Economic Animals

Ah, these clever little Japanese bastards. Precious as gold, every last one of them.

They never fail to live up to my expectations.

"The Land Value Certificates are the foundation of this Republic's land reform — a promise of land to the tiller made to our people. Did you really think I'd sit still and let you invasive species throw our economy into chaos?"

"Ahaha…"

"Don't try to laugh this off."

"My apologies, Your Excellency."

I drove the point home with a sting — there's no place setting for you at this table — and Minister Hanabusa Yoshimoto laughed that awkward little laugh of his.

Envoy Mutsu Munemitsu, still seated beside him, had not caught on. But the Ministry of Finance already had the picture: some ten Japanese "tourists" were holding unidentified Land Value Certificates, bought and sold under the table. In other words, Minister Hanabusa had told his close friends to snap up the certificates before he ever breathed a word of the plan to Envoy Mutsu.

"And besides, you're foreigners. The Foreigner Real Estate Transaction Act that's about to be enacted will shut all of this down. Land is real estate."

"Wh-what!?"

"Th-then what becomes of our nationals' settlements in Incheon and Busan?"

"Those stay as they are. However much they may have been a slice of the previous dynasty's tyranny, this Republic emphasizes equality — which means we recognize individual freedom and rights as well. Private property is sacred. No one can deny that."

"Whew, of course! However far a state may go, seizing a man's private property is a bit…"

The two of them exhaled in relief when I confirmed that foreign settlements transacted before the founding of the new government would be exempt from regulation. But the regret set in almost immediately. The golden chance to get a piece of Manchuria and Liaodong through the Land Value Certificates had just slipped through their fingers, and they looked at me with the lingering hunger of men who could not quite let it go.

"B-but from the rumors one hears, it is truly heartening to see the Korean people steeling themselves for this coming decisive battle. One might say that subjects who find a bold, decisive leader — rather than cowering under a cowardly, selfish tyrant — show something greater still?"

"Indeed, Your Excellency. When Your Excellency, the cabinet ministers, and the army's generals are united in national purpose and leading the people — what is Qing, that opium-addled wreck, fair on the outside and rotten within?"

Minister Hanabusa piled on the ornament and the regime-worship, and Envoy Mutsu echoed him from the side, watching my face. Watching that pathetic little performance, I was so afraid a snort of laughter would escape that I covered my mouth before I answered.

"Spare me the nonsense. The Land Value Certificates have no legal effect for foreigners, and payment restrictions besides. Sell them back. Don't come crying later that you were swindled."

"Y-yes…"

"Then, as to the matter that brought us here today…?"

Envoy Mutsu put the real business on the table while Hanabusa, half in tears, gathered up the Land Value Certificate copies he had already stockpiled. The flattery had vanished as if it had never been. Mutsu's face had settled again — stubborn, steely, the eyes gone flat and cold.

There it was. The true nature of Japanese imperialists. Sweet words on the surface, and the instant a gap appeared, a thrust without a shred of hesitation. The classic honeyed tongue and hidden dagger.

And I —

I would become a fisher of men.

I intended to pull off the greatest swindle Japan had ever seen.

The truth was, I was the one who had sold off the Land Value Certificates through the land reform in the first place. I was the one who had ordered the Ministry of Finance — over the opposition of every last official in the building — to slip the crucial phrase Manchurian and Gando development into the terms, as quietly as a snake going over a wall. And I was the one who had quietly arranged for those certificates to find their way into Japanese hands.

Why?

Because this was the most important thing in fishing: the float.

"Why do you take such extraordinary interest in the Land Value Certificates? Isn't it that phrase — Manchurian Development?"

"Khh— cough!"

"You… knew?"

"Do I look like an idiot? Of course I knew."

"Hahaha…"

Hanabusa laughed with a strained face; Mutsu's went stiff. I propped my chin on my hand and looked at the two of them.

"Let's be frank. Until just a few years ago, you people were going on about Seikanron this, continental expansion that, scheming about how to fleece us."

"Good heavens, what a dreadful thing to say! We never even dreamed of such—"

The Conquer Korea Theory, coming out of a Korean's mouth, sent Minister Hanabusa leaping to his feet in horror. He would insist to anyone who asked that he was no Korea-phile, but he had lived a long time in Hanseong and spread his roots wide, and he was reasonably well-regarded. That, too, was a butterfly effect: in the aftermath of the altered Imo Military Revolt, Japan had lost most of its pretexts for intervening on the peninsula.

