THE BOOK OF
NIPS
OTHERWISE KNOWN AS THE BOOK OF THE DIVINE WIND
The barbarians show up
Chapter 11
For example, the Nips were far too polite and civilized to kill their emperor,
2Or even fire him,
3But they didn’t mind giving him suggestions about how to run things,
4Especially if they had all the military power,
5And he didn’t have any,
6Or if they had all the money,
7And he didn’t have any,
8Because they hadn’t given him any,
9For some reason.
10And so, the Nip emperor always sat on the throne,
11And everybody always treated him with great respect,
12But over the years,
13The Nip nobles had more and more military power,
14And more and more money,
15And, by an odd coincidence, more and more suggestions about how the emperor should run Japan.
16The nobles who made most of the suggestions were called bshoguns,
17And they worked very hard to make sure that everything stayed very civilized, according to the Nip way,
18Which involves doing whatever you feel like doing,
19Whenever you want to,
20As long as you nod and smile and bow a lot,
21cAnd don’t lose face,
22Unless you’re dealing with dbarbarians,
23In which case,
24Anything goes.
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Chapter 11 / 27