Prologue: I Hate One Million
There's a romance to the number one million.
From time immemorial, our ancestors were fond of the tidy hundred and the mighty ten-thousand. Good thing meets good thing, and out comes one million — what a number, enough to move a man to tears.
But unlike our ancestors, I, their humble descendant, hate one million.
Anyone would, watching a million Chinese Communist troops come swarming across the border.
"Crazy sons of bitches."
I rubbed the shoulder that by now couldn't even feel pain, and looked out across the Cheongcheon River.
A shitty war had broken out, and plenty had happened since, but one way or another we'd fought our way north all the way to the Cheongcheon. The blood and tears spilled along the way were no small thing, but with victory now within arm's reach, we could finally dream of a beautiful rebuilding.
So I'd been trying my damnedest to look away from the practical hardships and difficulties. Trying my damnedest to hold on, eyes fixed on the drug called victory.
Those bastards ruined everything.
Now even the drug had been confiscated — all thanks to a certain Crazy Chairman who hurled a million-man army at a single front. Thanks to that tsunami made of human beings, the one that chewed up the vanguard which had crossed the Cheongcheon in full swagger.
So which is it — possessed by the ghost of Fu Jian, or the ghost of Yang Guang?
Fu Jian and Yang Guang. A pair of once-in-an-era monarchs who really did field million-man armies, only to go down in a magnificent blaze of failure. That Chairman bastard simply had to be possessed by one of the two — nothing else could explain a decision that unhinged. Or maybe Fu Jian had moved into his left brain and Yang Guang into his right, and the two of them were getting along famously.
I hope you come to exactly the same end.
Men that ruthless come back as ghosts that cling to the living — which meant the Chairman was bound to walk the same road as those two spirits. The price for tossing around a million men like pocket change is getting your country hacked to pieces; even if they held the upper hand for now, in the end the victors would be us.
So the Chinese forces stationed in Korea were about to swell to 1.3 million.
Before long I was gazing at the Cheongcheon where it flowed, proud and serene. Down below, a full three hundred thousand of that same army were already garrisoned — an army that could boast a long and glorious history and proud tradition, no less, having held that ground since the early seventh century. I was sure they'd give their million brand-new juniors the warmest of welcomes.
"Heh."
A laugh slipped out of me before I knew it — a shame I wouldn't get to see that sight with my own eyes. I'd clawed my way through everything just to stay alive this long, and it stung that I wouldn't live to see the war's end either.
"I hate one million."
Maybe that was why, no matter how many times I turned it over, I kept arriving at the same conclusion: I fucking, fucking hate one million. Anyone would, with a missile fired by a million-man army falling on their head.
"Fuck."
If there was a god in this world, and reincarnation after it, I prayed my next life would be spent in a world without a single crazy bastard who'd throw a million-man army at anything.
Apparently, though, prayers involving one million were a China-exclusive service, handled by the Chinese gods — which must be why they couldn't properly understand a prayer offered in Korean.
"Your Highness the Prince of Jin. Did you just cough?"
Because if it wasn't for that, there'd be no way my prayer could have been answered in quite this manner.
I'd asked to be sent to a world without crazy bastards — and the answer was one catastrophic measure: making me the crazy bastard.
Unbelievable. Just fucking unbelievable.
The Prince of Jin of the Sui Dynasty. Second son of Yang Jian, founder of the Sui Dynasty.
The man who slammed a million-man army into Goguryeo, let the supply lines rot, and went down in history as the bastard who brought his own dynasty crashing down.
Fuck.