Dazzling Progress
Brilliant progress.
Swish, swish. Squeak, squeak.
"Ugh, what's all the fuss about?"
"We're just demonstrating research results—why are we being ordered to clean up too?"
"My point exactly…."
"Whew…."
Yi Do and Jang Yeong-sil, neither of whom had ever been on speaking terms with cleanliness, were sweeping up dust with brooms in hand from the crack of dawn.
"Hurry up, you two!"
"Yes, sir!"
With colleagues already swarming in to help tidy up, they couldn't quite bring themselves to cut corners.
"What's this pile of junk?"
"Gah! No! Not that one!"
Just as someone was about to carelessly dump an experimental model into the discard pile, Jang Yeong-sil came vaulting across the room.
"If it's important, put it somewhere safe!"
"I did put it safely on the desk!"
"Hey now, you punk? How old are you even!"
"Forty-one!"
"What! Why are you so old!"
"Huh? What's with this guy?"
And so Jang Yeong-sil bickered back and forth with the researchers as they cleaned the lab. Meanwhile, elsewhere—
"You've accomplished something remarkable, I hear?"
"It was nothing, Grand Admiral."
Yi Do and Yi Bang-won were catching up. Yi Bang-won was as busy as ever, but his son, buried in research, was no different—he hadn't been home in ages either.
It was their first real conversation in a long while.
"It's just the two of us, so speak freely."
"Yes, Father."
"I'm proud of you."
"Ah… Father? I hardly did anything worth the words."
Yi Do was perceptive. He knew, at least to some degree, just how much his father had worried about him.
"I heard it from Researcher Jang Yeong-sil too. He says he's the hands-on one, and the thinking was all yours?"
"Even so, without him I couldn't have managed a tenth of it."
"Hahaha! Right, right, I understand. But you did well, so carry yourself with your shoulders back."
"Yes, sir! Thank you."
His father's encouragement was unfamiliar to Yi Do—he'd never heard such words before—but it was truly welcome.
"Now go and check everything, and get ready. A great many people are coming today."
"Yes, sir!"
Yi Do was confident. For days on end, he had inspected the apparatus dozens of times, from first component to last, hunting for anything damaged or out of order.
The preparations were perfect.
Someone was approaching the research lab, which had been scrubbed spotless, gleaming like a brand-new building.
"Brother Jang? Who on earth is coming that we have to do all this?"
Yi Do was glad to see the lab clean for once, but it struck him as a terrible bother—enough to swear off ever hosting a demonstration again.
"I figured it was because your father was coming, but apparently not?"
Yeong-sil had been just as much in the dark. He'd assumed Yi Bang-won was the reason, but judging by how early the preparations had started, that clearly wasn't it.
"If it were because of my father, someone probably would have died by now. He hates this kind of fuss."
"Goodness… then who is it?"
"Who else is higher up?"
"The Prime Minister?"
"Would the Prime Minister cause all this?"
"Whoever it is, who cares? All we have to do is pull off the demonstration."
"True enough!"
The two men were military men, after all—the highest-ranking people they'd ever laid eyes on were generals. So they simply shrugged it off.
"Is the preparation going well?"
A woman's voice sounded suddenly from behind them, along with a faint, drifting scent of flowers.
"Hm? Who's that?"
"Do we have any female researchers?"
"Well, yes, a few."
They turned slightly—and found an astonishingly beautiful woman addressing them.
"Wow~ but she's really gorgeous!"
"Can you say that to her face?"
"Why not? It's hardly an insult."
At their reactions, a laugh escaped her unbidden—Haneul was in a fine mood.
"Is the demonstration ready?"
"Yes, it's all set."
"Then hurry along and get started. Everyone who's coming has arrived."
"Huh? Oh—yes, of course."
While they'd been chatting, the surroundings had begun to stir with commotion.
"Haneul-nim!"
"Oh dear."
The high-ranking officials had all met Haneul before, so they came sprinting at once, breathless. At first Yi Bang-won had rushed over, and in turning to follow him they'd spotted her.
"Wow—who's that young lady? I never knew anyone could be that beautiful."
"Ah… if only I weren't a married man…."
"Hey, you—watch what you're saying!"
"I'd give anything to live even a single day in a body like that…."
"Me too…. I wonder what cosmetics she uses?"
Those who didn't know her, men and women alike, could only sing her praises.
"When did you arrive?"
"Oh, just now. Everyone's busy, so let's get it done quickly."
"Yes, ma'am!"
Leaving Haneul surrounded by chattering officials, Jang Yeong-sil and Yi Do shuffled off in a daze to prepare the demonstration.
