Play Nice, Okay?
Let's live good, honest lives, shall we?
「KURURUNG— KWAGWANG— KWA-KWANG」
Whoa? The mountain is collapsing way too violently, isn't it?
Wow…. Trees and everything else just shattered to pieces. It's utter chaos. If there were any environmental groups or animal lovers around, we'd have faced some serious pushback for this.
"…."
"…."
Nothing but rocks rolling down the slope, and the silence was almost pleasant. See? Force through demonstration beats everything.
"Haneul, what was that?"
"We use something stronger than gunpowder, and if you do it with that, well—that's what you get."
It wasn't like an enormous mountain came crashing down or anything, but to these people, it must have felt like Mount Tai itself was collapsing.
"Heugh…."
"Ahem…."
Everyone was shaken. That alone made the whole thing a resounding success.
"Now that the show's over, shall we all get to our own work?"
"Let's go quickly! We have much to discuss!"
"Let's go!"
The Chinese clearly had plenty of questions they were dying to ask, but they were too busy stealing glances at one another.
"Perhaps we should accompany you?"
"Hm, well?"
"Heheh…."
You people are hopeless. His ministers kept shooting him meaningful looks, practically begging him to hurry off and get to work, but that one? Nothing of the sort.
He was too busy hovering right beside that auntie, fiddling with her hands. What a pervert. Isn't she old enough to be his mother?
Ugh, gross. Let's hurry up and go.
The Vietnamese prince and I certainly had a lot to talk about.
We sat in the reception room, sipping tea and chatting away in leisurely tones.
"Still, taking half of everything seems a bit steep, doesn't it?"
"Hm? Well, you'll be doing the mining anyway, so naturally you'll skim a little extra off the top in between, won't you?"
"Ahem!!"
Was that too blunt of me? It's not as if we can set up security cameras to watch the mine output—but still, I'd hand over a reasonable share, you know?
"I would never do such a thing. We are honest people—"
Tsk! And this guy can't even meet my eyes while saying it?
"We both know what's what, so let's cut the nonsense. Half and half. Deal?"
"Ahem. I don't exactly have the authority to—"
Oh, this one's getting sneaky, mumbling his words to try and shave down the ratio, huh?
"You're a smart guy—surely you get it? You're going to be king someday, aren't you?"
Where exactly was he planning to pull his little tricks? This is such a textbook move. He's trying to imply that if the ratio were lower, he might just come over and renegotiate in person later.
"Hoo…. I cannot win against you, can I?"
"You think I've been doing this for a day or two? And listen—I'm telling you this honestly because it genuinely benefits you. Even if you mine those minerals, who's going to buy them?"
That's the whole point. What country on earth would sail massive cargo ships all this way to haul off raw minerals?
Ships back then carried luxuries and spices. Even food was avoided for trade since it was too bulky for its value.
In a world without large freighters, this was honestly a tremendous act of charity on my part.
"Ugh, fine! You win!"
Go ahead and act clever—I've got experience you can't even imagine!
"Then could you bring food supplies when you come?"
"That's not difficult. Don't you produce plenty of grain yourselves?"
Isn't Vietnam one of the world's great grain exporters, after all?
"Production has been dropping year by year, and it worries me."
Ah. So what you need is fertilizer, isn't it? Right—no matter how favorable the climate is for farming, if the soil's exhausted, nothing will grow.
"Then instead of grain, would you like to buy fertilizer?"
"Fertilizer? What's that?"
Our all-natural potato fertilizer! Scooping up soil would be too heavy to transport, so I should bring a mountain of potatoes and set up a fertilizer factory here, shouldn't I?
At a rough guess, I could just have them shovel up the local dirt, and I'd crush and mix the potatoes in for them. Simple as that.
"You know crops need rich, vital soil to grow well, right?"
"Yes, even I know that much."
Oh, I asked something too easy. These are mostly agrarian states—of course they'd know all about this.
"Well, we can make soil that will feed your crops for you."
"Such a thing exists? I know about manure, but…."
Manure works fine enough, honestly. Just make it from animal or human waste, and you're set.
"It's something like that."
"It's really that effective?"
Unless the Haber-Bosch process shows up and floods the world with fertilizer, you won't find anything this good anywhere else.
Beans produce a similar effect, sure, but the efficiency gap is just too wide.
"Let's nail down the details later when we set up the concession zone and test things there. No harm in deciding then, right?"
"Ah! You're right—these aren't things to settle this very moment, are they?"
Look at him, all eager and impatient? Nothing gets done just because you bring it up today, my friend.
"I'm getting excited to go back home!"
