The Taiwan Expeditionary Force (1)

On the twentieth of August by the Western calendar — the sixth day of the seventh lunar month — I sat early that morning going through the still-warm newspapers that had just been unloaded from a merchant ship at Incheon Chemulpo: Britain's Guardian, the Times of the United States, and a Paris daily from France.

How was I reading them without a translation, you ask?

Come on. In my previous life I was Foreign Minister of the Republic of Korea, fluent in four languages.

"Perfect. Just perfect."

I spread the papers wide and drank them in, gathering both hands beneath my chin with a look of deep satisfaction, smiling a thoroughly unwholesome smile as I savored the European situation and the friendly tide of opinion running toward the Republic.

Praise here. Praise ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠there.

"What the fuck?"

Ah. The British. Moving on.

I nodded at the word Guardian stamped across the masthead, finished my reading, and took up a pair of scissors, clipping out the articles that had pleased me one by one.

"Good. If it keeps going like this, I might take a bite out of Liaodong as well as southern Gando."

Support was plentiful, and the cheering from every side was loud enough. The Qing were the villains; Korea was the hero. The friends of the world were gathering as one, pouring their souls into backing a newborn republic that had taken the field against a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠rotten empire.

"Omedetou!"

"Omedetou!"

"Haha. Thank you."

That was the verdict of the world.

"Hehehe."

But don't scold me for being too pleased with myself. This was the fruit of my own labor.

"Mediator of the continent. The slandered victim. Both of them are attractive titles!"

Those sardine-pie-eating pirate bastards bit the bait I had set, just as I had expected — clamped down on it. They were already a rich house that could spend money like water; of course they would go looking for the one thing money could not buy: honor.

As for the friendly stance of our allied partners, France and the United States, that was only natural. Those people were bleeding beside us and getting their investments paid back twofold. We were the goose that laid the golden eggs.

"Good. We'll ride this for a while."

The exposé on the true state of the opium trade that had torn through Britain like a storm was the product of a political operation I had personally designed, precise and painstaking, and then thrown myself into. As a bonus I had hung out the title of mediator of Asia on top of mediator of Europe, and they had swallowed that too.

Having clipped the Guardian's now somewhat Conservative-leaning, uniformly glowing pieces on Korea, along with the articles on the Opium War revelations and the deepening of Qing opium addiction, I muttered to myself.

"Honestly, I didn't think it would be easy. Good of them to move exactly as I expected."

The fabricated achievements of the Investigation Committee, founded to halt the spread of opium, had been aimed squarely at British politics. That had been my intention from the start. The Committee would issue an interim report in the name of Jeon Bong-jun, who had won local hearts and built friendships with the war correspondents at the same time.

"Well. It's not as if any of that is wrong, is it?"

Most of it we had exaggerated, but we had not simply invented stories out of thin air or mass-produced fake news. There were even modern statistics showing that more than half the Qing agricultural population of that era were opium addicts. The opium problem inside the Qing Empire only ever grew until the Communists finally took over. It never once shrank.

I burst out laughing at the picture in my head of Empress Dowager Cixi or Li Hongzhang grabbing the back of their necks and collapsing as the blood rushed to their ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠skulls. Cixi aside, there was a real chance that either Li Hongzhang or Prince Gong would actually have a stroke.

"Well, I just cashed in twenty years early, so don't take it too hard!"

The Qing central government and the imperial house would be branded as incompetent idiots, and the people of the Qing would suddenly find themselves stamped across the world as cowards, liars, and opium addicts, and they would feel very sorry for themselves… but what of it?

War is a war of public opinion.

Meanwhile I looked over the next report, along with the affidavits collected from Qing civilians who had suffered at the hands of local bandits, and I praised Lee Wan-yong to the skies.

"…Mmm. That's my son of a bitch, all right."

The only compliment I ever allowed myself where he was concerned. He was, as his former colleagues had testified, extremely diligent; as Yun Chi-ho had put it, mechanical; and his hunger for advancement was abnormally fierce. In other words, he followed my orders extremely well.

The man had a born talent for turning innocent peasants into victims and disguising soldiers killed in battle as bandits. Or perhaps he had some forgotten gift for photography he himself had never noticed — the staged pictures and their composition were nothing short of art.

"Hmmm."

Among the photographs in the envelope was one of Hong Beom-do gently closing the eyes of dead children. I turned it this way and that, and I was genuinely impressed.

"Damn. That's cold. That's vicious. Shoot kids' corpses like that and even I would take the bandits for the sons of bitches."

The Hong Beom-do in the picture looked, from the expression on his face alone, like a heavenly general who had descended in person from the sky. The color and the faces of the children, already cold, looked like the very image of rest — as if they had at last been saved.

I had heard accusations that painters and undertakers Lee Wan-yong had brought along at his own expense had even powdered the corpses. I pretended not to know.

In any case, it was Lee Wan-yong on the ground who ate every curse in the book while he doctored photographs, bought testimony, and bought and sold corpses. But the man who had directed and planned the whole affair from behind was, without any question, me.

And?

"So what."

Had I led a massacre of civilians? Had I pinned the name of bandit on anyone and run a kangaroo court? That was all.

Of course, the work of Jeon Bong-jun — whom I had set up as both the public face and the chairman of the Investigation Committee — had been outstanding as well. Penniless and alone, he had settled in Liaodong and drawn the people's hearts to him with orphanages, soup kitchens for the poor, and shelters for refugees that doubled as pass-issuing offices, and that had bought the interest and the sympathy of the foreign war correspondents.

"And then you just add a little seasoning."

You recast most of the refugees as pitiful people who had fled the homes they loved to escape bandit gangs under formal mercenary contract with the Qing court or government, gangs that were attacking Republican troops.

