by Ben Thompson
Cid had no love for Alfonso, but he realized this would be a good opportunity to restore his noble status and get in on some sweet, delicious ass-kickings in the process, so of course he was down for it. Serving Alfonso in name alone, El Cid led a huge army comprising Christians and Moors alike on campaign to conquer the incredibly wealthy Almoravid-controlled kingdom of Valencia in 1094. El Cid Campeador went head-to-head with the (until now) invincible Almoravid army, and despite being heavily outnumbered he managed to give them all Indian burns and steal their lunch money. This marked the first time the Spanish had been able to defeat the Almoravids, and the victory greatly boosted the confidence of Christian knights across the Iberian Peninsula. Three years later, the Almoravids tried to retake Valencia, but running into El Cid’s army is like skateboarding at top speed into an unflinching brick wall and then having your now-boneless body catapulted into a black hole. The Almoravid invasion did not advance past Valencia as long as he was alive.
I should mention that El Cid was only alive for like another two years after that battle, passing away from natural causes in 1099. As soon as the Almoravids heard the news of his death, they immediately decided to launch another full-scale assault on Valencia in an effort to finally recapture it once and for all. When Mrs. El Cid saw an assload of enemy soldiers charging full speed toward the castle, she got her husband’s dead body and tied it up to his horse Weekend at Bernie’s–style, so it looked like he was still alive and well. She then sent the horse out into battle at the head of Cid’s army. The Spaniards and Moors saw their commander riding beside them and were super-mega pumped up by the prospect of fighting alongside Zombie Cid, and as soon as the Almoravids saw their hated, recently deceased enemy trotting toward them, ready to cave in their faces from beyond the grave, they all crapped their collective pants and made a run for it. Even after he was dead, nobody could take El Cid in a fight, and a stupid thing like not being able to sustain basic life functions couldn’t keep this valorous Spanish knight from driving his enemies before him.
El Cid was the man. Not only was he a fusion-powered juggernaut on the battlefield, but he had all the qualities that make him a true historical badass. He was just, honest, loved by the peasantry and nobility alike, and considered honorable and noble by everyone he met. He is now recognized as the national hero of Spain.
18
TOMOE GOZEN
(c. 1184 CE)
Tomoe had long black hair and a fair complexion, and her face was very lovely; moreover she was a fearless rider whom neither the fiercest horse nor the roughest ground could dismay. And so dexterously did she handle sword and bow that she was a match for a thousand warriors, and fit to meet either god or devil. Many times had she taken the field, armed at all points, and won matchless renown in encounters with the bravest captains. And so in this last fight, when all the others had been slain or had fled, among the last seven there rode Tomoe.
—TALE OF THE HEIKE
SAYING THAT THE WOMEN’S LIBERATION MOVEMENT HADN’T REALLY CAUGHT ON IN FEUDAL JAPAN WOULD BE KIND OF LIKE SAYING THAT HAVING ALL OF YOUR PUBIC HAIR REMOVED WITH SALAD TONGS WOULD BE MILDLY UNCOMFORTABLE. Though it wasn’t entirely unheard of for women of this era to be trained to use a bladed poleax known as the naginata—the extralong reach of this weapon was a great way to neutralize the overpowering physical strength of an angry sword-swinging maniac, and often came in handy when rowdy neighbors needed to be slashed between the legs as hard as possible. Think of it as medieval pepper spray. Tomoe Gozen, however, took this sort of estrogen-fueled nut destruction to an entirely different elemental plane of face-stomping—she was one of history’s only female samurai.
Lady Tomoe was a retainer of the Minamoto warlord Yoshinaka, whom she had served faithfully for many years as his foremost military general. Now, I’m going to go ahead and assume that you aren’t an expert on medieval Japanese history and give you a little bit of background. Back in the twelfth century the Minamoto clan and the Taira clan were in the middle of a massive feud so bloody it made the Hatfields and the McCoys look like a bench-clearing brawl at a girls’ under-ten church-league tee-ball game. Basically, these two families were beating the ever-loving bejesus out of each other with samurai swords, cattle prods, fireplace pokers, shovels, bullwhips, crotch bats, pitchforks, and anything else they could find lying around in an effort to flex their authority and get one of their kinsmen declared the barbarian-quelling overlord (shogun) of Japan. Yoshinaka was the commander of Minamoto forces in the northern part of Japan, and he and Tomoe were kicking more nut sack than an industrial-grade groin-kicking machine in a room full of men with elephantiasis of the balls.
