The First Doctrine of Strength
Wow, we've really come a long way, haven't we?
Hmm. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but the fact remains—ours is the only country like us in the world.
"No guests, no envoys, nobody comes at all."
The Xiongnu block off the Steppe Road, China blocks the western trade routes, and if anyone tries coming by sea, they hit Daedo, assume it's part of Daehan, and just sightsee for a while before turning back. And if that doesn't happen, they hug the Chinese coastline and end up in China anyway.
As for Japan, Joseon stands right in their way, so those two spend all their time squabbling with each other.
So, does that mean we're isolated again? Nope, not at all.
"These thieves. Honestly..."
Thanks to the tireless heroics of our little bandit troupe (the Intelligence Bureau), we've acquired goods and books from nearly every civilization on Earth.
I passed by the research institute the other day, and the chemists—the alchemists—there were practically one spark away from blowing themselves up, but they were already making gunpowder.
I was genuinely stunned. As far as they knew, it was still just "a powder that burns really fast."
"The steam engines are finally getting usable too... Isn't this all moving a bit too fast?"
If someone steals our technology, that's going to be a real headache, isn't it?
So I summoned Ji-won, chief of the Intelligence Bureau. The Chancellor's got enough on his plate—nobody else is going to look after this.
"Foreigners have been sneaking into the country. They've been making off with a lot of our technology, haven't they?"
"I'm sorry?"
Huh? Wait—no, they haven't?
"How so?"
"What? They can't steal it?"
"Well, for one thing, there aren't many ways to even get in alive. They'd need to reach Moda or Seonju, and do you really think they could cross the country without running into a single soul?"
Is that how it works? I mean, we do have a lot of people. So the population itself is a curtain of benevolence, huh...
And foreigners rarely enter our lands in the first place, so an outsider would stick out like a sore thumb. They wouldn't have identification papers either.
And those papers can't be forged. That rainbow ink really pulls its weight, in more ways than one.
"Hm? Sounds like some people do get in, though?"
"More than you'd think. Some cross the frozen north half-dead with cold, and others come by sea."
Whoa, they cross Siberia? That place is crawling with wolves—that can't be easy. Impressive.
"The sea isn't exactly easy either, is it?"
We have a truly ridiculous number of ships. We built them in droves just to keep trade running.
"There are lucky ones among them now and then, sir."
"And what are they after?"
"We catch them and ask, and apparently they're curious about everything—weapons technology, glass, dyes, all of it."
So they go after the hardest things to steal. Wait, do we even have a prison or detention facility for these people?
"Where do you send the ones you catch?"
"Usually the mines. We feed them in proportion to however much they dig out."
Ah. So it's a one-way ticket to Aoji. Dying in the dark, digging ore they can't even see by...
"Well. It's not like we can just hand over the secrets. Can't be helped..."
"Joseon has been asking us to teach them shipbuilding. What should we do?"
"Can't they just look at ours and copy them?"
Ships seem like the sort of thing that's easy enough to imitate.
"They seem to be struggling with the waterproofing, apparently? Should we send them some of that black oil?"
"What's that?"
"The stuff we used to put in firebombs. A pitch-black, sticky, tar-like oil."
Bitumen, you mean? It comes from somewhere up north—I suppose we have plenty to spare?
"Sure. Send some over if you have it to spare."
There's nowhere in Joseon that produces oil, is there? Though didn't a bit of natural gas come up off the coast of Ulsan much later?
Oh! I should tell them to go dig around Ulleungdo and Block Seven later, too.
Well. Apparently technology theft isn't a worry. What a relief.
"And acquiring foreign technology?"
"There are plenty of people who'd sell their souls for gold, sir. It's going smoothly. Although—should we really be collecting even the useless technologies that are worse than what we already have?"
Watching our kids at work, I noticed they've skipped over some of the fundamentals. Chemistry especially! And these are the maniacs who managed to invent gunpowder in the middle of all that? Honestly incredible.
"For now, learn everything you don't know. Who knows—you might spot something valuable in there."
"Understood, sir."
It'll all be blood and flesh for us eventually.
"Oh, and there's that big island, isn't there? The one that keeps fighting with Joseon?"
"Yeah. What about it?"
"It keeps poking around Dongdo. What should we do?"
