Making Them Squirm (1)

It had been a truly unexpected chance to glimpse exactly what the Japanese thought of our Republic. Unfortunately, overhearing that little exchange — gossip in all but name — left me in the foulest mood of my life.

These bastards...!

If they'd been dispatched as special envoys, the least they could have done was keep their heads down and stay out of trouble. Instead they sat around with nothing better to do than bend the minister's ear — and this was the tripe they came up with?

They hoped the war would drag on?

Korea's modernization was undesirable?

If we were going to draw the sword anyway, we ought to be aiming at Liaodong or Manchuria — but the Koreans, even with a golden opportunity dropped in their laps, were too gutless to seize it?

Have you people lost your minds?

I swallowed the rage that came boiling up from my dantian and running hot through every vein, and kept nothing more than a look of displeasure on my face. Open my mouth in a fit of temper and I would, just as those two had so helpfully observed, squander a heaven-sent opportunity.

The plan formed at once.

Fine. Once we've finished with the Qing, I'll let you people have a proper dance with the sword yourselves.

In any event, I had made a habit of dropping by the Japanese legation whenever I had a spare hour, on the pretext of seeing Envoy Yoshimoto or Lieutenant Reizo, just to make sure Japan wasn't getting up to anything stupid. This, however, had been a thoroughly unpleasant visit.

Mutsu Munemitsu I had known about from the start — a thoroughgoing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠imperialist, famous enough as a champion of Seikanron to be called Ito Hirobumi's own confidant. But Envoy Yoshimoto — so you were a Japanese through and through as well, were you?

"Tsk."

Meanwhile, Yoshimoto wore the look of a man who had no idea what to do with himself, and Mutsu's face was a picture of dismay. Neither of them had imagined I would come bursting into the legation.

Leaving Yoshimoto where he stood, I turned on Mutsu first, and I did not bother to keep the menace out of my bearing.

"Envoy Mutsu."

"!"

I let the words drip, pitching my voice so that every ounce of my displeasure would carry.

"Well now. Even a lack of shame ought to have its limits. Why are you Japanese so insufferably eager to meddle in another country's affairs? This is truly offensive!"

I scowled and raised my voice, and a violent tremor ran through Mutsu Munemitsu's pupils. I might have looked like nothing more than an eleven-year-old boy, but Yoshimoto had grasped what I actually was — the head of a nation, and not just any nation: the Tongnyeong of the very Korea they had been running down behind my back. The realization that I was furious struck him with something close to horror.

That he had, without quite meaning to, fallen in with Mutsu's mood and joined in the slander was one thing. That I had caught them at it was quite another, and the shock of it ran right through him.

Grasping the situation at last, Yoshimoto lunged to catch me.

"Your Excellency, what this humble one just said ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was not actually—"

"I had resolved to treat you as friends and deal with you in good faith. And this is how you stab me in the back?"

"Your Excellency!"

"I don't want to hear it!"

At my violent reaction, Mutsu and Yoshimoto finally understood that they had committed an unmistakable breach of courtesy. Both of them shot to their feet at once, waving their hands and tumbling over themselves to apologize.

"W-wait, Your Excellency! I can explain everything!"

"Th-this is a misunderstanding!"

"A misunderstanding? Hardly! Fine — go ahead and have the war you wanted. Enjoy it!"

"Aigoo!"

I roared at them once more, and even as they tried to cling to me the two of them clammed up where they stood. Summer was nearly upon us, yet a cutting chill hung in the legation office as if the cold itself had taken up residence.

I let the silence do the work, fixing both of them with a look that left no doubt I was angry, and then I spoke, slowly, and with a warning in every word.

"Ah — ah...!"

"No! Please wait, Your Excellency, Your Excellency!"

"Do not follow me. We're done for today."

With that last warning still dripping frost, I turned on my heel and headed for the corridor. Mutsu, recovering his wits by a thread, came scrambling after me, calling my name in a desperate voice. It did him no good.

There could have been only one thought circling in his head. The Tongnyeong of Korea had gone out of his way to grant an audience to Japan's special envoy — and it had ended in a diplomatic catastrophe of this magnitude!

If word of this reached the home government, or found its way to the other diplomats, or worse, to the newspapers, and from there to the people of Japan itself, Mutsu and Yoshimoto were finished. Dismissed, recalled, it hardly mattered. Both of them.

As I started down the stairs, Mutsu and Yoshimoto came pounding after me, shouting themselves hoarse.

