The World Is Just Too Noisy
"It's ALWAYS so noisy around here!"
These Chinese people managed to be a public nuisance to their neighbors no matter what they did.
"They're massacring everyone they call foreign?"
"Yes. Apparently if a people aren't exactly like them, they kill them all."
"Then why do they have to come raise hell on OUR land too?"
What an absolute mess. Beyond that mountain range there'd been a tiny patch of land within the World Tree's reach, where people had been living quietly — until they went and founded a nation of their own. And the minorities living upstream of the Yangtze had started building kingdoms of their own too. Before anyone knew it, the whole world was crawling with countries, popping into existence and vanishing overnight in an endless cycle.
Now some tribe that had lost a war and been driven out had come running to our walls, and the people chasing them were killing every last one of them.
"If you made the mess, you clean it up before you go!"
"What should we do? Shall we just eliminate them all?"
Was this lunacy planning to contribute to the ethnic cleansing currently underway?
"How about I eliminate YOU first?"
"..."
"The Refugee Autonomous District is still sitting there empty, isn't it?"
The land was so vast that calling it a prison felt awkward, but the fact remained: there was one enormous walled expanse where almost nobody lived.
"Send them to the District and tell them to survive on their own."
"Isn't that too merciful of you?"
Why the sulky face?
"Just accept them. They'll figure out how to live. And vet the ones coming in — if any of them rub me the wrong way, we kick them out."
Honestly, when people sneaked in we had to go hunt them down, and that was a chore in itself. Besides, if they hid out in those mountains they'd be hard to find anyway — though they'd probably get eaten by a tiger first.
"Understood."
Ethnic cleansing, though? Was this why these Chinese people had always been so vicious toward foreigners?
Thank goodness for the Mongol friends, at least, who were quiet — mostly because they were too busy mooching rice off us and acquiring our blades, plundering and tormenting the West on our behalf.
"How are things with the Sasan Empire?"
"Seems to be going smoothly. They have no particular reason to come up here, after all."
We'd stationed a diplomat in Seonnam, and apparently they'd even picked up the language. Now that I thought about it, people living in the scorching Middle East had no earthly reason to climb up north where the cold would freeze you to death. Probably just the odd curious onlooker, at most.
"What about across the ocean?"
"Ah... about that. What do we do over there?"
"Why, what's wrong?"
"There are... actual primitives living there..."
That bad? You're telling me they're still swinging stone axes?
"So they don't even have a proper written language, I suppose?"
"No. We're feeding them potatoes and teaching them to write first, but..."
Why? Why do you always trail off like that when it matters... it gives me chills every time.
"Apparently they consider it sacred ground and worship the children as messengers of the gods? Something like that."
"Why? Did someone tell them the south was a nicer place to live?"
"Word is they heard living near the tree was better..."
No... just a little further south there's the Great Plains! Why won't they go to that colossal breadbasket that doesn't even need a tree, the way we do?
"And they love the clothes and the axes you brought so much that when you handed over an axe at first, they tried to give you their daughters in return. Quite the predicament, I'm told."
"Ah... I underestimated primitives."
So what am I supposed to do about this...
"They look pretty similar to us too, I take it?"
"Oh! Yes, that's right. A little different, but not so far off from our northern folk."
Of course they do! They crossed over during the Ice Age, didn't they?
"It's been ages since the kids went over — our language, our clothes... hmm, do they even have their own traditional culture?"
"Just bowing to trees and carving patterns on pottery, that sort of thing. Is there any meaning worth preserving?"
"Uh..."
They were even more primitive than I'd thought. That place was across an ocean, so direct rule was realistically out of the question. Write it off and give it a shot?
"Hmm... communication with them is unreliable at best, right?"
"Yes... the sea decides whether anyone gets to cross."
"Let's make that one an autonomous territory too."
"Like the Refugee District?"
"A little different from that, no? The Intelligence Bureau kids will be running it, won't they?"
So it would basically become a far-flung direct holding, then.
"The natives there are still raiding, I assume?"
Where there were cooperative natives, there were bound to be uncooperative ones.
"Would you call it fighting among the natives? Wars break out fairly often."
Apparently nobody could just live in peace, ha-ha-ho-ho.
"Try to make it so they're exiled rather than killed, whenever possible."
"Our people are struggling with that — the exiled ones keep coming back."
"We're the bad guys here, let's be honest. From their perspective, we're the invaders."
Not ethnic cleansing like that side was doing, sure — but we weren't so different either, and that was the sad part.
"But as long as we're not harming them, let's lean toward protecting their territories."
"A kind of native autonomous district, then?"
"Right. I might change my mind later."
Though honestly, if they all resisted as one, we could simply give up and go home...
"How many people would actually do that?"
"Far too few. That's the problem..."
This wasn't some redevelopment-site squatting dispute, for heaven's sake...
"Once we start living better, they'll come around too. Buy their furs and meat, build up the friendship. Let's hold out hope that at least they stopped killing each other."
"Understood."
Anyway. This land was simply too vast. Right now everyone seemed content to leave the useless stretches abandoned, but...
"What's the plan for managing all this territory?"
That was my biggest worry. Fine, let's say the railway stretching all the way to western Siberia somehow works out. But how, with current technology, were we supposed to support the American continent? They'd handle their own farming, sure — but someone still had to deliver supplies, didn't they? Clothes and iron had to come from here?
"Uh... about that..."
"WHAT now!"
Trailing off again?
"Bigger ships..."
"Bigger ships break EASIER!"