Yoshinaka and Tomoe’s victories were a great example of the time-honored axiom “Evil will always triumph because good is dumb.” First, they defeated the Taira by having their soldiers carry red flags (the color of the Taira clan), march right up to a huge army of Taira soldiers, put down the red flags, put up their Minamoto-brand white flags, and immediately start killing everyone in sight. Another time they walked right up to the enemy’s front lines and challenged them to a couple of duels. The Taira sent out their greatest warriors to fight brutal one-on-one death matches with a couple of hand-selected Minamoto swordsmen. This went on for a couple of hours, and then all of a sudden an entire army of Minamoto troops came up behind the Taira and slaughtered them while they were watching the gladiatorial combat. Basically, the Taira were dumbasses.
That’s not to say that the bungling, Marx Brothers–grade ineptitude of her enemies should diminish the towering feats of heroism performed by Lady Tomoe—she was a kick-ass executioner who massacred the hell out of anyone who crossed her. As Yoshinaka’s premier military commander, she always rode into battle at the head of the army, carrying a sturdy bow and a massive face-destroying samurai sword so awesome that its blade could catch on fire and slash through most types of composite tank armor. Her skill as a horsewoman was unmatched, and with a bow she could turn your eye socket into an erupting geyser of blood from two hundred yards away while riding at a full gallop. She was also superhot, but if you made any ungentlemanly advances toward her, you could probably expect to find out what it’s like to be bludgeoned ruthlessly about the head and neck with your own severed dong. One story has Tomoe Gozen doing battle with a samurai warrior named Uchida Iyeyoshi, who had sought to capture her and take her as his concubine. This medieval date-rapist ripped the sleeve off her shirt while attempting to pull her from her horse, so she responded by decapitating the guy with one swing of her sword and kicking his headless corpse into an acid-filled ditch.
Thanks in no small part to Tomoe’s uncanny ability to wreck the asses of opposing warriors with an unholy repertoire of strategic groin-slashing maneuvers, Yoshinaka’s army destroyed the Taira presence in northern Japan and marched into the capital city of Kyoto in 1184. The emperor conferred the title of Asahi Shogun upon Yoshinaka, and from that point on Yoshinaka pretty much became a total dick to everybody. He started drinking excessively, talking about how he was the goddamned coolest person to ever live, how he single-handedly kicked the asses of the Taira, blah blah blah, and everybody got sick of it pretty quickly. When Yoshinaka crossed the line and officially declared that the rest of his family were incompetent dickbrains, his kinsmen decided to put him in his place by slicing his face off with their katanas.
Yoshinaka, being the good samurai that he was, didn’t even give two rats’ nut sacks. He took his small bodyguard of horsemen up against a Minamoto army of more than ten thousand dudes and ordered his samurai to tear ass across the battlefield in a fearless suicide charge. Of course, no amount of bravery or swordsmanship is going to save you when you’ve got ten thousand assholes trying to disembowel you with super-pointy objects of metallic death, and by the time Yoshinaka’s cavalry rode through the enemy lines and emerged on the other side, only seven warriors remained. One of them was Lady Tomoe, clutching the severed head of a slain foe, her face spattered with the blood of her enemi
es.
