No Means No!
A proposal for the construction of a battle machine powered by a high-output steam engine. Its massive size and...(omitted)...its sheer imposing presence...(omitted)...as outlined above, this project is hereby proposed.
"This one doesn't get rejected."
A steam tank? What kind of nonsense was this, written out at such length? What a waste of paper!
"Why not!?"
"Because it's useless!"
"It'll be plenty useful! Arrows and knights won't even be able to get close!"
Right, and that's exactly as far as it goes. Sure, it'd be useful in the age of arrows and sword-swinging cold weapons.
"An era of cannon shells is just around the corner. What's your plan then? By the time you finish developing this thing, the battlefield will be full of flying bullets and shells."
"Uh... we'll add armor!"
There he went, rolling his eyes and spitting out another off-the-cuff answer.
"And then it gets heavier, doesn't it?"
"Yes. It does."
This guy hadn't thought about it at all. He'd clearly just gotten carried away by how cool it would look and hauled the proposal in here.
"Think it through before you answer. Heavier means a bigger engine. Bigger engine means carrying more water. More water means hauling a water wagon along, and your operating range shrinks to nothing. Fine! Let's say you've solved even that. Do you honestly believe something that heavy can move across bare dirt? You're not seriously assuming the enemy will kindly pave roads for you, are you?"
Ugh. My blood was boiling. Because of these idiots.
"..."
Still thinking?
"Hmm. Perhaps I brought the wrong one."
"I told the Prime Minister to handle things on his own, didn't I? Why am I still the one nagging?"
"Me too!"
"Exactly."
"It's not like I do this because I want to!"
"And what about me, then?"
Did he think I was doing all this because I wanted to?
And why is there no medical college in the budget?
"And there's nothing in here about medicine at all?"
"Ah! That's actually a problem. We have nowhere to do practical training."
"What about regions where Holy Water doesn't work, or cases where it fails?"
"That's the problem — there are barely any places that bad. It's a crisis."
As the population keeps growing, even Holy Water will hit its limits eventually. What was he planning to do then? Just let a Holy Water civil war break out — I dare them.
"Let's start by training veterinarians."
"What's that?"
"Animals get hurt and sick too, don't they? Let's raise people who can treat them."
"Do we really need to go that far?"
The nerve of these cold-hearted people — riding around on animals all day and talking like that!
"They're living creatures too! When they're hurt or sick, it hurts! You're supposed to care for them properly, not just throw them away or swap them out!"
With so many animals around, they clearly didn't consider them important.
"Er... well, they don't exactly get hurt that often. Understood. Please calm down."
"Grrrrgh!"
Was I calm now? These heartless fools.
"Show the animals a little love too!"
"Yes, ma'am!"
Do they have any idea how adorable dogs and weasels are?
The pigs that give us meat? Well... those are kind of scary-looking. Fine, we'll leave the pigs out.
And what about those gentle, innocent cow eyes, huh? ...Should I leave cows out too? They're just so big...
Come to think of it, hadn't Jorangi gotten rather big as well? Was it all the good eating?
In the year 3690, sorrowful news arrived.
"He died while on campaign, they say."
"How tragic. He rose up claiming to speak on my behalf, and he couldn't even see it through to the end."
Those Westerners truly couldn't be trusted. Their kings and popes changed every few years, each one pointing fingers at the last and shoveling the blame like a hot potato.
And so, in the end, Temüjin never received a reply.
If his war with the Islamic world hadn't dragged on into a long stalemate, Western Europe would have fallen long ago. Those people had luck on their side, at least.
"From what I hear, the Kypchaks — the ones who had pledged vassalage to him — struck a deal with the Europeans, and he died in the middle of the campaign because of it."
Betrayal. It was always betrayal.
"I take it they're still holding territory in Europe somehow?"
"It seems they haven't yet managed to weaponize gunpowder over there."
"The real obstacle is their ironworking, more than the powder. Cannons and guns aren't as simple as they sound."
Truth be told, if not for the Qajar, we might still be hammering gun barrels out by hand. We might have had half the country broken apart before we even started.
But they'd begun now, hadn't they? Starting from smelting, they'd climb their way up soon enough.
"And also — here."
Thwick.
A well-worn hwando — a round-hilted saber — was laid before me. It was the very blade I had once given to Temüjin, returned to my hands.
"Why is this here?"
"There was a letter with it as well."
If this letter and this blade have reached you, it means that no one remains here who understands and follows your will. Even if I have strayed down the wrong path, look upon me with tenderness, as one of your children. Should the Qajar ever find themselves in peril, grant me this one favor, I beg you. It is the small wish of your humble servant. — Temüjin
The man who carried it here had been one of his most trusted aides. He had stepped back from power to watch how things unfolded, and when the moment came, he'd brought the sword and letter to me.
"What sort of man was the one who delivered it?"
"Stubborn, and he carried himself with a kind of unbending dignity."
"Where did he go afterward?"
"I asked, but I imagine he'll simply raise horses somewhere."
If he was the man Temüjin trusted more than his own sons, then perhaps he could be trusted. The man hadn't smuggled the sword out or sold it — he'd carried it all the way here.
"Send him to the Temple."
"The Temple, Your Holiness?"
"Yes. Gather men like him at the Temple. Tell them to temper both body and spirit. A warrior who once swept across battlefields can't be put to plowing fields and herding sheep."
So none of his sons or nobles had struck him as a worthy heir, and he'd sent the subordinates he valued most to me instead?
It stung a little, I'll admit. But I suppose he wanted these friends of his to rest easy, knowing I would take them in.
I had no intention of letting the Qajar collapse either — but they did need to be shaken awake.
"We're sending a great deal of supplies into the Qajar, aren't we?"
"Yes. They've been at nothing but war."