"Y-Your Excellency! Your Excellency!"

"Please wait!"

"Ahem! I told you not to follow me! I am leaving!"

I shoved him off with a look of iron, and the man who had frozen in place let out a cry that was very nearly a death shriek.

"I—I've done wrong!"

At Mutsu's mixed, anguished shout, I brought my pitiless steps to a halt. The moment I stopped, he started as if struck and came rushing up behind me.

That's it. That's how you do it.

And this was the picture I had wanted.

One by one, drawn by the unexpected commotion, people began spilling into the corridor. There I stood, and there were Mutsu and Yoshimoto, frantic and apologizing — a tableau laid out for every legation clerk and every hanger-on who happened to be passing through.

Good. The stage is set.

Once I was sure a crowd had gathered, I turned all the way around. I kept my face under tight control, swallowing my anger by force, and in that twisted expression I found Mutsu with his head already bowed in dismay.

Whether he was genuinely repentant or merely hanging his head from shame, I could not tell. What I could tell was that the initiative had tilted, quite firmly, in my direction.

I said nothing. I simply stared him down, and at last he forced himself to speak again — as deferentially as he could manage, a far cry from a few minutes ago.

"This humble one misspoke, Your Excellency. I am truly sorry."

"..."

I studied his face for a moment. His pride had clearly taken a beating, but there was also, flickering underneath, a resolve to endure whatever came next.

Push any harder and it'll backfire. There's nothing more to squeeze out of a bit of backroom gossip anyway. Time to show a little clemency.

Beyond the bowing Mutsu I could see Envoy Yoshimoto as well, his face flushed scarlet. I judged the moment ripe, and answered in a voice far milder than before.

"That's enough. Truly, it seems today is simply an unlucky day."

"I am truly sor—"

Mutsu looked ready to fold himself in half and go all the way to the floor. I stopped him with a hand.

"Say 'I'm sorry' one more time and I really will never see you again, Envoy Mutsu. Your apology has been received. Next time, let us have a more constructive conversation, as something closer to friends."

"..."

"Do you understand me?"

"...Thank you, Your Excellency, for overlooking today's discourtesy."

"Good."

I nodded, and only then did Mutsu swallow a breath of relief. Having declared the matter closed and consigned it to silence, I turned a narrowed eye on Yoshimoto, who had come trailing after, and added a word.

"This affair is a disappointment, Envoy Yoshimoto."

"I—I have no face left to show, Your Excellency."

"I had thought of you as a friend."

"..."

Yoshimoto flinched as if the remark had found a nerve.

"There is nothing I can sincerely offer in excuse for today's discourtesy. I am sorry, Your Excellency."

He came hurrying up beside Mutsu and bent at the waist in unison. I leaned in over the top of his bowed head and let the words fall, lightly.

"Still, we have our history together, so I will bury today's affair in my heart. If we are truly friends, I trust you will prepare an apology that comes from the heart."

"Ah!"

You know what I mean, don't you? The friendship dues. Hand them over.

He had lived in Korea long enough to take my meaning without a single wasted word.

"Yes, Your Excellency! I am truly sorry for today!"

His cooperative attitude was satisfying enough that I let the unpleasant look drop from my face.

"Then I shall look forward to that."

"Yes!"

And so, seen off by Mutsu, Envoy Yoshimoto, and the entire staff of the legation, I brought the day's business to a close.

My leaving, however, was not the end of it. From this moment on they would have to prepare a gesture of "goodwill" — something that would satisfy me without costing them too much of their dignity or their face.

Stew on that for a while.

Daring to slander a Korean behind his back. It was my petty little revenge.

I shook off the unpleasant memory, took a rickshaw, and arrived at the old military arsenal — whose nameplate had since been swapped for the Bureau of Ordnance, now an organ of the War Ministry. Waiting there were faces I was glad to see.

"It has been far too long! Have you all been well?"

"Your Excellency!"

"Your Excellency."

I came into the courtyard with my hands clasped behind my back in a deliberate little-old-man pose, and two men came hurrying toward me with genuine pleasure.

"Have you been in good health?"

"Haha. I'm perfectly fine, as you can see."

One was Lee Ha-young, who managed Daehan Food and Daehan Sugar. The other was Yi Yong-ik, who mediated between the Songsang and Mansang merchant houses and had lately been put in charge of the real estate and steamships confiscated from Qing traders.