Unlike Hanabusa, however, there was one man prepared to admit, quite calmly, that the Japanese had their eyes on Korea. That was Special Envoy Mutsu.

"Yes. That's correct, Your Excellency."

"A-Ambassador!"

Hanabusa raised his voice in spite of himself, startled. I smiled at the pair of them.

"Ha. I like a man who's honest and unashamed."

"I was discourteous last time. So if you ask me this time, I ought to answer honestly."

"And shameless, too."

I gave that shameless face a round of applause and a little bow, then folded my arms. We both had ample reason and ample appetite to stab each other in the back. Time to get to the point.

"Let's think. Why is an ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠island nation like Japan so abnormally interested in our continental affairs?"

"Is it so strange to take an interest in a neighbor's affairs?"

"We're not exactly on terms where we exchange morning greetings, are we?"

"That's true enough."

In that edged exchange, the only one fidgeting was Minister Hanabusa. The moment I turned sharp, Mutsu himself stopped treating me as anything more than the opposing head of state.

The nerve.

But you don't reel in the rod just because the fish is thrashing and splashing at the surface. You just need to take the hook, little carp.

"Why struggle so hard to leave the islands? Why tighten your belts hunting for new territory?"

"…"

"What else? You're short on rice. You drove every country boy into the cities and stuffed them into factories in the name of modernization — is rice going to sprout from the ground, or fall out of the sky?"

"Your words go too far."

"Don't call it the growing pains of industrialization. From where I sit, it looks like you took a shortcut, tumbled off a cliff, and now you're taking it out on the neighbors."

"Hah."

"You should've cracked the landlords' skulls along with the paupers' when the rice riots broke out. Ah — but the landlords are all kazoku, aren't they?"

At that sharp little analysis Mutsu's face folded in on itself. His brows drew down, then up again, bleeding discomfort. Having his country's dirty laundry recited back to him, item by item, was clearly more than he could stomach. Hanabusa, for his part, tried with an awkward expression to mediate between us. It did no good.

All right. Around here.

I bluffed.

"How did I know? I sent people, of course. We may not match the agents you Japanese have dispatched to this country over the last ten years, but our new government does its job. If you were thinking of the incompetent tyrant of the previous dynasty, you miscalculated."

"That's the sort of thing that puts a crack in the friendship between allied nations."

"Does your country bribe allied officials to set up smuggling routes and petition officers for munitions contracts? Count yourself lucky you haven't been dragged in by the Public Security Committee. For your information, those people consider it their professional calling to wreck men — Korean or foreign, they don't care which."

"Heh heh."

A lie, of course — but chilling enough even as words. Envoy Mutsu forced a hollow laugh, and Minister Hanabusa, his face gone ashen, gently set down the Land Value Certificates still in his hands.

That's enough of that.

I gave a light clap, let the iron out of my voice, and spoke more gently.

"That's enough of the war of nerves. Let's talk real business."

"…"

"Your government has a headache over the rice shortage. That's why you spared no expense buying rice from our three southern provinces."

"That's so."

"More precisely, Qing rice and Japanese rice weren't all that different in price, were they?"

Hanabusa started and cried out.

"How did you know that! The grain shipped from Kobe is barely any different—"

"It isn't difficult. Freight, marine insurance — and southern Qing port cities have traditionally high prices."

"Your insight is truly deep."

"You're too kind."

In fact, rice loaded at Guangzhou and unloaded at Kobe did not differ much in price. One and a half times, at most. Rice loaded at Busan and Gunsan, on the other hand, flowing no farther than nearby Nagasaki, turned a threefold profit. So Mitsui & Co. and every Japanese trading house that owned a steamer were falling over each other to buy Korean rice and dump it on the home market. No management philosophy required, no factories, no engineers. Buy rice in Korea, sell it at home, and you were done. Tutorial-level difficulty from the Age of Discovery, in so many words.

"According to reports from the Incheon Customs House and the Superintendency, rice exported over the past six months amounts to about three hundred and sixty thousand seok. Quite a lot."

"It is also the smallest import volume in nearly ten years since the ports opened."

"That's because Qing muscled in during the Imo year and levied customs duties, isn't it? Those customs duties — rather sweet, I must say."

