in the novel, Cao Rui on his deathbed,


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[Assistant] And just like in the novel, the relationship between Sima Yi and Cao Shuang turns sour after a good start.


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[Assistant] Allegedly, in the beginning, Cao Shuang treated Sima Yi with the utmost respect, but soon began to try elbowing Sima Yi out of power on the advice of his staff. Cao Shuang managed to get Sima Yi promoted out of power and into a position with no real military authority.


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[Assistant] Cao Shuang then controlled the court for 10 years.


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[Assistant] While Cao Shuang was accompanying the emperor on a visit to the ancestral tombs, Sima Yi staged a coup in the capital, which ended with Cao Shuang's execution, and Sima Yi seizing control of the military.


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[Assistant] Now, the novel skips over a somewhat significant event that happened after the coup. A couple years after Sima Yi seized power, two officials, including one who was overseeing the city of Xiuquan, staged an insurrection and tried to make one of Cao Cao's sons emperor.


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[Assistant] Well, Sima Yi quickly put him down and executed everyone involved, including the unfortunate son of Cao Cao.


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[Assistant] If you remember, the city of Xiuquan, which lay in the southeastern region of the Kingdom of Wei, was a constant source of trouble for the Sima clan, and this was the first wave of those troubles.


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[Assistant] Two more attempts at insurrection would follow in the next seven years, but they were all put down by Sima Yi's sons, who took over control of the court after Sima Yi died in the year 251.


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[Assistant] So far, we've covered mostly Sima Yi's military exploits, but he also did a lot on the civil administration side. To look at that aspect, we need to backtrack a little bit. While he was still serving under Cao Cao, Sima Yi had put forth a plan for using soldiers to till the soil.


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[Assistant] As we mentioned before, this was a popular practice during the Three Kingdoms era as a way to reclaim abandoned farmland and to address frequent food shortages.


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[Assistant] Si Ma Yi could claim a fair amount of credit for making this a thing.


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[Assistant] Cao Cao accepted his suggestion, but died soon thereafter. Before he died though, Cao Cao did put that recommendation into practice, and the practice really took off during the reign of Cao Pi. And part of the foundation for that work was laid by Sima Yi.


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[Assistant] In addition, Sima Yi also implemented some large-scale agricultural and irrigation works in the southeastern portion of the Kingdom of Wei.


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[Assistant] It is recorded that when the region to the east of the heartlands experienced famine, Sima Yi was able to send significant amounts of grain as relief, which showed that under his administration, the kingdom's agriculture was doing well enough to have surplus grain stored.


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[Assistant] Sima Yi was also apparently a rather frugal manager of the kingdom's budget.


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[Assistant] When Cao Rui, the second of the three emperors whom he served, was running up the tab with his extravagant palace construction, Sima Yi tried to check him. And after Cao Rui died, Sima Yi asked that the unfinished work be abandoned.


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[Assistant] And when Sima Yi himself died, he had left instructions that he was to be buried in a humble grave on a mountain with no markers around his tomb.


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[Assistant] He was to be buried in plain clothes with no hoard of treasure in his grave.


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[Assistant] The novel doesn't mention this, but I feel compelled to point out that in this regard, he was much like Zhu Ge Liang, his long-time nemesis and foil in the novel.


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[Assistant] One interesting note about Sima Yi's career is that even though he staged a coup to grab control of the court, he then steadfastly refused attempts by the emperor to heap titles and honors upon him.


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[Assistant] When the emperor tried to make him prime minister, Sima Yi allegedly wrote more than 10 memorials to decline the title.


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[Assistant] Later, when the emperor tried to give him the nine dignities, Sima Yi once again refused to accept.


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[Assistant] If you look at contemporary opinions, he actually had a pretty good reputation during the Three Kingdoms era and this immediate subsequent period.


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[Assistant] In fact, during one of the three insurrections from commanders in the city of Shouchun, which we just mentioned,


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[Assistant] Even though the insurgents were rebelling against the Sima clan, they made a point


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[Assistant] Praising Sima Yi, who had died by then, for his loyal service to the kingdom, and they accused his sons of not following in their father's noble and loyal footsteps, which was why the rebellion was necessary.


