The Army's Woes (1)
Daehan's territory was truly vast. To patrol and defend a landmass of that size, the standing army required no fewer than 56.41 million soldiers.
It sounded like an enormous number, but considering that these same troops were also responsible for keeping the peace in every city, it was hardly excessive. Relative to the population, it came to less than three percent.
BANG.
"Dammit…."
"What's the matter, sir?"
"They're telling us we have to cut the Army, aren't they!"
"Hoo…."
General Kim Jae-cheol had come back from the joint Army-Navy generals' conference with fury rising all the way to the crown of his head. Of course, the Daehan Company had representatives at that meeting too, but those people did their own thing anyway….
The problem was the Navy's position: "There's no fighting on the land borders, so why not trim things down a little? We need to grow our Navy — we have plenty to do."
"Those sea lions…. Grr. And what, we don't have work to do? Then who's supposed to patrol all this enormous land?"
"Honestly, sir, it is rather a lot…."
"What did you say?!"
For all the general's blazing temper, even within the Army itself, people were quietly wondering whether they didn't have too many soldiers. Right now, countless troops stood watch along the fortress walls with nothing better to do. Apart from the border with the Ming dynasty, there wasn't a single enemy nation to speak of. It was a situation where the force could easily be slashed.
"So you're one of them now too, saying we need to rotate men off wall duty?"
With patrols done entirely on foot, the soldiers assigned to the walls were in a state beyond imagination. Riding horses would be an option, except supplying hay and water for the mounts was its own headache.
"Frankly, sir, we don't need nearly this many, do we?"
"That's why I said I'd approve it if you secured mobility — whether by horse or by anything else!"
He wasn't opposing blindly. It was simply that they needed a proper method of patrolling the walls, which was why everyone was scrambling to secure mounts. The trouble was the alternative proposal someone had dragged in: the steam tank.
"So the steam tank is still a dead end, is it?"
"Yes, sir. The speed is a problem, and with all the water it needs, they say a horse would honestly serve better."
"Hmmmm…."
The Army had been banging its head against this wall for decades. No — for centuries. Then a proposal had come up from a soldier returning from leave.
"Which brings us to this report that came up from the cavalry units. Might I suggest you take a look?"
"What is it?"
Daehan did still have cavalry. For covering short distances quickly, nothing yet beat a horse.
That was true — right up until the object in question appeared.
"A… Ddareungi?"
"Precisely, sir — it's a proposal to build an improved version."
"Hm…."
General Kim Jae-cheol turned the idea over in his mind. It reminded him of the vehicle his wife had been riding around when he'd stopped by the house recently.
"Isn't that thing too slow and too small? It looked like the sort of thing women would enjoy."
"That's exactly why it needs improving, sir. Bigger and more powerful."
Soldiers, honestly. The Navy or the Army, they were all the same — nothing pleased them like something big and powerful.
In any case, the gist of the proposal was this: shelve the steam tank for the time being and pour everything into the internal combustion engine. Build something capable of shrugging off bullets.
"Do you think it's possible?"
"We'll never know unless we start, will we, sir? Only then can we confirm whether it can be done or not."
"Hmmmm…."
There was just one problem with the whole affair: if things went badly, every last one of them could be hauled away.
Not relieved of duty — hauled away. To the Temple's prayer room.
"Hoo…. I hate the prayer room…."
"So do I, sir, but perhaps it's time to look at the bigger picture?"
He cursed his adjutant silently with his eyes. What did any of this have to do with the bigger picture? Might as well put the noose around your own neck and get dragged off yourself….
"Is this really the only way?"
"It's to accelerate the schedule, sir."
"Fine, I get it. But see to it that no one gets hurt. Extra care."
"At this rate, people really will die, sir…."
"Hoo…."
According to this insane plan, the scientists would first be locked inside the research wing, and only once they produced results would they be allowed to go home. Meanwhile, the steam tank division would somehow be shoved into Daehan Motors, where they would lie down and refuse to move.
"Let's begin."
"Yes, sir."
A sweltering summer's day in the year 4152.
Ta-da-da-dak!
"Move, move!"
"Cut the telephone lines first!"
