A Five-Year Treaty and a Fortress of Light
The Vietnam concession zone.
I'd brought their princes along to sign the treaty, and my goodness, the way they haggled over every single clause about traveling between our two countries—what was there to quibble about?
If a criminal flees to your side of the border, why should you punish him under your laws? Send him back.Can't be done. It's our land, we'll handle it ourselves.
When they panicked about how we'd handle a border dispute, we even carved out a buffer zone neither nation could enter. It wasn't easy.
Getting that one signature alone took five whole years.
Swoooosh—
The waves were rough, but the port was finally finished, so we were on our way over for a visit. After all, there was still business left to settle, wasn't there?
“Agassi, the wind's picking up. You should head inside.”
“This much is nothing.”
Hadn't I crossed plenty of rough seas in my day?
“You know, when you said you'd be taking a ship, I assumed you were heading to Ming.”
When they'd granted the concession, those petty, narrow-minded Ming officials had handed us a spot surrounded by mountains so hopeless you could barely build a port on it—so we'd simply left it be, a place meant for nothing more than eating and sleeping.
“They're just petty people by nature. It's all they're capable of.”
“Ah~ so you have a broad heart, Agassi?”
“Ahem! That's right!”
If we're talking sheer size, mine was nothing to be ashamed of!
Squish squish.
“Eek! What are you doing!”
“It's certainly big, but awfully soft, don't you think?”
Hm? If we fought over it, I'd probably lose, though?
“Lucky you, being so firm.”
“Gah….”
For some reason, Mose felt like her chest was getting smaller by the day?
“Sob….”
“You started it, so why are you crying?”
“That's so mean!”
Now then, how were these Chinese folk going to cook up trouble? An opportunity would present itself, surely. This time, I was going to make them regret it, big time.
By comparison, Sacheong, who'd been called back mid-negotiations to take the throne, had been granted an absolutely superb location—downriver where the water depth was just right, and apparently you could sail down from the capital.
Swoooosh, ruuumble
The rough waves sent a bit of sea spray flying, but the port was coming into view now—proud and magnificent. It looked good.
“I told them to build it big, but isn't this too big?”
“Aha. What do you mean?”
“The fortress.”
“You did order us to make ample room for sheltering residents and for warehouse space, so that would be why.”
Yep. That's because we're planning to relocate the trade port. Daedo is set to be gradually converted into a military harbor from here on out.
Once the compound steam engine arrives, the ocean fleet will need a home prepared well in advance, after all.
Ah—come to think of it, we should probably build the transport ships with a bit of extra room too. There's simply so much cargo to carry.
The port we sailed into was truly enormous.
The fortress alone was staggering. Daehan's hundred-gun star forts ran about seventy-five feet across, and this thing looked to be roughly ten times that. Wasn't this about to become Southeast Asia's largest trade port?
Stepping off the ship, I spotted a familiar face waiting for us. Apparently the internal factional squabbling over the concession had been causing quite the uproar, yet he looked cheerful enough.
“Ha-eun! It's been too long.”
“Huh? You're the emperor now—is it really alright for you to be wandering around like this?”
“Even an emperor needs a vacation.”
He was never supposed to become emperor in the first place; a coup had broken out thanks to some tangled family politics. His ministers crushed it and installed him on the throne, and then he'd had to rush off mid-negotiations, which had thrown him for a loop too.
“By the way, it's been five years—why haven't you aged a day?”
“Well-loved women simply don't grow old.”
“Are you married?”
“I'm married to the nation!”
I am the state. That's what I meant!
“Hahaha! You haven't lost your sense of humor.”
“Laugh a lot. That's how you live long and stay young.”
“Oh? Is that the secret?”
We stood by the seaside for a while, trading small talk and gossip. There weren't many friends I could be this easy around.
“You know what I've been curious about—why did you build the fortress like that? The fort, I mean? Wouldn't it be easy to just climb over it?”
“See it for yourself and you'll understand.”
“Oh, I see it, all right. We'd stopped building walls because of cannons, but the moment I saw that thing, my eyes flew wide open.”
That's the beauty of clever children—they understand without you having to wear your mouth out explaining.
“But we can't manage anything beyond the fortress. Building a truly massive castle would cost far too much.”
