The Dynasty That Doesn't Fear Money
Wow! They really have no idea how scary money is, do they?
“No, really! Why do those bastards keep begging us for money?”
“It wasn't even something we were holding in trust — we drew it up as a proper treaty, didn't we? And yet they keep demanding taxes and whatnot, going on about how it's sovereign territory of their nation.”
Those wretched Japanese. The aristocracy had collapsed and father and son were at each other's throats, and now they claimed they were short on war funds and demanded we hand over their taxes? The audacity was truly something to behold.
“Fine, give it to them. In exchange, we write up an IOU.”
“An IOU?”
“Yeah, we're lending it. We'll take a little interest, too.”
“Interest?”
Huh? My kids don't do anything like banking?
“Is that so? You don't do banking?”
“Why would we?”
“Huh?”
“The state gives us land. The state gives us houses. If we go hungry, it feeds us, and it finds us work.”
Hmm? Now that they mention it, that's right, isn't it? All the land belongs to the state. Yes — it's assigned out, isn't it?
“Oh? Then why do you earn money at all?”
“To pay taxes?”
Oh, right! Taxes, of course. Money gets lent out and collected back in installments... So the whole thing was basically public housing, huh.
“And if it's not enough? Do you borrow from anywhere?”
“If we're short, they just collect more at the next tax round.”
“So you have deferments?”
“Yes. Not many — almost none, really — but they do happen sometimes. For people with a big crisis at home.”
So there was hardly ever a need for a large sum of money...
“And what do you save your money for?”
“These days we take trips, and we spend especially a lot on hunting. Gunpowder sells at quite a premium.”
“Aha.”
“Still, Holy Water and dye are the most expensive of all.”
So that saliva and those hairs were still going strong, I see. Fine, as long as they were happy.
More importantly — where were we with the bank discussion?
“For now, get signed confirmations on the lending terms. As for interest... let's say about 10 percent a year?”
Shall we try starting international banking? Other countries wouldn't do — their names and kings kept changing — but Japan would work.
Their debt would last a thousand years and more. It would run for an incredibly long time, wouldn't it? Maybe I should sweeten it with a tiny interest rate? Lure them in?
“No, forget luring. Let's do just 1 percent a year.”
“Isn't that too little?”
“In exchange, we take compound interest.”
Time to show them the true terror of compounding.
“What's that?”
“You calculate the interest each year on the principal plus the interest you've already accrued.”
“It still looks far too small to me?”
“If it looks small, try 2 or 3 percent, then.”
They had no idea how many times over even 1 percent came back, did they?
“Isn't that still too little?”
“If the interest is cheap, won't they just keep borrowing more and more?”
“I suppose they would?”
That was exactly what made cheap interest so terrifying. They said they'd spend it on war, so naturally they'd pay it off diligently, wouldn't they?
“See? You don't seem to grasp compound interest.”
“Does that really amount to money?”
“Do you know how much it comes to at 2 percent for a mere hundred years?”
“About double?”
“Borrow 100,000 nyang, and you'll owe 720,000 nyang.”
“Gah!”
Was that even the end of it?
“And you haven't done the math, so you'll borrow more along the way, won't you? Then just how far does that debt grow?”
“Ohh...”
The scary part hadn't even started yet.
“It's over sevenfold after a hundred years — and after two hundred, that's fifty-two times.”
“Khh—!”
What was this? They had absolutely zero concept of finance?
“Um... what happens if the royal family falls?”
“Nowhere else would do, but Japan alone works.”
That Tenno there would still be on the throne a thousand years from now, all the way to the modern era. Well, we should collect periodic settlements, more or less?
And unlike in real history, if they fell, we could just seize their land, right? If we showed up with guns demanding repayment in kind, what exactly were they going to do about it?
“We can't lend to just anyone. Look at the other countries — the nation's name changes every other day, the king changes with it? Guaranteed they'll pretend not to know us.”
“Yes. If you flip through the world map periodically, the countries change constantly.”
A few nations did linger on into the modern era, but once a dynasty changed, they'd play ignorant all over again, wouldn't they?
“Only Japan has that Tenno — the Emperor? — lasting and lasting. It's safe to lend to them.”
“Understood.”
“For interest, keep it small — 1 percent. At that rate they'll keep borrowing without ever noticing how the fine drizzle soaks the coat, right up until bankruptcy.”
