The Tongnyeong's Ambition (5)
"That's right. And that is the natural consequence. The moment you fail to keep your own house in order, thieves will come over the wall — that is simply the way of things. Therefore our Republic must stand united within, and never, not for a single instant, show our enemies a crack they might exploit."
In the same breath I praised the Republic's present order, founded upon the spirit of the Three Principles of the People that I myself had raised, and appealed for solidarity.
The discussion drifted sideways again, but it subsided just as quickly. Flushed with victory after victory, the leading men of the republican government had grown so confident that their nationalism had lately begun to shade into something close to ultranationalism.
Once the room had settled, Eo Yun-jung continued his briefing.
"To this day, the instability of the Japanese economy rests upon a massive outflow of gold."
"Gold?"
"Yes."
The word drew every eye in the room. The spell of gold, it seemed, cut through every age and every culture.
"Japan opened its ports to the foreign powers a full decade before our Republic. It could not withstand the onslaught of cheap European manufactures, and was forced to watch, helpless, as its own merchant houses and trading companies went bankrupt. And so the lords of each domain and the merchant associations joined forces, studied Western technique, raised capital, imported machinery, and strove to raise factories of their own."
"And in that process a great deal of gold flowed out of the country?"
"That alone was not enough. They financed the modernization of every domain, the improvement of their ports, the purchase of naval warships, the import of weapons, the dispatch of students abroad, the founding of universities — countless expenditures, all paid in gold. The European banks and trading houses they dealt with were exacting. They placed value only on the gold and silver Japan itself produced. As for what else Japan had to offer—"
At that moment I committed a small discourtesy.
"A moment, Minister, if I may. Of course, gold and silver were not the only things they sold."
I needed to say it now. I needed them to understand why we had to put our hands into Japan's affairs — how this touched the world-spirit I had put forward, the Three Principles of the People.
I drew a slightly ragged breath, then answered with every emotion I could hold in check.
"They sold women and children. And opium. Abroad."
The room froze at the revelation. They looked as though they could not possibly believe what I had just said. Selling their own people overseas? Could such a thing even be conceived?
"Can such a thing truly be conceivable...?"
It was Choe Ik-hyeon who pressed me — a man who ordinarily showed no emotion at all, who had for some time now done everything he could to efface his own presence at these State Council meetings for my sake — and he was furious. He demanded to know whether it was, in truth, the truth.
I answered slowly, my face hard.
"Minister of Agriculture. It is the truth. And the intelligence bureau was able to establish it without any extraordinary effort on my part."
More than a few sighs escaped around the table. This was an uncomfortable truth. Precisely because we were the latecomers, there were those among the Enlightenment faction who had been insisting, and loudly, that we ought to follow Japan's example. And they were not few.
"And that is hardly all. Even after the fall of the shogunate they spent the next twenty years weathering rebellions large and small, political aftershocks, assassinations, riots, and popular resistance. And as a result, Japan's agricultural economy and grain prices have been warped so strangely that even our Joseon's rice exports have dealt them a severe blow."
This, too, was the truth. Japan's grain prices had always been unstable, and that instability was one of the reasons Japan had come to take the Seikanron so seriously and throw itself into the colonization of the Korean peninsula. They needed a vast raw-materials market to fill the grain they lacked.
"The people's livelihood has collapsed. The benefits of machines and science that the Western powers proclaim are not a happiness that takes root among the great majority. Not when they are used like this."
"Hrm."
In the end the kazoku nobility and the zaibatsu had seized fortunes no human being could spend in a lifetime, while Japan's civilian economy sank deeper into stagnation. The great majority of Japanese factories still took the form of obsolete light industry, little better than household cottage work — and even those achievements had been built on the thorough squeezing of workers' wages, the unauthorized theft of patents, and the pilfering of technique.
You will already know this. Japan's economic golden age of 1960 was the fruit of a lineage raised on imitation and theft.
