A New Colonial Model (1)
About a month after the French Taiwan garrison and the Republic's expeditionary force launched their final offensive, the Qing remnants and local resistance still left on the island at last gathered their main strength into one place, just as Nie Zhichao and Nie Shicheng had urged, and prepared for a last decisive battle. It did not, however, produce any dramatic reversal of their appointed fate.
"Quite a few dead."
"On both sides, yes."
The place where Hong Gye-hun, commander of the expeditionary force, and Major General Brisson walked with their hands clasped behind their backs was some nameless field in the south of Taiwan. Until moments ago it had been the scene of furious fighting; now the ground was soaked in blood, and the smell of powder hung in the air like a fog, lending the place a desolate air.
"It was a truly fierce resistance."
"I'd hesitate to call it a last desperate thrashing, but they were fine soldiers all the same. No one fights more desperately than a soldier who already knows it's the end."
And for Hong Gye-hun and the Republic's expeditionary force, it had also been a precious first taste — direct and otherwise — of a battle on a truly grand scale. The artillery of both sides had been ferocious, and the fighting itself had been of an entirely different character from the raids and punitive sweeps that had made up every engagement before.
Regimental and battalion lines crashing into one another. Bayonet charges that tore through the enemy's guts. The maddening din of military bands, cannon fire that turned the earth inside out, the frenzied pounding of cavalry hooves.
Naturally, the van of the battle had been the multinational soldiers of the French Foreign Legion, followed by the naval infantry and marine landing parties, and behind them the Republic's expeditionary troops. When the Legion, weathering the storm of fire poured from the enemy center, at last broke the heart of the opposing regiment, the enemy's morale began to crumble; and when the battalions on both flanks struck in concert, the center simply caved in. Through that ruptured center poured the Taiwan garrison.
The moment the Qing commander's personal banner and the regimental colors struck the earth, that furious battle was finally over. The enemy commanders had, as always, fallen first at the head of their lines while rallying their men, and the body of Sun Kaihua — the general who had been, in all but name, the Qing commander — was soon found by a search party of Foreign Legionnaires.
Sun Kaihua, commander of the Qing forces, had taken poison just before headquarters fell. The evidence lay in the white teacup that had dropped beneath his desk, and in the aide who had died beside him without a wound.
"He could have surrendered with honor."
"Tsk."
Later, a report would come from the Far East Squadron that a handful of stragglers and Qing officers had escaped the island, but neither Hong Gye-hun nor Major General Brisson paid it much mind. To leave a single breathing hole for enemies who had hurled themselves so fiercely, like moths into a dying flame — was that not a victor's natural duty, and a victor's generosity?
Of course, had they known that among those remnants were Nie Zhichao and Nie Shicheng — men who, if they would never quite become the Qing army's great captains, would at least prove themselves fierce and able commanders — they would have beaten the ground in regret.
"..."
Hong Gye-hun, gazing absently at the Republic's soldiers gathering bodies at either end of the distant field, and at the Foreign Legionnaires herding Qing prisoners into a fenced stockade that served as a makeshift camp, was the first to speak.
"What will you do now? The Qing remnants and resistance on Taiwan have been swept away in a single stroke, and whatever will they had left to fight has been broken by our Republic army's patrols and search operations."
The Qing will to resist had been extinguished. Hong Gye-hun's voice brimmed with confidence that, however harsh the methods employed, the enemy's guerrillas and surprise attacks could all be prevented now. At that somewhat ambiguous remark — which implied rather more than the mere crushing of a will to resist — Brisson shook his head and answered.
"I, too, will have to respect whatever the expeditionary headquarters decides next."
"And if they judge the island of Taiwan to be secure?"
At Hong Gye-hun's persistent questioning, Brisson shuddered as if to ask whether the man never tired, even with a battle just ended, and spoke a moment later.
"...If headquarters judges the Taiwan campaign to be over, then we, too, will have to move on to the next stage. The Foreign Legion will be heading for Yunnan, will they not...?"
Major General Brisson, perched on a tree stump on a slight rise, wiped the sweat from his brow and went on.
"Hong, I know perfectly well why you're so curious about where the Legion and the garrison are headed next."
"Haha. Is that so?"
Hong Gye-hun shrugged, trying to brush it off. At that, Major General Brisson snorted.
"You're playing informant for the Republic government as well, aren't you? I suspect the reason you're so interested in our garrison's next destination is that your government would like to take jurisdiction over the island of Taiwan."
"..."
"Did I hit too close to the mark?"
"Ah — hah! Was I that transparent? Or do I simply have no talent for acting..."
"Both, Hong."
Hong Gye-hun's face went through a flash of startled dismay before he scratched the back of his head, looking sheepish. He came over beside the general, dropped himself onto the crushed grass, and set about explaining his situation.
"Well — honestly, I'm the ugly duckling of the Republic's military as well."
"I know. You were the ringleader of the royalist officers before, weren't you?"
"Wait, how did you— Never mind that. I wasn't the ringleader. I just... somehow ended up as one of the royalist big shots."
"Just one man swept up in the torrent of the age, is that it?"
"Something like that. I was a fool back then, after all."
Hong Gye-hun laid his feelings out with complete candor. Sensing something in that manner, Major General Brisson offered him genuine consolation.
"The military of our French Third Republic is a thoroughly complicated household as well. Bonapartists, Orléanists, conservatives, the Radical Party's young Turks, the old royalists..."
"How can a country's affairs be that tangled...?"
"Our government has quite a headache over that very problem, as it happens. The navy is in somewhat better shape, at least. After the British smashed us to pieces years ago, we tore the whole thing up by the roots and started over."
Having unburdened himself of his country's bitter circumstances without reservation, Brisson smiled faintly and went on.