"Start tapering it off. Slowly."
"Won't they rise in rebellion?"
These people, who'd been living off our handouts practically free of charge? How dare they?
"Even if word reached us of some uprising, do you really think an army scraped together from a dozen scattered countries could stand against us?"
They'd recruit from the occupied lands, no doubt — a grand coalition of ten, twenty nations and peoples. And on our side? A unified regular army under the name of Daehan!
"Besides, we're not cutting them off — we're easing them down. That means they'll have to find their own way. Kidnap Western engineers, build the factories themselves, whatever it takes. We're not going to feed them for a thousand years, are we?"
"No. You're right."
And it was right there in the letter, wasn't it? His sons had turned.
"Send the sword to Sinsi. If he kept a journal or any records, send those along with it. He was, after all, my first blade."
"Yes. He will be recorded as a great warrior."
Even so, his descendants wouldn't have it easy. Europe and the Middle East were in for far worse suffering, I suspected.
After all, as I recalled, the Mongol Empire's territory had grown enormously even after Genghis Khan's death.
They might very well push all the way to Western Europe on their own. They'd never hold it, of course.
After Temüjin's death, the Qajar homeland stayed quiet, as if honoring his will — but the nobles and soldiers stationed abroad gradually drifted, exactly as he had feared.
The holy war they'd waged in the name of God faded away, leaving only naked conquest — and with it came burning and slaughter.
"Human beings really are hopeless."
"Shouldn't we step in and stop them?"
"However close we may have been, they're still someone else's people in the end. Send the Pope another message. Tell him: we neither persecute nor reject your God, so do not trespass in His name — and whatever is unfolding now has nothing to do with us."
That was why he hadn't passed his blade down to his sons, I supposed. A long dark age was about to fall over the West and the Middle East.
"At the very least, see that the lands where it all began are looked after."
I had no wish to watch even that last shred of shelter vanish.
Long after Temüjin's death, Europe and the Middle East remained a sea of fire. Would it ever end?
As for China, who could say how many times the state had turned over in that brief span, how many times rebellion had flipped it upside down?
First it was the Song and the Han, then a brief Song reunification, then another split between the Song and the Jin — and now, unlike Vietnam, a kingdom had wedged itself into the mix for a four-way standoff.
Jin, sitting close to Daedo, seemed to hold the advantage in supplies and economic muscle, while unlike the Song, the Kingdom of Dali sat in the mountains, apparently hard to attack.
"So who do you think wins this one?"
"I don't think anyone can."
It was uncanny how perfectly the balance of power was holding.
"Unless Jin builds a navy, I suppose it's out of the question for them?"
"And the land powers keep checking any move in that direction, don't they?"
And so all four kept at it — no decisive answers, nothing but frayed nerves and mountains of money poured into their armies.
For Vietnam, taking on Jin's sheer bulk was too heavy a lift. The sea was their one advantage, so they scraped by on trade money, straining not to fall behind.
For us, now sailing the far oceans, rarely crossing paths with Vietnam was a mercy, all things considered.
"So what these people want isn't luxuries — it's food, weapons, and gunpowder. That about right?"
All of it, materials of war.
"Shall we export to them?"
"What's your read?"
"I'd suggest selling to Dali and Vietnam. Song and Jin seem to be stockpiling — they're not asking because they need it now."
It wasn't outright war, after all — border skirmishes were simply a constant. Supplies were being consumed, so massive stockpiles would be difficult for anyone.
Even we had seen it — nameless bandits and nomads never seemed to stop appearing along the great wall at our border.
"Good. Let's back Dali and Vietnam. By the way — do Dali and Vietnam have cannons or guns?"
"They apparently acquire them from Song and Jin through smuggling or captured spoils."
Typical Chinese — hand them enough silver and they'd sell you their own mothers. The state would turn a blind eye to a degree, clawing some back into the treasury, but if that's how it was going to be, why bother fighting at all?
"And they're paying in gold and silver?"
"They say they're sourcing it from somewhere. Not our concern, really?"
"Hm? True enough. As long as we get paid, who cares!"
We could use the old gunpowder stocks that had been sitting in storage for ages. Still better than whatever they were brewing themselves, anyway.
If they didn't like it, they were welcome to be reborn in Daehan!
"How are the Japanese doing on their interest?"
Those people were always a problem. The Emperor had no real power! He was in practically the same position as that Christian Pope.
Whenever anyone raised a big fuss, the others would pay lip service with a clang and a bang, but never actually fall in line behind him.
The bakufu lot would pass our collection notices along to the Emperor while quietly ignoring them.
"Shall we go break a few things again?"
"Do we have to? They've lost their fear again, haven't they? What's the principal plus interest?"
"As of this year, thirty-six million six hundred sixty-eight thousand nyang."
"Eh, let's round down to the nearest ten million and collect that."
About time we sailed over and had a word.
"We've been sending notices every year, right?"
"Of course."
Good. If we didn't send yearly reminders, they'd play dumb on their end — "we never knew."
"So what do we take instead?"
"Looking at the merchants coming to Daedo, they bring in a lot of copper, mercury, and sulfur."
"And they want silver in exchange for that?"
"Yes. Partly silver, and partly they buy all sorts of spices."
Spices, we had locked down tight. Even in Southeast Asia, no one could touch us on that.
"Wait — they're already buying from us, and we're offering to take goods as payment, and they still haven't paid?"
"Hm. Rather shameless, isn't it? Shall we start by grounding their ships?"
"Eh, those are just merchants. This is a debt owed to us by a state."
We could be petty, but we couldn't be deadbeats.
"We don't need much anyway, do we? A few ships ought to do it."
"Then take the newer ones we've been launching?"
"Why? What's better about them?"
"They're improved. Faster, too."
Hm. Speed mattered!