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[Assistant] But Sima Yi's reputation began to slump when the Western Jin dynasty, which followed the Three Kingdoms period, crumbled.


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[Assistant] The end of the Western Jin Dynasty threw the Empire back into chaotic division, and even though there was an Eastern Jin Dynasty that followed, it was but one of many kingdoms in the Empire.


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[Assistant] Ironically, the rulers of the Eastern Jin found themselves in much the same situation as the Kingdom of Shu during the Three Kingdoms period.


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[Assistant] Remember that Shu maintained that it was the legitimate continuation of the Han dynasty, even though it was holding down only a corner of the empire.


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[Assistant] So now that the Eastern Jin found itself in a similar situation, it began to identify more with the Shu and came to see it as the good guys from the Three Kingdoms era.


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[Assistant] After the Eastern Jin ended, the decline in Si Ma Yi's legacy continued, and you can see the result in the novel, where he is identified as crafty and shrewd in a fiendish way, and often made to be the victim of Zhu Ge Liang's tricks.


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[Assistant] But if you look just at the accomplishments, I think you would have to give Sima Yi his due, since after all,


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[Assistant] He did lay the foundation for his heirs to eventually take over the Kingdom of Wei.


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[Assistant] Alright, that does it for Si Ma Yi. I hope you enjoyed this supplemental episode, and I will see you next time on the Romance of the Three Kingdoms podcast. Thanks for listening.


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[Assistant] Can you call that boy? Call Soda? I don't know what the fuck to say to him, man. Just call him and fucking chat him up.


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[Assistant] Are you nervous to call Soto? Just call him and tell him how nervous you are.


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[Assistant] Dude, Young Pope is not fucking cool with that. Anyone who listens to this podcast, I mandate you to watch Young Pope.


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[Assistant] I was slipping there for a while, I was getting nice now. No forget, well, he's not against them, he just doesn't want them in the church. Yeah, true. So, just, don't let me see you at church. Don't you dare let me see you at church. I'll hang out with you at the mics, but not at fucking church. Oh, come on man. What?


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[Assistant] That's what I'm at right now. No, because the girl kisses him or whatever. Dude, that's Disney's sick and twisted plot. Every Disney movie, a girl cries and everything gets better after that. Like a girl's tear like touches the ground and all of a sudden like the fucking pumpkins grow back into horses and it's telling girls just to cry. It's fucked up.


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[Assistant] What's that supposed to mean? I know enough about Walt Disney to take that as an insult. Why? Cause they write like, sex stuff in Lion King? No. Or his neo-Nazism maybe?


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[Assistant] I wanna get, exactly dude. I'm looking to get, I'm looking to get, all of our female listeners, I'm looking to get married in six months, hit me up.


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[Assistant] That, you weren't allowed, back in the day, you weren't supposed to enjoy sex at all. It was supposed to be strictly, just fucking, like, stern-faced. You'd have sex with your wife. If she made a noise, that was...


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[Assistant] 100%. 100%. The only one you weren't supposed to. No, it was like the Victorian times. 1700s. Or 15, I don't know.


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[Assistant] I'm talking about like England and all that shit, that's all I care about.


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[Assistant] Purely. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's like, you would, you would like, if your wife, like, squirmed with delight, that was like... She was a witch. She was sick. She was, yeah, she was... Gotta hit her with a rock. You had to. Burn her. Right away. That's bad snares. Fucking cheese.


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[Assistant] But yea, you, you had like, you were supposed to make love to your wife and like you obviously to have kids and then the only exception if you weren't gonna have a kid, you have to pull out and your chambermaid would bring you like a wooden bucket and you'd have to just come silently into a bucket. It was one of those, it had like lats that would drip out the sides.


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[Assistant] Like, off the floor wench, bring me my bucket. Into which I come, and I'd be like, uuuh. Right in the sides.


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[Assistant] I mean, my technique, and you know, for listeners, you should probably do this too. When you have sex, just put it all the way in, and don't pull out at all, and just keep fucking pushing it, pushing it.


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[Assistant] Now people go in and out, I just stay in and just fucking buck my hips. That's nice. Up and down, not in and out. That's what Mormons


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[Assistant] Oh wow. That's a lot of er, a lot of erotic historical knowledge on this podcast.