"And I'd like to come see your country sometime."
Now I've got somewhere to travel for fun! That counts as perfectly legitimate business grounds!
"How far along is the treaty?"
"From what I heard yesterday, they're being tiresome—insisting we hand back the lands of theirs we currently occupy."
"Tell them to stop being ridiculous. It's been ages since those lands were occupied, hasn't it?"
If I recall, it's been several hundred years? By now, even the people living there must have forgotten about the Ming entirely.
"Huh? Wait a moment."
"What?"
"Wasn't that land occupied back under the dynasties before the Ming?"
"I believe so?"
"Then why are they pulling this crap now?"
"Ahem hem hem. One should mind one's language, you know?"
Haha, would you look at that. So this is the clown show the Chinese have been running?
"Let's hold a summit meeting this evening."
"What's that?"
"When the underlings can't reach a smooth agreement on their own, the people at the top have to step in and sort things out. That's all it is."
And here I was wondering what was taking so long.
The sooner we wrap this up, the sooner I can go do business in Vietnam.
When I told both sides to either hash it out quickly or settle it between their leaders, they asked for one more week.
Apparently they went and crammed for it—some kind of crash course in how to be a proper Ming crown prince.
The Vietnamese prince wasn't showing up either, so he was clearly studying hard too.
"Today's going to be fun. Heh heh heh heh."
"Miss? Please, don't laugh like some kind of creep? Why are you making that face with such a pretty one?"
"It's my face, I'll do what I want!"
「Thunk」
Here they come. Players, take the stage!
Today's match: the Vietnamese prince Lê Tư Thành versus the Ming crown prince Zhu Jianshen, one-on-one.
I'd sit off to the side, watch, and chip in a word here and there—that was the plan.
"Today, Lê Tư Thành and Zhu Jianshen will speak only to each other. If either of you needs advice, call me over quietly and I'll whisper it to you. Do both of you understand?"
"Very well."
"I understand."
Well then, let's just sit back and watch the show. They've been force-fed knowledge for a whole week now, haven't they? Surely they'll start by emptying out whatever they managed to memorize.
"Let us begin with the most critical issue: the border."
That was the sticking point more than anything else.
"Our Ming wishes for the return of the lands of our ancestors."
"Was that not an exceedingly long time ago? There are scarcely any Han people living there now, are there?"
This kept being the problem. There were hardly any Han people in that region at all.
"There are many Han whose homeland lies there."
Oh…. And? What exactly do you want me to do with that?
"It has been over two hundred years. Is anyone from that era still alive?"
"Er…. the heart. That is to say, does one not have a spiritual homeland?"
Then what about ours?
"Hold on. So you're telling me you might come demanding our land back someday too?"
I had to get a word in on this one. We're talking on the scale of nearly a thousand years—there wouldn't even be traces of buried Han ancestors left out there.
"Ahem! Is that not an entirely different case?"
"How is it different? You demand the land of ancestors from two hundred years ago, but the land of ancestors from a thousand years ago should just be left alone?"
Hang it on your nose and it's a nose ring, hang it on your ear and it's an earring—what on earth is the difference?
"…."
"Shall we truly test it in a war? Do your histories not record how your Han people were once chased all the way into those mountain backwaters? Shall I refresh your memory?"
Both of those times, it was you who started it. Surely we can be allowed to start one for once, no?
In the next war, we'll take every last one of those precious little mountain peaks of yours, and drive your people into the sea where they can drown in it.
"Is that a threat?"
"No—it's me telling you to think about just how absurd the things coming out of your own mouth are."
Ah. How did I end up stepping in when I told the two of them to talk it out themselves….
Quiet down. Quiet down.
"…."
"One moment…."
An advice chance. Let's see what he does with it.
"Heugh…. Very well. Then…. Prince of Vietnam? What do you intend to do about the mountainous territories in the northwest?"
"Hm? Does that concern the Ming at all? Those are territories we won through a long war with the Kingdom of Dalit, no?"
Just how dense are people in China? Why is this guy knocking on a beehive in his sleep?
"Those lands belonged to our ancestors as well. There is no helping it, so return at least one of the two."
And what is this, drawing lines around other people's land to claim it?
"That is absolutely out of the question."
"You occupy lands so vast, and yet you cannot give back even a single piece?"
In other words: you're holding two chunks, so cough up one of them?
"Then let me ask you in turn. Strictly speaking, the lands you dwell in now were never yours either. Why do you hold them?"
Hm? That's right—the Han originally lived along the middle and upper reaches of the Yellow River, didn't they?