The samurai code compelled Yoshinaka to stand and die on the battlefield with honor, but he couldn’t bear the thought of watching his greatest general get killed or taken prisoner. As the enemy prepared to launch their final charge, he told Tomoe Gozen to flee for her life. Being the badass samurai babe that she was, she obviously refused, saying that she was willing to fight to the end and take as many of those bastards with her as possible. Yoshinaka urged her to protect her honor and her life, and at last she reluctantly agreed to ride off toward safety. However, when she tried to break through the enemy lines, her path was blocked by a powerful samurai known as Onda Moroshige. Onda was an intimidating fighter from Musashi province known for his superb swordsmanship skills and his unrivaled strength, but Tomoe didn’t even blink. She rode right up beside his horse at a full gallop, pulled him out of his saddle in midstride, pinned him hard against her thigh, and—depending on the source—either sliced his head off with her dagger or twisted it off with her bare hands. She then threw the body down to the ground, held the head high in the air to show her liege that she was victorious once more, and rode off into the sunset, never to be heard from again.
* * *
The colors of the Minamoto and Taira clans—white and red—became the official colors of Japan and are represented today on the nation’s flag and naval ensign.
The Mongols invaded Japan in 1274, landing three hundred assault craft loaded with vicious warriors on the southern tip of the island of Kyushu. However, that night a massive typhoon swept through the bay and this kamikaze (divine wind) utterly demolished the invasion fleet, sinking more than two-thirds of the Mongol ships. The vessels that weren’t destroyed outright were boarded by the Japanese the following morning, and not even the toughest Mongol warrior stood a chance in close-quarters fighting against a fully armored, katana-swinging samurai.
The legendary sword Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi, part of the imperial regalia of Japan, represented the physical embodiment of valor and stood as a testament to the invincibility of the emperor. According to legend, the blade of the sun goddess Amaterasu had the power to control the wind, mow the lawn like a well-oiled John Deere (the name literally translates to “grass-cleaving sword”), and slay otherwise indestructible demons. The two-thousand-year-old weapon plummeted to the bottom of the Shimonoseki Strait along with the emperor at the end of the Genpei War in 1185, and neither has ever been recovered.
* * *
19
GENGHIS KHAN
(1162–1227)
The greatest happiness is to scatter your enemy, to drive him before you, to see his cities reduced to ashes, to see those who love him shrouded in tears, and to gather into your bosom his wives and daughters.
FIRST CAME THE REFUGEES. Throngs of wide-eyed, petrified peasants streamed in from the outlying villages with outlandish tales that sounded like something out of a low-budget horror flick. Crazy, impossible stories of bloodthirsty demons on horseback, riding forth from some intangible hell far beyond the eastern horizon, seemingly materializing from the fog without warning, and savagely laying waste to entire settlements. These invincible barbarian warriors committed acts of untold cruelty upon the unsuspecting citizenry, slaughtering all those before them in a frenzy of blood and fire and then drinking their chocolate milk right out of the carton.
The rumors had been circulating in the bustling city for nearly a month now, but most logical people believed them to be the nonsensical ramblings of rabble-rousers, fanboys, crazy conspiracy theorists, impressionable dumbasses, and doomsayers: stories of mysterious blood-drinking cannibals sent by God to exact His cruel vengeance upon the sinful, leaving nothing but death and ash in their wake, using foul black magic to turn the mightiest armies in the world into bloody handfuls of dust and sand. Some claimed to have seen the massive piles of sun-bleached skulls arranged into three morbid pyramids outside the doomed city of Nishapur—one stack for the men, one for the women, and one for the children. Reports claimed that more than two million people had been massacred by these heathens in the span of weeks, with thousands more carried off by savages to the darkest recesses of the earth, never to be heard from again.
Then came the devil’s emissaries, strange-looking weirdos from a mysterious, undiscovered civilization bearing a simple, frightening message: submit or be destroyed. The high-ranking members of the city’s aristocracy, pretentious, self-important tightwads unwilling to relinquish their near-absolute power over their subjects, responded by hanging the barbarians’ heads from the walls of the city.
They chose…poorly.
