Ex-Class Axe (2)
The French troops under Lieutenant de Chene, who had stormed Chojijin, were all Napoleon.
That is, they were all the same height.
The average height of a nineteenth-century Frenchman was about 165 centimeters, not all that different from the roughly 161 centimeters of Joseon men of the time.
But that was a very different matter from Koreans.
And Taesu was a giant even among Koreans.
He stood more than twenty centimeters taller than the Frenchmen, and outweighed them by nearly thirty kilos. In a fistfight, the gap was so ridiculous that it would have been hard to lose on purpose.
All those French Napoleons now thought of the legendary shock commander Joachim Murat.
He was the very image of the French Lü Bu in every respect—strength, character, intelligence, and even the way he met his end. The only thing Murat had over Lü Bu was that he was the son of a single father.
Of course, in a weapon fight, physical build mattered less, but even that advantage had faded here.
And it was all because of the qualitative difference in those very “weapons.”
Bayonets, sabers—anything that struck Taesu’s axe would shatter or snap. And most of the men attached to those weapons ended up in much the same shape.
They had never heard of any East Asian forging technique surpassing Europe. The French troops felt betrayed by the arrival of such a scam-like Ex-rank axe. Who could have imagined a hidden piece would be waiting on this remote island in the Far East?
Even in the dark, a modern army of this size had plenty of ways to kill one man.
But Lieutenant de Chene, who should have been directing them, had been murdered at the worst possible moment. The French could use no method at all.
That, more than Taesu’s presence, was Captain Cécile’s greatest blunder.
Choosing to strike on a moonless night only lowered the French force’s effectiveness.
Even if they had simply fired the cannons in daylight, the Joseon regulars would have fled anyway. If the result was the same whether by ambush or direct assault, then the ambush was nothing but extra risk.
To make matters worse, the cholera bacillus, which had been biding its time in the bellies of soldiers whose opium haze was now wearing off, began to strike back.
Nineteenth-century European soldiers’ tight trousers were horribly vulnerable to this sort of disaster.
The men soon started collapsing, or at the very least moving at a crawl. They could no longer evade the attack of the peddlers’ caravan.
* * *
After splitting de Chene in two with a single swing, Taesu immediately snatched up the broken front end of his gun and hurled it.
Taesu could see them; the others could not. One noncommissioned officer was caught completely off guard and staggered. Taesu shoved at the man’s chest, kicked him, and sent him rolling back down beneath Chojijin.
Then came the delighted voice of the Mountain Spirit.
[Why do you not use the axe? Since you have obtained a divine instrument, sweep them all away!]
Taesu grimaced.
“Didn’t you say back then that you couldn’t ascend to heaven because of my grudge bound to this axe?”
The Mountain Spirit, about to deny the part about ascending to heaven, faltered.
“Then the more I kill with this axe, the slower your recovery gets. There’s no way life can be that easy.”
[Hm? Wait. So it does? Then stop killing them! No, if you do, you’ll be the one who dies. What do I do?]
Taesu muttered a curse. Not because he was disappointed in the spirit’s stupidity—disappointment requires expectation first—but because the Frenchmen flailing their guns around had nearly shattered his jaw.
He seized the gun and yanked it hard. Then, gripping the soldier’s jaw and head as the man was dragged along, he twisted him upside down and snapped the neck.
There are no shortage of clichés about neglecting the price of divine power and overusing it only to become a eunuch.
But for the god himself to be the one reduced to that state? The fact that he had been tripped up by such a foolish god wounded his pride.
Taesu put the night-vision goggles back on. Then he quickly looked over Chojijin, which had now fallen into a lull.
The Joseon peddlers, who were experiencing real combat for the first time, and the French troops, who had suffered unexpected losses, were both pulling back a little to regroup.
The Mountain Spirit said,
[We must withdraw at once. If the enemy fires the cannon again, even at the cost of sacrificing its own rank and file, it will be hard to survive!]
Taesu thought the spirit really did have a way of thinking like a complete idiot.
Still, the spirit’s opinion was not, at the very least, extreme.
In the darkness, Kim Sun-won somehow found Taesu and said urgently, “We’ve nearly used up the whole night getting here. Once the sun rises, that foreign ship will be able to see us clearly. We’ve taken enough enemy heads already. It’s time to pull out!”
He was whispering, even though the enemy didn’t exactly understand Korean.
Taesu said in an ordinary voice, “Withdraw first.”
“What?”
“Get the others out of here. I’ll take the rear. I can kill another four or five men at least.”
“You’ll die if you do!”
Taesu glanced at the scattered bodies of the peddlers around him, then gripped his axe again.
“I’m the one who brought them here. That makes this my responsibility.”
* * *
From Erigone, Captain Cécile watched the battle and, for quite some time, failed to grasp that the French were being outmatched.
Even though he was looking straight at it through a telescope, the reason he did not understand was not the darkness.
The chief culprit obstructing his judgment was Captain Cécile’s military knowledge, and the disciplined logic built upon it.
The fortress battery had collapsed under the hail of explosive shells. The remaining Joseon troops would be busy fleeing for their lives.