"And they now depend so heavily upon the 1.2 million seok of rice futures our Republic exports each year that if we were to freeze those shipments entirely, or even impose export restrictions, riots would break out in their great cities."
And so I, armed with the knowledge of the twenty-first century, could diagnose the weaknesses of the Japanese economy across the ages with perfect clarity — and take them by the throat. Japan was a kingdom of liars, more heavily gilded even than the Gilded Age United States. And I knew exactly what they lacked.
"Your Excellency... surely you don't mean...?"
The first to grasp my intent were the officials of the Ministry of Finance, and my Special Secretary, Lee Wan-yong. I still could not trust him. But this devil-in-waiting, who had at last understood what his fatherland desired and what his people yearned for, gave a twitch of his eyebrow.
Wonder, gasps, and groans broke out all at once. But that was all. This was one of the most powerful cards we held for mastering the world around us.
"And even that is only one of several slender leashes I can slip around our neighboring island nation's throat. Continue the briefing."
I tossed the floor back to Eo Yun-jung. He bowed in respect, then rose from his seat once more.
"At present we are rushing to open Rice Futures Exchanges in Gunsan, Jemulpo, and Busan."
Markers went up on the map. Lines were drawn between them in red. The telegraph.
"The Communications Bureau of the Ministry of the Interior is currently working, with the assistance of French and American engineers, to lay a submarine telegraph cable linking Tsushima and Kyushu."
The first to rejoice at this news were the industrialists dispatched from the Daegyeongnyeon. Yi Yong-ik and Lee Ha-young offered a brief round of applause and paid their respects to the government.
"Oh! Then investors will be able to receive real-time reports on the state of both nations' grain markets!"
"Yes. Accordingly, our Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Finance are currently in discussions with the Japanese government through the Japanese legation."
"I want the landlords of the three southern provinces, and our sturdy independent farmers, to receive just compensation in proportion to their labor and their toil."
When I added this, Yi Yong-ik nodded and testified to the other ministers that the present grain prices were thoroughly abnormal, and would only deepen the rift of conflict between the two nations.
"Those who operate trading companies that own cargo ships between our two countries have been taking utterly outrageous middleman's profits."
"And the Rice Futures Exchanges in Incheon and Gunsan will mediate that reality properly. Including the grain bonds they hold."
In other words, we would reproduce the international trade of the European grain markets here in the Far East. It would send considerable shockwaves through the Far Eastern economy. For everyone.
"Export restrictions on rice futures, gold transactions, and direct intervention in the Japanese economy through the establishment of the Rice Futures Exchanges — these are only a tiny fraction of the Grand Plan. Next is the problem of Japan's extremely fragile gold reserves and foreign currency. More precisely, the enormous foreign debt they have incurred overseas."
At last, the main point. At Eo Yun-jung's words I let out a small sigh. Everything that had come before had been preparatory work for bringing this up.
Meeting my gaze, Eo Yun-jung shook his head with a grim expression. Leave this to me, he seemed to say.
"At present the Republic is receiving military-economic subsidies of three million francs and two million dollars. In addition, our Ministry of Foreign Affairs has currently dispatched a mission to the Paris representative office to sound out low-interest loans from the Paris banking market and the central banks of the various European nations."
Then Yu In-seok, who had taken his seat alongside Choe Ik-hyeon, cautiously raised his hand. He, too, belonged to the Dongmaenghoe, though he had entered through its subordinate faction, the Yurim Party.
"I am afraid I do not quite understand. In the end, is a loan not still a debt we must repay? It may be an idle worry, but if our Republic is not to follow the same disastrous path as Japan, should we not find the courage to refuse, at least in some measure, the gifts they press upon us with even the faintest trace of ill will?"
More people than I expected — no, the great majority of the officials — nodded in agreement with his doubt. What good could come of taking on debt?
But I unleashed a subject from an entirely different vantage, one that shattered their expectations.
