The Hanseong Recapture Operation
I shouldn’t carelessly bolster Bak Seung-hwan’s army right now. Strengthening imperial authority later would only cause headaches. The Sapodae must be the ones who liberate the Korean Peninsula and march south; that’s how Koreans will remember us. The Sapodae devours Gando, swallows Southern Manchuria, and liberates Korea itself. Koreans will have no choice but to drown in waves of nationalistic euphoria.
“Yeah. That makes sense too. Then let me ask you something.”
“Yes. Please speak.”
Since I already permitted the Sapodae to take the lead, I could afford to be merciful. Bak Seung-hwan had bowed first, after all. At the very least, we needed to cooperate when it came to saving the country.
“Then, what should we do now? Ok Jin-seo. Your contribution to annihilating the Japanese army is enormous, yet because of that very success, Hanseongbu is no longer safe. Offer your opinion.”
When someone asks for an opinion, the only proper response is to give one.
“It’s simple. We march south immediately and recapture Hanseongbu.”
The Manchurian expeditionary force has been completely wiped out. All that remains in Hanseongbu is Kuroki. Those bastards know they can’t possibly defeat our troops now. We march south and take back the capital.
“What if they threaten us using His Highness the Crown Prince?”
Threats won’t work. Killing the Empress, the Emperor, and then the Crown Prince to complete the triple regicide? I wondered how Japan would look in the eyes of the world.
“Even if the Japanese have gone this far, they probably won’t do it. The legations of every major power are already protecting His Highness the Crown Prince. They can’t afford to destroy everything they’ve painstakingly built through the Meiji Restoration.”
I didn’t know their exact circumstances, but one thing was certain—he wouldn’t die. No matter how desperate Japan had become, they couldn’t shatter the foundation they had spent decades constructing. Talk of honorable death across the Japanese archipelago? They would need an actual army to fight with first. Their Manchurian expeditionary force had been annihilated. They had lost control of the sea. Of course, if they tried something insane like mobilizing a hundred million people for honorable suicide, the situation might change, but Russia was probably sharpening its knives too. It wouldn’t be easy.
“But there is always the possibility of the unexpected.”
The unexpected. Right. Why wouldn’t I know that? The British Empire was probably debating whether to abandon Japan entirely or keep it alive just enough to devour its brain and turn it into a puppet. They would be running the calculations. For Japan, the latter option was the only realistic choice. And to make that happen, they would have no choice but to hand over Crown Prince Yi Cheok. While we were at it, we should eliminate Kuroki’s army as well.
“If they have any sense left, Britain will step forward to protect him. There will be opposition within Japan too. In fact, they’ll probably beg Britain to mediate.”
To be honest, at this point it would be cleaner to just kill the Crown Prince and flip the entire country over. Destroy the Joseon dynasty completely. Smash the rotten old system into dust. The choice was ours now. The only nuisance was pro-imperial bureaucrats like Bak Seung-hwan. If the Crown Prince actually died this time, would they leave me—the one who proposed the advance on Hanseong—alone? In that case, I might really have to overturn everything using the Sapodae.
“Look here, Shenyang Administrator.”
“Yes, Your Excellency the Commander-in-Chief.”
“It is admirable that you have achieved such military merit despite being a woman, but we must still consider the safety of His Highness the Crown Prince.”
Yes. That damn Crown Prince Yi Cheok. Bak Seung-hwan might become a problem later. He was far too loyal to the imperial faction. Sunjong was now even more incompetent than Gojong had been. Looking at the current situation, the entire court was filled with people trying to sell the country. I would have to root out every last one of them.
“Of course. That goes without saying.”
“Then, after we march south, what do you plan to do?”
“First, I understand that righteous armies have already risen up across the mainland. We will annihilate Kuroki Tamemoto’s First Army, which is currently being harassed by them.”
Kuroki Tamemoto’s forces wouldn’t be in good shape anyway. Naturally, they would have been fighting the righteous armies as well. They were probably in complete chaos.
“They might use Hanseong as a hostage and try something underhanded.”