"As for the question of jurisdiction over Taiwan, I think you may send a favorable reply to your home government. In truth, according to the confidential assessments of the investigators attached to expeditionary headquarters, Taiwan is not a territory of much economic use to the homeland."
"Is that so?"
Taiwan of so little economic value to France that they would give it up so readily. Hong Gye-hun could not keep the riot of emotion from spreading across his face at that welcome news, and the general smiled as he added a further explanation.
"Don't get too delighted, though. Our government is quite firm about beginnings and endings. The sale of Taiwan, or the transfer of jurisdiction, will only be possible through proper negotiation."
"So a price will have to be paid."
"Especially given that your government has its eye on Liaodong and Manchuria."
"Ugh."
Hong Gye-hun let out a groan at the general's painfully accurate assessment of reality. Until now he had answered the revolutionary government's call merely to keep his livelihood from being cut off, or out of a private hope of reclaiming his old post. But laid out in a row, the achievements of that revolutionary government were, since the birth of the nation, without equal.
From Gando to Liaodong, from Liaodong to Manchuria, and now Taiwan as well. What man would not feel his chest tremble at the news that his country's domain was growing? And yet, to Hong Gye-hun — a man whose duty it was to stand on the front line, to prevent the enemy's invasion and to defend the territory — those enormous achievements sometimes looked more like an enemy. How, exactly, was he supposed to defend the next stretch of territory, three or four times the Republic's present domain?
"You'll get used to it, in time."
"Mm. I suppose so."
Major General Brisson, something of a senior in such matters, offered that encouragement with a peculiar little smile.
Collin de Plancy, who until just before the war had been serving as French vice-consul in Shanghai, was now at work as the newly promoted French Ambassador to the embassy in Hanseong.
"Man is by nature a creature that hungers for freedom. He will choose a poor liberty over a prosperous bondage, Ambassador."
"Ah, truly splendid words, Your Excellency."
Ambassador de Plancy clapped like a delighted seal at every word I offered. What's more, our dear Ambassador — richly endowed with a Romantic sensibility — would, every time he visited my office, with its slightly rustic yet beautiful air of traditional Joseon dignity, stretch himself out as if he had come down to some lovely country manor in his homeland.
After a good while of such small talk, I brought up the real matter.
"We need a new model of colonial enterprise."
"Pfft—! Colonial enterprise!? From Your Excellency...?"
De Plancy, looking as if he had never imagined so ominous a phrase could come from my mouth, hurriedly wiped away the coffee he had just sprayed, his face a picture of startled horror. I pulled a neatly bound sheaf of reports from the drawer and pushed it across to him.
"Just as slaves rise in revolt, the colonial models as they currently stand are thoroughly shortsighted enterprises that will, in the end, only breed the resentment and resistance of the colonized. The resistance movements in North Africa and Indochina are evidence enough, are they not? To say nothing of the sepoys in India?"
"Ah— er..."
When I criticized the Europeans' economic model as outdated and shortsighted, de Plancy's face went tight, as if the breath had been knocked out of him, and a look of genuine distress crossed his features. In truth, this was precisely why I had so strongly recommended the sensitive, artistic Vice-Consul de Plancy for the ambassadorship in Hanseong. In later years, Ambassador de Plancy would become well known at home as a moderate — one of those who argued against colonialism, or at least for a gentler form of rule.
I ran through the whole sequence of colonial revolts, from the Sepoy Mutiny to the uprisings in North Africa, and then added:
"A man who has never been a slave cannot understand what it means to have been one. Conversely, then, the colonized will surely regard the colonial experience itself as a vast shadow cast over their people — a nightmare. You Europeans must be prepared to endure a resentment and a hatred far greater than any you have already braced yourselves for."
"I— I see."
For a moment, neither of us spoke. De Plancy was taking the time to consider, once more, whether his country's colonial enterprise was truly so immoral and so irrational a structure; and I, watching the mood settle over him, was gauging how best to work this fragile, romantically sensitive man.
After a long while, having finished his deliberations, de Plancy unburdened himself of his feelings. In short, it was a confession that even he did not believe his own voters would be particularly sympathetic to the conditions of colonial subjects.
"But I think the home government and the deputies will see it differently. French politics, however you divide it, puts French interests first. If Your Excellency is determined to improve the lot of colonial subjects and hopes to persuade the home government, the only possible method—"
"—would be to join hands with the Radical Left in the line of Léon Gambetta. That's what you were going to say, wasn't it?"
"How did you know...?"
De Plancy chimed in with a somewhat sour look when the answer came from my mouth first. I smiled and explained.
"Think it through carefully, Ambassador. Are French voters and their honorable deputies truly so uninterested in the treatment of colonial subjects? I think otherwise."
"Eh?"
"The first people in human history to champion equality without regard to the color of a man's skin were your own Gauls. The rights a human being ought naturally to possess — the liberty and equality of the people. Does that idea discriminate according to the color of one's skin?"
"Ah — no. Absolutely not."
"Then that's settled."
I had been privately bracing myself in case the still-young de Plancy might say something like, But surely it's all right to restrict the human rights of non-Christians and nigger bastards a little, isn't it? When he shook his head and insisted it was absolutely not so, I swallowed a sigh of relief and went on.
"And that is why I have a new model of colonial enterprise I wish to present to your government, your politicians, and your businessmen."
"A n-new model of colonial enterprise..."
"One that will draw far less abuse, that will spread France's noble spirit of humanity to every corner of the world — and that will, economically, be a far more advantageous model of profit."
The devil whispered in the ear of the sensitive young de Plancy.
This, he said, was advanced civilization, flown in from the twenty-first century.