Watching a Mountain Die
There's a genuinely wonderful thing out there, you know?
Well into the medieval and early modern eras, people going to bed as soon as night fell was simply the way of the world. What would you even do with yourself after dark — work? Play? You can't do much of either in the pitch black.
Oil lamps and torches existed, sure, but they were far dimmer than anyone imagines. Really dim.
But once electricity was invented and light bulbs started glowing, suddenly humanity's waking hours stretched longer. Labor after sundown became possible, commerce flourished, and people found time to invest in learning.
And how much did they understand the value of that?
"I want this for Vietnam, no matter what it costs!"
Oh? Was this kid actually a sage-king type? Some genuinely clever ruler? Because this is not something you can put a simple price tag on.
"Hmm. You, perhaps?"
"Yes! I think I understand just how important that thing is!"
"Oh ho?"
Smart kid.
"It's pleasant to have lights burning at night, I admit. But is it truly worth so much?"
The Chinese boy, it seemed, had mentally filed the light bulb away as nothing more than a pretty bauble — a curious toy.
"Well. Depending on how you look at it, it can be nothing at all."
"If it's that expensive, perhaps simply brighter oil lamps would serve better."
"It all depends on how you think about it, I suppose."
Ming: eliminated from contention.
"I would like to discuss this seriously."
"Sure. Let's arrange a proper meeting."
Ming was kicking away a fortune with its own two hands. Set the thing up, and there would be no end to what they could see and learn from it.
Learning about electricity itself would come soon enough anyway.
"Anyway, let's finish dinner first. All the good food's going cold."
"Very well."
"Ah! Right, we were eating, weren't we?"
We'd gotten so distracted by the light bulb that we'd forgotten dinner entirely. Well, the table was piled high with delicious things — eat up, everyone!
Ha! Especially this yukgaejang! Chili powder is the greatest invention on Earth!
SPLASH.
Huh? "Crude? What exactly are you calling crude?"
"What do you mean? This is how I like to eat it."
That Ming brat really did pick a fight over every little thing. What's wrong with dumping your rice into the soup?
"Hm? You eat it like that?"
"I mean, it's not exactly dainty, but I just like it better this way?"
"Then I shall try it as well."
Oh? This kid knows his way around a bowl of gukbap?
SLURRRP.
"HAH! Now that's refreshing!"
"Oh? It's scalding and spicy — and you call it refreshing?"
"It's one of those things!"
There are truths children simply don't know!
"Urgh... *cough cough*..."
"Why are you crying?"
"Because it's delicious."
Yeah. You're crying because it's spicy.
The spice-wimp was once again eating through tears. Genuinely lucky he hadn't needed the toilet, too — his backside nearly joined in the weeping.
Aside from my little tears-and-snot episode at dinner, the first day passed without incident — and from the next day onward, Vietnam and Ming began noisily hammering away at each other with words, all in the name of reaching an agreement.
After all, this summit was meant to fix their border and secure a ceasefire. Both nations had been at war for so long that neither had any strength left to spare.
Ming had pirates plaguing its coastline; Vietnam had hostile neighbors pressing its other frontiers. Both of them desperately needed this war to end.
And we? All we had to do was sit in the middle and collect our concession zone.
"Lovely weather, isn't it~"
"Are we really allowed to just stroll about like this?"
"Isn't it dangerous?"
I was out taking the crown prince and the prince of Vietnam for a walk.
"We're out sightseeing — of course we walk. What, should we ride around in a carriage?"
"But there are dangers. Assassins, and the like?"
Assassins? What a dream. Honestly, if anyone wanted to take a shot at me, they'd be doing me a favor. I'd play dead and retire on the spot!
At this point, moving somewhere quiet and opening a little shop honestly sounded delightful.
"If only someone would stage a coup or something..."
"Goodness? What on earth are you saying?"
"Too much work. It just means I want to quit everything and go off and play somewhere."
"Is your position really so exalted, Haneul?"
Yesterday he'd been terribly shy about learning my name, and now he was already calling me by it so easily.
"Yeah, very high."
"Wow... so women can hold office in your country?"
"Hm? Most of our officials are women, actually?"
Officials, meaning civil servants? Ours were overwhelmingly female?
"Eh?"
