Can Peace Be Bought with Money? (3)

At my answer, the look in his eyes changed. Still, it was the expression of a man who, to some degree, found himself coming around to my view.

Had this Englishman seen through the Japanese—those people for whom a honeyed tongue and a hidden dagger were a default passive? Or was it simply that, being an islander himself, he recognized the type and kept his guard up by instinct?

"I respect Your Excellency's concerns and your insight, but I cannot, for that reason, withhold my report on the situation in the Far East. That said—"

His home government's direction had not yet been firmly set, and so he could not formally disclose even his personal views. He spoke in circumlocutions.

"A thorough audit, however, is something I cannot overlook. Not after a diplomatic catastrophe of this magnitude in the Far East."

At his ambition to turn the Chinese embassy, the consulates, and the entire Japan mission upside down, I nodded in agreement.

"I understand."

"And I cannot hide that I find myself increasingly in sympathy with Your Excellency's views."

He straightened toward me as if in earnest. At the extra courtesy he was now taking pains to show—more than at the start—I sat up straighter myself.

Having composed himself, he spoke.

"I should like to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠speak frankly. Britain earnestly hopes this war will end in such a way that the influence of British trading houses and businessmen in the Asian market is not infringed upon."

"And you don't want a Qing Empire that's been beaten half-senseless to have more land torn off by Russia, and you don't want Britain's trade network—that exclusive colonial market you've built across the Indian Ocean through India—to be encroached upon either."

"Yes."

"You people really do hate France and America."

He smiled faintly at that and shrugged. It seemed to be something close to a habit, lodged in the ancestral blood that ran through his veins.

"Accepting the Ten-Article Peace Agreement in its entirety is all but impossible."

"There's a way. The Tripartite Alliance just changes its signboard to a Quadruple Alliance."

"That would violate the principle of equity. The frogs and the Yankees would object as well."

"I was only floating the idea."

I'd only probed, clumsily, on the off chance—and it was, in fact, utter bullshit, not worth half a penny. There were two parties who would blow the whole thing up the moment Britain tried to join. A Quadruple Alliance, indeed.

France, the traditional rival, of course—and the White House as well. American hostility toward Britain, still burning from a relatively recent chapter of their own history, was at its peak.

If they'd just never sold arms to the Confederacy, it might have been worth a shot.

I began tapping the table with my index finger in a steady rhythm.

For now, the ten articles had been reduced to so much scrap paper. To Britain, which had offered itself as mediator, I would have to lay out at least some of our true intentions.

"The ten articles were, in truth, little more than something we threw out over drinks, whatever came to mind. An apology from an opium-addled Son of Heaven holed up in a pleasure house? What do we care about that? The conditions we actually want are Liaodong and Manchuria, and war ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠reparations."

These three were, for me, non-negotiable.

Liaodong and Manchuria had already become the Republic's political capital and its motto. The ancestral lands of our forebears had long since become a greater cause than even the great proposition of driving out a tyrant and reforming the nation upon the spirit of the Three Principles of the People.

However skillfully I had steered the political landscape through revolution and intrigue, however positive a reputation I had planted in every political camp—lose Liaodong and Manchuria in this negotiation, and it was plain as day that my position would be thrown into grave peril. In other words: even I—the icon of the revolution, the living proof of the Three Principles of the People—could not afford to lose the plains of Liaodong and Manchuria.

Having confirmed that resolve, Britain's agent asked:

"And Taiwan and Indochina?"

"Those are the spoils of the French Republic. They are not for us to raise. But if you consider me the final decision-maker in these talks, I will side with France."

As I drew the line still more firmly, he nodded with a look of admiration—as if he had just witnessed a textbook specimen of European diplomatic statecraft.

"You have honor, then."

Honor, my ass.

"Honor has nothing to do with it. It's simply the obvious thing. When you've gone through life and death together, and then you go after your friend's share as well—that's not a friend. That's a bastard who deserves to die."

"And yet I had been worried from the start. I had been told that Asian diplomacy was a stiff, tradition-bound affair."

"Then you're in luck. Your first experience is with us Koreans, who are rather like Europeans."

"I have been feeling that myself."

Having casually implanted the notion that Koreans and Europeans thought alike, I drew a line between us and the Japanese and the Qing as well.

Koreans, Japanese, and Chinese were not the same.

"But the Qing and Japan are different. Those people are natural enemies of each other, and yet they have the shameless gall to come begging. They don't even know the first principles of diplomacy. Give-and-take is what real diplomacy is—but in their eyes, you're either an enemy or a barbarian sworn to submit to them."

"Oh? To that degree?"

"The Japanese put on the mask of the Meiji Restoration and strain to imitate you Europeans, but at the root they remain a traditional Eastern state—a medieval political system with its conflicts papered over. And the Qing? They're cowards, bound to a symbolic Son of Heaven, unable to take a single step forward."

The Englishman, who had closed his eyes in thought at my words, soon spoke. Born in the homeland of Christian sensibility and constitutional government, he found the culture of the Far East alien.

"I see."

And so I injected it into him. The civilization of the Korean Peninsula and the civilization of the Far East were entirely different. We Koreans were, even in appearance, very much "similar" to Europeans—Mediterranean, or Caucasian—our physique distinct from our neighbors, and philosophically we "shared" a great deal: a rational civilizational group.

"But we are different. Europeans are astonished that we achieved the first republican revolution in the Far East—but we were never an absolute monarchy in which a sovereign wielded everything as he pleased. We were closer to a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠bureaucratic autocracy, founded on a civil service examination system of thorough state supervision, maintained for nearly five hundred years."