A horde of men descended upon the research complex nestled in northern Haseo. Where so many of them had come from, no one could say, but they wrapped the entire campus in three concentric rings and slipped into every corner of it.
"Who are those people?"
"Beats me. Doesn't look like researchers."
"Some kind of drill, maybe?"
The people of the research complex found it odd, but since no harm was being done to them, they simply carried on with their work.
"Ah, no! They're back AGAIN!"
"Quick, call the Temple!"
For the chemical research complex, the fire had leapt to their own feet. The researchers'-urgency-maximization extremists had appeared once more.
This was the outfit that wouldn't let you go home, delivered your meals to your desk, kept you locked in, and made you work.
Riiing—
A researcher sprinted over in a panic and snatched up the receiver. The familiar dial tone met his ear. Telephones existed, but there was no automatic switching yet — he would have to wait for the operator.
Tap tap tap.
Chewing his nails and jiggling his leg in mounting desperation, the researcher stared at the mouthpiece — while all around him, his colleagues gazed up at him with pleading faces.
Click.
At last, the operator picked up.
"Hello! The Temple, please!"
"Yes~ go ahead with your call."
Something felt off — why ask him to state his business instead of connecting him straight through? — but the frantic researcher didn't notice, and plunged into his report.
"The military has surrounded our lab again!"
It had happened once before, and judging by their behavior, it was exactly the same routine. He was calling the Temple for backup. Whether it was the city patrol or these goons, a soldier was a soldier.
"Yes~ if you'll wait, we'll send a priest right over."
"Thank you!"
They were sending a priest the instant he said surrounded? How did the operator already know the details?
"Oh! Thank goodness!"
"We're saved!"
What they hadn't yet realized was that the very first thing the soldiers had done was cut the telephone lines — and route the calls to themselves. The researchers rejoiced, believing their report had gone through.
"Damn it all — go back to rotting in your prayer room!"
"Kwahaha. However many of them there are, it won't do them any good!"
"Let's just sit here and watch the show!"
And so the researchers waited, reassured.
One full day passed.
"Something's wrong, isn't it?"
"Try calling again!"
"Yes~ if you'll wait, we'll process this promptly!"
Two days passed.
"Yes~ we'll inform the priests!"
"What is going on?"
"This is weird…."
People were beginning to sense that something was very much not right.
"How much food is left?"
"None, at this point…."
"Nothing but water…."
They had assumed that if they just held out, their families would at least report the situation. But perhaps because they were so used to vanishing into the lab for days at a time, neither family nor friends came looking. Completely cut off, the researchers' faces went pale as death.
"What do we do?"
"Grrk…."
"Do we… open the door?"
CLANG — eeeeeek.
The lab's firmly sealed doors groaned open with an ominous screech. After three days, the researchers, unable to beat back their hunger any longer, had surrendered.
These were people who had grown up surrounded by plenty, who had never once known true hunger anywhere in their comfortable lives. To them, starving was nothing short of violence.
Clack clack clack.
"A pleasure to see you again, Director."
"Grrk…."
The soldier offered a bright greeting to the lab director who had come out as their representative.
"Shall we bring you some lunch boxes?"
"Please do…."
"You know, if you'd just cooperated a little — sent over a few results now and then while doing the research we requested — none of this would have been necessary."
"Damn it…."
If only they had assigned a modest share of personnel to work on the military's requests alongside their own, feeding back results bit by bit, it would never have come to this. But the constant begging had grown tiresome, and perhaps a small surplus of superiority had crept into how they treated the request. That, it seemed, had been the seed of their ruin.
"You do know what it is we want, don't you?"
"Hoo…. I'll write down what we need — you procure it. And can we go home?"
Go home — and report everything the moment they got there. The commander of the encircling force could only snort.
"You know that's not possible. We're not asking for much. Just one thing — an explosive suitable for military use. That's all."
Was that such a complicated demand? After all the years of research, surely the data already existed.
"Hoo…."
The lab hadn't exactly been idle all this time, either. They had synthesized any number of explosive compounds. The difficulty lay in the fact that anything destined for military use had to be stable and safe as well.
"Surely with a little determination it can be done quickly."
The soldiers had heard this rumor and that, so they knew the broad strokes. The problem was stabilization.