Even if a few of them were to struggle futilely, what meaning could there be against a modern French infantry charge?
So Cécile’s reason interpreted every flicker of movement he could glimpse through the telescope as French victory.
That, to him, was “rational judgment.” The darkness had merely helped support the interpretation.
Cécile’s brain was like a scheming court favorite, censoring any inconvenient report from the eyes and relaying only the good news.
By the time the captain faced reality, the moment was already irreversible, as it always was for every ruler who finally opened his eyes too late.
Cécile shouted out urgent orders.
“Turn the ship’s guns back on that fortress! Fire again! The Joseon resistance is more stubborn than expected!”
Captain Dupré hesitated and said, “Wasn’t there already melee combat? If we’re not careful, our own men might get hit too…”
That was a strikingly unfamiliar kind of objection for the nineteenth century.
The greatest product of the Industrial Revolution was not cotton cloth or steel, but the urban poor. Modern people may hesitate to spend on plastic, but armies of this era never spared a thought for the lives of their own men.
Only this time, the problem was the enemy.
If it had been Russia, as in the Crimean War that would come later, Captain Dupré would not have objected to the “honorable sacrifice” of his subordinates.
But if casualties were suffered in a fight against natives armed only with primitive firearms, then Captain Cécile’s leadership would be called into serious question.
Even Cécile hesitated.
But his options were limited.
If he sent more reinforcements, the number of men available to secure and defend Erigone would drop too low.
Besides, Lieutenant de Chene had taken all the elite troops with the strongest dispositions for this kind of fight. Sending the rest would hardly turn the tide.
And if he did nothing, the entire operation would unravel. Because of the current flowing south from the Han River estuary, Erigone’s ability to push north was already limited.
Cécile agonized over it. His eyes itched madly, as if he had developed conjunctivitis.
Rubbing them hard, Cécile let out a shout that was almost impulsive.
“Prepare the bombardment!”
* * *
The peddlers withdrew swiftly from Chojijin.
Years of experience hauling loads on their backs and crossing dark mountain paths came in handy. So did the professional knack for carrying off the oil lanterns they had looted from the French.
Taesu remained at the rear.
Using a cannon rolling among broken stones as cover, he clutched his axe and glanced to the side.
Yi Won-beom was there. Taesu clicked his tongue irritably. “You too. Get out of here.”
“That would not do, brother.”
He had shown a little disgrace earlier because he had no talent for martial arts, but Yi Won-beom was not the same man he had been before.
Yi Won-beom held a French oil lantern up against a torch stand. The torch burst into flame, revealing the two of them to the French firing line, and Taesu was startled.
But Yi Won-beom’s face was grave. He shouted loudly, “You barbarian dogs! Come any closer and I’ll light this cannon and blow you to pieces!”
Yi Won-beom’s gestures and shout were the sort that could be understood even without knowing a word of Korean. The French troops, who had been raising their guns, began to hesitate.
At a glance, that cannon looked like scrap metal, not a weapon. The odds that it could actually fire were low.
But the odds of a human being able to charge forward based on such “rational judgment” were also low. The French troops, having lost their commander, fell into confusion.
That was enough.
Fleeing from a stubborn district magistrate’s police officer or an enraged tavern husband was all in the life of a peddler. The peddlers showed escape speed comparable to elite Joseon soldiers.
Then a warning rang sharply at Taesu’s ear.
[The foreign ship has turned its flank toward this side!]
Taesu snatched Yi Won-beom around the waist like a lariat, then slung the screaming man over his shoulder like a sack of rice.
The moment Taesu emerged from Chojijin in a form not all that different from a fall, a tremendous explosion crashed down behind them.
The French soldiers left inside Chojijin would never again need to worry about “Joseon cannons.”
* * *
At that time, Choi Yang-eop Thomas was waiting in a boat for the French to occupy Chojijin.
He was confident in his physical stamina, but that kind of stamina was better suited to a peddler than a soldier. Even as an assistant priest, he could not take part in the fighting.
Then Choi Yang-eop gaped at the thunderous blast that shook heaven and earth.
Erigone’s explosive shells detonated like the firebolt Yahweh hurled down upon the people in Isaiah who had offered false worship and bowed before idols.
The problem was that it looked a lot like the French had been struck by those firebolts.
The French did have a habit of kidnapping the Pope, but this was too much. Choi Yang-eop was appalled at the scene of the eldest daughter being beaten senseless.
“They’re firing on their own side!”
Having been close to the site, Choi Yang-eop had already guessed that the Joseon men were no longer in Chojijin.
If Captain Cécile wasn’t insane, then this meant a serious error had occurred in the operation.
It was already over.
The French fleet had lost the foothold it needed to force Joseon into opening itself to Catholicism and trade.
Of course, there was no need to worry that the Joseon troops themselves might somehow defeat them militarily. That was impossible.
But what Erigone needed to subdue was not the Joseon army. The king was now in a position where he only had to endure, even if it meant killing hundreds of thousands of his subjects.
Choi Yang-eop thought about what he could do at this point.
I have to go in!