“The possibility exists, but it is significantly low.”
It could go either way. The kind of thing some internet edgelord would say, but either outcome benefited us. Japan could choose further isolation in the international community, or they could display submission on their own. And the Sapodae would be leading the way. The picture was perfect.
“Why?”
“Tsushima. In the waters off Tsushima Island, Russia and the Japanese had a massive clash. As a result, every single Japanese ship was destroyed. In other words, their home islands are now in a state where the Russian army can land at any time.”
The Battle of Tsushima. The construction supervisor or whoever had said Russia won that naval battle. One of the reasons Britain was rushing to end the war was precisely because of Tsushima. They belittled the Japanese for losing despite deploying the latest rangefinders, calling them Oriental after all, yet they couldn’t afford to lose Japan entirely or Russia would become too powerful.
“So we lined up on the wrong side from the beginning.”
We hadn’t lined up wrong. Looking at Russia’s condition, if it hadn’t been for my substitute this time, they probably would have been pushed back.
“Russia was only using its Far Eastern forces while Japan staked its entire national fortune. If Russia had pulled together all its European strength, how could the Japanese possibly hold out? They couldn’t. That’s why the Japanese, knowing this, tried to seize control of our Korean Empire as a countermeasure.”
In reality, Japan had planned to quickly dispose of the Russian Far East and seek a separate peace.
“But the assassination of His Majesty the Emperor ruined everything.”
“Exactly.”
“What will you do with Kuroki Tamemoto’s army? Will you kill them too?”
Kuroki Tamemoto’s First Army. In practical terms, this was the last real Japanese force remaining. I doubted they could hold out much longer. Even if they controlled Hanseong, how long could they realistically last? At least, that was how I saw it.
“There must be at least tens of thousands. We should use them to fill our labor shortage. Make them do all the dirty, dangerous work.”
The few hundred survivors from Oyama Iwao’s army were already scheduled to be deployed in Manchuria. In the end, they would never return home; they would simply die there.
“Do we even have enough food to feed tens of thousands?”
“Why would we bother feeding them properly? Ah, of course we’ll give them something, but the bare minimum is enough.”
Just enough to keep them from starving to death. If not, we could always tell Japan to pay up if they wanted us to feed their prisoners. The military conference ended there.
While the troops were being reorganized, I met privately with Yi Beom-yun.
“So we are finally beginning the southward march.”
“This time, the Sapodae’s contributions have been enormous.”
“Indeed. We did most of the fighting. The mainland forces merely helped from the rear.”
Honestly, all the Korean Empire army had done was block the retreat routes. They were just warm bodies, nothing more. They had essentially just cheered from the sidelines.
As I had said before, this was a tremendous opportunity for us. Hanseong was occupied by the Japanese, and the original cabinet had collapsed. Of course there were still existing politicians, but they couldn’t possibly compete with the Sapodae, which had achieved such overwhelming merit. That was why I saw this as our moment.
“This is the opportunity, General.”
“What opportunity?”
What opportunity? He should have been able to figure it out. The Sapodae’s achievements pierced the heavens, and our fame across the Korean Peninsula would soon do the same. I was already being praised in France as Korea’s Joan of Arc, so it wasn’t impossible. Of course some people would find it unpleasant, but after the war, the scales of power would inevitably tilt toward Southern Manchuria.
“After this war, the people of the thirteen provinces will sing the Sapodae’s praises. They’ll call us the army that avenged the military, the saviors of the nation, and so on. And Kuroki Tamemoto would have tried to establish a pro-Japanese cabinet.”
Whether a pro-Japanese cabinet had actually been formed was uncertain, but at least the major ministers capable of forming a government had scattered across the thirteen provinces to rally the righteous armies. Kuroki Tamemoto would have tried to assemble even a moderately Japan-friendly administration.
“What exactly are you saying?”
“A power vacuum will emerge after the war.”
The current Korean Empire army was literally nothing but numbers. They had no real achievements and were far behind us in merit. A power vacuum. The Sapodae would fill that void.
“Are you telling me to become Choi Chung-heon?”