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[Assistant] That's dude, I, I could've sworn those things when I first heard about them were like, High Society, Yacht Club, like, Wolf of Wall Street.


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[Assistant] Yeah, some weird, it looked like a municipal, like, town center. So I got it, and literally in my head I'm like, this must be the servants quarters, like, where's all the fucking huge boats? And like, can I get in there? Servants quarters? Jesus Christ. They had, they had these.


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[Assistant] Why I walk into this place and on every table was those, you ever see those like things of beer, they're like a little silo of beer on the table and everyone's, every table was equipped with these huge beer towels.


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[Assistant] Yeah, Ian's got those buckets of beers. They just all talk like crabs. Like FALMAR.


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[Assistant] It is funny how much like when you're doing stand up you don't even realize it but from being in the spotlight you're in control of just like all the psychic energy of the room.


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[Assistant] It's true. It's literally true. No, it's true. There's a pressure on you. And when someone else steps up on the stage, they're just like, it's overwhelming. Even when you're like, what's your deal, and you direct attention to people, they're just like,


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[Assistant] That's the only reason right now I've been pulled out. This is my quest. I'm gonna start an orphanage.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well if I see they're like hot, I'm like you could definitely be super hot when you're older, I'll get you to that next level. Nice. And then maybe start a little like male older bride type thing and we'll see what happens.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I thought I was hot shit man, I rolled in there, my main, my money maker dude that got the first like good laugh of a crowd.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] During my first set ever, which basically was Destiny, uh, was me saying that I don't like Chris Hansen, not because he stops pedophiles, but because he's a cockblock and a snitch, and like people were like, people laughed, and I was just like, dude, this is so easy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Watch out, I'll fight you right now for that. I'll fight you, I'll drop these mics and fight you right now. Let's take a break, let's fight. Alright, let's take a break. Fuck you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Dude, are you excited for the fu- Well no, that's what happened. Are you excited for fucking Mark Wahlberg's Boston movie?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How fucking nuts is that, that he wrote a movie about, it just happened. He wrote a movie about it, made himself the hero of the movie, Saving the City, where it literally just happened. Oh my god. I wanna do a movie like that about Columbine, where I just write myself in and like fucking stop all the nerds from shooting everybody. No, you fucking nerds! Just fucking grab em.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He's probably hoping that shit like, after like, say if there is some sort of like, like, catastrophe, like some other people or like aliens find this footage and they're like, oh this guy Mark Wahlberg saved Boston, cool.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who's my fuckin' shoutouts here? Who we got goin' on here? GuySkiavi for the share, Pat George, Ryan Shaner, motherfuckin' Hoss, and the Delaware Weed Guy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, let me tell you what's wrong with your country. Yeah. You've got too many guns, don't ya?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, that was, that was amazing. That was funny. We advise all of you to check out Louie's. Yeah. I mean, not that you needed us to fucking say it, but yeah. It's too bad Chappelle's reign at the top is already over. Oh yeah. He dropped that right afterwards.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, it was good, but Louie can open a show with an abortion joke and knowing GQ's not going to write an article about Louie not changing with the times. The way Chappelle's did.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, that's what makes them good. Also, everybody that says that's just wrong.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But anyway, were you talking about Chipotle? Yea, we just snuck up on some Chipotle, bro. Yea, it's been a nice day so far. Has been. It's a beautiful day outside. Sunny.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know, I'm just waiting for you. What did you think of that homeless guy? So there's a guy that stands in front of the 7-Eleven whenever we're at...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wherever you go to 7-Eleven here by Drexel, there's a homeless guy that hangs out up front and he'll hold the door for you occasionally.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, we did have this conversation. Because I told you about the time I was leaving Fergie's.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] After the mic, after the show I was all fucked up and I was walking out and in front of one of the bars there was just a homeless guy laying on a vent.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What the fuck are you guys doing? And a dude walked out and was like, yeah, man, get the fuck out of here to me. What? And she was like, yeah. He like tried to nice his way into talking to her.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So it was these two white people just standing over a homeless guy that was laying there, like petting him and trying to like get him things. So then I walked like three blocks and every homeless guy I saw, I was like, there's a white chick.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah dude, get a job. Exactly. Become an open mic comic. Exactly dude. Start a podcast.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The fracking sponsored us, uh, the decode access pipeline sponsored us.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, we already covered this, right? Yeah. That he will not divide us. Nobody gives a fuck. Yeah. I got an alt-right cousin. Do you really? Yeah. He went to my show at the fire hall on Saturday. That makes sense. Yeah, it was nice. He was just there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He stopped by, showed up in a Raven's sweatshirt. He was on like a date with this chick.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That he was alt-right. Yeah, I said he was alt-right and that he was a member of Kekistan. And in front of his chick on his date, he was like, no, I'm not. What? And then when he got home, he messaged me and was like, I am Kekistani.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, you gotta be, you gotta pretend to be liberal until you fucker. Then you can come out and be like, I'll tell you what.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's gonna be a lot of those. Shane's fucking getting wild today. I gotta eat allergies or cold or something. I think it's allergies. I don't know, it's gonna be a rough week though. Why? There's gonna be some boozing this week. For what?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I got some good shows this week that I'm gonna drink at. You gonna get drunk? Yeah, I drank a little last night. Shouldn't have done that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Tomorrow is Dirty Dozen at Helium. That'll be fun. I'll drink at that. Yeaah. Then Thursday I'm opening for the Trailer Park Boys, like Leahy and fucking Randy from Trailer Park Boys. Oh my god. I'll get drunk at that. Friday is a... Fuck what's Friday? Oh Friday I'm in Lancaster.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nice. That Ruby's new club. Oh, her new stomp. Yeah. Hell yeah. I'll probably get drunk at that. I'll be tight. And then Saturday is the Reading Comedy Outlet.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'll be getting drunk in a bowling alley in Reading. Dude, that place is fun. I like that place.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So yea, I got a couple shows, so if you're in Lancaster or Reading or Philly, come see the bull.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yea, let everyone know, you're anti-rape. I don't like rape. You're one of those guys.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Anybody that's not wearing one of those shirts, that's who you gotta watch out for.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So you see, and it's weird because we live in an impoverished...