"That's why we built them properly!"
Properly built or not, a ship is a ship. How could anyone be this shameless?
"We made them bigger and thicker! Even ramming ice, they won't sink right away!"
"Huh?"
That sounded an awful lot like they'd already built them and were sailing them.
And since when did a wooden ship ram drifting ice and not sink?
"Are they really okay?"
"Okay isn't quite the word — they just don't sink immediately."
What kind of nonsense was that? They break, but they don't go under? So they spring holes and still stay afloat?
"Loading cargo has gotten a bit cumbersome, but we built lots of compartments inside the hull, so even with a hole they don't sink right away!"
"I see."
So they'd invented bulkheads? The improved timber probably helped too?
"But how many people do you think live over there? How are you planning to send anyone?"
"Send lots!"
"Build how many?"
"Over a hundred already, actually?"
Uh... right. Not that I needed to authorize it, but the scale was no joke.
"You need that many?"
"Still nowhere near enough!"
"What are you even doing out on the ocean, sailing around?"
"Trade!"
What kind of trade requires THAT many ships? This was whole-nation plunder territory. Were these people calling banditry "trade"?
"How many places could it possibly be? Three or four, isn't it?"
"Huh?"
"No?"
"Just look at the report, sir!"
"Don't you SNAP at me over a report! Are you yelling at me right now?"
"No, sir..."
Does this punk not realize I outrank him?
"There are about twenty countries with kings. Counting the scattered tribes, there are a great many more."
"It's that many?"
"We sailed for about a year and made it really far out, only to find lands we already knew about, so lately they've stopped going that far."
These people? They'd already sailed around the Earth? Circling back meant they'd reached the Mediterranean, didn't it?
So the only place they hadn't visited by ship was the American continent? And they'd crossed that on foot. Or no — a short stretch by boat, should I say?
"Did you smear honey all over the ocean or something?"
"Sir?"
"Why are you all running around out there like mad?"
"They say it's fun..."
Going to sea did have its own charm, tedious as the sailing might be. There was romance in it.
"Talk to the kids for me. Tell them not to cause trouble and just come back alive."
"Haha. Our kids are quite good at coming back!"
And the trouble they cause? Are you telling me they cause plenty?
"Last time, apparently a ship sank, and one of them made it home after four years."
"Whoa? Was he hurt anywhere?"
"Perfectly fine. Said it would've been a disaster without the Holy Water."
"Good, that's a relief. He'd better rest up properly at home."
"Rest? Ha."
He should be on a long convalescence! There's no way his mind is sound. Who knows what he went through out there. Tsk tsk.
When a madman goes mad one more time, does he become sane?
"He's already gone back out to sea, actually?"
Hmm. I was wrong, then? A madman doesn't get un-mad, apparently.
"Is there even anything left for him to bring back?"
"Lots of gold and silver, and they keep bringing back plants no one's ever seen before."
But if this kept up? We'd be carting every bug and disease in the world around with us. One slip and...
The world's population could collapse far worse than anyone imagined, couldn't it?
It'd be written in letters a mile high in the history books. There'd be no mistaking it was us, would there? At this point?
My infamy mileage in world history just seemed to keep racking up.
And now word arrived that a different religion had come in!
"Oh! Really?"
"What should we do?"
"Do about what? Whoever wants to believe, believes. Just make sure nobody's discriminating against anyone."
Buddhism had arrived. A faith I understood to prize self-cultivation — seemed harmless enough?
"Uh..."
"..."
Why are you trailing off AGAIN?
"The thing is..."
"..."
A second-stage stall? Was this for real?
"They call themselves monks and nuns?"
"And?"
"They've requested protection."
"Why?"
"They say people keep beating them and they want to be saved."
What did they do to get people swinging at them? That sort of thing doesn't usually happen here.
"They're mostly fine, but they keep preaching that everyone must renounce greed. Saying money, dyes, Holy Water — all of it must be given up..."
"Ah..."
Did these people not know the first thing about localization strategy? You size up the locals, pick out the parts that won't get you stoned, and preach those — that's how you win converts.
And what's wrong with a little greed anyway? A measure of greed is a necessity!
"Just tell them to go home..."
"They're insisting on preaching anyway. What do we do?"
"Hmm..."
So they want to preach, and our people are frightened of them? What now. Was there nowhere to send them? The American side would just get them brained with rocks.
"Ah! Send them THERE."
"Where?"
"The Refugee Autonomous District is our land too, isn't it?"
"Oh! Excellent."
There was one strange place that was our land and yet where none of our people lived. Well, some did — just soldiers' families, that was all.
"Send them off with a gift or two as well. They've taken their share of beatings, after all."
"Shall we give them some gold?"
"Sounds about right? They'll need enough to build a temple or something before they can put down roots."
First thing's first — build them a house, and they'll dig in and stay put instead of wandering off.
Honestly, if it's not going to work, the sensible thing is to give up and go home — but religious folk have such tenacity. It makes their lives so hard.
Huh? Wait — don't WE do the same thing?
"Oh? Do we proselytize like that too?"
"Yes! Our priests do go abroad to spread the faith!"
"There's no way that spreads."
The doctrine itself was absurd, wasn't it? It basically went: Grow stronger. Then everything in life becomes easier! That was the whole vibe, I was fairly sure.
"The Holy Water does sway people, but regions without any trees apparently don't convert at all."
Yep! Thought so. No way it spreads.
And honestly, the doctrine embarrasses me a little? I'd rather it NOT spread! Truly!