Beating the Scholars (2)
I was not dead like Gojong, and in fact I had essentially secured the territory of the Gando region during this era of the current emperor. That was what Bezobrazov had left behind.
“Although the present cabinet led the reforms, it was Your Majesty who boldly approved them. It is only right that the credit should fall this way.”
“Is that how it works?”
“Think about it carefully. When King Gongmin of the previous dynasty drove out the Yuan, did he do it by personally leading the campaign? No. It was his generals—General Choi Young and countless others. Yet all the merit flowed intact into the monarch’s achievements. Your Majesty commanded Ok Jin-seo, Administrator of Manchuria, and thereby accomplished modernization. You have raised the Korean Empire to the ranks of the great powers. Future historians will praise you in exactly those terms.”
“I see!”
“I will open the path to these great achievements. Your Majesty need only walk the flower-strewn road I prepare. How does that sound?”
“Truly… can I become the greatest emperor since Taejo?”
Taejo? Yi Seong-gye? The famous Goryeo general who staged a dynastic revolution and then desperately begged Zhu Yuanzhang for enfeoffment as king? There was no comparing the two. At least while Yi Cheok still listened to me, I intended to keep the imperial family around. During that time I would crush Japan, seize all of Manchuria from Russia, and force the Qing to have no choice but to acknowledge it.
“Since Taejo, you say? Even Taejo had to receive investiture from the Ming as Administrator of Goryeo. But Your Majesty is different. In Your Majesty’s reign, I shall avenge the humiliation of the Three Expeditions to Joseon and, further, repay the grudge of the Imjin War inflicted by those Japanese wretches. That is what I mean. And all those achievements…”
I lifted my gaze from the snow that had been falling until a moment earlier and looked at Yi Cheok. Then, kneeling on one knee, I made a gesture as if scooping the very concept of “achievement” from the air with both hands and offering it to him.
“Will become my achievements!”
“Exactly.”
All of it is yours.
He feared me, yet precisely because of that fear he understood my power clearly. Yi Cheok knew me far better than that fool Lady Eom. After I had staged that blood-soaked spectacle right before his eyes, how could he not?
“Hearing it put that way, it truly makes sense. I shall trust only the Minister of Foreign Affairs—no, only the Administrator of Manchuria. Please make me the greatest monarch since Dangun.”
Aigoo. What an obedient child. Our little golden one. Yes. As long as you listen well, I will let you live comfortably until the moment before your death. Of course, you will have to relinquish the throne.
Having obtained even the emperor’s formal decree, nothing could stand in my way. The land reform bill passed through the cabinet like a knife through butter; no one opposed it. Anyone who might have done so had already been executed for their ties to the Iljinhye. The rest had either fled or died at Japanese hands during the war.
The Enlightenment faction? With the muzzles of the Manchurian army’s rifles staring them in the face, what could they possibly do?
“Still… isn’t this rather radical?” Yi Beom-yun sounded deeply worried.
Yes, it was radical. Radical measures inevitably produce opposition. It would be like Kim Ok-gyun’s three-day reign. But Kim Ok-gyun had been so weak he had to beg Japan for help. We were different. Public sentiment was on our side. We possessed a solid base in Manchuria, the northern forces based there, and we already controlled the entire officer corps of the Korean Empire army.
In such a situation, what more could they do?
“You have already decided to support me, General. Then I must show merit equal to that trust. We have already wasted far too much time since the Tripartite War ended.”
It was time to begin the reforms. Getting stalled here would be troublesome.
“Damn it all. Even so, if it’s this radical, what will the imperial family say?”
The imperial family? Lady Eom? Our golden child would simply bury his head if I danced the sword a little in front of him. There would be no problem for the time being. Besides, had Kim Ok-gyun ever shown Japanese or Qing troops having their throats slit right before his eyes? No. On the other hand, I had drenched myself in blood and personally cracked Japanese skulls in front of him.
“The arrow has already left the bowstring. Did you not witness the war yourself, Your Excellency? This is the path to changing the country.”
This is the path to changing the country.
“But at this rate, how are we any different from the traitor Choi Chung-heon of the previous dynasty?”
