Horse 957 - Built to keep the Rabbits Out

I didn't write the following, but it is indeed priceless. The story is reproduced in full:



The most famous of the Chinese Emperors of the Mung Dynasty. Emperor Nasi Goreng's legendary rule lasted for 100 years "as long as it takes to pickle an egg", though sinologists agree it was nearer in fact to a 60 year reign. His reign was famous for the development of Chinese cooking and the expansion of the rice and noodle houses that served the needs of the burgeoning traveling middle class who had begun to take fashionable pilgrimages to bathe in the health giving waters of the Big Pond (now known as the South China Sea).

More importantly he began the construction of the Great Wall of China (the only man made structure visible from space)

Little is known of the Emperor's early life. Born to the 4th wife (the beautiful Tel Stra) of the Emperor Mee Goreng, his childhood was spent in a secluded palace on the shores of the Big Pond. He was not expected to inherit the throne and is supposed to have devoted his time to the refinement of traditional dishes of Chinese Cuisine - wishing thus to win the people's ovation and fame forever. On the unexpected deaths of the 17 older brothers during the mysterious summer illnesses of 1225 (now believed to be caused by a rare virus passed on by reading contaminated correspondence) he was summoned to Peking and accompanied by his favourite duck, crowned the unexpected emperor of all China.

The visit of Marco Polo to China in 1275 had opened the country to a new scourge, Giant Angora Rabbits. Originally given as a gift to the court of the preceding Emporer Mee-Goreng the rabbits were adopted as accessories by the fashionable followers of the Imperial court, who carried them in small handbags, or displayed them on the roofs of their traveling litters. Soon a fashion for pet goldfish replaced the fashion for bunnies and, not wishing to kill an animal so obviously sacred to the visiting Polos they (the rabbits) were released into the Western Deserts where they bred to plague proportions.

Soon the depredations of thousands of starving Angoras were threatening the rice crop and after unsuccessful attempts to control the scourge with compulsory rabbit stews (Immortalised in the poem "My other Chinese Cook" by James Brunton Stephens) the Emperor decreed the building of the greatest wall ever known to mankind.

The emperor enjoyed good health for most of his reign but in 1289 he became ill after a particularly large meal of Rabbit pie. His doctors were divided as to whether he was struck down with dyspepsia or Mixam-it-osis. Even lowering him in the waters of the Big Pond, supported by a broad band of imperial silk failed to arrest the course of the illness and within a year he was dead. After the customary 6 years of compulsory mourning he was buried beneath the great wall at Dai-Lup where to this day pilgrims visit to pray fruitlessly for a speedy recovery from illnesses. He was succeeded by his son Pisan Goreng (1290-1303).