Wundery Plus subscribers can listen to Tides of History early and ad free right now.

Join Wundery Plus in the Wundery App or Apple Podcasts. The man sat on the bank of the river. He dangled his feet over the water thinking of how he'd come to this point.

Everything that had to happen for him to be here, waiting for his death.

The gentle burbling washed over him, the sound bouncing off the steep hillsides flanking the river.

He could hear the shouts and cries of the men hunting him, echoing through the little valley,

piercing through the peaceful noise of the stream, reminding him that his reverie was temporary.

Soon, too soon, a blade would spill his blood.

Not only would his life end, but his entire lineage along with it. An unbroken line leading back to the illustrious ancient kings of the Joe dynasty.

He sighed, twisting his fingers into his long beard, the black hair flecked with gray.

He was a lord, the lord of a state for at least a few minutes more.

Fifteen generations of ancestors to be honored and revered with sacrifices, their names known from oral traditions

and the inscribed bronze ritual vessels kept in the family temple, their deeds and accomplishments

and inspiration for him to live up to. All of that would end when that coming blade took his life.

King Wu himself, the founder of the Joe, had bestowed these lands on the man's

ancestor, the tradition said. They had built this state, honoring their ancestors with the proper sacrifices and maintaining their position for more than 400 years. They had weathered calamities of all kinds, invasions and floods, and the constant backstabbing of the officials who

administered the state.

But no longer.

He had failed, he thought.

Despair overtaking him.

Not for the first time.

That was the nature of these times though, when the officials lacked proper respect for

the honored ancestors, when their petty ambitions and competition robbed their little state of resources and made them weak in the eyes of their enemies.

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