The Smart Home of Tomorrow and the Qing Dynasty Bonds

The Fantasy Universe house was so vast that touring the home appliances placed throughout it took a considerable amount of time. Some products asserted their presence boldly, like the refrigerator and TV, practically shouting their existence. Others, such as the system air conditioners, were so seamlessly integrated they were easy to miss. Yet whether they stood out or blended in, they all shared one key feature: IoT technology that allowed them to be controlled from anywhere via an Android phone. The same applied to the devices installed outside the residence.

Yoo Jae-won's home was guarded by such a heavy security presence that the word "fortress" came to mind. Still, given the sheer scale of the property, blind spots remained even with that level of manpower. CCTV covered those areas, naturally connected through wireless internet. These weren't static cameras, either. When sound was detected, the unit would swivel toward the source, and the footage was analyzed in real time by an image-processing module of overwhelming capability. Alerts would ping straight to his designated Android phone, and he could pull up the live feed whenever he wished. The classic spy-movie trope—perfectly functioning cameras undermined by a distracted operator, or one deliberately distracted to enable an intrusion—was simply impossible here.

After completing the roughly hour-long tour of the house, Yoo Jae-won and the executive team returned to the study. Refreshing drinks had been prepared at the perfect moment. He took a sip, let out a satisfied breath, and asked for their impressions.

"What do you think?"

"It feels like we've stepped ten years into the future," the president of the home appliances division replied.

Yoo Jae-won nodded, pleased. That was exactly right. The products installed in this new San Francisco residence weren't radically different in basic architecture from current appliances, but their refined designs and deep integration with the internet made them feel a full decade ahead of their time.

"That said, IoT isn't a cure-all," he continued. "Connecting a washing machine or dishwasher to the internet doesn't automatically make it useful. It would only drive up the price for no real benefit. The most important thing is that a washing machine washes clothes well and a dishwasher cleans dishes properly. So when you return to Korea, I want you to focus on maximizing the fundamental purpose of each appliance while finding ways to create genuine synergy with internet connectivity."

"Of course, Chairman!" the home appliances president answered on behalf of the group. His voice brimmed with enthusiasm. A veteran who had spent decades building home electronics, he could already see the market potential in the products he'd just witnessed. Success was guaranteed. The smart vacuum and AI cleaner would undoubtedly create huge waves as well.

The only missing pieces for mass production were either physical units to disassemble or proper blueprints.

"The blueprints are right here," Yoo Jae-won said, as if reading the man's mind. He handed over a slip of paper containing login credentials for ID Group's internal cloud server. Storage had evolved from floppy disks to CDs to DVDs, and USB drives were becoming mainstream, but at ID Group—which operated on a different timeline—the cloud ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was already the standard.

"Once you enter the ID and password, another window will ask for an authentication key. Don't panic. Simply input the key that will be sent to your smartphone via text message."

The greatest weakness of cloud servers—hacking—had been rendered nearly impenetrable through dual-layer security. No matter how skilled the hacker, breaching both isolated authentication steps simultaneously was impossible. In reality, ID Group's cloud servers faced hundreds of attack attempts daily. Even China, currently locked in a fierce hacking battle with the United States, was among the aggressors. In terms of sheer volume, they led the pack.

Yoo Jae-won couldn't understand China's behavior. The country was already cornered after the 9/11 cyber terror attacks. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠American public opinion demanding harsh retaliation against China had reached a fever pitch, fueled in part by lobbying from the military-industrial complex. Originally, those interests had wanted the Afghanistan operation to escalate into full-scale war. A small operation ballooning into conflict would allow them to clear inventory and sell weapons without limit.

Yet the Afghanistan mission had concluded with unexpected success, leaving them scrambling. Their eyes then turned to China. After the Cold War ended with the Soviet Union's internal collapse, the golden goose for defense contractors had vanished. The Iraq War had provided some relief, but nothing on the scale of the Cold War era. The conclusion was clear: America needed a new adversary. China was the natural choice. The 9/11 cyber terror attacks provided the perfect pretext. The phrase "Rising China" began circulating naturally through the halls of Washington DC.

Of course, the term originated from a book published by the East Asia Strategy Institute, a think tank Yoo Jae-won had established. The book had predicted China's rapid rise years in advance and analyzed the path a strengthened China would take. The current reality matched over eighty percent of the book's early and middle sections, so its renewed popularity was inevitable.