"That is a mysterious claim. A 'bureaucratic autocracy'…"

"More precisely, a bureaucratic state with an extreme emphasis on philosophy. A country even a monarch could not evade."

"Ah. Magna Carta."

He looked at me again, truly impressed.

Yes. That was the look I needed.

"Not quite to that degree. It is simply that, for our people, it has been passed down in the blood over thousands of years that a monarch, if he does wrong, is naturally dragged down. That there is no absolute being—that is the nature of our nation."

"Isn't that just dressing up a contrary streak?"

"Then how do you suppose a revolution happened? A revolution is what you do because you want to knock aside any clever bastard who ends up over your head."

I cackled, and he laughed with me.

In truth, it was not a mysterious claim so much as a half-fraud. There had been eras when the power of the ministers was strong, but there had never been a history in which royal authority was completely abolished. A monarch was a monarch, and a subject was a subject.

And yet, just as an interpretation that dragged the king down to the same scholar-official status as his bureaucrats had existed among the Westerner faction for three hundred years, so too, from the Confucian scholars' standpoint, had the existence of the monarch been a history of constant transformation depending on interpretation and gaze. Mencius had affirmed dynastic revolution, and though Mencius was not the mainstream of Joseon Neo-Confucianism, he was revered. And our circumstances were, frankly, far better than Japan's or the Qing's.

The Son of Heaven remained the Son of Heaven, and the Emperor remained the Emperor—locked for thousands of years in the shackles of the past, and locked into that medieval vision for the future as well. Compared to those neighboring quasi-democracies, stiff with that rigidity, the Korean Peninsula was the democratic republic with the greatest affinity to Europe. The extension of that line was the twenty-first-century Republic of Korea, which had twice driven out military dictatorship by itself. Set that against Communist China, where communist dictatorship was still playing to packed houses, and against Japan, where the remnants of aristocratic politics still lurked even in the twenty-first century, and the distinction was all the greater.

And so, with a confidence grounded in a truth that was not quite the truth, having declared it in my mind—Koreans are Europeans!—I spoke.

"In the fundamental political thought of us Koreans, a monarch is originally of the same status as an ordinary scholar-official. Thus Korea is the only civilized nation in the Far East to have advocated, from early on, an egalitarianism in which all people are equal in status—like the Christian spirit of equality in Europe, or like liberalism. More precisely, we possess the political thought most similar to that of Europeans."

The Englishman, wearing an expression of deep impression at my lengthy explanation, spoke. And well he might: in his world today, Korea's republican revolution and its victory in war were the truth.

"Ha, I am a layman in this field, so I find it difficult to follow—but one thing is certain. Our scholars and political philosophers will take a very deep interest in the Korean people."

"Then when you go back to Britain, talk it up in my place. If more Englishmen like yourself start spreading the word in society, a favorable wind will blow for Korea in making new friends as well."

"Very well."

Having readily promised to talk at length about us Koreans—still known as a mysterious nation, the Hermit Kingdom—he went on to his next question.

"How do you intend to manage the South China market and control of the Yellow ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Sea? France is likely to be greedy on this front."

"And that is the part you people worry about most. Don't. Taiwan will be under joint administration by the three powers, or else a self-governing territory. The Indochina Peninsula will be a protectorate. Turn it into a colony and you won't even recoup your stake—it's a godforsaken jungle. I'll persuade my friends to stop at that line."

That degree was appropriate. Push any further and claim it as our sphere, and Britain would likely intervene, no longer able to hold back.

And this was the correct answer.

"Your Excellency is a remarkably rational man."

He bowed his head again, as if once more in admiration, and I answered with an expression that said of course.

"Strip away reason and rationality, and I am a corpse."

"Excellent."

And so both sides had found their line. Between two parties that had not yet accumulated enough distrust—or enough trust—finding an appropriate point of compromise was close to a miracle.

The Englishman knew it as well as I did, this man who had visited Hanyang in secret today. Wiping the cold sweat from his brow, he said to me:

That was right. The man with whom I had been discussing the fate of the Far East all this time was the conqueror of South Africa, the diamond magnate—Cecil Rhodes.

This man of fortune seemed to regard me as possessing a businessman's temperament similar to his own, and he made his promise in an atmosphere of quiet familiarity.

"If you leave it to me, you will never regret it."

"'Strict' is a word that has never sounded so pleasing to my ear. Thank you for accepting the request to mediate."

"Not at all. I thank the Korean government, Your Excellency the Tongnyeong, and the member states of the Tripartite Alliance for allowing me to share this honor with my country and with Her Majesty the Queen."

"Good. Now, then…"

Having more or less obtained Britain's unofficial cooperation, I took one step further. Now it was time to earn a different kind of trust from Britain.

"Shall we negotiate our learned counsel's retainer?"

"I beg your pardon?"

As if to ask whether there was still more to be done, the Englishman's eyes went round, and his mustache gave a small twitch. I smiled at him.

"We Koreans don't nickel-and-dime. The employer has to have a generous hand—otherwise the man being put to work has no fire in him."

And at the same time, to make sure they would not even think of joining hands with the likes of Japan, or have any chance of becoming their backer. So that it would roll in his mouth like a piece of candy, I knew everything about Britain in this era. From what they lacked to where they were weak.

"Now then. Instead of stale politics, let's sketch out some interesting business."

After a friend, here was a chance to make another patron.