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Area, so you see like people fighting and mean people.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then you walk on a college campus and it's like, white people are the worst. It's like, ah. Yeah. I mean.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Dude, well. I went to sleep to people screaming and fighting last night. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh no, Matt, you agreed. I mean, dude, it's a valid point. That was a racist point, and you agreed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're saying something right now that pretty much everyone agrees with, but you can't say fucking let it go. I don't care. And you're not the only person saying that. In fact, most people are saying what you're saying. It's just funny that it's like this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. But that's something you're going to have to grow with and learn how to be a human.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And your only message is, oh, that's weird. It is weird.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Daphne's not out there worried about gender. Nah dude. She's out there getting it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He's all right, dude, he's all right as fuck.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, he's fine. That's a perfectly logical uncle theory. Exactly. It's a good uncle theory. It's a good one actually.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Overcrowding? Yeah, sure. Or maybe just some rats that were gay that lived outside of that study moved in cause they knew there was a, you know, there's good studying. There were some bars they could go to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they moved to the overcrowded place. Dude. They have more rights in their own newspaper.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't think I ever really came across, there's not a real strong gay newspaper in Mechanicsburg.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I would pay money to watch you from a distance start reading a gay newspaper.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nah, I don't think I really... I went to... I was with a bunch of lesbians.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We were with some people that knew it was gay, but they didn't tell us and Jamal went out and started singing karaoke.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, that's so funny. And, uh, while he was singing, like a bunch of people were like, woo, like they were really good. And then he got off, I was like, dude, there's a gay bar. He was like, get the fuck out of here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wow, what were you saying last night about your fucking, or was that today?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It is funny how when I, I can see you when somebody's in your head. It's so funny.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My face- Well, when we play NHL, that's the only time I really see it. I get real quiet. Uh, I saw, if, if somebody, like the time we went to stress factory and somebody took it, somebody was like- I was gonna kill that fucking guy. I was gonna kill him. I was like, oh my god, calm down.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, I only really see somebody get in your head now when we play NHL.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If I see you in video games, I can tell you're mad.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's a, that's a world of just chaos. What? That mind. What, a video game? Like losing a video game and being like, I'm a fucking loser.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think it's alright. We can if you want. I like the Scooby Doo stuff. So do I. That was really good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, but what happened was Matt was talking about gender.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Issues and uh, how people say that there's no biological difference between men and women.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you said, if, if you cum in my butt, I'm not gonna have a baby.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Arabs get wild with cars. You ever see those boys when they're out? You ever see the fucking footage of them getting wild?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You guys see some wild, yea they all, they like spin cars, they go like 120 and a guy gets out and puts his feet on the ground.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's a classic proverb. Sometimes you scrape some thorns when you're getting to the truth.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's nice. I think he went to Cedar Cliff High School.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A lot of good musicians came out of there. I think the dude from Incubus is from Northern. Is he really? I think they're DJ.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was like the white pussies of Incubus. Yea dude. So what do you think? How should we second half this boy?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What do you think? There's some high drama going on. Some very high drama. What's going on? Why don't you fill the people in?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is such a dramatic event that he may be eliminated from the Philadelphia comedy community. How funny is that?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's such a shitty way to go. I would never let that end me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I just feel like if I fuck you guys, I'll go to the mic. Sorry I was a dick about that. It has nothing to do with comedy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's like, hey, you know that dream you had? Well, you should have paid your Pico bill. Now your fucking dream is over. So, I mean, I guess your commitment to that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Craft could have been too strong. Yea. If a, if a bill is going to ruin it. Yeah, really. Just. Apeko.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, that's improv. If you're in the improv scene, you grab, you grab harness inappropriately and you get away with it for years. Yeah. And then they get you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Really? Damn, that must have been a sick fucking group though. I guess. Wonder how many times that worked. Apparently, multiple times. Sucks to be a lady in that team if you didn't fucking do it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There you go. End of discussion. End of it, dude. You can't- Final word! If you come in my butt, there's not gonna be a baby. End of discussion.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Final word. Final word here. The blaze. Improv is gay. Somehow it went from a comedian not paying bills to us being like, yea, improv is fucking gay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nah, that's really funny. Uh, there's a guy who got kicked out for...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He said women aren't funny. And he got kicked out of comedy for that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's, that's not good. Cause if you're getting banned for saying women aren't funny on Facebook, that's ridiculous. It's crazy. But I don't think that's it. I think there's a little... You think?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, it's true. Also, they're not going to listen this far in to get to this point.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Shit man, I don't even remember what we were talking about before we got caught out. Uh, you were talking about how it sucks that women are fucking awful.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, but I don't want to talk about that again. Actually, I did like it the first time, but we said some things that we shouldn't have said, so it's kind of weird to go back and say them again.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I remember a couple. You said women are awful, but they're necessary. Oh, you said they, oh that's right, you said that like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, what I said was, and I stand by this theory, cause we were talking about how it can suck to hang out with chicks, and uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, boy. You're back in the blood. Yeah, I'm back right back in it. Well, anytime I say something like that, I just, I'm like, oh yeah, my girlfriend definitely listens to this. Yeah, I know. This is just gonna be a fight.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Actually, she would never fight me over this. She knows. Although she did fight me over the