Customs duties. For a man who had been investigating every ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠corner of Korea-Japan trade, they had come as a rather fresh shock. The goods flowing in from trade with Japan through the Incheon Customs House alone amounted to a full year's budget for the Ministry of Finance.

Thank goodness Möllendorff turned out to be a more honest fellow than I expected.

A German mercenary, arranged by Qing and installed by Gojong — branded as a member of the pro-Qing faction and even given a light investigation by the Public Security Committee. Fortunately, Möllendorff had remained loyal to the employer who paid his salary. Instead of slacking off, he had not begrudged serving our new government, which had offered incentives rare even in the East, with the devotion of a dog and a horse.

"Japan imported a total of one million two hundred thousand seok of our rice last year. And I hear the volume has been creeping up year after year."

"On average, it probably hovers just under a million seok."

"Same difference."

I tossed the crude statistical report compiled by the Incheon Superintendency and the Ministry of Finance onto the table as if I were doing them a favor, and went on.

"From now on, Japanese will not be permitted to purchase rice in the settlements."

"Y-Your Excellency!"

"That's a treaty violation…!"

The bomb declaration drew an instant, horrified reaction. Leaving Mutsu behind — his face gone red, on the verge of exploding — I put the question first to the fidgeting Minister Hanabusa.

"So what can you do about it?"

"Pardon…?"

"If I block the rice trade, what can you people do?"

"Uh…"

That's right. I blocked the rice trade. And what are you going to do about it? What can you do, you Japanese bastards?

At my question the minister became a man with a mouthful of honey, repeating "uh, uh" like an idiot. Then he muttered something that sounded a great deal like yeah, I'm an idiot, deflated, and crumpled into the corner.

I turned to Envoy Mutsu beside him, who was swallowing his rage with every ounce of self-control, and went on.

"What — going to team up with Qing and invade? If you're that angry."

"…"

"Ah, of course rational Japanese wouldn't do that. Our allies would be only too happy to carve you up into four pieces like a mackerel."

You know we're running with the big brothers this time, right? Behave yourself — unless you want to go down together.

"We're not scary, but the United States and France are?"

"Nngh…!"

I drove the wedge in with a sneer, and Mutsu flared.

"This is blatant outrage!"

"Outrage was you people bombarding Ganghwa Island with your obsolete sloops and forcing an unequal treaty."

"…"

"That's right. We did that…"

Hanabusa, self-reproachful.

"That's right. There's nothing you can do, is there?"

Mutsu Munemitsu, for the record, was barely forty. A full decade before his abilities would ripen, before he would make his name in the Imperial Diet and play a central role in the Eulmi Incident. He had only just returned to Asia from his studies in Europe; he was still dark on the surrounding situation, and he had not yet had the time to hone his diplomacy in concert with Ito Hirobumi.

"…"

"Cat got your tongue?"

Which was why he had clamped his mouth shut — to keep from being dragged any further into my pace and making another mistake.

Now then. A word on the gap.

How to gaslight a man.

First: provocation and probing.

Second: incite anger, and cultivate guilt.

And the third—

"That said, I can hardly sit by and let innocent Japanese people starve to death. Not when I myself proclaimed the Three Principles of the People."

"…?"

"Have you actually gone mad?"

Hanabusa lifted the head he had buried, his face a blank of bewilderment. Envoy Mutsu stared at me as if he were looking at a genuine lunatic, his expression gone distinctly strange.

Come now. The look of utter revulsion was a bit much.

"Of course, any further free purchase of rice is prohibited. Understand that. Even if you don't, listen. The rice-purchase ban is an essential measure for the civilian economic stability and the price stability our government advocates."

"Then what does it matter? Banning rice purchases is the same either way."

"C-couldn't we perhaps expand the authority of the grain export ban instead?"

I shook my head firmly at Hanabusa's offered compromise, and put a different solution on the table.

"Instead, I intend to sell rice futures trading rights."

"T-trading rights, you say?"

"Rice futures?"

Bewildered — and, in place of the anger and resentment of a moment before, drawn in spite of themselves by a new way out — the two of them watched as I held out the copies of the Rice Futures Certificates I had prepared in advance.

"They're vouchers bundling one seok of white rice together with barley, beans, sorghum, and various other ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠grains, in units of one seok each."

"This… isn't this a futures contract? Regular settlement trading?"

