The Heirloom Seal of the Realm? Isn't That Just a Stamp? (Per the Emperor)
Fortunately, I didn't shed any tears this time. In novels, as in life, readers lose interest when a character keeps repeating the same move. At any rate, I screwed my eyes tight and managed to weather the storm of camera flashes.
This is where it really begins.
I'd already announced that we'd recovered the Heirloom Seal of the Realm. Now it was time to show them the thing itself.
When the barrage of flashes finally eased, an attendant from the Imperial Household Agency beside me carefully brought forward a black box.
"For the sake of the artifact's preservation, we ask that members of the press kindly refrain from flash photography for a moment."
With that, the attendant carefully lifted the lid. Inside lay a jade seal — smaller than one might have expected.
So this is the Heirloom Seal of the Realm.
It seemed to shine a little more than when the museum director had brought it last time. (Maybe it was my imagination. Or maybe they'd restored a portion of it in the interim.)
Now it was my turn to carefully lift the Heirloom Seal of the Realm.
Fortunately the seal was intact enough that I could take it in both hands. The weight of it was lighter than I'd expected. The thought crossed my mind that perhaps it had been made deliberately light for actual use.
"Ohh…"
A murmur of admiration rose of its own accord.
Now I set it down carefully, say a few words, and that should wrap up the day.
The moment I set the seal down, the same attendant who had opened the box reclaimed it at once.
"First of all — that this precious treasure, the Heirloom Seal of the Realm, has returned once more before the eyes of the world is a blessing not merely for Korea, but for all humanity. As Emperor of the Korean Empire, I wish to express my gratitude to the director of the Danamo Museum, who labored to revive a moment of history that might so easily have been buried and lost."
Of course I wasn't going to leave it at mere words of thanks. This was precisely the sort of occasion for which the Order of Cultural Merit existed, and the director was about to receive one. Already knowing the news, he was putting every ounce of willpower into keeping the corners of his mouth from climbing.
Well, for a museum director — for a historian — it would be a first. He's entitled to be that happy.
From our previous meeting, and from what I'd heard, people described him as "a decent man with a strong hunger for honor." He donated generously and did plenty of good work; I could fill that hunger for prestige a little. Filling people with that kind of high was half the point of being a twenty-first-century emperor anyway.
While those stray thoughts wandered through my head, I waited for another wave of flashes and the clatter of journalists' typing to subside, then opened my mouth again.
"I will not dwell at length on why the Heirloom Seal of the Realm is considered precious. There is, however, something I feel I must make clear to the people regarding the reason I call it precious.
"Some may believe the eight characters carved into the seal's base — Having received the Mandate from Heaven, may longevity and prosperity be everlasting — are what make it valuable. Those who think that holding this seal means one has received Heaven's mandate, and that one's reign will flourish forever, fall into that camp.
"But Qin Shi Huang's empire closed its doors a mere fifteen years after unifying All Under Heaven. So the claim that this seal guarantees eternal prosperity, or that it is proof of a man who holds the Mandate of Heaven, is not a story one can put much stock in.
"From ancient times it has been said that the Mandate of Heaven is received through virtue. Therefore I, as Emperor of Korea, regard this seal merely as a precious treasure of great research value — and I have no intention of treating it as any kind of symbol.
"This seal will not enter the Imperial Treasury. It is scheduled to be displayed at the Danamo Museum, where every citizen may see it. I believe that is the best way to show all the world that this seal is nothing more than a precious object."
For a moment I heard the rapid hammering of journalists' keyboards. They were probably filing something along the lines of:
I also caught a few startled expressions. Fair enough — until today's announcement, some people had assumed the Heirloom Seal of the Realm would never be seen again except in photographs. In neighboring Japan, imperial relics almost never showed their faces, so this would strike them as unexpected.
"This Heirloom Seal of the Realm has spent the past several hundred years in the storage vaults of the Danamo Museum. Looked at that way, the nation that has held the Heirloom Seal of the Realm the longest may well be Korea.