"You do know that inventing something and mass-producing it are two different things?"
The director did have a substance in mind, but honestly, developing it all the way to a mass-production process was a bridge too far.
"Yes. Just work out a manufacturing method that's safe to produce — we'll handle the factory ourselves."
"Hoo…. Very well."
"Thank you!"
And so the director signaled his surrender. He knew the substance; all that remained was figuring out how to make it here.
With slumped shoulders, the researchers filed back into their labs and began their desperate battle — for the right to go home.
"Huh? This actually works?"
"What is it?"
The researchers, mixing compounds day and night, had worked their way all the way to petroleum extracts shipped up from Baku.
"Now I understand why they call oil black gold. Honestly, there's nowhere it doesn't find a use."
And among its many products, the extract from what they had assumed was merely a material for weaving cloth turned out to do something remarkable. It made the synthesis of explosives astonishingly easy — and astonishingly scalable.
It happened two months after the researchers had been locked in their prison-that-wasn't-a-prison, living on lunch boxes. The only sorrowful part was that not a single soul had come looking for them in all that time….
"We should run more experiments on these petroleum-derived compounds."
And so a good thing came of it: the petrochemical industry, which until then had existed only in Baku, spread all the way to the main research institute in Sinsi.
Wheeeeee—
Cross the western mountain range of the Sinsi Plains, and a vast wasteland spread out before you. Rain rarely fell there, and the land was so desolate that farming was out of the question — even raising livestock was difficult.
Into this place poured a multitude of soldiers: the Army, the Navy, and the Daehan Company.
"Today marks the unveiling of our newest explosive. We dedicate this achievement to the Director of the Chemical Research Institute, who has given us so much support."
Grrrrind.
Somewhere, it sounded like teeth were being ground to powder, but the master of ceremonies ignored it. Nothing good ever came of making eye contact.
"Ah — then, first, we will begin with the explosive demonstrations. We'll proceed in two parts: a live shell, followed by the explosive compound itself."
Under the weight of all those stares, feeling as though his body would spring a leak at any moment, the MC hurriedly grabbed the microphone.
"Ah-ah. Prepare the explosive demonstration!"
Soldiers standing far off loaded a shell into the breech-loading cannon set up for the test. At the far end of its arc stood a wall of thick concrete.
"Fire!"
BOOM!
The cannon immediately coughed out its smoke and spat the shell downrange — smokeless powder still made smoke, after all.
Fweee — KWA-BOOM. Ratatatatat.
The shell struck the wall and detonated, sending fragments shrieking in every direction. Some were pieces of the shell itself, but a great many were shards of concrete.
"Gah!"
"What the—!"
"Fragments incoming!"
They had set the viewing stands far from the demonstration site, but with shrapnel reaching even here, a brief panic broke out. It wasn't quite dangerous — but if a shard caught someone in the eye, wouldn't that be a disaster?
"How far away is this supposed to be, and shrapnel is still flying?!"
"What is that thing?"
Every single spectator froze in shock. It was simply too powerful. The director of the chemical research institute, who had supplied the stuff, was no different — he'd known the blast yield was strong, but never dreamed it was this strong.
"Now, this is the explosive shell that will become Daehan's newest weapon. On to the next demonstration."
Men swarmed over the pile of concrete the shell had smashed apart, attached something to it, connected a line, and scrambled far away.
"Fire in the hole!"
PU-KWA-BOOM.
"Huh?"
"What—"
The concrete heap they'd set up as a target far in the distance was shattering into pieces and flying through the air.
"AAAAH! RUN!"
"Debris incoming!"
"One hit from that and you're DEAD!"
Much of it broke apart and fell harmlessly to the ground, but chunks visible to the naked eye — and sizable ones at that — were sailing across the sky.
THUD. THUD. KU-KOOM. Thud-thud. WHUMP.
"AAAAGH! DODGE!"
"Dodge the big ones! One of those will kill you flat!"
The size of the fragments landing nearby was anything but ordinary. Pieces the size of an adult human's head were dropping out of the air.
The demonstration officer made a mental note: next time, the viewing stands needed to be built of something substantially sturdier. At this rate, everyone was going to die.