"Sharp as ever."

The man who saw the true value of the certificates at a glance was none other than Envoy Mutsu. Apparently his European studies had not been for show.

"Good heavens. To see a thing like this, here…"

The anger of a moment before had gone somewhere else entirely. He handled the certificate copies with a dazed expression, like a man who had just seen a ghost.

"…Has the price stabilized yet?"

"It'll have to follow market rates."

"Hanseong?"

"No. Busan and Gunsan. Aligning with Osaka prices is the core of the plan — and that's for you people to work at."

"Ugh."

Mutsu's anger cooled fast enough that I could watch it happen with my own eyes. A cold-blooded diplomat to the bone, he saw through it: every provocation I had spouted had been a feint. He returned to a respectful manner and opened his mouth.

"But Korea's communications are poor. There could be gaps in the regular quotes between here and Osaka."

"Don't worry about that. Americans have already entered the country and established telegraph offices in Hanseong, Incheon, Gunsan, and Busan. Construction of the thermal power plants to support them is underway as well."

"The submarine cables — Britain, I assume?"

"Those I intend to put to open bid between the United States and France. After all, those two are Korea's allies. They deserve priority."

"Understood."

Mutsu nodded at the plan, having already judged that Japan itself did not yet have the capacity to lay submarine cables. Which brought him to the question he most wanted answered.

"What about the trading method and structure?"

"Japanese may participate in named trading directly at the rice futures exchanges established in Gunsan, Busan, and Incheon. However, I will not tolerate private transactions outside our territory."

"Is over-the-counter trading illegal?"

"For foreigners. Of course, workarounds exist, plain as day. Your Japanese entrepreneurs can change their family registers to Korean — or exist as the presidents of companies where two-thirds of the workforce are Korean."

"So only the trading houses ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that have dispatched resident agents to the settlements can participate."

"If that's all I ask, I think I'm treating quite generously those Japanese who promised to seize the market and maintain good relations with us."

"Conversely, our companies that violate Korean government policy and law will be banned from trading and expelled the moment you find a pretext."

"Naturally."

Put simply, it was the same structure as the international futures market of that twenty-first-century pseudo-communist state, the People's Republic of China.

Mutsu's point about the urgent need for reliable telegraph lines had its merits. We could arbitrarily adjust the quotes and bankrupt Japanese entrepreneurs and investors.

And I half intended to.

If our farmers' rice prices crashed too far, the government would step in to purchase — or else.

Agricultural Cooperatives! Every grain produced in this country, whether by tenant or landlord, funneled through the Comintern—. No. Through the Agricultural Cooperatives.

Simply establishing agricultural cooperatives under the Dongmaenghoe and regulating nationwide grain production was a perfectly decent method. So long as no proper agribusiness existed in this land, individual farmers and village-level associations could not stand against Japanese investors and moneylenders on their own.

Instead, the state steps in and protects the farmers' interests. And while we're at it, we use food as a weapon and put a leash on the Japanese.

Unfair, for the state to step into a market of individuals and institutions?

Please. A trading structure hedged about with restrictions and loopholes is one thing — but a trade that earns a threefold profit just by picking something up and setting it down somewhere else is more unfair by far.

At the same time, the opening of the rice futures exchange would be a highly effective piece of statecraft: it would reduce Japan to economic animals.

Japan at present was divided into three great camps: the zaibatsu — the conglomerates that would rise into the political sphere on the back of the Meiji Constitution — the army, and the navy.

And until the Manchurian Incident, it is the zaibatsu and the kazoku who dominate Japanese public opinion.

A considerable number of those zaibatsu would hitch themselves to the Korean rice futures exchange, a rare money-spinner in Asia. It was close, and investing in it was easier than they would expect.

What's more—

They'll place enormous future value on a Korea that will reclaim and cultivate the vast virgin lands stretching from Liaodong through Manchuria to Gando.

And we would propagandize exactly that.

Counting the chickens before they'd hatched?

France, Korea, and the United States had already jointly declared Qing's defeat. The news that Manchuria would soon be Korean land was a foregone conclusion.

"Ah. And one more thing."

I made a point of impressing it on Hanabusa and Mutsu, who had still not quite recovered their wits.

"The advance deposit must be paid in three days before the trading date."

"Wh-where, exactly?"

"Where else? Our Bank of Korea, which is about to open."

You people put up money too.