The Neighbor Smells Suspicious
The neighbors were starting to smell suspicious.
They say even a ruined rich family can coast for three years, right?
So while China was gleefully splitting apart and beating each other bloody, what were we doing? Sailing up and down the Yangtze, working hard selling goods and hoarding gold, silver, and copper. Even as they lost their land piece by piece, they kept buying up luxury goods like sugar and pepper by the boatload.
"So we've been at it for what, close to two hundred years?"
"Yes. It really has been a long time."
"And after all that trading, I thought we'd gotten pretty close?"
"The ones we traded with were the southern kingdoms, and those are the ones that fell."
For the first time in ages, the land of China was unified. The Sui dynasty. Now that was a familiar-sounding name.
"Well, our relations with them aren't bad either, are they?"
"No, they're fine. It's a country founded by a nomadic people, so we're on decent terms."
It was those damned Han Chinese we couldn't stand. We'd never really fought the nomadic tribes — if anything, we'd given them plenty.
"Then as long as we get along, that's all that matters."
"It's neither good nor bad, so I can't really say."
Hm. True — this Sui dynasty, rather than buying expensive luxuries, seemed to buy practical things. Food and weapons.
"Still, since they've unified, start preparing again."
"Yes, sir!"
We had to be ready for war. Stockpile more arrows, bring in more weapons. Arrows, bows, blades — they all cost far more to maintain than you'd think, so we'd been making them only in moderation. But it was time to ramp up production again.
"The steppe is fine, though?"
"No one's getting over there."
A while back, we'd started hiring the Western natives and the Mongols as mercenaries. The two of them hit it off so well that they started roaming together and ended up pacifying the entire steppe.
"If you've got that much power, why not just found a country? What are you doing?"
"They say they prefer being free."
They still lived tribe by tribe, yet they'd all lined up and settled along our walls like beads on a string. Follow the walls anywhere, and you'd find mercenary friends waiting.
Which meant if you went to see those walls, it was soot, shanties, and utter poverty.
"I hear they're planning to raise a palisade over there. Tell them not to build it too high — too tall and even we can't help them."
"Yes, sir."
Mercenaries who'd all but settled down permanently. Was this like a cuckoo? They left their families in our care and went off raiding, after all. If anyone attacked, we'd have to at least protect the families with arrow fire. The kids had grown so close to the mercenaries, they'd probably handle it themselves.
"Still, do you think the country next door will try to come over the walls?"
"If it were me, I wouldn't even glance at them."
Short of smashing the walls to pieces, there was no way over, was there? Even hauling siege towers up, how enormous would they have to be? And we wouldn't just stand by and watch, either.
"Surely they wouldn't come by sea?"
"If they had a shred of sense, that's the last thing they'd do."
"Do you think they know that?"
"Uh..."
Would people who'd never launched anything bigger than a fishing boat have any idea what the Daehan Sea was like?
The water had grown clearer than anyone expected, and since the Yellow River was long gone, calling these waters the Yellow Sea felt wrong — so we simply called it the Daehan Sea, all the way down to Namdo.
Plenty of ships wore out and got scrapped every year, but plenty more were built, to the point that even we had lost count of how many we had.
The countless ships crossing that sea were warships. Sentry ships. There was no such thing as slipping past quietly.
"How many fire bottles do we have?"
"Fire jars?"
Right — fire jars. Or flame jars. Someone decided both names sounded good, so they'd whittled it down to one of the two.
I suppose from the receiving end, catching fire-ja was a perfect fit. The flames never went out.
"We only keep a small stock. If they sit too long, the fire weakens."
I didn't know the ingredients, but apparently something volatile went into them.
"Then we can just make them when we need them."
"Even the regular stockpile could burn two or three fleets' worth of ships."
Oh... that's quite a lot, isn't it?
"We could set the whole Daehan Sea ablaze."
"Aw, come on, not that much! Maybe a tenth of it?"
"A tenth is basically covering all of it."
Did they have any idea how vast that sea was? The maps were inaccurate, so the kid clearly had no sense of scale.
We needed clocks...
We did have one delivered recently, but it was a tick-tock pendulum clock — useless at sea. It would be a long wait yet.
Still, I'd dutifully granted a family the surname Jeong — "precision" — and told them to keep hammering away at an accurate timepiece.
The year 3053 of Daehan, give or take? The Sui dynasty had unified China, and fourteen years later, a son murdered his father and took the throne. What a remarkable country.
And then they started pulling nonsense.
"Heh heh... they're building ships like that?"
"Yes. The timber along the Sui coast and riverbanks is being stripped bare."
This was, without a doubt, a plan to come out to sea and try something.
"Will the folks in the Refugee Autonomous District cooperate with them?"
"It's not impossible."
So that place had turned into a liability... My mistake.
"How many people are in there?"
"They never registered with the census, so it's hard to say, but judging by the size of the towns and villages, I'd guess no fewer than four million..."
I might end up orchestrating the largest massacre in human history...
"Reinforce the troops along those walls. If there's any suspicious movement, make it known they won't survive it. Spread the rumor, too."
"Do you really think they'd rise in revolt?"
"I honestly don't know..."
Pitiful as it might be, we couldn't afford to take in nomads. Especially not the Han.
The Refugee Autonomous District near Gunpo Port. Every other approach was sealed behind walls, leaving this the only route through which the district could reach Daehan.
In a tavern at the market, two men sat drinking, and one of their faces was gravely troubled.
"Did you hear the news?"
"What news?"
"They say the soldiers have the walls surrounded."
"Wasn't that always a garrison post?"
"No, not down there — up top!"
"The Daehan side? Why?"
Only then did the other man sense something was off.