"That pretty young lady is Haneul-nim?"
"Yi Do—can we even call her a 'young lady'?"
Jang Yeong-sil worried they might have committed some dreadful faux pas. After all, wasn't she not quite… human?
"I hear the sailors just call her 'Miss' anyway."
The crew did occasionally have occasion to see Haneul, and at some point 'Miss' had simply hardened into her unofficial title.
"Huh? Well, all right then?"
"You can't call someone 'Grandmother' just because of her age, right? Hahaha."
"Now that I've seen her with my own eyes, I get it. Careless talk like that could get you beaten to death in the street."
Trading jokes, the two men readied the demonstration as the mood around them eased.
The fragrance of flowers spread from Haneul all the way into the far reaches of the lab, gently loosening the tension coiled in everyone's chests.
Once the preparations were complete, Yi Do and Jang Yeong-sil delivered their explanation to the assembled audience.
"The engine draws its inspiration from the pinwheel… (excerpt)… As avenues for future development, we are considering research into materials capable of withstanding high temperatures."
The two were convinced that with finer precision machining and better materials technology, they could build ever better engines.
"We will now begin the demonstration. The experimental procedure is as follows… (excerpt)…."
It was the same efficiency test they had run themselves, time and again.
"Shall we begin?"
"With all these people watching, we'd better not fail."
"If this thing explodes here, we're seriously packing our bags and going home…."
"Gah… I should've checked it one more time yesterday…."
"Let's just load the coal first…."
They had verified it dozens of times over, but worrying, apparently, was beyond their control.
The two men began the demonstration, checking with each other as they fed the coal in at a steady rate.
Screeeeech—clunk, clunk.
As expected, things started with the old piston engine turning over first.
"Huh? Is it all right that only that one is running?"
"Right? That one's still whining about something."
"Let's just wait and see."
Screech—clunk.
And a short while later, the new engine began to turn.
"Oh? The speed gap is already showing?"
"Same conditions, correct?"
Whiiiiirrr.
The steam engine was far quieter than expected—and with the bearings crafted with such painstaking care, it was hardly surprising.
Inside the lab, filled with nothing but the hum of spinning wheels, the onlookers gradually forgot to speak.
They simply stared at the wheels, and even without instruments, they could feel it plainly with their own eyes: one wheel was turning at an overwhelming pace.
"Heh, heh…."
"It's magnificent."
The crowd could only marvel.
"That's turbine technology, isn't it? They built it faster than I expected."
"Turbine technology?"
"Mm. I thought it would come after other things, yet here it is first. Truly remarkable."
Only the furrow in Yi Bang-won's brow deepened, for he hadn't the faintest idea what Haneul was talking about.
And so the primitive prototype of the turbine technology that would one day change the world spun away with all its might, in a modest little lab in Daehan, in the year 3897.
Two key technologies featured in this demonstration.
Welding, and the steam turbine.
"With welding technology, we can build ships without a single rivet!"
"Let's get to it, then!"
The naval shipyard in southern Sinsi was at a fever pitch of excitement.
Since their electricity was weak, they hunted down every lodestone they could find in pursuit of a stronger current, and began linking generators together by the dozen.
And so the welding of iron plates began.
Crackle-crackle-crack.
Electric arcs discharged in every direction, filling the air with the hiss of scorched atmosphere.
"Gaaah, my eyes! My eyes are burning!"
Exposure to the brilliant light left men's eyes burned one after another.
"Somebody get the Holy Water, quickly!"
That they treated the burns with Holy Water and immediately went right back to work said everything—the whole endeavor bordered on madness.
Perhaps because so many hands were at work, the job was finished in a matter of months.
"Is the model ship finished yet?"
"This should about do it, no?"
The men had swiftly welded an entire ironclad hull into being.
"Let's get it in the water!"
"Haul it out onto the rails right now!"
With no way to inspect the welds for hidden cracks, the plates looked perfectly fused to their eyes.
"Uwahahaha!"
"It works!"
"Hee hee! Get it floating, and then we build an even bigger ship!"
Rumble-rumble-rumble.
The model ship slid down the rails and toward the sea.
SPLASH.
Shoved in with more enthusiasm than sense, the ship sank briefly beneath the water before bobbing back up—and began drifting away on its own, farther and farther.
"Ah! Hurry, get a line attached—it's going too far!"
"Someone fetch a rope! Quickly!"
"I'll swim after it first!"
Only then did they scramble to chase the ship down and prepare to tether it.
And in that very moment—
Groooan… crrrunnnch.
