Chapter 210
Chapter 210
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Translator: crow
Chapter Title: Soft Landing Plan
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I briefly felt the desire for lifelong rule.
But seeing my reflection in the mirror, I chased away such thoughts.
It was a vain delusion.
Time was not ultimately on my side.
Even if I burned with ambition for power, there was no guarantee that my aging judgment could guide the nation in the right direction.
Lost in thought for a long while, that was when my secretary spoke up.
“Excellency. It’s time for your propaganda activities.”
Ah, right.
Lately, conscious of my age, I’d been engaging in activities to show that I was still going strong.
The prime example was military training.
I went out to the reserve forces training ground and demonstrated shooting a rifle just like in my younger days.
Thanks to my time as a general, my form was passable enough.
“You’re still as sharp as ever, Excellency.”
If “still sharp” meant crawling on the ground for a bit left my whole body aching, then sure.
Still, I couldn’t skip these activities.
Dressed in military uniform, rifle in hand, I struck a pose showing I could leap into action for this country at any moment.
“Shooting wrapped up.”
“Good work, everyone.”
Once the propaganda was over, my body ached so badly I thought I couldn’t do it twice.
Even so, when the cameras rolled, I somehow pulled it off.
It was a politician’s instinct.
Propaganda didn’t stop at just flexing strength.
To set aside authoritarianism, I kept up the town halls with the public.
It was to make future leaders think twice, whatever their inclinations.
‘Even Yi Seong-jun paid attention to the people’s eyes—how dare you ignore their voices?’
If they didn’t have thoughts like that, I wouldn’t bother with this grueling schedule.
In that vein, I ramped up parliamentary hearings too.
Any appointment of a deputy minister or higher required a confirmation hearing.
Of course, there were side effects.
“Minister nominee. There are allegations that you had someone ghostwrite your academic papers.”
“Ghostwriting? I’ve never done such a thing.”
“No, there are rumors like that—do you intend to deny it?”
Ignoramuses started dragging out hearsay to attack nominees.
In those cases, of course, I had them eat rice in jail for spreading false information.
“You’re ignoring the legislator’s immunity privilege?”
“Over two-thirds of the Assembly is on our side. What’ll you do if we expel you?”
Through methods like this, I slowly tamed the Assembly.
But disciplining the elite alone wouldn’t ensure a soft landing for the nation.
So I rolled out a new education concept.
“Lifelong education?”
“People must keep learning even after they age. School isn’t the end of it all.”
I focused education on rural folk and the poor who’d missed out before.
Teachers were mostly young college students on summer break.
The emphasis was draining out militarism and building basic democratic literacy.
Truth be told, this wouldn’t wrap up in a year or two.
It was a long-term project demanding at least a decade.
“Excellency, is there any real need to spend money educating these people? They’re your supporters anyway—they’d back you without schooling.”
There was.
At minimum, they needed to know what democracy meant to become its bulwark.
I wanted safeguards so Daehan wouldn’t get devoured again by the specter of militarism.
Democratic literacy was essential for that.
“Then will you adopt Western-style local autonomy too?”
“I think it’s premature.”
We still needed state-led development.
To push forward national five-year plans, I couldn’t devolve power to the provinces.
As I prepared a soft landing for the nation in my own way, I kept tabs on military trends too.
Truth be told, whether this country reverted to militarism hinged on the military.
“What’s the talk from the military these days? Anything about foreign interventions?”
“Who would dare speak of such things under Your Excellency’s reign?”
The intelligence agency drew a firm line: no voices clamoring for expansionism.
“Armaments?”
“There is some chatter there. They say if the West and Soviets are scaling up, we should bulk up too.”
Yeah.
I figured that much was bubbling up.
“Got it for now.”
I stayed wary of the military’s armament buildup logic.
Once you ramp up arms, it’s hard to scale back.
Disarmament always bred discontent in the ranks, one way or another.
I might have the clout to suppress them, but could my successor?
Not likely.
