The Eastern Knight (9)
Here was a man who considered himself the Chancellor of the unified German Empire, a diplomat who had sacrificed countless things for the empire’s well-being and development.
“The important issues of this era are no longer decided by the press or by majority rule, as shown by what happened between 1848 and 1849—the March Revolution. In other words, the problems facing us can only be solved through blood and iron.”
His name was Otto von Bismarck.
The Iron Chancellor.
A man who believed that nothing in life could be accomplished alone and who self-critically assessed the human condition.
He was modest in everything, humbly received the honors and fame he had earned, and loyally answered the empire’s glory and the emperor’s favor.
Yet the series of international situations tormenting him lately provided ample material to torment him amid the complex web of relationships with the emperor, his aides, the Reichstag, the cabinet, allies, and enemies.
Everyone called out to him, yet no suitable solution existed—a vexing reality.
That was the German Empire in 1885.
“You called, Your Excellency the Chancellor?”
“Come in.”
At the age of seventy, still performing the duties of the Prussian Chancellor, he opened his mouth to the Foreign Minister, who was regarding his slightly trembling wrist with a curious gaze.
“The Far East is noisy.”
He folded the newspaper in half and tossed it lightly toward the table.
Significantly, the front page of the newspaper Bismarck had set aside contained a detailed commentary and analysis by a German journalist on the situation in Liaodong and the propaganda of the nascent Republic.
“Qing army routed at Yingkou and Lüshun!”
“Qing army decides on a major retreat across the entire Liaodong front!”
The war had not changed much from the previous one.
The Qing Dynasty had been beaten and, through persistent scheming, had begun to dismantle the Tripartite Alliance that had made treaties to save itself.
The Foreign Minister glanced at it and replied.
“You mean the new friends France has made. The Foreign Ministry and Naval Intelligence Bureau are keeping a close watch as well.”
“Yes, the Intelligence Bureau. Still a new department, but it seems enthusiastic. Finding big things already.”
In 1883 the German Empire had launched a secret push to establish the Intelligence Bureau alongside policies for building a naval fleet and expanding colonies as government policy, to overcome the disadvantage of being latecomers.
It had officially come into operation in 1885.
“If it had not been for patriotic and enthusiastic friends, it would have been impossible. They are patriots who value the empire’s glory and peace more than medals on their shoulders or public service.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
Bismarck extended his hand and gripped his cane firmly, putting strength into his legs.
As the decrepit empire’s servant rose with difficulty from his seat, the Foreign Minister rose with him.
“Walk.”
“Yes, Your Excellency.”
With cane in hand, the Chancellor emerged into the corridor where warm sunlight streamed in through the glass windows, and said to the minister following quietly behind him.
“Some people who claim to be smart spout nonsense about the new nation’s propaganda being only made through French and American support and intrigue. But that talk is wrong.”
“Is that so?”
“War is not won by giving someone a gun in their hand or money. Then why didn’t Italy’s unification end hundreds of years ago? There was a time when those cities alone exceeded the national budget of one country?”
“...”
The Foreign Minister could not immediately answer, and Bismarck, with his old man’s dry laugh, continued walking and talking.
“Revolutions grow on blood. But if that blood is insufficient, the masses will seek it from outside.”
“You have gathered the people’s gaze into one place.”
“That’s right. Internal cleaning and class struggles have limits. Moreover, that nascent Republic has a population that is adequate but a small territory. If they tried to satisfy all the greedy humans’ demands, they would have hung their own necks first.”
Bismarck had experienced the March Revolution, July Revolution, and the Paris Commune in various ways.
Therefore, he properly understood the situation of the Far Eastern nascent state through his excellent insight and experience.
The current Republic, born from the beginning, was very unstable.
And excessively passionate.
If one looked at it rationally and calmly from the side, it was fanatical.
“The empire’s eastward pioneering movement didn’t unfold in that way either.”
“That’s.”
“Have you seen records of you Junkers inciting the serfs to invade Polish territory?”