The sound of buckling iron plates began to ring out. Welding is a craft that demands care and precision far beyond what the eye suggests, and these men, who had simply eyeballed it and scorched the seams at random, could hardly have expected their welds to hold.
Besides, the thick hull plates—unlike the small work they'd done building engines—only made the cracks spread wider.
"Huh?"
"What is that sound?"
Crrrack—groooan.
The model snapped clean in two and sank slowly beneath the waves.
The men could only stand and stare, stricken—cursing their own impatience.
"What? It won't work?"
"No, sir…. They say that at full scale, the current welding method simply cannot manage it."
The sinking of the model ship was one problem—but Yi Do and Jang Yeong-sil were another. As they scaled up to a larger turbine, they reportedly had no idea how to cope; the current welding methods simply couldn't bear the load.
They needed stronger electricity, yet even chaining generators together offered no way forward.
"For now… submit a report."
Yi Bang-won felt as if Haneul herself were crumbling. Better, perhaps, never to have seen it at all.
Hope had flickered into view for a moment, shown them its face, and fled.
Electricity lacking, isn't it? You'll need a stronger magnet. Barium carbonate and iron oxide… (excerpt)… make ferrite.
A few short lines, written and sent down with the report.
"Gah! Haneul-nim has given us the answer!"
"But what exactly does it say?"
"I don't fully follow, but we must get our hands on barium carbonate and iron oxide!"
"I'll go see the chemists!"
From that day on, the navy began commuting to the university's laboratories. The chemists were all gathered there, after all.
"We're in your hands."
"How far along are your findings?"
"How long will it take?"
They were perfectly polite—but visiting in rotation, day after day, and pressing relentlessly, they soon drove the chemists to the brink of madness.
"AAAARGH! You cursed wretches! Bring me every sample we own! We'll split up the work and synthesize all of them!"
They ground every sample they possessed—and every one they merely knew of—into powder, mixed it with iron oxide powder, heated the lot, pulverized everything again, and began testing for magnetism.
"Oh? Ohhh! Found it!"
"What did you say!"
"We finally found it, you cursed navy dogs!"
The answer was the powder of a certain mineral brought down from the mountains west of Bongpyeong. It was pure, staggering luck—for witherite, barium carbonate in its natural state, was vanishingly rare.
Once word spread, the navy dispatched troops to Bongpyeong.
"Everyone, find the mine!"
"If anything looks similar, bring it all back first and ask questions later!"
"Move out!"
Hundreds of soldiers, maps in hand, marked off districts and went charging into the mountains and fields.
Their mission: when something looked promising, record it, then crack the earth open at that spot and dig until they found it.
Before long, employees of the Daehan Company joined the hunt as well.
With all the know-how they'd accumulated in Japan, mine development was their specialty.
As the mines were located, the materials collected, and the ferrite synthesis got underway, the generators' output began to improve before everyone's eyes.
"Uwahahaha! Now we're talking!"
"Now this is welding!"
Crackle-crack.
With the stronger current, they moved on to even thicker welding rods.
But soon they struck a wall.
"Huh? Why does it keep splitting and cracking?"
"What are we missing?"
"Could it be that this wire needs some kind of treatment too?"
Once more, the navy came swarming to the chemists.
"You blasted leeches, what now!"
"Well, you see… the weld quality keeps failing. We came hoping you might find the cause."
"Uuuuugh!"
Several chemists clutched the backs of their necks and collapsed on the spot, but soldiers don't quit over matters like these.
They promptly dosed the fallen men with Holy Water, cooled their fevers with cold water, and began nursing them with the utmost devotion.
"Good grief…. Fine, I'll look into it, so go on home."
"We can't, sir! We'll at least run your errands!"
"That would be even more distracting."
"Yes, sir!"
So the officers went out and waited in the university courtyard while the soldiers idled nearby.
"Good grief…. All right, lads—let's find the answer fast and send it to them."
"Yes, sir!"
And so the chemists set to work analyzing the cause once more.
In the end, they traced the problem to contamination—exposure to air and to foreign matter in the surroundings—and began researching what coating might shield the rods, so the navy would never come crawling back again.
Daehan, it turned out, possessed every conceivable substance under the sun.
At last, having written down even the method for producing coated welding electrodes, the chemists delivered their findings to the navy.
"Now get out."
"Khh… our deepest gratitude."
"Whew…. Let's never meet again."
Alas, whenever problems arose thereafter, the navy came marching in as routinely as ever—so routinely, in fact, that at one point a sign went up on the laboratory's front door banning all military personnel.
And when it did? The soldiers simply waited outside.
The people of Daehan were busy as ever today.