China, growing its economy by more than ten percent annually, seemed blind to the gathering storm. From their perspective, it was understandable. Some analysts argued that America's robust economic growth after the IT revolution had been built on production costs kept artificially low by China's near-free labor. Beijing had calculated that even if America applied pressure using the cyber terror attacks as justification, they wouldn't resort to measures as extreme as an economic blockade.

That was a miscalculation. If they truly understood the depth of American fury, they would never have made such an assumption. To the American people right now, even a drop in economic growth was a small price to pay for revenge against the 9/11 attacks. Yoo Jae-won felt the same. Having personally experienced the arrogance of a superpower China in his previous life, a temporary freeze in the global economy was a negligible concern.

"Thank you! We will absolutely not disappoint your expectations!" the home appliances president said, accepting the note with deep gratitude. Unlike the complex calculations running through Yoo Jae-won's mind, the executive simply looked overwhelmed with honor, fully confident that ID Electronics' appliance division would make a spectacular comeback with products capable of shocking the world.

"By the way, how do you plan to market these new IoT products?" Yoo Jae-won asked. Unfortunately, many issues still remained. The most frustrating weakness of ID Electronics' appliance division wasn't product development. Technologies like IoT could only be implemented by ID High Tech at this point in time. The real problem was marketing.

The aftermath of the three-company merger still lingered, and product line consolidation hadn't been completed. Even in LCD TVs alone, there was the Habr brand that had been half-developed at Ilsung before being absorbed by ID Electronics, along with Daeho Electronics' PDP TVs. The mechanisms and branding were chaotic. Despite owning ID Display—the world's largest LCD panel manufacturer—the fragmented product portfolio meant ID Electronics was still being outperformed in finished LCD TVs by Sony, Sharp, and Philips.

"For display products like TVs, I recommend unifying under the Bordeaux brand. For core white goods such as washing machines, refrigerators, and air conditioners, use Classe. Create these flagship brands, then add modifiers based on model features and price points. For example, a large double-door refrigerator with an IoT-enabled LCD panel could be called the Classe Chef Edition, while the smaller version could simply be the Mini."

Yoo Jae-won's solution was individual branding.

"Bordeaux? You mean the French wine region?" The home appliances president immediately grasped the proposal.

"Yes. As you saw earlier, the TV design takes its motif from a wine glass. The 16:9 ratio compresses it vertically, but the inspiration is clear." Yoo Jae-won opened his iWorks notebook and displayed a sketch of the living room TV. It was the same drawing he had attached when requesting a prototype from ID High Tech's research lab.

"Bordeaux TV, Bordeaux TV! It feels a bit unfamiliar at first, but it rolls off the tongue nicely!"

"Classe has a sophisticated edge to it as well."

Although ID Group promoted a horizontal corporate culture, openly opposing Yoo Jae-won's opinions was difficult—especially in Korea, where many existing companies had been merged into the group, intensifying that tendency. Still, this particular directive sounded distinctly different from existing brand names to the home appliances president and his executives. And the difference was clearly positive. After all, these were names that had dominated the early 2000s in his previous life. Ilsung Electronics' new TV lineup had been called Bordeaux TV. Since Ilsung Electronics had been fully merged into ID Electronics, there was no problem adopting the name. The same applied to Classe, a brand created when the Daeho Group reorganized its white goods lineup. All of Daeho Electronics' assets had likewise been acquired by ID Electronics.

"Good. Before returning to Korea, visit the Bordeaux regional council in France and secure exclusive naming rights."

This was Yoo Jae-won's final instruction for cleaning up the chaotic model system in ID Electronics' appliance division in a single stroke.

"The Bordeaux council?" It was a matter of due diligence. For agricultural products, origin issues would be serious, but for manufactured goods, simply using the name wouldn't create legal problems. However, it would invite endless criticism, and considering European sales, purchasing usage rights from the Bordeaux regional council would neatly resolve any complications.

"Also, next year is the historic North-South World Cup. Prepare a large-scale linked event so that the new brands can be instantly imprinted in the minds of people worldwide."

"Yes, Chairman!" The home appliances president and executives answered vigorously. They had already been preparing ways to leverage the World Cup for some time, so their voices rang with confidence.

