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Oh thank goodness, okay, okay, jeez.

All right, okay. Sorry for the delay, everyone.

And thanks for helping me out.

Isn't technology wonderful, right up until it isn't.

So, okay.

Well, we're off to a rough start, but hopefully we can make up for lost time here.

This is, I've got a story of escape today that I've been loving ever since I first started researching it.

I wanted to tell a much larger story that started writing all of this about many different people who were trying to escape from the Mongols.

And then, of course, I realized I only got the 20 minutes really and changed to work with, so I had to really scale it back.

So, I picked out just one particular story, which has always been one of my favourites.

So, just to drop right in, in media res, right in the middle of the action, we're in the lifetime of Jinguist Khan, Temmaging, who's at the top of his game.

And this is the tale of one exceptionally foolish governor and his boss, the Shah, and an empire called Quarismia.

The year is 1217.

The Mongols rule not only their own lands, but also northern China.

And they've just gotten an effective stranglehold of the critical link of the Silk Road between the Chinese and Muslim worlds.

So, they are not just the central artery of the global trade network in the 13th century, but they're also its guardians and gatekeepers.

The Khan himself was nearing 60 years old, which is venerable enough in this day and age, but it was positively ancient by the standards of the day.

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