Prelude #5: Trotsky's Panic Ticket Swap, Lenin's Bavarian Nationalist Rally, and the Supreme Leader's Oil Nightmare
While the panicking Trotsky was swapping black folks' one-way tickets back to Africa for all-American cross-country train passes, and the lagging Lenin was calling for a general uprising of nationalists and anti-imperialists across Bavaria's regions, the Supreme Leader of the Korean Empire was facing a truly monumental problem.
"I support Japan-Korea annexation!"
I knew the real reason all too well. 'Please, just give us some cheap oil for once!'
Sure, the Korean Empire was suffering from a severe oil shortage relative to its size and weight class. But Japan—smaller in scale yet dead serious about industrialization, with its own meager supply lines—was obviously hurting even more. And I knew that because I had engineered it that way. They wouldn't settle for Korea cracking the door open just a sliver on oil sales. The problem was, Korea didn't have any spare oil to give in real time either.
Iraq? We'd just parked our troops there—we hadn't even stuck in the straw yet. At this point in time, Iraq wasn't an oil producer. We'd have to start with basic surveys to confirm if there was anything there.
Of course, the real killer for Japan was Korea slapping a 300% tariff on oil imports and exports. A $1 barrel became $4 once it hit Korea, then ballooned to $16 (!) when it shipped out again. Normally, pulling that on British exports would get a "What the hell do you think you're doing?" from London. But everyone knew Korea had no oil, and this was a tax on their imports, not Britain's exports. So Britain just shrugged it off like, "Eh, whatever." It wasn't really a tariff anyway—more like a fuel tax on stuff they were hauling in themselves. And honestly, that wasn't wrong.
In fact, it was spot on. Knowing that about 70% of Korea's fuel prices were taxes, I'd slapped on that 300% rate. But I promised—and delivered—that every won from those taxes would go straight to punching through Siberian oil fields and laying pipelines. So folks back home had zero complaints about the 300% hike. Who'd argue with spending on new oil when we're starving for it? Hell, they were clapping for it.
I generally backed free trade and zero tariffs, but oil self-sufficiency? Eh, a little less free trade there was fine by me.
The problem was those ridiculous Japanese voices whining because of our "fuel tax."
Korea, wanting to keep Japan as the ultimate oil-starved loser as much as possible, politely asked Britain and America to sell to Japan at premium prices. And they happily agreed. It wasn't "sell cheap"—it was "sell dear." Under the guise of avoiding market disruption, no great power hated monopolies anyway. And none wanted to pull up the ladder behind them. Japan was relearning that the hard way.
Come to think of it, that was just history repeating itself.
"…"
The oil "disposed of" from Korea's Tokyo depots as surplus was technically military-grade, so no 16x or 4x markup—just 1x. Dirt cheap. So Japan knew the real market price. That's why they were yelling:
Anyone cunning enough to smuggle oil into Korea past British and Korean eyes would get a 300% margin. Terrifying ambition.
Exactly. The Korean Empire was designed from the ground up to make exploiting fellow comrades impossible. If you had the personal genius to generate surplus value without exploitation, you could rake in as much cash as your talents allowed. Of course, most of that came after getting co-op leadership with comrades' backing—and even then, the gold standard, Britain, and our wary Supreme Leader comrade kept that money off the market for a good long while. If you ignored that...
Paying soldiers in rice, cloth, and salt was within Japanese tolerance. A bit old-school, sure! But with Japanese recruits enlisting for rice rations, they weren't in a position to judge.
No property tax sucking 90% didn't mean Japan lacked rich folks. The whole nation turned beggar, letting a few swallow the scraps and get filthy rich. Famine spawns fat cats—that's the saying.
The oil crunch spurred a mass exodus of Japan's zaibatsu holdouts—who'd clung on till the bitter end. Japan desperately wanted to stop it. Hell, at this point, those conglomerates were all Japan had left. Better to hand them over than form a federation? Who knew—they might actually do it if we asked. Korea usually gave Japan what it wanted.
Except oil...! Even when we gave it, it was just enough to wet the throat. Pure evil.
What more could they offer? Japan had nothing left to give Korea. No bargaining chips.
Korea didn't really want anything from Japan anymore. We'd already squeezed most of it dry. We just planned to keep them as a puppet till the end of World War I. Controlling the variable. Otherwise, why military government? Straight economic colony was pure profit.
Japan couldn't bank on Iraqi oil. Korea could buy abroad if needed; Japan couldn't. So Japan's resentment boiled over from the constant abuse. One restoration coup? Why not two? Topple the Korean shogunate, shatter the jade seal—maybe drive the Chosun scum off Japanese soil.
"Oh, oil strike. Thanks for the Iraq deployment help—have one."
"Just following orders, boss."
Oil greased not just personal ties, but international ones too.