Even in the twenty-first century, with television cameras rolling, people still believed only the truth the news chose to show them. How much easier, then, do you suppose it is for a time traveler armed with twenty-first-century politics to manipulate public opinion in a world where the latest information from the other side of the earth is a telegram through a submarine cable and a war correspondent's black-and-white photograph?

Easy. Too easy.

I slipped the last clipped article into the album and tidied the room.

"War is public opinion. Public opinion is the truth, and in the end history will remember it that way too."

And the Han and the Manchu would come to believe they had only gotten what they deserved.

Their leaders had been corrupt. They had been decadent. And so, of course, they had lost the war. In the end they would talk as if Republican rule over them were only natural, laughing at themselves all the while in that self-mocking way — We have no hope. The people of this country are garbage.

That was how they would become a nation that had lost even the last of its pride and its dignity.

And then—

Our enemies would collapse from within.

In the office, the Taegeukgi hanging above my head was sacred as ever today.

Meanwhile, the relief division that had landed in northern Taiwan — the expeditionary force dispatched in support of France — found itself utterly unable to adjust to an island heat and humidity beyond anything they had imagined, and nothing like home.

"Goddamn mosquitoes. Goddamn snakes. Goddamn China—"

And the man leading them, Commander Hong Gye-hun of the expeditionary force, lived with a curse in his mouth every minute of every hour. The reason was simple enough. From the very first day of the deployment, the six thousand officers and men he had personally brought over had not gone a single day without some incident or accident.

"We'll make camp here."

"Near the river, sir?"

"There's the drinking water, for one. And in this heat they need somewhere nearby to dunk their heads."

"Understood, sir."

First, the drinking water that had already been scarce even for the French naval infantry — who had arrived ahead of them and secured the harbor and the landing stages — became a matter of life and death for Hong Gye-hun's expedition as well. In the end the command had no choice but to site the camp near the river.

"Boil it, filter it, I don't care — just don't drink it straight."

It was a nuisance, but the field command followed the recommendations of the government and the Wolf's Lair to the letter, and they succeeded in keeping the number of men who came down with dysentery to a minimum.

There was a problem no one had seen coming, however. The mosquitoes.

Slap.

"Fuck this."

Pitching camp by the river for easy water had been a mistake. An assault of mosquitoes beyond anything they could have imagined in their hometowns had begun.

"If it's going to be like this, we should just move the camp—"

"We've already thrown up earthworks and palisades. Do that song and dance again and the men will raise hell. We can't leave them dehydrating just because a few mosquitoes are sucking a little blood, can we?"

On top of that, they had made the further mistake of sending drinking water over to the French naval infantry several times as a courtesy, after the French had lit up at the news that a large purification works was running at the water source — which, of course, amounted to nothing more than boiling water in cauldrons — and that drinking water was being secured in bulk. Some blockhead French colonel, Armand or Durmand or whatever his name was, was always coming around with one excuse or another to request another supply.

"Damn them."

In the end, swallowing his pride, Hong Gye-hun had thick sailcloth — the same heavy linen used for sails — layered several times over and hung through the tents as makeshift mosquito nets, and ordered some strange local grass burned through the night to drive the insects off. That was the stopgap. He caught his breath.

And the moment he caught his breath, another problem exploded.

"Snake!"

"Aagh! I'm bit!"

"Medic! Medic!"

Goddamn snakes. Snakes. Venomous little bastards.

"Fuck this!"

Hong Gye-hun had come bolting out of the command tent without thinking, then caught sight of a green thing sliding smoothly through the undergrowth and let out a scream that was not at all becoming in a man, recoiling in disgust.

Yes. Vipers. Those damned snakes were in a different class from the mosquitoes. Already thirty ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠men had been bitten, lingered at death's door, and died. The camp sat near the river, so the brush was thick, and the snakes were thicker still.

"Another one dead, sir."

"Fuck this."

In the end, with not a single proper battle fought and nothing to show for it but soldiers dying for no reason, Hong Gye-hun made his decision.

"Catch them all! No — burn the whole damn lot!"

And so the planned felling and burning to clear the riverbank began. Oil and powder kegs prepared in advance went up in one place after another, and the axemen standing ready took the trees at the neck, bound them with rope, and hauled them out. The smoke was so great, and lasted so long, that lookouts on the Far East Squadron — then circling southern Taiwan — reported it from far away.

Three days after the flames died down, the ground around the camp had become a vast stretch of black earth.

"Would you look at that!"

"Wide open, and the view's not bad!"

"Easier to stand sentry, too. That's life for you — a blessing in disguise."

And a few of the men, realizing that this blackened ground around them was remarkably rich, took to scattering crops and unhulled rice seed for something to do.

"Hehe. Look — sprouts."

And then—

"A-an ambush…!"

"Enemy attack! Enemy attack!"

The Qing bastards' guerrilla war had begun in earnest.

"Qing troops! They came out of the forest!"

"Counterattack! Counterattack!"

They had seen the expeditionary soldiers digging in the dirt, playing at farming for something to do, and mistaken it for a military colony. They had concluded that the Republican army meant to settle here for good, and they had decided to go over to a genuine offensive. In other words: unlike the French naval infantry, who were only holding the harbor and the landing stages, the Republican troops — Joseon soldiers, as the Qing still saw them — looked as if they intended to rule this place in perpetuity.

An officer came gasping in with the news that another Qing guerrilla band had burst from the forest, killed a sentry, and fled.

"The Qing bastards have come pouring out! It's an ambush!"

"Fuck this!!!"

For that reason, Hong Gye-hun and the expeditionary force could not rest easy for a single day.

This place was hell.