"That is…. we lost our original homeland, and—"
"Precisely. The lands you once lived in were the plains further north. Yet after losing them in war, you came south and now act as though it had been yours from the very beginning. Is that right?"
Ooh? Well spoken? This guy's the real deal. Vietnam might end up bigger than I expected.
"If you return the lands to the minority peoples, then we shall consider your request as well."
Even his parting jab was magnificent.
"…."
"…."
The prince couldn't get a single word out, and there was no advice coming either. He's done for. The ministers must be wearing funeral faces—once he gets home, the prince will probably be fine, but every last one of those ministers is getting executed.
Sorry about that, but regret being born into a country like that one.
"Does either side have anything more to add?"
"No."
"No…."
Look at him making that miserable face again and glancing around for his mama. That is a crown prince? Haha….
Now, time to do some line-drawing, shall we?
「Tap— chirrrk」
"Oh?"
"Gasp? A map?"
I'd brought in a map cropped specifically to show China and the surrounding Southeast Asian region.
"I can't believe how accurate this is?"
"How could you have this, when it's our own land?"
Ah…. Well, it's from information we gathered sneaking in and wandering around, but I can't exactly say that….
"I just sketched it from rumors we happened to hear, so don't go interrogating me for details. Everyone knows the current borders look roughly like this, yes?"
「Scribble scribble scribble」
"Vietnam is this large?"
"So the Ming is smaller than we thought?"
Apparently they didn't even know what their own countries looked like? Since I'd probably drawn it while walking the terrain myself, it wouldn't have been perfectly precise anyway.
"The line I've just drawn is the border between your two nations. We'd need to examine the details closely, but if you both look, you'll understand? As it stands, fixing the border along this line is impossible. Got it?"
"That is true."
"I agree."
Now the two of you actually have to negotiate. This kind of thing was always going to take time—it's just that they'd been dragging their feet with all that nonsense.
"So go on—give and take, using mountain ranges and rivers as your anchor points for the border. I'll graciously provide each of you with one copy of the map."
And just like that, I'd handed over the maps.
Not that it mattered much—these people were so centered on their own countries that they could barely see anything around them anyway.
"This is what you're supposed to settle, not shrieking demands for an entire occupied territory handed over whole. That's why nothing got discussed. Take these and sort it out quickly."
"Thank you!"
"I understand…."
That crown prince is going to get quite the earful when he goes back.
But honestly, it was an absurd demand to begin with, wasn't it?
After that, the ministers on both sides gathered in huddles and kept grinding their brains through meeting after meeting.
They'd manage fine on their own. The worst they'd lose is a little here, gain a little there.
They'd already fortified themselves along the mountain ranges and rivers to begin with, after all.
Still, drawing a national border turned out to be a bigger deal than I expected.
The negotiations took a full half year, and today was finally set for the final agreement.
Strictly speaking, each delegation would have to return home and get ratification from their king and emperor, with the documents exchanged afterward—but that was mere formality at this point.
"Right, everyone has worked long and hard. Let's verify the terms and put our signatures down."
"Whew…."
"Haah…."
Both of them clearly still had grievances. Three copies of the signing in total—one for Daehan, one for the Ming, one for Vietnam, each keeping their own.
"Now then, let us write out the detailed articles."
My handwriting is atrocious, so this is the one thing I must never, ever do—we had a separate scribe come in for it.
The articles went down without a hitch. Provisions on border disputes, protocols for incursions from either side, and the framework for relations between the two nations going forward.
It was being drafted in a surprisingly modern, polished style, too. Well, we were the ones writing it.
"And last of all—what happens if someone breaks the treaty? We need to write that in too."
"Reparations, perhaps? Something of that sort?"
"And who would pay such a thing?"
If someone decides to invade in earnest, who on earth would hand over compensation?
"Daehan will side with whichever nation is attacked."
"Gasp…."
"No—!"
Both of them wanted to protest, but there was nothing in the world more terrifying than that one clause.
And besides, neither of them had any strength left to fight. With us merely supplying materiel, whichever side we backed would win unconditionally.
If they kept warring like this, there'd surely be a tidal wave of uprisings and peasant revolts? The Ming itself was a dynasty born of peasant rebellion, after all.
Which meant the Ming was the one in a hurry. With signs of unrest brewing somewhere back home, he sat there and stayed put despite his obvious displeasure.
"The weapons you'll see next will make everything shown so far look like toys. Weapons terrible enough to burn your nations out of existence entirely."
「Gulp」
"If you're feeling confident, go ahead and try us."
When you do wrong, you ought to be punished. That's simply how it works.
So live good, honest lives, okay?