"I want us to buy Japan's bonds."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Why would we buy those...?"
They stared at me with strangely twisted faces, as though I had said something utterly insane, or as though they had seen a ghost. I added at once, to set their misunderstanding straight.
"To be precise, we would not be 'buying' them. We would be guaranteeing their capacity to make payment with the honor and credit of our Republic. A kind of joint surety, if you will."
Even so, it still sounded like so much talk of clouds. Eo Yun-jung stepped in to explain.
"Of the foreign loans our allies in the Tripartite Alliance have extended to us, half are grants that need never be repaid. In other words, our government has no obligation whatsoever to repay more than three million francs."
Hearing figures of a few million here and a few hundred thousand there, everyone vaguely thought, well, that is a great deal of money — but from the standpoint of those who had actually received it, how to put it...
"The French Republic is, in truth, a great nation."
Choe Ik-hyeon's low voice spoke for all our hearts.
France, you fool.
In a world of the strong devouring the weak, where you could not trust even an inch of the road ahead, we had each found a rare and genuine friend. After a few remarks to that effect, we continued the meeting.
"Moreover, there is talk that they will convert additional postwar reconstruction costs and the Qing war indemnities into their own francs — gold coin — though that is a matter for later. In any case, Minister Foote has given us to understand that a cable regarding a further aid bill is proceeding discreetly through the United States Congress, so I trust you all can feel how deep the confidence of both nations in our republican government truly runs."
In truth, America had been a little late to the table. From the beginning they had kept one step removed from intervening in the war; then, once we started winning victory after victory, they had overhauled their entire business plan, inflated the investment value several times over, and were now swindling their own congressmen. If they did not jump in right now, they said, the share they could eat might shrink to nothing.
"I am well aware that our great undertakings and reforms for the nation's hundred-year design will require enormous budgets. Even so, I wish to exercise a little flexibility, and I want our Republic to play in bigger waters."
"Then, Your Excellency, are you proposing that our funds be used at once to help stabilize the Japanese economy?"
I nodded to those who voiced their concerns, making no distinction between the Yurim Party and the Gaehwadang.
"Exactly that. We are still drafting the outlines of reform, still scouting land suitable for modernization and industrialization. The war is not over, and the vain hope that every citizen will join the government's reforms is neither realistic nor desirable. Rather than sit on that money and spend it all on armaments, I entreat you gentlemen here to let us bestow a kindness upon our neighbor."
A brief silence settled, but the Yurim Party warmed to the word kindness, and the Gaehwadang to the word neighbor.
"By what method, Your Excellency?"
Relieved that the resistance was lighter than I had expected, I composed my expression and explained my plan.
"In exchange for driving Japanese banknotes out of circulation in the settlements and concessions of the three southern provinces, I am considering a memorandum to exchange approximately one million francs for Japanese yen."
Voices rose in bewilderment. One million francs was certainly no small sum. But Japan had accumulated wealth far faster than we had. Would they really prostrate themselves before us, choking with gratitude and singing our praises, over a mere amount like that?
"Is that truly an affair that would blossom into a grace both nations would remember?"
"Is it not simply an ordinary currency exchange?"
"No."
Yes — if you looked only at the surface.
I laid bare the underside of my plan.
"We will now promise to exchange one million francs for the Japanese government at the rate that prevailed before the French republican government demanded repayment of Japan's loans."
"Ah!"
"Once they begin repaying those loans, the value of the yen will plummet exponentially. And for every shortfall in the loan they will have to export still more gold, or still more of some other foreign currency, and so—"
"A vicious cycle. I do not know how much foreign currency they hold, but this will come as no small shock to their economy."
And so every minister in the room came to understand my true scheme. I was buying their future with money. Taking the money we had made selling medicine to Europe, and selling it again as medicine to our neighbor.
And not a single objection was raised. On the surface, we were nothing more than an honorable neighbor, helping those next door in their time of need.