"Just have the kids do what they're good at."
"Understood. Heh heh heh."
They really do love their thieving. I wonder how Dongdo's doing.
Hm? Something feels forgotten...
"Oh!"
"Yes?"
"Hey! Why haven't you said anything about the teams we sent east lately?"
"..."
What's with this guy? Why is he sweating like that?
"Spit it out."
"Well, you see..."
"Quickly."
"Yes, sir! While traveling east, we found a point where the opposite continent comes incredibly close, built a harbor there, and... went on past it!"
What's strange about that? And what do you mean, "went on past it"?
"They went and didn't come back?"
"Correct! It seems they're building cities and laying roads over there!"
Hm? Are they just leaving to declare independence? Sounds a lot like the Alaska story, honestly.
"It can't be easy to survive out there, though?"
"No, sir. It isn't."
"Well, even if they go independent—fine, if they want to have a go at us? At least pick somewhere with decent weather for it."
"I'm sorry?"
Hm? No? Then what is it?
"Out with it. What?"
"..."
Hmm. That expression says he's about to get hit.
"Talk fast. Get your beating over with—but only one."
"We, um... may have moved some trees..."
"Do you want to die?"
"No, sir..."
That's the part I actually wanted to give them! And now it really feels like we're finally, properly settling in for the long haul, you know?
"Hmmm..."
"I'm sorry!"
"Whatever. Just go do what you're good at."
"Which is what, sir?"
Stealing, obviously! How does he not see it?
"Honestly, there are plenty of big trees around Sinsi, aren't there?"
"There are."
"So do the outlying cities really need every single one?"
"Gah!"
What? Was that wrong? I did spare them with goodwill, didn't I? That's a bit unfair.
Actually, their ranges overlap anyway, so wouldn't it be fine without a few? This guy is honest at the most useless times.
"I see, sir!"
Wait, no, that's not it?
"Right. Swap in lookalike trees and nobody would know the difference. They grow slowly, of course, so you'll need to maintain them regularly."
They'll get caught someday, but whatever... I'll just claim I know nothing. I'd rather not spark a war between the Temple and the Intelligence Bureau.
They'll take a couple at most, surely?
How many years has it been since then? I'd completely forgotten I'd told them to take the trees.
"Ha ha ha! The trees were spirited away without a trace!"
"Congratulations..."
"We've founded three cities in the northeast and are enthusiastically absorbing the natives in the surrounding areas!"
Three of them? And no one's caught on?
"Impressive..."
"Indeed we are, sir. Turns out that making crops grow in that frozen wasteland means the natives have taken to worshipping the trees as gods."
Fair enough. I'd worship them too, in their place.
But wait—what's with this religion business? It sounds like they venerate me as something extremely important... and they're just stealing what amounts to sacred relics like that?
"Ha..."
"Is something the matter, sir?"
"Just trying to understand."
"..."
He's quietly preparing to slip away in case this earns him another hit, isn't he? What does that do to my image?
"By the way—if they're sacred relics, doesn't stealing them bother your conscience?"
"What! Why would that be stealing?"
What? Then what do you call it? That's banditry, isn't it? Is there some other meaning here I'm not aware of?
"It's simply redistribution, sir! Nobody strictly needs them, so we're putting them to good use where they'll matter!"
Right. Even bandits call it "redistributing wealth," I hear.
"Good for you."
"Thank you, sir! Ha ha ha!"
Hmm... This could actually mean endless wars down the line, couldn't it? I should think of something.
The best path would be to spread our culture peacefully and let the natives build their own nations, right?
Groups friendly to us, specifically.
And the land really is good, so they'd join the ranks of the great powers eventually—but they only became a superpower around the Second World War era, didn't they? This time it won't go that far.
Above all, the most important thing is to make sure they never share a direct border with a country that could threaten them.
"Ji-won."
"Yes, sir!"
"Let's get some work done."
"What work, sir!"
Was carting off tree branches really that enjoyable?
"Bordering another country directly is not a good thing. Understood?"
"Yes, sir. During the war with the Han, the great wall took tremendous damage because of it."
Looking at how everyone around us is founding their own states, simply handing out food and assimilating people into our own, like before, won't work anymore. Time to build friendships instead.