"Our men hate sitting around all day pushing paper, so the women handle most of it."
"Truly? How remarkable."
Was it because in most countries, women rarely stepped outside the home?
"Now that you mention it, this city does have a great many women out and about..."
Hmm. If this kid became king, Vietnam might actually turn into a livable place. He thought through even the tiniest things with surprising depth.
"As if women could accomplish anything of consequence... I suppose even your country is doomed to learn that lesson?"
"Hah?"
And there went the Chinese brat, revealing his rotten roots. This sprout was spoiled from the start.
The two boys weren't so far apart in age, either. By the end of this generation, the gap between their two nations would be a chasm.
"By the way, how old are you now, still nursing off your mommy's tit?"
"Wh-what! How dare you! Utterly unbecoming!"
Haah... Seriously, how can he be a crown prince and act like that? If the wet nurse were a pretty woman, I might at least understand.
And look at them now, at it again — clinging and bickering. An absolute eyesore. Just something about it feels gross.
"Ugh... you two, go rest in your rooms... and stop following me around..."
"Hmph! I was about to suggest the same! Walking along a roadside with nothing worth seeing, without even a carriage. We're going back!"
Yes, please, do go. I'll have someone send along whatever food or gifts they ask for.
Babysitting brats is exhausting. Truly.
Still, thank goodness they left without dragging their feet. Genuinely.
"Haneul? What will you do if the negotiations fail?"
"Then they fail. So what?"
"You wouldn't get the concession zone, would you?"
Oh my. What on earth was he on about?
"Setting up the zone and managing the surrounding area — that's what we're providing, isn't it? The talks are going well. They'll have to hand the concession over."
"Ah!"
"What? You're not giving it?"
"No, it's not that..."
What's with that flustered face? Embarrassed because he'd briefly worried about something so trivial?
"If you want the lights on, you'll need a concession zone with a power plant built in it."
"Oh! Right — the light bulbs!"
As for building generators and telling them to maintain them? Not a chance. No spare parts, no way to fix anything — they'd crack one open for repairs and it'd simply explode.
"Might we possibly learn the technology?"
"It's a state secret?"
"Money is no object!"
He looked ready to sell his kingdom for it. Unfortunately for him, even if I taught them, they couldn't build it.
"It takes a whole chain of very complicated technologies. I don't think it's possible."
"Ah..."
It wasn't actually all that hard, truth be told — but welding and magnets were beyond anything their nations could manage.
I had no intention of teaching them anyway, but I should at least soften the disappointment.
"Make your people study hard, and raise up scientists. Someday, you'll be able to build it yourselves."
"Scientists?"
Had the concept of science not reached them yet?
"It's a discipline that analyzes and explains the principles of the natural world as a field of study."
Was that right? Trying to put it in terms a kid could chew made it surprisingly hard?
"The study of nature..."
"No, the principles are what matter."
"Principles..."
Let him chew on that for a while.
And anyway, the important topic was something else entirely, wasn't it?
"Speaking of which — how much will you pay us for the light bulbs? We're rather fond of gold and silver."
"Hmm? I honestly don't know how much of it we even have."
No specialized mining technology, apparently? Well, there goes another task landing on my plate.
"Tell you what. How about a technology agreement?"
"What's that?"
"We send engineers from Daehan to locate gold veins and mineral deposits for you."
"Wouldn't that be a loss for Daehan? Not that I mind?"
Hey — at least let me finish explaining?
"Then we establish a joint company, and you and we split the profits at a fixed ratio."
"A company?"
Huh. So the concept of a company was beyond them too?
"Hmm. Think of it as something like a merchant guild?"
"I understand that you mean to work in concert."
It wasn't exactly a difficult idea?
"The real point is that you intend to take a fixed share of whatever is found and mined from our lands. Wouldn't we be the ones losing out?"
How is that a loss? Does Daehan make its living by digging holes in the ground?
"We provide the technology, and you provide the labor. That's the arrangement."
"Hmmmmmm..."
Head hurting? Good — it should take some thinking. It's an unfamiliar concept, after all?
"Put simply: you dig into your mines, and you get rock. Enormous amounts of it. How do you plan to break it?"
"Hammer it apart? Gunpowder?"
For modestly sized stones, that might actually work.
