Merchants of Death
Peace, for once? That can't be right.
More than a hundred years had passed since the war with the Sui Dynasty ended — long enough for the scars to heal, and just the right time for things to start getting noisy again. And yet, northeast Asia was, unexpectedly, calm.
The Tang Dynasty, terrified of both the sea and the open plains, had shut itself away in the mountains it called home, hobbling along up there after losing every one of its precious grain belts in the last war.
"What's this about the Tang Dynasty now?"
"They're asking permission to fish in the sea."
We never told them they couldn't fish, did we?
"Who ever stopped them?"
"Our kids don't touch their fishing boats either, so it's strange."
"Doesn't sound like us. Probably those kids from the other Southeast Asian countries, don't you think?"
Those kids were so obsessed with explosions that they never bothered with work that didn't pay.
Tang was one thing, but the Han Dynasty — they actually seemed to have some decent plains around Chengdu. Still, that place was boxed in by mountains on every side, with nowhere to go.
"What's the Han Dynasty's problem?"
"Apparently they lack the technology to make iron, so they're asking us to send them farm tools."
"Good grief... they'll try anything, won't they?"
Of course nothing works when you just keep taking what's ours. You're supposed to keep studying and practicing! I don't get it. Fine, figure it out yourselves.
"Any signs of war between the two?"
"They couldn't fight even if they wanted to."
"Hmm?"
"There's nothing between those two countries but mountains. If they marched over in single file and got ambushed, they'd all be dead."
Hmm, so the defenders would have an overwhelming advantage, wouldn't they? And since they'd never actually meet face to face, no amount of time could make things worse between them — they simply couldn't get worse.
"Looks like they can only trade through mountain passes — merchants and envoys, nothing more."
"What a hard life..."
Meanwhile, Joseon over in Daedo was, for who knows what reason, chumming it up with Japan. Best friends now, hand in hand.
"Why did they change their country's name? It's confusing."
"Hard to say. Their call, I suppose."
"So the Japanese are riding Joseon ships back and forth to Tang, then?"
The four of them, minus us, got along splendidly. Stretched long from east to west, playing nicely together.
"Shall we stop them?"
"Leave them be. It's their own fate."
"Couldn't they end up losing their land?"
"That place? It can go for all I care."
Do they have any idea how often earthquakes strike there? Quakes bad enough to destroy the whole country had hit more than once.
"The island's fairly big, though?"
"That land is cursed. Earthquakes and tsunamis hit places like that all the time."
"Ah! Disaster! We should be careful, then."
Taking that place would be nothing but a waste of effort. It wasn't as if they had any remarkable resources. Maybe, someday far off, if there happened to be a gold mine or two, it might be worth a thought.
"But I still don't feel like just giving it to anyone. If those Joseon folks start going on about independence, kick them out and leave it an empty island. Or sell it off at a steep price."
"Perhaps we could charge them a yearly tribute of gold?"
"Exactly. And if they can't pay, we just take it back. Heh heh heh."
Why do I feel like a loan shark?
"And if a war does break out, the navy kids will just have their fun, that's all."
"True enough? You wouldn't order a landing, after all."
The way I see it, Japan is a heap of garbage land. Best move is to simply surround it on all sides and collect gold and silver as tribute.
"Right. Just target practice from far off, nothing more."
"Hm, wouldn't we be supplying them with iron, though?"
Good point. Shells are a bit of a waste, aren't they?
"Oh! I've got it! Just throw Fist Potatoes at them."
"Ooh! They'd shatter into fragments so small you couldn't even gather them up. Heh heh heh."
Let them work hard on their Dragon Balls, then. Who knows how far they'd get collecting pieces, but still.
Anyway — a rare season of peace here in northeast Asia.
The trouble with a big country is that when you own this much land, something is always on fire. The west was getting loud.
The two great religions of the trade cities — Christianity and Islam — were already at each other's throats in earnest.
The Sky Faith didn't carry much weight in the trade cities. Only our own people believed in it — people for whom faith had been a given from the very beginning.
And we didn't go out of our way to proselytize either. You all know the drill: a priest's daily routine is labor and training, plain and simple.
"That land is technically someone else's, so what are they all screeching about?"
