Peiping, China. 220 BC By executive order - which is the way emperors usually do things - Emperor Qin Shi Trump today began construction of a 5000-mile wall along China's border with the Mongolian steppes. Opposition to construction ceased when their leaders were publicly beheaded.
Construction was long delayed due to controversy over material to be used. The emperor's plan originally called for a bamboo fence, thirty feet high, but the press ridiculed the idea, noting that pandas would eat it up as fast as it was built. Ceramic manufacturers urged the use of bricks, while the ditch diggers guild pushed for a forty-foot-deep trench.
In the end, it was the timber industry that prevailed. The wall will be built with thirty-foot-high slats of Chinese elm, allowing cooling summer breezes to pass through from the north.
Emperor Qin Shi Trump insists that the wall will be paid for by Korea, in the form of trade tariffs.
