Preparedness Averts Peril

In Hwi-yeom's estimation, if those mounted warriors from the west had simply pressed the attack ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠without flinching, the outpost would have been finished.

Victory had only been possible because the enemy, convinced more Shinggi-jeon rockets were waiting, had chosen to flee of their own accord.

And once the enemy closed to point-blank range, using the Shinggi-jeon became awkward at best.

Above all, dumping rockets like that left nothing in reserve.

We need a standard-issue weapon with real stopping power. The Gatling is still too early to reveal… so it's matchlocks after all.

Even in history, what had toppled the Western heavy cavalry—those knights in full plate charging with lances—was the appearance of the matchlock musket.

Paper cartridges are already developed, and smokeless powder will follow soon enough… so unveiling something on the level of the old matchlocks to the Emperor shouldn't be a problem.

Having reached that conclusion, Hwi-yeom spoke.

"Father, I intend to develop a new weapon."

"A new weapon."

"Yes. It's called a matchlock musket."

Dang Un-sang, rather than blurting out something tone-deaf like "Don't ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠we already have those?", gave a solemn nod.

"And what sort of weapon is that?"

"A firearm that uses gunpowder. Unlike the Shinggi-jeon, which carpet-bombs a wide area, this is something individual soldiers can carry to halt enemy troops."

"You have my permission to develop it."

"Thank you."

Just as the matter seemed settled, Imperial Inspector Baek Beon, who had been listening from the side, chimed in.

"Yohohoho! To have repelled a barbarian raid—truly the house of a loyal subject. You have rendered great service. I shall make ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠certain His Majesty the Emperor hears of this."

"You honor us. We merely did what any of His Majesty's subjects ought to do."

"But of course, but of course! A shining model of loyalty. Still… I shall have to draft a report for Beijing, won't I…?"

Without a word, Hwi-yeom handed over the report he himself had received.

Baek Beon laughed with theatrical extravagance.

"Yohohahahahat! My thanks. I shall fill that report to the brim with nothing but the most favorable words for the Dang Family!"

"We are grateful."

Baek Beon read through the report Hwi-yeom had given him, smiling from ear to ear, then returned it.

"Well then, I shall go draft my own report. Summon me if anything arises."

"Of course."

Once Baek Beon had vanished with his trademark sinister chuckle, Hwi-yeom asked Ye-eun,

"Now that you've watched him, what do you think?"

"I don't like him."

Ye-eun rarely frowned, but her brow furrowed now.

"He plays the part of a shameless, oily fool. What his true nature is, I can't say, but he maintains that posture for public consumption. Combined with his status as the Emperor's inspector, he often acts completely unchecked."

"Unchecked? We already gave him a pass to the Innovation Hall. What more does he want? A raid on the Family Head's residence?"

"He's also demanded access to materials on the Dang Family's poisons. I blocked him by saying it was never part of the agreement with His Majesty and that touching it would be touching our very right to exist. He didn't push further after that."

"Crossing the line."

Hwi-yeom clicked his tongue. Had the man not been the Emperor's inspector, he would already have enjoyed a delightful tour of the human body's mysteries in the Sakpungdae underground torture chamber before taking a refreshing plunge into the sulfuric acid pond beneath the Poison Hall.

"In any case, don't loosen the surveillance. For the time being, leave Minjeongwon operations to Secretary Son if you must."

"Understood."

Meanwhile, once inside his room, Baek Beon wiped every trace of his flamboyant grin from his face and began writing his report with deadly seriousness.

Truly terrifying potential. The Sichuan Dang Family is not a house to be taken lightly—not in the slightest.

From the moment he had left Beijing for Sichuan, everything Baek Beon encountered had been a continuous string of shocks.

That faint contempt—how impressive could some backwater in Bashu really be?—had already begun to crack the instant he entered Sichuan Province and saw the roads laid out in every direction.

When he saw the tunnels bored straight through mountains and the roads running through them, he had doubted his own eyes.

Facing the four-tier aqueduct taller than the Great Wall itself, he had trembled with sheer wonder.

And when he toured the State-run Ironworks, cold sweat had run down his spine.

It had absolutely nothing to do with the heat of the blast furnaces.

The architectural technology possessed by the Sichuan Dang Family clearly surpasses that of the Empire. In grandeur and opulence they cannot compare to the buildings of Beijing, but in sheer scale of construction and the breadth of vision that conceives such works, they could justly be called first in the Empire.

Even Beijing did not have every road paved so cleanly.

Common sense dictated that one went around a mountain, not through it.

Common sense said that to obtain clean water one drew from a well or hauled it from a river outside the walls.

And Sichuan?

Clean paved roads throughout the cities.

Mountain tunnels bored straight through the peaks.

Water brought by aqueducts that burst into fountains on every street corner, making it easy for people to draw.

On the streets of Seongdo, where upper and lower waterworks had been separated and fully renovated, not a single scrap of filth was to be seen.

Not one beggar, and every face bright and industrious.