"Gods can be many, after all. I truly don't understand fighting over something like that."
I, for one, had heard the voice of no god myself, had I? Right — I was the first to acknowledge the existence of other gods.
That's why I told people to believe only if they wanted to. Not that I could stop the people of Daehan from believing anyway. Judging by that alone, our market share must be the largest in the world.
"I wish they'd all just drop dead."
"Shall I collapse all their temples tonight, every last one?"
"Then there'd be a real war."
We'd get the Crusades a bit early, is what would happen. At least the pepper issue would disappear, I suppose.
Hm? Wait — wouldn't the Age of Exploration never arrive? Wasn't that ultimately spurred by pepper too?
Forget ocean voyages — we'd get bandit gangs playing cowboys in the West instead.
"Oh! Right, and they're saying they intend to proselytize in Daehan. What should we do?"
"You think anyone would listen?"
"Hard to say? If they preach in the middle of the night, they'd probably all end up buried somewhere, wouldn't they?"
Oh... he means it. Genuinely. Even to my eyes, it looked like they'd simply vanish without a trace.
"If they keep whining that they want to come in, take them by train all the way to Ryeonhwa, put them on a ship, and ship them off to Daedo."
"Hm... it's an island, so I suppose they'll figure something out on their own?"
"Right. Same with the Muslims — round them all up when their time comes and ship the lot of them out."
They wouldn't be going home, but I'd tell them to live well and hash things out among themselves there.
No joke — if they set foot in our country, all they'd amount to is corpses walking around.
One wrong move and our people might genuinely charge out screaming holy war.
"Also, the mercenary patrol force is requesting assistance."
"What's the trouble?"
"Some country to the south keeps pushing north, and there are frequent clashes. It sounds like they've taken fairly heavy losses."
A Muslim state, was it? We'd always intended them as a buffer shield anyway, so what's ours to give is theirs to have.
"We're still developing our gunpowder weapons, aren't we?"
"Yes. We're making personal weapons too, but does every single one have to be fired by hand?"
There it is again. Do they honestly intend to use cannons as personal firearms?
"Just out of genuine curiosity — can you fire Dialogue-One while holding it in your hands?"
"Yes! You brace it against your body and fire!"
"Doesn't that hurt?"
"It hurts, but surely we can endure that much?"
So their logic is that a few bruises don't matter because we have Holy Water?
"I'm just telling you to make the thing smaller!"
"But wouldn't a smaller one lose its punch?"
When did you all become obsessed with nothing but bigger and bigger?
"Think about reloading, too. Wouldn't a smaller weapon be easier to reload? And if there's one enemy, using a weapon that could kill dozens is a waste, isn't it?"
I could just about understand a shotgun, but what they were talking about was a genuine cannon. I'd clearly watched them fire one by hand during test launches and go flying backward, and they still begged and pleaded for it.
"Then we'll try making it somewhat smaller."
"Good. This weapon is going to gradually replace the bow. So start putting bows in the hands of the mercenary kids from now on."
"Is that wise?"
It's a final weapon and all, but that was talk for when gunpowder ran short — and from what I'd heard, they were churning out gunpowder by the mountains already.
"We'll need bows until the weapons are improved enough to work in the rain, but not nearly as many as before, right? Honestly, the moment anyone shows up, you're all itching to fire cannons first, aren't you?"
"Gasp..."
Given the way they behave, they'd do far more than that.
"And when the enemy gets close, you'll be throwing Fist Potatoes, won't you?"
"Gasp..."
Close range and long range both covered — no real reason to cling to bows anymore, was there?
"Looking at current gunpowder production, we could fight an entire war on that alone, couldn't we?"
"Yes. And if we need more, we can increase production further."
When I'd told them we'd need a staggering amount later, they'd expanded the saltpeter fields and were concentrating the stuff on a massive scale. It had gotten to the point where you could simply walk around picking up crystallized niter off the ground — that says it all. And they were building even more fields on top of that.
I created firepower fanatics far, far too early...
"Then we can phase out the bows, yes?"
"Agreed!"
"And weapons like these that we no longer need — handing them out to or selling them to the mercenaries would be a help, right?"