I led the two of them, who had been waiting, into the Bureau offices. Inside, a massive wooden crate stood conspicuously to one side, draped in coarse cloth.

"Ah!?"

I went to it at once, pulled the cloth away, and looked inside — and then I turned on the two of them in genuine surprise.

"You've already made it!? I wasn't expecting this at all!"

"Haha."

"Director Lee's trips back and forth to Dongnae played a large part."

Yi Yong-ik, smiling for the first time in a good while, praised Lee Ha-young, who rubbed the back of his neck with a sheepish look. I heaved the crude, oversized thing out of the crate with some difficulty, and Lee Ha-young stepped in at once to help me hold it up as he explained.

"You mentioned the Martini-Henry rifle before, did you not? I turned Dongnae and the whole Busan waterfront upside down asking around, and I heard Nagasaki was sitting on a mountain of them they couldn't even sell — leftover stock. I crossed over at once and picked them up without any trouble."

"Oh!"

"Roughly five hundred pieces. And we secured more than enough compatible cartridge ammunition as well."

Just as Lee Ha-young described, it was a single-shot breechloader — a Martini-Henry rifle. But that was not all. The thing I had pulled out with a shout of delight had, crucially, a very different muzzle.

I turned the rifle this way and that in Lee Ha-young's supporting hands and asked,

"Never mind the rifle itself — how did you attach this muzzle? I was told it would be difficult. Ah, that's right! Did you get the grenades!?"

"Ah, that."

A bizarre rifle whose muzzle gaped wide enough to swallow a child's forearm. That's right — the sharper among you will already have figured it out. This was a grenade launcher. And a thoroughly primitive one at that.

"Then for now, would you take ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the grenade tins out as well? They're in the crate."

"Ah, here they are."

Still holding Henry's early grenade launcher, Lee Ha-young nodded to Yi Yong-ik, had him pull something that looked like a tin can from the back of the crate, and went on.

"We took the blueprints Your Excellency drew up and put the work out to craftsmen from both our country and Japan, but the solution we found was right here at the arsenal in Hanseong. The original ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠muzzle had to be stripped off entirely and a new one fabricated and fitted at the action, so we needed cutting tools and the machines to go with them."

"Oho?"

"We stamped out a barrel thicker than the original and attached it to the remaining receiver. The mechanism is simple enough."

He ran a hand along the joint between the much thicker barrel and the body of the rifle to show me, then lifted what was unmistakably an American tin can and went on.

"The grenades this thing needs were even easier to make. We recycled tin cans."

"Recycled?"

I echoed him, and Yi Yong-ik answered.

"The moment word got out that we were going to war with the Qing, French and American traders and military contractors came pouring in with every leftover tin of canned food they had and crossed over to Gunsan. The farmers in the southern provinces have been making a fuss about getting to eat all sorts of strange things, thanks to Your Excellency."

"We had those consumed at the poor-relief shelters Your Excellency established in the capital, collected only the opened tins, and sent them on to the Bureau. Packing them with iron shot and filling them with powder is simple work, is it not?"

The firing method they described was simpler still. First a blank cartridge was loaded into the chamber, then the grenade was seated in a muzzle widened enough to take a tin can; the piece was braced against the shoulder and fired at the target.

"Simple, isn't it?"

"Ohh."

I listened to the end of their explanation, then looked down at the grenade launcher in a kind of rapture, feeling the solid weight of it in my hands. The thick, blackened barrel gleamed.

As it turns out, we solved this before we even solved the artillery problem.

It was a trump card I had ordered from the Bureau precisely because General Dye, Lieutenant Colonel Ninsted, and any number of other foreign officers had been going around insisting that our Republican army would surely lose if it ever faced the Beiyang Army in the field.

Picture it. The Beiyang Army and our Republican forces would, in the end, meet on open ground in a pitched battle and do everything in their power to break each other's lines. And if, into those densely packed ranks of line infantry, we started lobbing grenades from our side?

Wailing would erupt from every direction! Heh heh.

The marriage of leftover tin cans and a Martini-Henry rifle cut in half! Just imagining the shock and terror about to be visited upon the Beiyang Army sent a shiver through my whole body.

And then, out of nowhere, a memory slammed into me.

"Ah?"

Tin cans?

Those were made of tin, weren't they?

"Lead poisoning...!"

A short while later, the staff of the Bureau of Ordnance were treated to the sight of His Excellency the Tongnyeong flying into a rage, screaming at them to recall every last American tin can circulating among the civilian population. Immediately.