We were fundamentally different from the likes of Choi Chung-heon. He had merely spat out ten articles of some petition and that was the end of it. We were not the Choi clan. The Chois had possessed only an army to oppress the monarch and the people. They had never possessed an army like ours—one that could shatter foreign invaders.
“Choi Chung-heon was nothing more than a mere powerful subject, but we are actually changing the nation. Unlike Choi Chung-heon, who could not even properly deal with the remnants of the Khitans, we are annihilating every last Japanese wretch and planning the reform of the country. And at the end of this path, the nation called the Korean Empire will be reborn under a new system.”
What had Choi Chung-heon actually accomplished while playing the powerful subject? The Khitan remnants had sat there in plain sight and he had left them alone. He subdued them later, but the process had been anything but smooth. He formed ties with the Mongols and lit the fuse for the Yeomong Wars. In contrast, we had crushed Japan and, with my dazzling tongue, managed to embed ourselves firmly in Southern Manchuria. Of course, that was only possible because we had already designated Southern Manchuria as part of Gando’s territory.
“Yes. Since we’ve already done it, we must see it through to the end. So, what do you intend? Even if Prince Uichin is on our side…”
Since Prince Uichin was on our side, there was nothing left to fear. I had already told the man everything. Whether he had submitted to the threats or genuinely understood my ideology did not matter. The reform itself would not be difficult.
“I would prefer to minimize bloodshed if possible, but if blood must be shed, then it must. Isn’t that so?”
It was already far too late for this country to modernize and reform through dialogue and compromise without shedding blood. There had once been a chance to take England’s place as their hunting dog instead of Japan, and several more opportunities after that. But those days were gone. Now, while we still could, we had to reform radically. In the process, blood must be shed. We had to remake this country with blood, and the Korean people had to grow accustomed to that blood. They had to become familiar with it and become like Goguryeo—fighting against China, displaying national strength on the international stage—rather than the pathetic history of paying tribute while enjoying peace under the protection of great powers.
I had already drawn the full blueprint for the future, and I possessed the safety device called the Great Counter-Revolution Gallery. Therefore it was possible. Having the power to change things and leaving them untouched would be idiotic.
“Hoo… yes. It makes me nervous. I was originally a soldier, after all,” Yi Beom-yun said, voice heavy with worry.
In any case, Yi Beom-yun was nothing but a figurehead. For the time being I planned to support him from below. Until the day I overturned the country later on, I would hold military power and go around waging wars. No matter that I was a woman—if I piled up military exploits so enormous that no one could hide them or turn their eyes away, who would dare say anything about my gender? Any such fools would die at the hands of the Manchurian army long before mine reached them.
“I will assist you at your side, so do not worry.”
At the very least, Yi Beom-yun had to help me set the stage so that I could accomplish everything, establish merits that even a woman’s body could not be ignored, and stably inherit the position of prime minister.
“You truly are remarkable! Still… your father would be proud if he saw you now.”
Was that a dad joke or a compliment? It made no difference to me even if he insulted this body’s father.
“Were you close with my father?”
“As I told you, your father entrusted you to me. It seems you don’t remember.”
Of course I didn’t. The character called Ok Jin-seo had been fabricated from the start. Even if some unrecorded person had truly existed in history, I was a possessor; I was not the original Ok Jin-seo.
“What kind of man was my father?”
“He was a merchant through and through. While working as a peddler, he suffered severe losses to bandits and entrusted you to me.”
I see. Was that the old man’s setting? Or had he been preparing the groundwork for a long time? Or had the person actually existed? It didn’t matter. I had asked only to appear somewhat human.
“Whatever he was like, what does it matter? The important thing is the reality before us.”
“That is true.”
“Until all foreigners kneel beneath us, I am not yet in a position to feel pride. Above all, it sits ill with me to leave the imperial family—who joined hands with the Japanese—untouched like this.”
Yi Beom-yun was in an ambiguous position. When one thought about it, being part of the Enlightenment faction had simply been Gojong exiling him to the post of Gando Administrator so he could cut ties whenever convenient. The fact that he had purchased weapons in Seoul proved he had operated independently without government support.
“Still, you should at least demonstrate loyalty.”
“If I do that, many foreigners will not look kindly upon my cooperation with the conservatives. Either way, we have already crossed the river.”