"The word is, the kingdoms to the south have been unified, and Daehan is gearing up for war because of it."
"So? I suppose we'd prepare too, then."
"Heh heh! Oh, you friend!"
Exasperation crept across the face of the man who'd been speaking so gravely.
"Then the troops should thicken along the southern walls — why are they piling up in the north too?!"
"Huh? Why would that be?"
"If the rumors are true, they think we're the ones planning a revolt..."
"Why on earth? We're living well here!"
The man was stunned. Nowhere else on earth grew crops this well or lived this comfortably — and yet it seemed they might be thrown out any day.
"No! There's no way I can pack up and start over somewhere else now!"
His heart was racing. A child was due soon; he had neither the means nor the will to uproot and settle elsewhere.
His ancestors had been accepted as refugees, sure — but how bitterly he regretted never becoming citizens of this country.
"I'm torn myself..."
"What are we supposed to do?"
"From what I hear, they're still letting people who want to leave go."
There was an escape route. Leaving this land. Maybe the most convenient outcome for everyone involved.
"Then what about the house? The land?"
"It was never ours to begin with, is there any choice? We leave it behind."
"God..."
He felt as though the sky were caving in on him. There was a little gold tucked away at home, but would that be enough to start over somewhere else? Even just past the southern walls, farming was a struggle. But here, near the harbor, the soil was unbelievably generous. Where else in the world could you find such a miraculous land?
Grass that kept growing even in winter — unheard of, frankly.
"Somehow we have to make it clear none of us have any intention of revolting!"
"Would you believe us?"
"Ah... aah... if we leave the walls, we can at least survive, right?"
"That's right."
Survival meant leaving — but the problem was, what if they left and no war broke out? Would Daehan ever let them back in?
The two men's worries only deepened.
"How are the others taking it?"
"Three camps. One's the people leaving. Two are the ones trying to talk Daehan around. Three are the ones who genuinely want to revolt."
"Gahk—!"
The man felt his throat close up.
He worked as a porter on the docks, so he knew. He knew exactly how terrifying the soldiers were.
Even a small Daehan man stood a full head taller than him, and loads that he could barely hoist with both hands they carried one in each palm like sacks of feathers.
Most of the time they'd laugh it off with a hearty ha-ha, but if one of them ever threw a punch in earnest, it would probably crack his skull open.
"No! We mustn't fight!"
"What's gotten into you?"
"Those people are monsters! We'd all die!"
"Still, there are enough of us here — couldn't we hold out?"
The man, who'd worn a grave expression this whole time, could not understand his terror-stricken friend.
He knew perfectly well that Daehan folk were huge and strong. But weren't they human all the same? Stab them with a blade and they'd die like anyone else, wouldn't they?
"Rather than fight them, I'd sooner stand on the other side!"
"What?! You'd betray your own people?"
"We have to survive first, don't we?!"
"Huh... I clearly misjudged the sort of man you are!"
It looked like tonight would be the last time the two friends drank together. Each was setting off in search of his own way to survive — and what would become of them?
The Yangtze River, Sui dynasty.
A stupendous volume of timber was drifting downstream. Dozens of men worked to untangle the logjams and send the wood on its way.
It looked as though every tree upstream had been felled to the last stump.
"Hey! Watch out!"
"Gyaaah!"
Crack—
Untangling the snarled logs and letting them float on was no easy work. One wrong move, and you could be crushed between the tumbling trunks and die on the spot.
Every single day, several men met their end in the water without even the chance to scream. It would be no trick of the eye if the Yangtze ran red.
Downstream, around that stretch of the river, a staggering number of ships floated on the water.
Along the banks, even more were being built, and on one side, timber under preparation was piled up in what looked like mountains.
The ships' shape was quite peculiar. Flat-bottomed vessels, but long and narrow like Rome's galleys. Clearly they'd drawn heavy inspiration from the Roman ships that had sunk long ago.
Aboard a single house-shaped barge moored by the bank, a gaunt old man and a man who looked to be an official were in conversation.
"You're saying they want more built?"
The old man's face was worn down by exhaustion, his cheeks hollowed from all he'd suffered.
"That's right."
The official, who had evidently been eating and sleeping plenty on his own, answered only with cold indifference. Out of sheer pity, the least he could do was offer a kind word.
"We've already built hundreds of them!"
"The orders say so. What can I do about it?"
"Then at least feed us properly. The workers are falling apart."
"His Imperial Majesty himself eats rice with wild greens — what more do you want?"
The reigning emperor, Emperor Yang of Sui, was a thoroughly debauched and extravagant man. He had merely put on an act of virtue to please his parents in his early days — how could some official sent down to the provinces know anything of that?
"Then give us rest, at least. We need time to go out and hunt for our own food."
"Once the ships are finished, I'll consider it."
The old man's desperate pleas were buried under the official's ambition. The man had one thought only: finish up his posting quickly, hurry back to the capital, and climb to a high position. The sooner these people built the ships, the sooner he ascended — wasn't that obvious?
"Enough idle chatter! Get out there and build ships!"
"We are not slaves!"
Lives worse than slaves' — both he and the workers had reached their breaking point, and a shout burst from the old man's lips.
"Wh-what did you say?! Is this rebellion?!"
"No! How could this possibly be rebellion!"
"Guards! Seize that man!"
"Wait — what is happening?!"
The old man was dragged off the ship by soldiers on charges of treason. Before long he would vanish beneath the executioner's blade — and it would be a wrongful death indeed.
"Bring the master shipwrights here, and quickly!"
There were plenty more who'd trained under the old man, and plenty more master shipwrights besides. The Sui dynasty, after all, had people to spare.