“Before long, there won't be much point in building many of them.”
“Hmm?”
The effort required to make a truly powerful shell was overwhelmingly smaller than the effort of stacking stone walls.
Once TNT entered the picture, walls like those would be finished—utterly and completely.
Unless they were buried in an underground bunker, of course.
“Mm. Still, it seems necessary for holding territory. A difficult question….”
“If you ask me, spending your castle-building money on making the land itself better to live in—so more people settle there—is the best value for your coin. Your army grows too, after all.”
Gunfights were only going to become more common from here on out, and an era was approaching where raw numbers would be everything.
“Isn't this supposed to be a secret? You can really tell me all this?”
“Don't go spreading it around. Keep it between us.”
I told him because I figured we'd be walking this road together for a long time.
“Aha, thank you! And I've prepared a gift for you!”
“Oh? It'll take something special to catch my eye.”
“Ta-da~ Daehan's clothing is lovely, but we have our own fashion too, you know.”
“Oh? Hold on—local dress deserves to be worn on the spot, doesn't it?”
How did this guy know I have a thing for local attire?
Oh? This felt like a hint of Chinese dress blended with a Vietnamese ao dai? Something like that anyway. It fit a bit snugly, but it wasn't bad at all.
“Wow. This is really nice? Thank you, I'll wear it well.”
“Ah….”
“Is it supposed to cling like this?”
“It usually does, but… perhaps….”
“Stop right there!”
Ah, no! Not happening! I had to shut this down before it started—heart-shaped eyes incoming.
“I told you, didn't I? I'm married to the nation.”
“Ah….”
Oh, this rascal? THIS is the exquisite agony of a zero-confession, one-hundred-percent rejection!
The moment those words left my mouth, we went from friends—or anything at all—to this weird limbo.
“Fine! I give up!”
“That's the spirit! A man should go out in a blaze! Very manly!”
“Ugh… but why are tears coming out, then?”
Since when did he get this good at playing the fool? This was pure theater—not a single tear in sight.
“Let's go!”
“Duty calls, after all?”
The whole reason we'd come today was to draft a formal treaty that would stand as a genuine international accord. We'd talked things over these past years and agreed to keep building a good relationship—maybe not a full alliance, but a first friendship? Though Qajar was a slightly different case, so they'd have to sit this one out.
“You know, I'm the emperor so it's fine for me to ask, but is it really acceptable for Daehan's affairs to be handled by you alone?”
“Oh come now! I am soon to be the state—you doubt me?”
“A little?”
He probably found it unsettling—who's to say some fraudster hasn't wormed their way in?
“Look here. If I were a fraudster, I'd be a noble or a merchant at best, right? Could any of them pull off things like this? Just look at those streetlights—think of how many secrets that whole grid implies?”
Countless bulbs lighting the road and the fortress walls.
Keeping those things running cost far more than I'd expected. My money….
“Someone really needs to guard those bulbs from thieves. They are genuinely, painfully expensive….”
“Hahaha. Understood!”
We'd made them out of genuine necessity, not as a showpiece—and honestly, they weren't something to scoff at. Every single bulb was handcrafted glasswork.
And being glass, they were prime targets for theft…. The clarity was remarkably high. Anyone who didn't know better would steal one thinking it was a jewel.
Not that a stolen bulb would do them any good. Sigh….
“About that extraterritoriality? Do you absolutely have to have it?”
“It's not just a benefit for us.”
“Hmm?”
“In the event of a true emergency, it becomes a shield no one can touch.”
During a rebellion or a change of regime, when lives hung in the balance, it could serve as a refuge—rather like the embassies of my old world.
“Ah…. I think I follow you.”
It worked in war too: lure the attackers inside, and they'd be pulverized.
“And I suppose it's fine to send us your more… troublesome people to deal with.”
“Ah!”
We could handle the disposal ourselves. He was sharp enough—he'd gotten it right away.
“Don't you want anything else from us? Wouldn't collecting taxes be better?”
“No. That tax money wouldn't amount to much, would it?”
Compared to what we brought in and what they stood to gain, it was truly negligible.
“Honestly? Yes.”
“I'd like you to treat the people who come to settle in this area with a little kindness.”
Oh? Such a love for his people—how admirable. I ought to take good care of him.