Japan has Joseon sitting on it, and the Mongols and the Chinese had no other options, which is why they built their great walls in the first place.
"Tell the teams in the east to get friendly with the neighboring tribes, support them with supplies, and guide them to hand over the land to us and move down south where it's nicer to live."
The living's not great, but we take resource-rich Alaska and the Pacific Northwest of Canada, and nudge people toward the more hospitable regions further down.
"Quite a few people are drawn to us already, sir?"
"Naturally, only the ones we can't win over go south. It'd be even better if they founded a nation thoroughly friendly to us."
"Yes, sir!"
Come to think of it, if we just let the natives take the land, maybe the United States never gets founded at all?
The natives fell because their weapons were weak and because of that cursed smallpox, right? What if we give them a little help?
Let the land split into many different nations.
Hm? Not bad.
And if they unify anyway despite all that—well, then it was fate, I suppose.
"Surely there are a few more trees to spare by now?"
"Yes, sir! There were ten within the World Tree's range!"
Wait. Haven't they already stolen those? How does he know the exact number?
"You'd better not get caught..."
"We won't, sir. We'd genuinely rather die."
My money's on a civil war breaking out someday. That'll be this nation's greatest crisis.
"Phew... What a worry..."
"We'll guard them for generations upon generations, sir."
The real stroke of luck is that they look almost exactly like birch trees. They barely grow taller than waist height anyway.
The only way they get caught is if these fools leave them alone for years and the trees shoot up unchecked.
"Seriously... you all die if you're caught, understand?"
"Eep!"
"Do it well..."
"Yes, sir!"
Anyway, why are the Intelligence Bureau and the military so obsessed with stealing things? Last war they were all aflutter swiping souvenirs and souvenirs of everything.
"Plant one wherever it's needed and put them to good use."
"I don't think we need any more, sir. Sending them abroad would only make them harder to manage, wouldn't it?"
Oh? So he does think about things like that?
"Right. Don't even think about taking them anywhere they can't be properly protected."
"Understood. And if any of us should die, we'll alert the Temple so they can keep watch in our place."
What power does the Temple even have? Those are clergy. People dedicated to disciplining themselves.
Hold on. What exactly are our religion's doctrines, anyway? It's not like Buddhism or Catholicism, is it?
"The Temple?"
"Yes, sir. Whatever happens, they will retrieve the sacred trees."
Given how often this guy gets smacked around, he's clearly no ordinary zealot, but still.
"Because they have some kind of power?"
"I'm sorry?"
Hm? No again? Then what am I misunderstanding here?
"It's where the strongest people in the nation gather?"
"Why?"
"I'm sorry?"
"No, I mean—why do the strongest people gather at the Temple?"
"Because of the doctrine, sir?"
What? There are doctrines? Nobody told me?
"Which are?"
"Er—you don't know?"
"I never laid down anything like that?"
"It's written down, sir?"
I dictated it? What is he talking about?
"What does it say?"
"When your strength grows, your mind finds peace. When things do not go your way, ask yourself whether your strength was lacking."
Is he out of his mind?
"Those are the first and second doctrines, sir."
"How did this happen?"
Isn't this exactly that thing? A mage tower that churns out strength-mages instead of intelligence-mages?
"Who knows, sir? It's carved on stone tablets passed down from the most ancient times."
"Stone tablets?"
What? Garungda? Did he spend his final years carving things into stone slabs? What on earth did he write...
"Yes, they're enshrined in the central vault of the Temple. It's all recorded in the chronicles of Garungda, the First Temple Keeper."
"Everyone knows this?"
That should be knowledge for nobles or priests only, shouldn't it?
"Do you mean the Book of the Word, sir?"
"What's that?"
Rustle, rustle.
"This, sir."
He pulls a palm-sized book from his coat pocket and shows it to me—dense little characters crammed across every page.
Since when did printing technology advance this far?
Don't tell me they all carry these around?
"Do many of you carry these?"
"No, sir!"
Thank goodness. It hasn't spread widely, then.
"I'm office staff, so naturally I carry mine. When we're out in the field, we keep them in a separate change of clothes. If anything happens to this precious thing and it tears, the Temple will beat us to death."
"Ha... my life..."
A faint but unmistakable sense of profound humiliation creeps up on me. Give it, oh, another two thousand years or so?