Choi Chung-heon? He was merely a powerful subject, but we would be different.
“Choi Chung-heon? No, it would be more like becoming Kim Yu-sin.”
Choi Chung-heon was just a warlord who seized power. What I was suggesting to Yi Beom-yun was on the level of Kim Yu-sin. After this war, the Korean Empire would no longer be able to exclude the Sapodae from the power structure. That much was obvious. To elevate an emperor who had betrayed Russia, they would have to claim they had been threatened by Britain and Japan. Bak Seung-hwan’s eighty-thousand-strong Korean Empire army had been unable to resist the great powers’ pressure even once. They had become Japanese lackeys and marched to war. In that entire process, only our Sapodae had offered a path to victory. The Sapodae’s name was already on the lips of foreign diplomats. We could not be left out.
“Hmph. I didn’t hear that.”
Yi Beom-yun frowned and turned his head away sharply.
Was I doing this only for myself? Wasn’t it mutually beneficial? Things had already progressed this far. There was no other choice.
“You must do it. If we want to remake this country, we need to completely overhaul the system. Scholars who only submit memorials saying ‘it cannot be done’ and a king with no vision for Korea’s future. Following them simply because he is the emperor? That doesn’t make sense. Do you know what I envy while slaughtering the Japanese? They achieved the Meiji Restoration.”
Wasn’t that because they had the opportunity to fix their country? But this nation, no matter where you looked or how hard you tried to fix it, was rotten to the core. Heungseon Daewongun had filled the treasury over ten years, only for a woman who barely deserved to be called empress to spend it all in a single year. She later invited Qing intervention, and even Heungseon Daewongun had pursued isolationist policies with his anti-foreign monuments. There had never been any room to truly reform the country.
“This is treason.”
“It is not treason. You are simply taking an empty seat, General. Since I will rescue His Highness the Crown Prince anyway, it will happen naturally rather than through rebellion.”
Treason required an actual act of betrayal. Had we committed any? No. On the contrary, we had saved a country on the brink of destruction.
“What if the Sapodae’s popularity isn’t enough? Your plan still requires the people to know we achieved these merits, doesn’t it?”
Of course. I wasn’t blindly arrogant. To be completely honest, although I hadn’t said it clearly to Bak Seung-hwan earlier, I intended to take the lead in rescuing Crown Prince Yi Cheok even if I had to do it alone.
“That’s why we also plan to recapture His Highness the Crown Prince.”
“His Highness?”
“Who do you think I am? I entered Southern Manchuria, massacred the Qing army in Shenyang, and slaughtered the Japanese forces as well. In the entire process, I didn’t suffer a single wound.”
In short, if it was just me, I could handle Hanseong. Once I rescued the Crown Prince and resolved the hostage situation, it would be over. Recapturing Hanseong would also give us the upper hand in armistice negotiations.
“Still, attacking from the outside is an entirely different matter.”
“How would the foreign legations know about the assassination of His Majesty the Emperor?”
“You don’t mean…”
Yes. That was exactly what I meant. I had told them everything. So there was no need to worry.
“After sending the ministers of each department to various regions, I infiltrated Hanseong and spread the news to every foreign legation I could find.”
Like housewives gossiping in an apartment complex every morning.
“And you’re proud of that?”
“Britain’s movements were almost entirely thanks to that, I believe.”
No matter how powerful they were, killing the emperor of another country was an enormous blunder. They had already killed the queen and then killed again. This time they had even done it while supposedly being allies. It had become our opportunity.
“So you plan to do the same this time?”
“The Japanese will probably try to block every route to prevent us from attacking. They’ll close all the gates, but if it’s just me, slipping through is simple.”
“And then you will rescue His Highness the Crown Prince. That’s what you’re saying.”
I would find that Crown Prince myself.
“I will secure His Highness the Crown Prince and send him directly to the French legation.”
I had already sent him to Russia for refuge once. Sending him to France wouldn’t make any difference. Once the Crown Prince was handed over to the legation, we could immediately storm Hanseong. Only then would the diplomats of every country realize that Korea had won this war.