If I outwardly showed loyalty to the emperor, would Russia or Germany complain? Even if Britain was currently observing, after receiving Southern Manchuria, Russia’s own actions amounted to showing loyalty to the golden-child emperor. Germany could likewise be pinned down as unable even to serve as a balancer.
“What is it that you truly cherish?”
“The nation.”
The Korean nation that had trembled between superpowers and could only employ hedgehog strategies. The Korean nation that had ultimately become the sacrificial lamb of the great powers and a victim of nuclear war. Of course, they had been the first to be hit. After that the war had escalated and everyone died, but anyway—I cherished the nation. More precisely, I cherished myself within the framework of the nation. A tree must hide within the forest, after all.
The beginning of the land reform was more than enough to send the scholars of the Korean Empire into an uproar. During the previous reign of Emperor Gojong, the yangban—those who could be called the nobility of Korea, that is, the scholars—had owned land as landlords. Not every scholar possessed land, of course, but those referred to as landlords held exactly such positions.
However, the land reform carried out by the Yi Beom-yun cabinet was no simple land reform. It was the beating of the scholars wearing the mask of land reform.
“Land reform? What nonsense is this!”
“From this day forward, the lands of Korea must be rewritten anew. How long do you intend to hoard them and let them rot?”
The lands of Korea would not be left to rot any longer. They had been decaying away inside the bosoms of the landlords. Even now, by changing their purpose, every plot would become the foundation for modernization.
“These lands are what we have maintained for generations! Exactly! I heard you lowly creatures opened a military government and now you dare threaten His Majesty the Emperor to obtain an imperial decree!”
Threaten? The words were harsh. To describe the Prime Minister personally obtaining His Majesty’s permission as mere coercion—these people were even more foolish than I had thought.
“Now, now, why such anger? We are simply obeying the imperial command.”
“We will not give it, you bastards!”
“They say they defy the imperial command. Arrest them all!”
Those who opposed the land reform, eyes glittering as though they had waited for this very moment, were seized by the Manchurian soldiers who charged forward. Scholars without land were also rounded up and beaten.
“We have nothing at all!”
“How can having nothing make sense? Strip them clean!”
“You bastards! Now I see you are not our people!”
Correct. They were not the people of Joseon. They were not the subjects of the Korean Empire. If one were to be precise, they were forces of the Manchurian army, not of Korea.
“That is right. We are the Jurchen troops of the Manchurian army that follows the Administrator of Southern Manchuria.”
“We are the Han troops of Manchuria.”
“M-Manchurians? So you are the lackeys of that monster woman Ok Jin-seo who threatens His Majesty the Emperor!”
Correct. The Manchurian army was a multi-ethnic force that included both Han and Manchu. Those who opposed this land reform were mainly arrested by soldiers of the Southern Manchurian army, and the Manchus and Hans—who were not of the same ethnicity and therefore felt no hesitation—were perfectly suited to the task.
“The esteemed scholars of Korea say they wish to die. Beat them!”
“You damned bastards!”
“Aigo, I’ll give you everything!”
“We don’t need it!”
Those proud scholars crumbled pathetically before the guns and bayonets of the Manchurian army.
Meanwhile, Choi Ik-hyun—who had led the coalition of Righteous Armies and had only just been released—could not escape this tragic situation. In the so-called Scholar Persecution Incident, Choi Ik-hyun was effectively the head of the scholars.
Choi Ik-hyun sighed as he looked at the scholars who had come seeking him.
“Although they claim their purpose is land reform, without doubt it is the persecution of scholars!”
“Master, please flee while you can!”
Yes. Normally one should flee. After the torture inflicted by the Japanese, Choi Ik-hyun’s body was no longer whole. He had barely gathered himself, yet he knew he would not last long. Before that time came, there was one person he wished to meet. A person he had wanted to meet for a very long time.
“No. I shall go myself. There was someone I wished to meet in any case.”
“You must not, Master!”
Despite his disciples’ desperate pleas, Choi Ik-hyun rose from his seat and stepped outside. Several Manchurian soldiers were already waiting to receive him.
“Take me to see your master.”
“May I ask your honorable name?”
At this moment, Choi Ik-hyun wanted to meet the woman who was diligently laboring to turn this country into a land of beasts.