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, it does sound bad, but like, so I always think of it from my perspective, like, you know how chicks are always like, I want to go to the movies with you, I want to do that with you, and it's like, get the fuck out of here. I'm going by myself, or like, you're doing some-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. I got you. But it's like, uh, it's like when you were a younger kid.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like for you, you had older brothers that were older, they were bigger, they were stronger, they were cooler.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're like, oh man, hey, I want to come with you guys. And they're like, get the fuck out of here, Matt. Give you like a dead arm. They're going without me. Yeah. So that's what it's like to be a lady.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just hang out, dudes are cooler than you. You just hang out with dudes, you're like, I wanna hang out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they're like, get the fuck outta here. No ladies. You guys are fucking gay. You guys are lame. This is not how I wanted this to come out. It made sense the first time. It did. It's coming out bad. It's coming out real bad, but the first time it sounded good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's actually kinda funny he jerked off to you. He probably did jerk off to you too.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, dude, every, every, yeah, every message I send to a girl, like the first time meeting her, it's just like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I got caught jerking off by my little brother. Really? He was too young, it was embarrassing, he was too young.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It sucks. It uh, it sucks dude. Bye.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To the listener, dude. If you got a site in your hand, that can only mean one thing. They know, dude. It's a night cast. When it doesn't release, dude, they know. They know. We have the night cast due with my work schedule. I got a lot of night cast questions today. A lot of people are like, where the fuck's the cast, dude?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I know. I said it's a night cast, boy. People want it. Just wait. Just be patient. Just wait. Be patient, it'll come.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is off to a fucking astounding start. Can we try not to be all right this episode? I'm not being all right at all. All right. I think I'm, I'm leading the charge on the whole all right thing. So I'm sorry.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know what's happening, we're becoming two dope queens. We're doing exactly what they did.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We gotta get out of that. This is the moment, dude. This is when we, we gotta accept. This is a change. I saw Maria Bamford's special on Netflix.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] See, that's a progressive thought. See, that's nice. We're progressive picks.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know. I am shrewd. We're in a dark room with candles. Isn't this how every Jew sleeps? They hang upside down.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They sleep upside, they get pull up bars and they sleep upside down in the doorways. A lot of people don't know that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know that old Jewish joke? What? Like, uh, somebody told me that this is great. It was, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Fuck. Oh yeah. What does the Jewish pedophile say to the kids? It's like, Hey kids, you want to buy some candy? That's fucking hilarious. That was a good one. That was a great one. There was one I'm trying to think of it. I can't, I don't want to, I'm stepping on now cause I'm on the spot. It's like, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A kid, a kid asks his dad for allowance. He's like, the kid's like, can I have 20 bucks? And the dad's like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Anyway, sorry, I derailed it with some street jokes. Nah, dude, street jokes are where it's at, dude. The Jewish pedophile joke's hilarious. That's the fuck, I stand by it. How does the Jewish pedophile talk to kids? He's like, hey, you kids wanna buy some candy?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Are you sure? Jerusalem or whatever, yeaah. Do they accept ancestry.com?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you call, yea, if you call that airline and you're like, how much is the ticket? They're like, well it's free for you. It's totally free.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was just, he walked up, he was like, yo, I'm drinking CITES. I was like, fuck yeah, dude. It's like, this guy's the man. And then he proceeded to get like


