The Debtors' Audacity
Look at these debtors, all puffed up with gall.
Japan, having seized power and slipped into shogunal misrule, was stumbling down the road to ruin as well. It began when Yoritomo, for no reason anyone could fathom, fell clean off his horse and died on the spot. His eldest son succeeded him as shogun, only to be poisoned by his own mother, and the title passed to the younger brother.
Then the younger brother was murdered by the eldest son's son — his own nephew. It was a mess that outdid any morning melodrama.
"The Minamoto line is finished? Then now is our chance!"
The Emperor rallied the warriors and ordered them to crush the Kamakura shogunate. And stepping forward at that moment was the original architect of it all — Masako, Yoritomo's widow.
"Remember how the warriors lived in the old days! Would you crawl back to that? Fight — fight for the shogunate that gave you this place!"
She had returned as a demagogue for the ages. The truth was that the warrior class — the samurai — had once been farmers, men gathered together for their strength and skill at arms and drilled into soldiers. To return to the way things were meant a miserable life waiting at the end of it. The warriors beat back the Emperor's armies, but the shogunate's bloodline was broken.
"Then I suppose I must step in!"
And so her clan stepped forward. The era of the shikken regents began — and, surprisingly, Japan began to grow by leaps and bounds. Iron farm implements spread far and wide, oxen and horses were put to the plow, and crop yields rose by leaps. On top of that came rice paddy cultivation — and, incredibly, a double harvest, planting barley in autumn and rice in spring.
"They say Daehan is demanding repayment of a debt?"
"Yes!"
"How much?"
"20.24 million nyang."
"That's nothing. Pay it."
The shikken of the day, it seemed, was picturing a few Song or Han dynasty copper coins. With surplus crops piling up and the economy booming, he assumed it couldn't be a sum Japan couldn't shoulder.
"Um... it's in silver..."
"..."
"Twenty million, two hundred forty thousand nyang in silver."
"Then I must have misheard."
He simply couldn't believe it. Who had borrowed such a fortune, and who in their right mind had lent it out? Wasn't that the kind of money you'd need a century of hoarding to amass without lifting a finger?
"So. Who borrowed it, that they're demanding it from us?"
"It seems the Emperor borrowed it. From 146 years ago — and apparently he never paid a single coin of interest."
"Hah. Well, he clearly doesn't have it either. Tell them to collect from him."
Unpayable even if he sold the whole country, the shikken decided, and simply ignored it.
"They say they'll accept goods in lieu. Also — they're from Daehan."
"Aren't they the ones living far across the sea? What could they possibly do about it?"
He had heard they threw their weight around the seas like some untouchable power, but a naval expedition across an ocean? Attacking across open water was no easy feat.
"More to the point — there's a rumor that gold has been found where they've settled?"
No intention of paying, and already scheming to steal the money instead. That was Japan for you.
"Shall I look into it?"
"Yes. Do so — carefully."
They had apparently made up their minds to go down in flames.
Scribble, scribble.
My ear was itching, so I picked at it, but it wouldn't quit being irritated.
"Ahh~ who's badmouthing me?"
"Not me!"
"What, did that sting? Feeling guilty?"
"I really didn't!"
Is it this guy? Who is it? Anyway.
"What is this budget!"
"Wh... what about it..."
"2.2 trillion won in taxes, right?"
"Yes. That's what it says."
"Then Transportation gets 232 billion, Artisan Affairs 308 billion... [omitted]... Military Affairs 641 billion. What's the total?"
I had never seen such an absurd budget in my life.
"Around 4.02 trillion?"
"And the roughly 2 trillion you're short — how do you plan to cover that?"
"We'll borrow from the Temple?"
I told them to only spend what they take in, and these brats won't listen for the life of them! Fine — the Military Affairs spending is partly my doing, so I'll let that slide! But what about the rest?
"How much interest are you planning on?"
"You'd charge interest between us?"
"You haven't repaid a single won, ever!"
"You're perfectly capable of it, though!"