“Heh heh heh. That sounds fun.”
“Since it's a fast road to ruin, make absolutely sure it doesn't spread to our own citizens.”
“Yes!”
Nobody borrowed money anyway, so it would probably be fine. My worry was more that we'd lose our shirts doing business abroad.
“Get a signed confirmation every single time you lend. Not personal loans — lend in the name of the Imperial House.”
“Yes!”
Were we fleecing them too hard? With no silver or gold mines, there was honestly nothing for them to do but farm and raise cattle, was there?
Later I really ought to buy a healthy pile of copper and coal off them, at least.
And so the Japanese imperial household, knowing no fear of money, began borrowing with wild abandon.
100,000 nyang of silver in 3544.
Another 100,000 nyang in 3549.
Another 100,000 nyang in 3552.
Another 200,000 nyang in 3557.
Principal plus interest already stood at 560,000 nyang here...
“Goodness... they must be out of their minds.”
Shown the IOUs the Imperial House had signed for its loans, the curses came pouring out of me all on their own.
“They hire warriors to fight one another, so apparently it takes an enormous amount of money?”
Wait, when we handed over that first 100,000 nyang, hadn't I heard it was practically the size of their entire treasury?
“Should we collect?”
“They don't seem to have any intention of repaying.”
Wow... could it be the Imperial House was going to fall differently than it did in history?
“You are confirming the principal and interest each time a payment comes in, right?”
“Yes. They seem to think it isn't all that much.”
Hmm, weren't there plenty of people in the Middle Ages who sold off their fiefs in exactly this fashion?
“What if they eat the money and run?”
“That frightens me a little too.”
“What do we do if they flee by ship?”
Huh? Why on earth was he worrying about that? We'd simply seize their land or whatever else they had, wouldn't we?
“Then let them run. Why not?”
“Oh...”
What was with that expression — part disappointment, part relief? It was as if his face were saying, well, that's just like you.
“Hey, you told me to let them run, so I let them run. What more do you want from me?”
“You're right. Yes. Truly magnificent.”
What kind of farce was this?
While lending money to the Japanese imperial family and playing games with compound interest, an interesting piece of news arrived from the west.
“A Crusade?”
“Yes. The name was quite grand, at the very least.”
“Whereabouts in the middle did the westerners invade?”
“You know it well?”
It deserved to be famous. The atrocity humanity committed while peddling the name of the sublime divine. A history of slaughter and plunder, wasn't it?
“More or less.”
“The mood inside Mudo has turned uneasy, and Prize has been worried...”
Well, to be fair, they had plenty of Muslims there, and plenty of Christians too? A powder keg, wasn't it? Still, they were merchants at heart — surely they'd keep their eyes on nothing but money?
“That's a holy war to reclaim the Holy Land, so it shouldn't concern them much, should it?”
The Holy Land was that Middle Eastern place — Jerusalem, presumably?
“Apparently they've been fighting localized wars with the Seljuks for ages. That's why they're worried a full war might break out?”
“Eh, wouldn't we win anyway?”
With Fist Potatoes supplied to them, they'd beat back whoever came pouring in, I figured?
But didn't plenty of Muslim merchants trade there too? What was the point of picking that fight?
“Aren't there lots of Muslim merchants there?”
“Lots, yes.”
“Then why do they fight?”
“It seems they consider the matter separate from the merchants?”
What a mess.
“Ugh. If it truly gets dangerous, tell them to shelter briefly on the eastern steppe. The walls of Mudo have our people manning them, after all?”
The outside world, I couldn't say — but the walls of Mudo were connected to our own Great Wall, and we were the ones holding them.
The friends could simply take refuge behind the walls for a while, regroup, and then push back in. We'd supply the materiel, naturally.
“Surely they won't lose their minds and attack us.”
“Who knows? They've never been on the receiving end, after all?”
Hmm. So they'd never tasted the fire stick, had they? Those westerners?
“Our cannons outrange their trebuchets, don't they?”
“Without question.”
Right — they even outranged our Large Wall Ballistas. Accuracy had been the sticking point, granted?
“Oh! Couldn't we just hand our Large Wall Ballistas over to them?”
Weren't we done by now pouring manpower into nothing but warehouse maintenance for those things?
“And what do we do if it rains?”
“Why should we worry about the rain? That's a worry for the ones using them. And if it rains, bows and ballistas can't be used anyway, can they?”