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I was thinking, I was like, dude, our fans are gonna be the sh- not shittiest, but like shitty in a good way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's still time for them to arrest us. I stole my dinner tonight. You stole your dinner? How'd you do that?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There is. There's too much. You took me to that place. I showed you. I ate like a pound of chicken thigh just walking around through the aisles. That place is awesome.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, I stole, I stole lunch the other day. Where? Drexel. Black lady made me steal it. Got a salad and she was like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She was like, yeah, you swiped, go ahead. And I was like, damn dude. Alright, so I went to the next register and started to pay and she saw me and was like, what the fuck are you doing? I was like, oh yeah, you're trying to make me steal this. So I walked back and I was like, thanks.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, she was like, do you want a drink? I was like, no, I'm good. She was like, come on, why don't you go get a drink? He was like, alright.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She like made me steal the meal and the drink. She wanted to smash, dude. It was a big black lady covered in tats, dude. She was the real deal. She wanted to smash, dude. She could sense my fucking alpha presence. I was the first man she saw walk through there in hours.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You gotta go back there. But yea, back to our fans, dude. Our fans are the shit. They're sick. This is a fucking rowdy bunch, man. Shout out to my cousin Pat, dude.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is he a fan? Fuck yea. Cousin Pat. Cousin Pat dude. He was the one running his mouth, was he? That was Bobby dude. Bobby you bitch dude.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is non-stop. That's why we need the shatheads to just jump in. Dude, it would've been so funny. They would've all got blocked. I had somebody post, uh... Clap back, dude. Yeah, clap backs, obviously.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know what's weird? I see a lot of people liking our statuses, that are also those people.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't understand that. I have a theory. Like we'll post something like that and then they'll like it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I agree th- I mean, I can't- I don't have any fuckin' strict values, that's what's hard.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No we're not. Oh, I forgot to fucking tell you this, dude. What? Did I tell you about the fucking MTV Movie Awards?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I had a shat head hit me up about that and be like, check this the fuck out. What is it? MTV Movie Awards was like two nights ago or last night? Uh huh. I think Sunday night.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They had, uh, number one it was genderless.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What the fuck does that mean? So like, there's not like, best actor, best actress, all that. Okay. So there's no gen- which is- whatever, fuck it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Best performance maybe? They probably wouldn't say actor, I don't remember.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But there was also an award for best