It's not the taking that's the problem!
"Try solving it from the government budget first!"
Whack.
"Hurk."
"Huh?"
Oh my. Did I hit too hard?
"..."
"Hey? Get up."
"..."
"Hellooo?"
Shake, shake.
Oh dear... is he dead? No, he's breathing? Should I try first aid or something?
Scoop, scoop — ptooey! Splash.
Direct hit. Splatted dead center on his forehead.
Shake, shake.
"Hey? You okay?"
"..."
"Uh..."
This is actually serious. There's no hospital around here. Would hitting him harder wake him up?
"HOOOOAAAH!"
"..."
Good grief, what a fright. He sat bolt upright like he'd seen a ghost. I almost hit him again.
"Haaah... haaah..."
"What's wrong with you? You're pale as a corpse."
"I went to see the Grandfather!"
Oh, for goodness' sake. So he'd been on a long trip. I nearly killed him for nothing.
"Uuugh. Why does my head hurt so much."
"Oh — take better care of yourself. You just collapsed out of nowhere."
"I did?"
Collapse out of nowhere in his forties? That's enough to alarm anyone.
"You've probably been overworking. Go on, get some rest."
"Oh... yes... understood."
Taxes are a chronic disease, it seems. Money pours into the expansions without end. People need roads to live on, so you lay roads, and while you're at it you lay sewers and water mains too. And beyond the great cities, every stronghold city needs telegraph lines as well.
The land is simply too vast, so the expenses never stop. Add the military's endless support programs and projects on top of that — these guys really need to learn what money is actually worth.
If only for the kids' sake, I'd better go squeeze the money out of those deadbeats myself.
My goodness... these people are something else. They could really build wooden ships this big? Twenty-five jang long, they tell me.
They'd named her the Horned Whale — because she carried horns fore and aft. As the ships grew larger, they'd embedded steel wire for reinforcement. Actual steel wire — drawn iron strands, twisted into cable. Those horns were what anchored it in place.
And now there was a cabin built up on deck too, if only a single story — with the same brutishly thick timber, still looking like it had been plaited from whole logs, thrown in for good measure. So the ships grew bigger and the deckhouse went up, yet the displacement hadn't swollen all that much by comparison.
Fifteen thousand guan, hm? That's a lot, I suppose. Though it couldn't be helped — the Horned Whale was designed from the keel up as a warship, cannons included in the base armament.
"But she really is magnificent, isn't she?"
The railings weren't just functional either — they were thick with ornamentation, and those angel-like figures, for some reason, bore an uncanny resemblance to me. The cheek of it. They must have worn down and broken over time, so they carved lookalikes instead of exact copies, apparently.
These days the shipyards had mostly migrated to the Eastern Continent. Word was they'd all moved over en masse because of the superb shipbuilding timber to be found there.
"Everyone running off to find their calling. Really admirable."
"My lady! Departure preparations are complete!"
"Good, I'm coming up!"
Those insufferable wretches actually dared try to skim my money? Twenty ships ought to be enough, shouldn't it?
"We head for the gold mine first!"
"Yes, ma'am!"
It had taken a month, but given the size of the ships, I'd call that fast. Load the holds full of cargo, sell it off — that's how much money, again?
Whooshhh.
She carved through waves that would stop lesser hulls without so much as slowing, and in the process I learned something good about the Horned Whale: she rolled far, far less. Which meant guns and cannons would be easier to aim at sea. They were rifled barrels to begin with — perfect for live-fire experiments.
Could I manage a recoil-absorbing gun carriage? Ah, no — no smokeless powder yet, so it'd be pointless. You'd need to correct elevation by watching where the shell falls, and you can't see the thing fly at all.
Koom... kuguung... koom...
A faint, oddly familiar sound began to drift across the water.
"Huh?"
"What is that noise!"
That's cannon fire, isn't it?
"Hard to make out yet, but there's a whole fleet of ships swarming the gold mine!"
"Prepare for battle!"