“No, sir.”
“Yes, but the war in Liaodong was not mainly due to the propaganda and incitement of the Eastern Junkers. Didn’t they also raise the banner? To restore the ancestral homeland and honor? Interesting. Weren’t they the revolutionary republic that denied tradition and the royal family to the front?”
“...”
Ancestral homeland and honor.
These are romantic materials found in monarchical states, yet they are being used to promote in a republic that advocates people’s equality.
Bismarck let out a dry laugh at the contradiction between these two irreconcilable things and the fact that they were acting as the driving force to lead the war to victory, and continued with his bent waist.
“Even the braggarts who call themselves revolutionaries and the fellows who support the so-called revolutionary government underneath them have not changed from the previous royal family. Those guys are all Yangban...? Anyway, they are clearly Eastern Junkers. And unlike us Prussian Junkers, they are definitely better at greasing their tongues!”
Bismarck thought this.
Whether through photos or articles, the words of the parliamentarians in the Reichstag were like the knights of the empire’s eastward colonial movement at the time, and the small republic in the extreme east on the opposite side of the globe was also following its own history.
Unlike the French who cheered those guys, called “Yangban” or Eastern Junkers in their language, as the leaders of the revolution, to more rational Germans, they were called the knights of the eastward colonial movement and the Eastern Knights.
After all, that strange but certainly armored country that could easily block bullets and charge on horseback.
“The conversation has strayed a bit.”
Bismarck cleared his throat to refocus the conversation, and with the cane leaning obliquely under his abdomen, continued.
“Their actual goal is not Liaodong and Manchuria. It’s too excessive.”
The Foreign Minister showed understanding with a meaningful nod from the old man’s hint.
“Your Excellency, but they are still propagating.”
“You should study a bit more. Aren’t you someone who will be responsible for the empire’s diplomacy in the future?”
“Yes?”
“Manchuria is currently said to be the holy land of the Qing imperial family.”
“...”
“Regardless of the difference between barbarism and civilization, reason and rationality cannot overcome the power accumulated by tradition and history. The moment Liaodong, and further Manchuria, is completely occupied, the Qing will have no more place to retreat in this war. They will gather all their remaining power and attempt a counterattack.”
“The final battle that will decide victory or defeat.”
“That’s right.”
The old man instantly sank the Foreign Minister’s understanding.
He had his back to it.
On the face that briefly shone in the glass window, there was an expression that could not be found anywhere.
Bismarck was deeply concerned about this incident as much as the event where Russia, the traditional ally, split after the Berlin Conference.
“Do you know? When a person sees the path in front of them disappear, they do not drown in extreme confusion and helplessness.”
“I-I don’t quite understand what you mean...”
“It will become harder and harder to predict. If previous international diplomacy was chess, now it’s a gambling table that drunkards are shouting about.”
The insight unique to an old man who had lived for seventy years warned that the situation in the Far East would greatly affect the order of the world led by Europe in the future.
“Moreover, when I received reports from the generals, Liaodong is a military strategic point. Like in Europe, the Low Countries.”
“Was that place so important?”
“Of course. Then why are both sides leading tens of thousands of large armies and causing chaos in such a shitty place?”
Bismarck snorted and realized he had reached the end of the corridor.
Oh, the topic that had just started to rise.
“Today’s conversation ends here. For the time being, you will report business while visiting the residence.”
Using the report as a pretext, it was to reexamine the Franco-American scheming and the empire’s diplomatic policy regarding the Republic of Korea in its entirety.
The Foreign Minister, realizing this, bent his waist sharply.
This was because it was a kind of opportunity and test for Bismarck himself to be a shield, to let him freely unfold his discretion.
“Yes. Thank you for your consideration, Your Excellency.”
Towards the Foreign Minister bowing his head in gratitude, Bismarck replied with a shrug of his shoulders.
“It’s only natural for a junior.”
And then he firmly gripped the doorknob at the end of the corridor and turned it with vigor.
“Long live His Majesty the Emperor.”