Just as the peasants had warned, the devils came from nowhere, ghostly apparitions seemingly rising out of the sand itself. The thunderous din of stampeding hooves surrounded the terrified defenders on the city walls as an endless sea of horsemen descended upon them. The men on the ramparts watched in horror as they realized that the first wave of soldiers was actually comprised entirely of captured villagers from the outlying settlements—poor, imprisoned farmers forced under pain of death to push forward massive siege engines, catapults, and ballistae, assigned the cruel task of bringing destruction and mayhem to their own kinsmen. The soldiers reluctantly opened fire on these wretched saps, but even an endless stream of arrows couldn’t stem the tide of heavy equipment being brought up to the massive moat surrounding the city. To their amazement, the defenders then saw the invading barbarians shoving their prisoners into the moat—using their bodies as a living bridge over which they rolled their infernal contraptions. The towering catapults were then loaded with large, foreign-looking clay pots, and when these projectiles smashed into the sturdy, seemingly impenetrable stone walls and guard towers of the city they exploded into giant showers of searing-hot flame, sparks, and smoke. Rock crumbled to dust and walls fell as though they were made of cardboard, utterly destroyed by this frightening evil magic conjured up from some nightmarish realm beyond the mortal world. With a bloodcurdling cry the demons charged forth, and hell followed with them.
The great khan smiled as his men prepared the helpless city for looting. He had come from nothing—an impoverished, illiterate outcast from a minor tribe of steppe nomads, he had spent his earliest years living off the rats and berries that his mother scavenged for him and thinking about how much his life sucked. Now the entire world was his for the taking.
Nearly sixty years old, the man known as Genghis Khan had spent his life clawing his way to the top despite seemingly impossible odds, scratching and fighting against any obstacles that stood in his way. When his enemies looted his family’s small camp and kidnapped his beloved wife, he hunted them down, burned their tents, stole their possessions, rescued his queen, and annihilated every member of their tribe. When his own blood-brother betrayed him, Genghis Khan crushed his armies and united all the tribes of Mongolia under one banner for the first time in history. But this was just the beginning.
Then the emperor of northern China demanded that Genghis submit to his all-powerful might, so the great khan marched his army across the Gobi Desert, circumvented the formidable Great Wall, scaled the impregnable forty-foot walls of Beijing, and plundered the city for thirty days. Not long afterward, the sultan of the Khwarizmid Empire apparently didn’t get the memo and beheaded an entire caravan of Mongol traders; Genghis’s vengeance-seeking warriors cut a swath of near-limitless destruction through his territory, routing the sultan’s armies, burning his cities, and killing millions of people across Central Asia.
But Genghis never believed himself to be a ruthless murderer or an unprovoked aggressor; he gave all of his enemies one opportunity to peaceably submit to his rule. If they defied him, they received only what they deserved. He had spared countless villages and cities that had wisely opened their doors to him, and to the people of those settlements he provided protection, freedom of religion, and access to the most lucrative and far-reaching trade routes in the world. Under his watchful eye, vast amounts of technology, information, medicine, and goods traveled freely between
China, the Middle East, and Europe. He abolished torture, class systems, and aristocracies, promoted soldiers and civil officials based on their ability rather than their social rank, and commanded the unwavering loyalty of all Mongols. The rest of the world trembled and submitted out of fear and respect for his terrible might and fury, which was cool with Genghis.
At the head of an army of only a hundred thousand Mongols, he had single-handedly carved out an empire four times the size of Alexander the Great’s and twice the size of what the Romans put together over the course of four hundred years. Now this once-destitute pariah ruled over a vast kingdom that stretched the entire length of the Central Asian steppe, encompassing nearly twelve million square miles—the largest contiguous land empire in human history.
He was the mighty Genghis Khan, and he had conquered all that was before him. His descendents would rule over southern China, do battle with Japanese samurai, and plunder Europe as far West as Germany. His men would stuff the most powerful man in the world—the mighty caliph of Baghdad—in a Persian rug and trample him to death with their horses, and eat dinner on top of the still-breathing bodies of Russian princes, slowly crushing them to death as they drank wine and watched dancing girls. He was the most successful conqueror in history, and even now, eight hundred years after his death, people across the world still equate the name Genghis Khan with one thing—ultimate badassitude.
I AM THE SCOURGE OF GOD. HAD YOU NOT CREATED GREAT SINS, GOD WOULD NOT HAVE SENT A PUNISHMENT LIKE ME UPON YOU.