"And if the boulder is so colossal that even hammering it is hopeless?"
"Then we blast it with gunpowder?"
Gunpowder chips rock away in tiny fragments at a time — how many centuries would that take? And you can't manufacture much gunpowder yourselves anyway. Where's the money for it supposed to come from?
That's why you survey for minerals first, then weigh the costs before you ever dig! Mining doesn't come free, you know.
"Would those costs be free of charge?"
"Ah..."
"Mine development isn't hard for no reason. Done carelessly, it swallows money endlessly and returns nothing."
Do you have any idea how many deposits were found and then abandoned simply because extracting them was too hard?
And here we were, offering to shoulder that entire investment. And he had the nerve to haggle?
"Honestly — could you afford to blast your way through with gunpowder?"
"Gunpowder is expensive, so, ahem..."
No exaggeration: if they tried to develop a mine with gunpowder, their country would dry up and die?
"And do you think people would look kindly on you burning powder that's barely enough for weapons on mining projects?"
"Ahem... ahem..."
Think it through. Stopping this very war is a matter of money, isn't it?
"So — we find your mines and lend you all this technology, and you still believe we're the ones taking a loss?"
Frankly, if the mines never got developed, Daehan would be the one eating a pure loss here? Could the kid really not do this math?
"Could we see a demonstration first?"
A technology showcase, hmm... Finding an actual mine on short notice would be tricky, so I'd have to look for something suitably large nearby — a massive boulder, perhaps?
"Fine. I'll show you something entertaining."
"Wonderful! We'll watch, and then decide."
Time to blow their minds, then.
Back home, we set about scouting for a suitable target nearby — something enormous and rock-solid. The eastern reaches of Daedo were mountain country, so we found one almost immediately. As it happened, the entire mountain was essentially one giant mass of bare rock.
"See that mountain? Want to climb up and watch, or watch from here?"
"What could we possibly see from this distance?"
He seemed to think I was planning to demolish some little pebble?
"Hmph! We have gunpowder too, you know. But even if you packed that entire mountain full of it, what would be visible from here?"
Haah... I'd brought the brat along precisely because this doubled as a demonstration of force, and still he kept finding the most infuriating possible things to say?
"Getting close would be dangerous, so we'll do it from here."
Not that it mattered — I'd planned to fire from here anyway. The signal flare was planted right beside us.
FZZZZT.
I lit the flare — or rather, the rocket — we'd set down nearby.
Turns out if you tweak the proportions of black powder, it doubles nicely as a propellant?
FWOOOOSH.
"Cough, cough..."
"What is the meaning of this?!"
"Haneul! What is that thing?!"
Yes, it belched an obnoxious amount of smoke — but as long as it flew properly, who cared?
BANG!
The flare had burst. Which meant over at the mountain, the kids would be touching flame to the fuses and scurrying for cover right about now?
"Hmph? So that's it? You dragged us all the way out here to show us some firework?"
"Cough, cough."
The prince of Vietnam was still busy coughing his lungs out, and the Chinese brat was busy spouting nonsense as usual.
"Just wait."
"Hmph!"
There he went again, snorting at the end of every sentence. Insufferable.
"Keep your eyes on that mountain."
"I'm watching."
"Cough, cough."
Had he swallowed half the smoke or something?
BOOM. RUMBLE-RUMBLE. BOOM. BOOM.
An earth-shaking roar rolled across the plain without warning.
"What was that? An earthquake?"
"Shouldn't we take cover?"
"Take cover from what, in the middle of an open field? If it were an earthquake, out here would be the safest place to be. And it's not an earthquake. Watch the mountain."
Far in the distance, the mountain began to crumble — dust blooming upward from its base, rock shearing away piece by piece.
KRAKA-BOOM.
And when the final explosion rang out, the mountain of stone was collapsing without end.
CRASH-CRASH-CRASH.
The boulders tumbling down were so colossal that the grinding of their fall carried all the way to where we stood.
"That's what mine development takes. How many lifetimes would you spend chipping ore loose with gunpowder?"
"Ohh..."
"Good heavens..."
Every last one of the advisers who'd been chattering at our sides went dead silent. I'd summoned even the ministers here for the negotiations to watch, after all.
Hey, everyone? Scared yet?