“And if war ever breaks out, I promise this land alone will remain untouched.”
“Oh! Thank you!”
No one's taking my turf!
“Are you sure you can sell off all those minerals?”
“The nation needs too much, too urgently. Weapons, food….”
We'd haul the raw resources home and trade them back for food, cloth, farm tools, and weapons. Essentially barter—though with nothing they could produce at the moment, we'd be doing the giving for now, more or less as a gesture.
“More than anything, we lack the confidence to smelt or process any of it. Still—no matter how much ore comes out, you'll truly buy all of it?”
“We can manage. Don't worry.”
If the minerals started pouring out, well, these folks were still forging their precious items by hand.
A few settlements here and there could draw crude iron from bloomery furnaces, but that stuff had limited uses anyway.
The rest we'd simply pile up somewhere and draw on when needed.
“Whew. Now I'm envious?”
“Retire here someday and I'll see you're set for life.”
“Truly?”
He called himself an emperor, so who knew—but a man like him, I could certainly look after in his old age.
“We should really get moving on finding those mines, though….”
“They'll turn up soon. My people are very capable.”
Their expertise was honestly impressive? No need to worry—
The fortress we'd entered amid all that conversation was packed with people. Practically every high-ranking figure in Vietnam had gathered.
Sightseeing was fine and all, but they'd really come to inspect the assorted goods Daehan had put on display.
“Didn't Daehan's goods always come through Daedo?”
“Not in quantities like this, surely? And they were never cheap.”
Goods did get unloaded at Daedo, but so many people bought them up to resell at a markup that they'd never exactly been affordable.
“How can you possibly make things this cheap?”
“Necessity drives technology forward. Keep searching for easier methods, and a path will reveal itself.”
“Still spouting vague old-man wisdom, I see. Goodness.”
Oh, that stung. Old man? I mean….
“Anyway, some of them are against this arrangement.”
“Why?”
“Handing land to a foreign power.”
Right, of course—touchy subject, that. Still, surely that wasn't the whole story?
“They may even be accused of selling out the country.”
“That would be the official reason, wouldn't it?”
I'd come knowing everything already.
“Exactly. This place is about to become a source of real wealth, you see? So the families without ties to this area are the ones objecting.”
“Are they asking you to move the location, by any chance?”
“That's it exactly.”
Hah. Human scheming really never changes, does it?
“So there's more than one or two candidate sites?”
“Mm. One faction is building a port somewhere as we speak, I hear.”
“Hoping to collect port fees, is that it.”
Unless it was a seriously massive harbor, our ships wouldn't even be able to dock there—such big dreams they had.
“You're saying all this because things aren't settled yet, aren't you?”
“Right. Because my power is still lacking. A little more time and I'd have it—but they know that too, so they're rushing.”
He was a clever friend, and competent at his work besides.
Those factions must have caught on too: unless they intended to devour the country itself, they needed him on the throne—but they wanted to snatch up whatever privileges they could while their strength still held. That was the whole game.
“I've made more money than I know what to do with, and honestly? It's useless. So why does everyone lose their minds over it?”
“Everyone is lacking something. Perhaps they try to fill that emptiness with money….”
Was he a philosopher? Personally, I figured as long as I had enough to eat, that was plenty.
If I'd never founded a nation and had just been living on my own, I expect I'd have quietly farmed some modest plot and called it a life.
Still, a problem was a problem, and it needed solving.
“How many factions are there?”
“Two.”
“Where are their bases?”
“One is south of the capital, not far from here. The other is far to the south, out there.”
Hm. The nearby lot should be manageable, but the distant one was the problem?
“The distant faction is stronger, aren't they?”
“Right. The lands south of the capital I can handle on my own, but those far southerners have the military behind them, and they're still beyond me.”
What are friends for? I'd go meet this faction myself, and if they could be accommodated, I'd accommodate them. Just trust me!
“Arrange a meeting so I can at least look these people in the face.”
“Is that wise? We could simply sign and be done with it.”
“I don't like loose ends.”
Exactly. You're right—we could just sign and be done with it. But when someone sticks a spoke in the wheel tomorrow, I can't very well let it slide, can I?
And if it came to it, we'd blow the whole thing apart. That was Daehan's specialty.