"K" is For "Kublai Khan"

 

 "K" is For "Kublai Khan"

Kublai.  
Grandson of Genghis  
Of the East Asia Khans. 

FULL DISCLOSURE:  What you are about to read (the two of you) is a repost of something I wrote in 2012.  The way I figure it, since it's been fourteen years, you may not remember it (if you even read it in the first place).  Plus, since I'm halfway through the Challenge, I figured I'd be a little lazy and not go through the trouble of researching something new.  Besides, I rewrote it a little bit and added new pictures.  So, suck it.  In any event, my "L" should be something completely new.  Should be.  

    Kublai Khan ruled the Mongol Dynasty.  You know, those kooky dudes who terrorized hapless peasants as they were arranging chicken bones into the shape of Jesus and dying of the Black Death.

"Death of color."

     Kublai (not to be confused with Kublai, Fran, and Ollie),

A popular Chinese children's puppet troupe

Okay, maybe it was "Kukla."  And maybe they weren't Chinese. 

"That would be fake news."

grew up in East Asia sometime in the late 13th century, or what historians call “A Long Effin’ Time Ago.”  I’m thinking his birthplace was in Mongolia, but what do I know, he was only leader of the Mongols.

  Grandson of the great Genghis Khan, young Kublai had historic shoes to fill 

"Of course. He got my yak footies in the will."

At first, Kublai sought the life of a businessman when he opened a chain of restaurants on the Asian steppes.  Unfortunately, the huge popularity of “General Tso’s Chicken” eclipsed his own “Kublai’s Kippers” and he was forced into a life of conquest. 

  Smarting from his culinary comeuppance, Kublai swore revenge on his Chinese rivals.  Making an end-around the Great Wall of China

via the "Not So Great Picket Fence of China"

he established his headquarters in what is now known as Beijing (although the Mongols called it something Mongolian.  Kinda figures, if you think about it).

  From the relative luxury of his capital (no indoor toilets, though), he oversaw a vast kingdom which stretched from the eastern coast of Asia through Europe and into the smarty-pants Islamic world.

  His only major setback was his invasion of Japan.  The wily Japanese used their secret weapons of sex robots

and dinosaurs

to thwart the horseback invaders, who, incredibly, failed to realize horses couldn’t swim in the Sea of Japan.

  Later in his reign, he was visited by Marco Polo, the great Venetian explorer

and inventor

Marco was awed by the beauty of the great khanate, the jeweled riches he beheld, and the exotic spices sure to spice up whatever dead thing was found floating in a Venetian canal.  He was especially intrigued by Chinese handcuffs.  In fact, Marco used one of these devilish restraints to help his father, Water, break his nose-picking habit.

"Water" Polo.
You really have to pay attention here.

  Likewise, Kublai was fascinated by these pungent visitors from lands he had just raped and pillaged.  He was amazed that they had the audacity to show up without calling first.  Or having the decency to at least bring a bundt cake.

  In an effort to get to know people he would eventually behead,

"Trust me, you'll get to love it.
  Oh.  Wait.  I'm dead.  Never mind.  Still..."

he urged Marco to send back as many learned men and clerics he could find so that he may learn more of the European religion which flayed the skin off non-believers (which, basically, was right up Kublai’s alley).

  With a smile on his face (and dozens of fortune cookies on the back of his camel), Marco returned home and was arrested by Italian ICE 

Italian Ice. 
Get it?
I crack myself up.

for doing...something.  But, while in jail, when not fending off prison rape, he wrote a book about his visit, “How I Did It.”

"Hey, that sounds like a snappy title. 
Wait.  I'm dead, too. 
Penwasser oughta update his picture library."

    Marco’s Jailhouse Journal was the catalyst for the insatiable European desire for the riches China and India offered.  It spurred Portuguese exploration around the southern tip of Africa so they could avoid having to deal with those showoffs in Genoa and Venice.  

    It even inspired Christopher Columbus.  However, being dyslexic, he read Polo’s book backward and, so, went west instead of east.  

"I shall call it, What the Frik You Mean This isn't China?"

    So, what legacy did Kublai leave the world?  Well, his masterful guidance of the Mongol horde brought death and destruction to much of the known world and played a great part in the persistence of feudalism in Russia.  Wait, that’s not it.

  No, I got it.

  His leadership of ferocious invaders whose torching of Europe through over one hundred years lead to a favorite among diners throughout much of the world:

  Mongolian Barbecue. 

"That's what we're gonna call it?  I like it."