It was almost certain that Erigone would retreat together with Father Kim Dae-geon.
And once that happened, the Joseon government would ferociously hunt down the Catholics throughout the country and kill them.
Then Choi Yang-eop would enter Joseon, protect and manage the believers, and prepare for the future. Father Kim Dae-geon, the only Joseon priest at this point, could not die yet.
Besides, Kim Dae-geon might have the greater divine power, but here mobility mattered more.
If he wanted to keep moving without being caught and gather and control believers along the way, there was no one more suited than Choi Yang-eop, who possessed the finest legs in all of Catholicism.
Choi Yang-eop tightened the straps of his suhwaja, the long leather shoes worn by military officers.
In the original history, Choi Yang-eop Thomas visited Joseon next year, but failed to enter the country because the captain had idiotic grounding issues.
He had begged to be allowed to land secretly by himself, but for Captain Lapierre, who still had to eat in Joseon, that could not be permitted.
But now things were different. Unlike the Goeunsando Islands of 1847, there was no Joseon naval blockade surrounding him.
The Ganghwado naval forces under Nam Yi-hyeong, who had seemed to be edging closer again in indecision, fled swiftly once more the moment they saw the second barrage just now.
Still, dawn would soon break. Choi Yang-eop stared toward the eastern inland direction, toward Geumseong.
This is the only chance.
From Erigone, some fifteen reinforcements that looked as though Captain Cécile had hastily scraped them together were rowing toward him in boats.
And the two or three French soldiers “escorting” Choi Yang-eop were panicking over comrades, or parts of comrades, flying out of Chojijin.
Without the slightest hesitation, Choi Yang-eop leapt into the water.
Just as he expected, the soldiers did not chase him or fire their guns.
All he could hear were shouts to the effect of, “If the healer goes, he’ll die for nothing!” and “Did you forget? Holy magic doesn’t do any damage!”
Choi Yang-eop ignored all of it and ran toward Joseon.
It was his first return in ten years.
* * *
Taesu slapped the cheeks of the next king, one after another.
“Hey, idiot. If the guy riding piggyback on me is about to pass out, what am I supposed to do? Die?”
Yi Won-beom groaned and stood upright again.
Come to think of it, he was the one who should have been supporting Taesu. Now that he had studied books, Yi Won-beom understood shame.
“I thought the world was collapsing. How are you still standing, brother?”
Anyone who had never been hit by one would claim that a nineteenth-century explosive shell, being a nineteenth-century thing, could not compare to a modern naval gun.
Yi Won-beom had thought the world inside and out had flipped over all at once. Even after rolling into the shade of a slope outside the blast radius, that was still the case.
Taesu tore off part of his jacket and bound up the leg that had been ripped open. As he brushed himself off, sand and bits of grass scattered down in a shower.
“The fact that you still have enough strength left to be curious means you’re not done yet. Save the chatter for later and keep walking. We need to rejoin the others.”
“Ah… now that you mention it, I wonder whether the others got out safely…”
“Your stupid stunt seems to have helped quite a bit. From what I saw, everyone escaped except the ones who died.”
Jang Sun-gyu and Kim Sun-won were seasoned men in their respective fields. They would have made sure the peddlers’ caravan did not scatter and get left behind on the battlefield.
Of course, there could always be exceptions, like the young man now coming toward them in a panic.
Taesu squinted.
The sky was now brightening to a pale gray. The young man who could be seen dimly was wearing a mid-gat, and he had no long wooden pipe.
Is he not one of the peddlers?
[No. Men like that didn’t exist.]
Taesu slid his axe into a shorter grip and rolled his wrist. Then, before Yi Won-beom could step forward in delight, he hooked the man’s foot.
While Yi Won-beom toppled and groaned, Taesu said, “Stop there.”
Choi Yang-eop was greatly startled when he saw the giant who had appeared before him.
He had indeed heard about this man from Kim Dae-geon.
Those shoes, that build—and above all, the axe. This was the man Kim Dae-geon had said might be a Christian of Joseon.
“So you’re that man! Oh…”
Unfortunately, Deacon Choi Yang-eop was a little short on divine rank compared to Priest Kim Dae-geon.
Foolishly, Choi Yang-eop ended up asking the same question he had once whispered to every Joseon person he met in the original history, when he was trapped in the blockade of the Goeunsando Islands.
“Do you honor God and the Holy Mother?”
At that moment, Taesu could infer Choi Yang-eop’s identity with near-perfect accuracy.
Taesu and the Mountain Spirit wore almost exactly the same expression.
“I think I’m about to, from now on.”
Choi Yang-eop smiled brightly.
He kept smiling until the instant a fierce body blow slammed into his solar plexus.
In the dimming gaze of Choi Yang-eop, something like a revelation flickered into view.
The four angels who had been prepared to kill a third of mankind and were loosed from the great river Euphrates. The twenty million cavalry they commanded.
Choi Yang-eop reached out toward it, then folded over at the waist.
And the cavalry Choi Yang-eop saw—the hundred or so vanguard riders of Chongwiyeong—very swiftly deployed near Chojijin.