That was the chronic ailment of wooden weapons. No matter how thoroughly you waterproofed them, firing openly through a downpour was another matter entirely.
They were practically single-use, good for one brief stretch at most. The trebuchet was perhaps the least affected of the lot?
“That's exactly why I keep saying we need cartridge casings — you understand, right?”
“Can those be used in the rain?”
“Yeah. Made well enough, you could fire them underwater.”
Granted, the shot didn't fly more than ten meters, but still.
“Whoa!”
“Huh? You didn't know? The explosives go off underwater too — same with the Fist Potatoes.”
“Oh. I... didn't know that.”
The trouble was simply that the list of things to handle kept growing and it had become a nuisance. They did go off, at least.
“Tell them to build those casings well, so they can fire freely even in the rain.”
“Yes!”
The technology was all there; the real crux was stable production of the primers. We'd just have to hope time solved that one.
“Good call having the scholars build the signal system, wasn't it?”
“Yes. We've turned it into a simple chart and are preparing it for distribution.”
I'd demonstrated electromagnetic induction experiments to the scientists a while back, and it turned out a simple Morse-code signaling device didn't need all that much voltage?
So we built relay stations along the railroad. The underground conduit for the wiring had been laid in tandem with the tracks from the start.
The wire was copper, but vulcanized rubber was still beyond us — for now they were installing it coated in raw natural rubber.
“And the demonstration run from Sinsi to Seonju was completed successfully as well.”
“Oh? It went well? Roughly how long did it take?”
“There were 175 relay stations, and transmitting the twelve characters 'Give thanks to the grace of Haneul' took nearly six hours.”
They must still have been green, it being their first time? Once the operators got used to transmission, it would speed up enormously. But who on earth wrote that embarrassing message, honestly?
Still — what had taken five days by train now took six hours. That was much faster. With practice, it would come down to two or three, wouldn't it?
So I gave them one more push to develop the technology quickly.
“Once chemistry advances further, we'll probably be able to send a signal all the way to Seonju in a single go — a bit of a shame for now?”
“It travels that far? I can scarcely believe it!”
They were beside themselves over a signal that traveled two li at the moment. I wondered what their reaction would be when they later received signals bounced back off the ionosphere.
“We'll need plenty of staff if ordinary people are going to use it, though?”
“May we do that?”
“People living far away will have urgent news now and then, won't they?”
Routine things like greetings could go by letter since the trains ran, but if someone fell ill, they needed to be able to send word right away?
“Then we should prepare a bit more, shouldn't we?”
“Something better will come along later, so don't build it too big.”
“Understood.”
And the wire was terribly shabby besides; maintenance was going to be a monstrous headache.
With only raw natural rubber available, undersea cables were out of the question; the Eastern Continent would have to keep receiving its news by letter.
“How are the rifled barrels coming along?”
And these days, rifled muskets were being distributed to the frontline soldiers in full swing.
“With the expanding bullets you mentioned, they say targets beyond the line of sight are hard to hit — the shooter can't even see them.”
“Even with the kids' sharp eyes?”
Hmm. Should I have them make a scope, then? Was fully transparent glass in mass production yet?
It would be a waste to use quartz for this.
“Have the glass artisans make a small telescope that can be mounted on a rifle.”
“Wouldn't that be terribly expensive?”
“In cases like this, we should experiment — can ordinary glass be made perfectly clear through chemical treatment?”
I'd said that much; let them mix things on their own and something was bound to come of it. Well, it wasn't as though we strictly needed scopes?
“And manage the best shots separately. They're going to be snipers.”
“What's that?”
“The range of our guns will only keep growing. Then someone hides very far away — say, up in the mountains — shoots a commander or some high-ranking officer, and slips away before anyone knows.”
You could win a battle before it had even been fought.
“Wow! So we could win, dirty as anything?”
“As long as you win, what does it matter?”
“As expected. The very byword for villainy.”
“What'd you say, you brat?”
It was called efficiency, this punk? Once the industrial age passed, the population would swell beyond counting — it wouldn't be an era where wars ended by killing everyone.
The moment gunpowder weapons arrived, mastering them took hardly any time at all — and that was precisely when total war had begun...
Plenty of countries would manage to cook up something gunpowder-like, wouldn't they? They'd copy ours, but so long as we never handed it over openly, it would take them ages?
I'd better be very careful about technology leaks.