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, like, sticking it to the system was a fucking award category. Hidden Figures won. Or as I like to call it, Medea goes to the moon. No, Hidden Figures fucking won, dude.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Best sticky to the man. Brought to you by fucking MTV.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ew dude. And then a millionaire goes up and collects the award.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm going to have a Heineken tonight. Hashtag whatever. Hashtag love your neighbor. I'm a white fucking nerd. Uh, but they also, there was this part in there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, a good listener brought this up to me. She shall go unnamed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because she actually probably would not want to be associated with this. She came in the night, dude. She released her fucking veil. Yes. She said, she also said Two Dope Queens was garbage. And I was like, welcome to the fucking squad. Welcome to the fucking.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There was a scene where I think Allison Williams is that chick from Girls? Brian Williams is the chick from Get Out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well anyway, the chick from Get Out and the guy from Get Out presented an award. First off, I think Get Out won swaps dude, Get Out won everything. Uh, but they presented an award and you know how they have that banter before they present an award? The chick was like, it's really hard for black people to like me right now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What can I do? And then she started just naming racist shit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As like a joke, that's how fucking backwards these people. She was like, maybe I could change George Washington's face on Mount Rushmore to Denzel Washington. Would they like me then? It's like, dude, are you fucking kidding? She closed it with like, I should get Beyonce's lemonade back on Spotify. The place went nuts.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know if they're fat, no way, no way. If they were fat black chicks, they'd be actually fucking funny. True. It was probably skinny hot black chicks that were like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But yea, that was that. Dude, you gotta check it out. It's fucking insane.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was all about like gender and like, dude, the person who won best performance overall.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Fuck, I thought it was Belle, dude. No, yeah, Belle won best actor.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of the year. Beauty and the beast. Beauty and the beast. Like best picture was definitely, oh, best kiss? Guess what best kiss was? Two dudes. Moonlight. Two black dudes. It was funny, the same person that brought this to my attention cited that as like, she was watching it with a group of friends and when they went through like the nominees she was like, oh that one won.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they're like, hey, you don't know? And she was like, uh, yea I do. Guaranteed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh baby. That's fucking funny. Yeaah, so uh, shat heads, if you get a chance, take a look at MTV, take out the movie awards. Be ready for Moonlight 2.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well now somebody on the cast is gonna steal it. Who? I don't know. No one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I said POC at the show I was on. POC. I said fucking people of color. And then as soon as I said it, I was like, I'm also the first fucking guy from mechanicsburg to ever say fucking people of color. Give me a break on that one. That's pretty good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] People of color? Yea, and I was like normally back home we'd leave out the fucking people of. Tossing a D on coloreds.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just like you get on Facebook and say, hey, I'm smart and liberal.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's what you do. It's the same way I fucking retoured from my hometown, posted a picture of him and his girlfriend hiking.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Being like, hey, we're cool and outgoing. Some cunt from the city.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I wanna consult with people, it's the exact same thing. It's them posting vacation pictures is the exact same thing as them being like, we need to talk to people of color.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, it's the same thing. It's a well put. It's just, everyone, hey everyone, look at this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Especially cause it's, and they block and unfriend people? Yea.


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[Assistant] Ah, fuck. Did you hear that, uh, yell I gave out at the end? It sounded like, uh, Who's that politician that got, Dean, Howard Dean? Do you remember him? He was like, we're gonna go to Washington. He lost the election because of that. Did he really? Yeah, just cause he got emotional and was like,


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[Assistant] And everyone was like, this guy's unstable. And now Trump's out there like, what? This interview's over.


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[Assistant] Yeah dude. On Facebook. So everybody, this is the, this is, oh yeaah, this is important too, that we preface it with this.


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[Assistant] A lot of my friends from home and a lot of the listeners. Also, shout out fucking Savannah, Georgia and Lansing, Michigan. What's up, dogs? Those two fucking cities love our shit. I love it, dude. We have like a hundred consistent downloads in those two cities. Love that. Lansing and fucking Savannah, Georgia. What up, Bulls? Dude, great cities.