Daehan’s military held immense prestige domestically.
It had won every war in recent and modern history, never tasting defeat.
In some ways, it wasn’t an overstatement to say they mirrored the Soviet military after Stalingrad.
Could my successor handle such a prestigious force?
I’d installed some safeguards, but they weren’t enough.
In that context, I decided to bolt on one more to the military.
“Full civilian control?”
“It’s standard in advanced Western nations.”
Everyone else did it—only Korea held back.
I used that as pretext to crush the Ministry of National Defense.
“From now on, the Defense Minister will be a civilian with prior ministerial experience.”
Military-born ministers?
Not on my watch.
If they desperately wanted the seat, they could strip off the uniform and try again after a decade.
The Defense Minister couldn’t hide his shock.
“E-Excellency. Then someone ignorant of the military would command it. That’ll cause massive unrest in our forces.”
“I’m not done speaking.”
Under the minister, I made the chiefs of army, navy, and air force—all civilian heads equivalent to ministers—civilians too.
It was straight-up copying the American system that dominated the postwar world.
Soon enough, backlash brewed in the ranks.
“Excellency. The military wants to petition you on this matter.”
“Tell them to come petition. I’ll hear them out as long as they need.”
I summoned the military brass to my office.
With the Joint Chiefs Chairman leading, the service chiefs crowded in, making the office feel cramped.
The generals voiced their discomfort right after sitting.
“Excellency. Placing a civilian ignorant of the military at its head risks grave errors in judgment. History’s full of cases where outsiders meddled in operations and failed. Take Hitler, that army corporal—look at the mess he made.”
“Didn’t the Anglo-Americans, with civilian leaders directing war, handle World War II just fine?”
“Excellency. Britain had politicians like Churchill botch Gallipoli, and America misjudged the Western Front.”
The commanders came armed with prep, hitting me with arguments.
But I had a cheat key.
“Were there no mistakes under our dear Marshal Park Han-jin’s leadership?”
The taboo name dropped, and the generals went mute as clams.
Agree he was right, and they challenged me. Say he was wrong, and they conceded my point.
Checkmate.
“I get how you feel. But I wore stars before this chair too. Do you think I, who knows how the military ticks, would order ignorant civilians atop it without reason?”
I outrank you all—don’t even try matching me.
The generals couldn’t land a punch, slinking out after a scolding.
With the military silenced, I tacked on morale education too.
The topic: Prussia.
“Why did Prussia fall? They tried solving everything with the military. Such gambles might work once in a blue moon—Frederick the Great pulled it off. But states and men don’t stay lucky forever.”
I hammered home militarism’s dangers with Germany’s example.
Should Daehan end up like today’s gutted Germany—quartered, no, halved?
Follow a failed state’s path?
I posed those questions.
Then I stressed economics’ importance.
Of course, our military hadn’t neglected economic education.
Korean academies treated it seriously enough.
Through this education, I planned to steadily drain the military’s black water.
“We’ll need to revise the textbooks again.”
“Pardon? The textbooks?”
Truth be told, we’d rushed revisions to purge militarism, stuffing them with hero worship of me, Yi Seong-jun.
This round, I’d scrub that out.
“For efficient rule, Excellency, wouldn’t it be better if new generations revere you?”
Not wrong from a governance angle.
Stronger support always benefited a ruler.
“Would you have me cling to this seat till I die?”
“If possible, we’d want your guidance forever. Who could fill your void in this nation?”
Even I, plotting a soft landing, couldn’t deny that.
A futurist’s insight, decades of rule-built experience.
Finding my replacement wouldn’t be easy.
Might even be impossible.
But no guarantee today’s judgment held tomorrow.
And lifelong rule by me would wreck the nation via precedent.
Second, third Yi Seong-juns would cite me to justify their own.
I didn’t want to see that.
‘Daehan mustn’t become a kingdom bowing to a king.’
Even if that king was me.
To strip my own shield, I ordered censorship’s abolition.