And so began the saga of the Merchants of Death, the arms trade.
"Ooh!"
"Now then — even our own cannons like Dialogue-One will become outdated models someday."
"Hm. It'd be a shame to just throw them away, wouldn't it?"
The math works out, doesn't it? We should sell every last one.
"So which is better — melting them down as scrap, or selling them off at a premium?"
"Might the technology leak out?"
"So what if it leaks? Could they actually build the same weapons?"
This was steel, for heaven's sake. Were they going to hammer it out in a blacksmith workshop? It absolutely had to be cast. And even if they melted steel down, it would just be pig iron — back to cast iron all over again.
They'd need a reverberatory furnace or something of the sort to refine it again. Then forcing the air out of the molten iron would require tremendous pressure — which naturally meant a steam engine.
"You can't do it without a steam engine and a reverberatory furnace. That's exactly why I ordered you to guard those two technologies as our most critical ones."
And in the end, gunpowder was the real problem. Were there really lunatics out there who'd lay sewer systems across their whole country just to harvest saltpeter, the way we did?
"Ah..."
"And do you really think we'd be sitting on our hands while they spent all that time developing such technology?"
That's what's terrifying about industrialization starting early — from the industrial age onward, the acceleration of technological progress becomes staggering.
How much could we accomplish in the time it took them to build a steam engine and enter the industrial age?
"Then I'll be needing those personal firearms I mentioned, won't I?"
"Agreed!"
"For these technologies to advance, you have to let the scientists run every experiment they want to run."
"Yes! We'll support them proactively!"
They'd finally understood, hadn't they?
Just how hard did they drive the people this time, all in the name of making weapons? Sure enough, a few months later, someone came trotting in with something in hand.
"What's this?"
"We named this one Negotiation."
It had gotten smaller, at least. Is this really meant to be fired by a human being?
Negotiation-One was, to anyone's eyes, a shotgun.
"You do realize that weapons that spray shot like this have short range?"
"Yes! It's for close quarters!"
Oh. They do know.
"And Two? This one's rather long?"
Why is the bore so big? My fingers slide right in, one after another?
"Yes, Haneul-nim. Built to your specifications, it can hit targets at long range with real stopping power — and once we finished it, Negotiation-Two actually turned out to be the better reviewed of the two."
So when I told them to build something like that, they dug their heels in and stubbornly brought me a shotgun anyway?
And judging by the numbering, they'd clearly ignored my instructions and built the shotgun first.
"But what's got you all in such a rush?"
"Events seem to be moving fast."
"Hm?"
"The mercenaries appear to be struggling."
Hm? Why would our friends be having a hard time? There was no reason for it.
"Oh — we haven't given them the weapons yet, have we?"
"No. We wanted to finish building our own first before sending any, and that's how we ended up here."
Fair enough, but we had cannons too — we could have just sent those. What a waste.
"Send the weapons quickly, then. Let's hope not too many of them are wounded."
"It looked like quite a few were hurt. I'm worried."
"Ah, right — how about we send priests along to treat the wounded?"
We had asked them to fight on our behalf, after all. A little guilt was creeping in.
"Yes. Something like that shouldn't be difficult."
"Is there enough Holy Water to spare?"
"There's never been a shortage, so no need to worry."
Just how much water do they dilute it with? Nobody's even complained it's weak. I suppose a little goes a long way?
"Even if a messenger rode all night, the train would still be faster, right?"
"Yes, of course."
It would be nice if the relay stations could flash signals back and forth quickly, though. Oh!
"Our relay stations don't have much use anymore, do they?"
"No. We've been debating whether to tear them down. But they also serve to guard the roads, so we weren't sure what to do..."
"Let's build a system for sending signals with light at night."
"Signals, you say?"
Something like Morse code, essentially.
"Right — you make signals by covering and uncovering a light. Flash it a certain number of times and it means a certain letter. That sort of thing."
"Hm. That's more complicated than it sounds — it wouldn't come together in a short time."
"Right, building an entire alphabet takes time. Have them start researching it in advance."
"Yes, Haneul-nim."
This was exactly the kind of thing you had to prepare early — so that the moment the telegraph arrived, it could be put to use right away.