We'd been sailing along nice and leisurely — what on earth was this? Don't tell me the Japanese had gone mad for gold and attacked the mine itself?
How would they even dare, with no cannons of their own? They couldn't have built any — must have bought them from the Qin, then?
My heart raced, but a ship's speed is what it is — at the mercy of the day's winds. I found myself missing the oars we no longer used, now that the ships had grown so large.
Koom. Koom.
"Handle those carefully! If one goes off, we could all die!"
"Yes, sir!"
Down below, they were hauling out crates of shells. Nothing short of bad luck would set one off, but people are people, and luck is fickle. Careful was right.
"Some of the enemy ships are turning toward us!"
"Come around — slowly!"
Nobody had ordered it, but the gun ports ran in a solid line along the hull's flank. A few degrees of diagonal fire was possible, but the ship still had to turn broadside.
A fair number of the moth-brained fools were steering straight at us. Though honestly, they'd have been better off running their ships aground and fleeing on foot.
"Fire!"
KOOM! KUGUUNG!
The Horned Whale's guns sat just beneath the deck. The hull rode high enough above the waterline that there was no need to mount them on top — which was a genuine blessing.
The bombardment opened, and as ever the smoke hung in thick gray sheets, blinding everyone. With no way to tell whether a single shot had found its mark, we waited until the smoke thinned — and here and there, holes gaped in the enemy hulls.
Rifled cannon or not, hitting a target at sea was no simple matter. If not for the smoke we could have tested sustained fire too; a small shame.
Splash!
Smoke was rising from the other side as well — so they could fire after all — but theirs were small craft with only a few guns lining the deck, and even those wouldn't carry this far.
"Hm. This is hardly a fair fight, is it?"
"Still, do your best. It'd be a sorry way to go — taken by a blind bullet or a stray shell."
The moment gunpowder weapons entered the picture, a hit meant death — Holy Water or no Holy Water, in the blink of an eye.
"This is like a child twisting someone's wrist. What is this."
Naval bombardment in this era was never really about precision in the first place, but the shells ought to at least reach us before we could be hit, no?
It was a battle with no contest to it. The few ships that came to their senses turned and fled toward land — who knew how many would even be left.
When we drove them off and finally reached the gold mine, its walls were a pitiful sight — shells embedded everywhere, stone cracked and split.
"Wow, they really hammered it."
"And clever, too. They concentrated their fire on a single spot."
They clearly hadn't anticipated an attack and had taken the bombardment at point-blank range — but thankfully the walls hadn't come down.
Still, no matter how solidly you built them, walls really were a thing of the past now.
"GYAAAAH!"
Tung-tudung.
Do we really need to fish them out? They're the enemy, aren't they? Every so often, the scream of some unlucky soul who'd plowed into a hull drifted across the water.
"Hm. Wrecking someone else's home like this?"
"Shall we depart at once?"
"We've come all this way home — a day's rest is owed, no?"
How should I cook these wretches to make them taste best? Kamakura used to sit right on the coast, didn't it? I'll grind them past flour and straight to ash. Living on the seaside, of all places, and daring to touch us?
"Let's disembark and start by helping with the harbor."
"Yes, ma'am..."
Passing through the walls into the harbor, we found the inside in shambles too — a handful of shells had sailed clean over and landed within.
House collapsed, and places where falling fragments of the wall had crushed everything flat. People ran back and forth carrying the wounded, others cleared away the wreckage of buildings.
Frankly I wanted to plow the very ground under. I miss the tanks — wouldn't the short-range ones work here? Line them up in a row, hook up the pumps, just fill them with water and go?
"I'm furious."
"We're all thinking the same thing, ma'am."
These were the same sea dogs who were always so light and cheerful — but their quietly pressed lips, their hands gripping the rail hard enough to snap it, their eyes burning like fire, the sight of them swallowing their rage whole — somehow, it was reassuring.
"No rushing. We do this properly."
"Yes, ma'am."
That debt — I intended to collect it flayed down to the last coin.