December 30. Only one day and a few hours remained in 2001, a year packed with shocking events. As usual, Yoo Jae-won sat in his study, wrapping up the day. The program displayed on his computer was a secret diary. It was a small feature included in Keyboard Warrior, but it served perfectly for organizing his daily thoughts. It launched quickly and was secure, so he used it religiously, making sure to write at least one line no matter how busy he was.

With 2001 nearly over, today's entry wasn't a daily record but a summary of the entire year. Technically it should be done tomorrow on the 31st, but with New Year's events scheduled, he was taking care of it a day early. Since this wasn't official business, there were no elaborate preparations or ceremonies. Because it was legacy code, Keyboard Warrior could no longer run natively on modern computers. This meant he had to launch a virtual machine every time he wanted to write in it. Fortunately, his computer's performance was so high that running the program in a VM caused no ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠noticeable slowdown.

The familiar Keyboard Warrior title screen soon appeared. Instead of starting the main game, Yoo Jae-won selected the diary option and pressed Enter. It was time to freely pour out his unscripted thoughts, emotions, and reflections onto the keyboard.

"As expected, the 9/11 terror attacks come first."

The shock of the 9/11 attacks, which had shaken global politics and economics to their core, had been so immense that it overshadowed every other major event. The Afghanistan eradication operation had officially concluded on December 24—Christmas Eve—with a successful completion announcement. It wasn't that they had rushed to finish by Christmas; quite the opposite. The operation had actually wrapped up several days earlier, but they had deliberately delayed the announcement to give American citizens a Christmas present.

The arrest of Al Qaeda operatives who had infiltrated the country had also proceeded smoothly. In small rural towns, Arabs stood out easily. In major cities, the image analysis module linked to CCTV enabled rapid identification. After cleanly wrapping up Afghanistan, America had turned its full attention to China from early December.

"An enraged America truly is terrifying."

When international diplomatic pressure failed to make China blink, the United States began taking concrete action.

China's current exports to the United States totaled a staggering $400 billion. Applying an additional 10% tariff across the entire volume had created a $40 billion tariff bomb. Even more shocking was that this measure had been implemented on December 25. Chinese ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠authorities, who had insisted no real action would be taken, were thrown into chaos by this Christmas "gift." Ten percent was only the beginning. Depending on China's response, it could rise to 20% or even higher.

Tariffs on Chinese products would raise retail prices for end consumers and intensify inflationary pressure, yet the American people were demanding strong retaliation against China. And that wasn't all.

"There's a New Year's gift coming too."

It was a relic from the Qing Dynasty era. As China's economy had developed, the value of Chinese antiques at Christie's and Sotheby's had skyrocketed. The Chinese government had used the repatriation of looted artifacts to demonstrate national strength to its citizens, and the strategy had been remarkably effective. The U.S. government planned to send newly discovered Qing Dynasty artifacts to China if Beijing continued to ignore the tariff increases.

These were the national bonds issued to finance railroad construction connecting Hubei and Guangdong in the late Qing period. The original issuance had been approximately 6 million pounds. Even today that was a substantial sum, but in 1911 it had been an astronomical fortune. Bonds, of course, accrued interest—and that interest was compounded. A bond locked with compound interest for ninety years produced a truly nuclear-scale value: one trillion dollars.

No matter how powerful China had become, they could never have imagined their ancestors had left behind a debt of one trillion dollars. The bonds currently secured by the United States represented only one-fifth of the total—1.2 million pounds.

"At current value, that should come to roughly two hundred billion dollars?"

Yoo Jae-won knew the American plan as intimately as an insider because he was the one who had brought those rotting Qing Dynasty bonds out of HSBC's secret vault and into the light. In the original timeline, this weapon would have surfaced about twenty years later, but it hadn't produced particularly good results. China had been prepared. If the American side had been more competent, the outcome might have differed, but the president at the time had been the infamous Trump.

Yoo Jae-won believed it was far more effective to deploy this priceless surprise now, while no one was prepared. On the very day his honorary citizenship vote had been rejected, President Al Gore had personally called to offer consolation—and had given him the hint about the Qing Dynasty artifact bonds.

In this completely altered present, Yoo Jae-won was deeply curious to see how China would respond.