It was time to return to being the empire’s Chancellor again.
Meanwhile, in Downing Street, the center of British imperial power, a heated debate was exchanged between both sides.
“It might be the perfect opportunity to wash away the dirty stigma that has been buried in the empire due to the Opium Wars, Your Excellency!”
Regardless of whether they were from the Liberal Party or the Conservative Party, many personnel who served as ministers and undersecretaries nodded readily to his cry.
“The spread of opium and the drug problem in China are not our problem!”
“This opportunity to shed the stigma that has been placed on us-”
“We must tell the truth! The stigma that has been placed on the empire for so long is an extremely humiliating event, is it not?”
Among them, Prime Minister Gladstone, who had been resting his forehead and sighing continuously, looked seriously at his increasingly thinning hair and opened his mouth.
“There is still nothing certain, is there?”
Then the Foreign Minister who had started the discussion first handed over a bundle of documents in his pocket and said to everyone.
“But based on today’s Paris newspapers, according to the results of the so-called ‘Investigation Committee’ established by Korea, which toured and investigated Liaodong and Manchuria for several months, the main cause of the opium spread is said to be the corruption and greed of Chinese officials, local officials, viceroys, and garrison commanders, rather than our British East India Trade Company!”
“Hmm.”
Gladstone, lowering his gaze at the Foreign Minister’s excited voice, looked at the French newspapers laid on the conference room table with resentful eyes.
The reason the cabinet meeting was noisy was because of that guy.
But according to the newspaper’s content and the results of the investigation by the small republic in the Far East through its ‘Investigation Committee’ institution regarding the drug problem being distributed in the occupied military administration, surprisingly, it revealed that an enormous amount of opium, twice as much as the British and American trading companies’ opium export volume, was being distributed in the North China region.
“There is evidence!”
The young ministers and undersecretaries with strong patriotism distributed to the arriving parliament members the investigation records, interrogation documents, and on-site evidence provided by the newspaper companies, saying it was the perfect opportunity to shed the unjust stigma of the past.
“This is the opium field where ‘Hong’, called the Eastern Knight, wiped out and burned the bandit gang. It is said that there was an opium production site in Liaodong alone that was as enormous as the entire County of Sussex.”
“My God!”
“No, isn’t this the country that was at war with us to stop the opium?”
“Is that all? According to interviews with victims in the liberated villages who were freed by wiping out the bandit gangs, the connection between the bandit gangs and Chinese local officials is not a simple bribe relationship, but a kind of feudal form-”
The British parliamentarians, who could not distinguish through the photos whether the manipulated photos of Lee Wan-yong who had run around so hard were fake or the burning opium fields were just burned paddy fields, believed that the Paris newspapers and Korea’s investigation reports were true.
No, they were trying to brainwash themselves into believing that.
Wasn’t it natural?
The truth of the major event that had been undermining the empire’s prestige, turning a diplomat into an international drug trafficker from a vile pirate country overnight, had finally been revealed!
“Those pig-like and arrogant Chinese bastards knew that! How could so many addicts be created with only about 100 tons of opium imported?”
“Yes, it was strange! Somehow!”
Already, the trend was set that the Qing Dynasty had shifted the blame for its own corrupt problems to the British Empire by unfairly stigmatizing it.
No, those cowardly and greedy Qing, Coolies, must have done it!
That bastard Im Cheong-seo was also an accomplice!
“Korea, they are truly a civilized nation!”
“That’s right, that’s right!”
The newly Liberal Party parliamentarians had elevated the Far Eastern republic, whom they had previously considered as little more than French maids, to the status of the only civilized nation, and the Conservative Party parliamentarians felt affection for Korea that had protected the empire’s honor and revealed the truth.
“Blessings for the new friend Korea!”
“Hellfire on the Coolies who deceived the empire and smeared the stigma!”
“Haah.”
In the chaotic atmosphere where China was being disparaged and the Republic of Korea was being raised, only Prime Minister Gladstone of the empire sighed deeply.