"Yet all of you know that over those same centuries Korea has faced crisis after crisis. In those times, our ancestors did not go hunting for a Heirloom Seal of the Realm whose whereabouts they could not even guess. They put their heads together and sought to weather the hardship with wisdom.
"Rather than relying on a mere stamp, people gathering to think through a solution — that, I believe, is the lesson left by history, and by this Heirloom Seal of the Realm before us. I, as Emperor of Korea, mean never to forget that lesson.
"And I hope that when you, the people, look upon this seal, you will think not of Qin Shi Huang's harsh rule, but of the wisdom of our ancestors."
When the speech ended, the camera shutters rose again. The flash barrage was milder than before, so I offered a carefully friendly smile — one I'd practiced more than a little with Sofia.
News that the Heirloom Seal of the Realm had been discovered in the Korean Empire — and that the Emperor himself would announce it — spread at once through the Eastern nations that took a keen interest in the seal.
Naturally, media outlets from each country were present, and broadcasters with the means arranged live coverage of their own.
And Song — across the water from Danamo, and perhaps the most interested party, or the most injured one — was watching as well.
"The Emperor of Korea is contemptible beyond measure! How dare he steal a treasure of Zhonghua and then call it a mere precious object!"
Emperor Zhao Yanghuan of Song, past his sixtieth year, nearly choked on his outrage.
The Heirloom Seal of the Realm was Zhonghua's by rights. It belonged in the hands of Great Song. At the very least the half-communist country up north should have it — not Korea.
Worse still, the Korean Emperor had subtly slighted Great Song itself. Saying Korea had held the seal for hundreds of years was plainly a jab at the fact that Great Song's history was younger than theirs.
And what crises had Korea supposedly suffered these past few centuries? Pillaging the cities of Jiangnan at the drop of a hat, obstructing Zhonghua's great enterprise of unification, and keeping Danamo in their grip so that Great Song's fleets could never freely take to the sea — that was their history.
If it were up to me, I'd dispatch an agent this very moment to seize that seal… but there's no chance of that succeeding.
Such things had once borne fruit, but he knew full well that in this age of advanced technology they were impossible. And Zhao Yanghuan himself was simply too old. He was too weary to order and oversee a secret operation of that kind.
"Hah…"
In the end, Zhao Yanghuan sighed and watched all the way through to the scene of the Korean Emperor greeting his people.
Pathetic. For the sovereign of a nation to have so little dignity…
To Zhao Yanghuan's eye, the current Korean Emperor bowed his head far too readily. He himself, as Emperor of Great Song, had spent every effort filling with dignity the power lost through modern history — yet the Korean Emperor had surrendered his own authority of his own free will, and under this new reign seemed ready to discard even dignity itself.
Of course, even if the Korean Empire somehow became a Republic of Korea tomorrow, that was none of Great Song's emperor's concern, so he promptly wiped every thought of the Korean Emperor from his mind.
Doing so did nothing to change the fact that Zhonghua's treasure, the Heirloom Seal of the Realm, sat just across the sea on Danamo — and so his foul mood remained exactly as it was.
Zhao Yanghuan issued an order that would never be fulfilled — "Send a request to the Korean Emperor that the Heirloom Seal of the Realm is a relic of Zhonghua and must be returned" — and withdrew to his bedchamber.
Tsk. When I'm in a mood this black, I'd better read that book.
Somehow or other he had started reading the novel his grandson was reading — My Korea Is Not Like This. The author was said to be Korean, but to Zhao Yanghuan's imperial eye the man clearly knew his history.
Joseon submitting itself to the Sinocentric order, and Ming displaying the dignity of the Son of Heaven of a great power — those passages were truly satisfying to watch. The main story followed Joseon's history, of course, but the consistent portrayal of a powerful China filled Zhao Yanghuan's "Zhonghua high" to the brim.
Of late the narrative had entered the modern period and begun depicting the Qing's decline, which was less than pleasing (with a side helping of racist conviction that a dynasty founded by Jurchen barbarians had no proper roots to begin with) — but with the thought of "I've come this far, I have to see the ending…," Zhao Yanghuan kept diligently following each new chapter, today as every day.