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[Assistant] I've been in Columbus though. We've both been there. It was a great time. Anyway, so like my, my friends from outside of the city have no fucking clue what I'm talking about when I'm like woke chicks or all this bullshit. Cause they're not friends with these fucking animals on Facebook. They have good wives. But good wives, as I said, are lives.


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[Assistant] Well, hell on earth. There's not enough POCs around for them to deal with this shit.


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[Assistant] No, but this is, this is a Facebook status that Matthew and I encounter on a nearly daily basis. Yeah. Oh yeah, one more thing, I'm sorry I keep doing this, cause I know you're about to read this fucking thing. Go ahead, go ahead. But people are wondering, like, what the fuck happened, why are you guys suddenly like...


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[Assistant] Alt-right, or not alt-right, we're not alt-right at all. Good. Well, yeah, there's, there's, there's leaks in there, but this is why.


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[Assistant] This is what made us be fucking- Exactly. Even give a fuck about politics. Read this shit.


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[Assistant] Could be an Indian. Could be a Chinese. Basically, POC means not white people.


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[Assistant] That's another thing we like to do, we like to pretend to be woke and grade these animals.


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[Assistant] By the way, I'm sorry, do you mean not created by black folks? Is that what she said? Or she, she doesn't think she's picked up anything from black folks?


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[Assistant] AAVE by the way, African American Vernacular English. Ebonics.


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[Assistant] Damn dude, she hit that AAVE though, that's new to me. That's tight. African American Vernacular English.


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[Assistant] Yeah. It's just like, uh, the white men that founded this country clapped back against the British.


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[Assistant] That's yeaah, don't appropriate their culture. That'd be sick though if we, uh...


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[Assistant] I know where you're going with this. Actually, even within those words, we invented those words. Clap and back. Both invented by white people. Guaranteed.


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[Assistant] We had to get rid of it, but now that we're talking about cultural appropriation.


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[Assistant] That fucking line you had about, alright, so, we watched, there's a show on Comedy Central right now, fucking, what's it called? Problematic? Yeah, that's it.


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[Assistant] What's up boy? Yeah, true. It's all about how white people are the devil. And, uh, but there's one part that's like, uh,


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[Assistant] It's talking about cultural appropriation of like rock and roll music, how white people stole that. And uh, yeaah, I get it a little bit, but then...


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[Assistant] Didn't black people steal the guitar? Wasn't that white culture?


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[Assistant] Yeah, there you go. I just wanted to get to that one racial racist point from Matt. It's not racist. You said five black dudes weren't coming up with Stairway to Heaven.


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[Assistant] I just posted a fucking sick picture of you on social media dude. Our social media game, our social media is popping.


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[Assistant] Got 27 reviews on the cast right now, I think. Why the fuck are these people not reviewing this?


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[Assistant] Savannah. I'd rather take- Lansing. What are you guys doing? Step up. Review the goddamn cast. Lansing, let's go. Yeah.


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[Assistant] Share, also share this thing with your friends. I mean, it's good that it's a secret. I prefer that it's a secret. Share it secretly dude. Secret, share it with only...


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[Assistant] The friends you know can handle it. Don't put it on your LinkedIn. Definitely don't share it. Oh yea, you've been killing the LinkedIn. I love LinkedIn dude. Your social media is strong on LinkedIn.


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[Assistant] You know what would be really funny is if, uh, your comedy career just totally implodes and you have to try to get a job?


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[Assistant] I still am crushing Salas, I'm under Salas now.


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[Assistant] I'll fucking crush beans too. Now the last two years my diet's strictly like beans and then free beer.


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[Assistant] I go in there with like, I go in there like a fucking judge at a fucking figure skating contest dude. I used to have fucking signs.


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[Assistant] The chicken is the big, that's the, that's the make or break.


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[Assistant] Take it easy. Retarded is worse than gay.


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[Assistant] Cause, uh, those fucking retards didn't choose to be retards.


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[Assistant] I thought you were Jewish. I thought St. Michael came down. I'm not Jewish, my dad is.


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[Assistant] People always start making you show your documents next time you're on the fucking, maybe trying to travel.


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[Assistant] We're talking about Chipotle. Yeah, the chicken or whatever.


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[Assistant] If the last thing I need in my day