Welcome to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms podcast.

This is episode 116.

Last time, after seven tries, Zhuge Liang had finally convinced the Nanman king, Meng Huo, to submit.

With his mission accomplished, Zhuge Liang headed home, but his army ran into a roadblock

at the river Loo, where apparently all the spirits of those killed in battle were stirring

up trouble and making the river uncrossable.

Zhuge Liang asked the locals what could be done about this problem, and they told them,

just do what we did in the old days, kill 49 people and offer their heads as a sacrifice,

and the spirits will dissipate.

Uh, has anyone thought about the irony of killing people to appease the angry spirits of people who were killed?

Anyone? Anyone?

No?

Well, how about we try not killing anybody this time?

Instead of following the gruesome tradition, Zhuge Liang turned, not to his executioners,

but to his chefs. He asked the army cooks to slaughter some cows and horses and row out some

dough. Then they made a bunch of buns stuffed with beef, lamb, horse meat, and the like.

These buns were made to look like human heads,

which is just freaky.

And Zhuge Liang dubbed them Manto.

Now that word has stuck through the ages

and is now used to refer to Chinese steam buns,

although the present-day incarnation of what's called Manto

...