And above all, that ironworks.

A gigantic forge the size of a fortress, using the power of the river to cast pig iron in vast quantities? Something even Beijing did not possess?

Baek Beon had already labeled both the Sichuan Dang Family and Sichuan itself as "dangerous."

And yet.

There were no signs of rebellion, and even if one occurred, the calculation was that it could be easily crushed… until now.

War, in the end, was a matter of numbers.

And those numbers were not solved simply by gathering people.

Weapons to arm the army and grain to feed it—those two fundamentals had to be in place.

Yet Sichuan sells the overwhelming majority of the iron it produces to the Central Plains. At least, I saw no quantities being siphoned off internally. Even if some exists, it cannot be large.

If the Dang Family truly dreamed of rebellion, there would have been no reason to export so much iron to the Central Plains.

Rather than strengthening a potential enemy with steel, they would have used it to forge armor for their own cavalry and to make spears and arrowheads.

That had been why Baek Beon could dismiss the theories of Sichuanese treason.

But the battle report he had just seen was more than enough to shake that judgment.

They blocked the road with coil barbed wire and annihilated hundreds of Oirat cavalry by pouring Shinggi-jeon rockets on them? With a mere fifty soldiers?

The prestige of cavalry was far greater than most imagined.

For infantry to hold an advantage against cavalry, they needed at least twice the numbers, and they had to form ranks in advance, raise long pikes, or rain arrows.

And yet they stopped the infamous horsemen of a nomadic nation without suffering a single casualty…

Baek Beon immediately wrote the details into his report and appended the following opinions beneath:

His logic was simple.

If they tried to hide and conceal weapons that could threaten the Imperial House, that meant they harbored other intentions. If, on the contrary, they offered everything up, that demonstrated loyalty and there was no need for concern.

The letter containing Baek Beon's report was bound to the leg of a carrier hawk and left Sichuan.

Under Hwi-yeom's orders, the Innovation Hall rushed the mass production of black powder and the Type A Dabal-shinggi-jeon.

"We have no idea when the Oirat may launch a follow-up attack. The assault that targeted Aba County may well have been only the advance party."

In truth it had been the vanguard of the main force, and while that vanguard melted away like sugar cubes the main body had been watching and trembling—but Hwi-yeom, who could not know that, still sounded entirely reasonable.

Using that as pretext, he accelerated the fortification of Sichuan.

"Given the situation, we will first prioritize powder armament for the outposts that guard Sichuan's outer perimeter.

I prostrate myself and beg His Majesty the Emperor for the vast understanding and magnanimity of the seas and rivers."

"But of course. It is for the defense of His Majesty's territory, after all. I shall report it properly to His Majesty myself.

In return, the number and location of each outpost, and the quantity of powder weapons stationed there, must be reported accurately and without omission."

At Baek Beon's warning—don't manufacture them for defense and then quietly pull them out to turn into daggers aimed at Beijing—Hwi-yeom smiled.

"How could there be any other way? Ah, but there is one request I would make."

"And what is that?"

"Yes. We need saltpeter and sulfur—especially sulfur."

"Sulfur?"

"Yes. Black powder absolutely requires both saltpeter and sulfur… Saltpeter we can produce artificially by cultivating Chojeon fields, but sulfur we currently dig only from the hot springs of the Emei Sect.

It is far from enough to produce the vast quantities of powder needed to arm His Majesty's armies…"

At Hwi-yeom's words, the eyes hidden in Baek Beon's narrow slits gleamed.

If we control the sulfur supply, we can hold the Dang Family's powder production in the palm of our hand. Excellent intelligence.

…Or so he'll think.

Hwi-yeom laughed inwardly at the man.

It will never even cross this bastard's mind that we can extract both sulfur and saltpeter from bat guano and fermented locust swarms. Whatever schemes your little head cooks up, they stay right in the palm of my hand.

In truth they no longer needed the sulfur from Mount Emei's hot springs at all.

Saltpeter and sulfur drawn from guano alone were enough to produce powder.

By the time the guano ran low, the locust swarms would have fermented nicely as well.

And they had already opened trade with that treasure-house of resources known as the Southern Man.

That place was incomparably richer in phosphate rock than true China.

Yet through this deception Hwi-yeom led the Imperial House to form the illusion that "we can control Sichuan's powder production," and Baek Beon walked straight into the trap.

"Understood. I shall speak to the Grand Eunuch Admiral and arrange for sulfur and saltpeter to be supplied."

"My thanks."

Hwi-yeom hurried the supply of coil barbed wire and Shinggi-jeon rockets to the outposts installed along the major roads of Sichuan and Yunnan.

The Regional Commander who held military authority over Yunnan Province, upon receiving the report of the heroic victory at Noksan Outpost in Aba County, nearly turned his eyes inside out in his eagerness to introduce powder weapons.

"Sell some to us as well!"

"Ah… I would like nothing more."

When Hwi-yeom, receiving the fervent courtship of the Regional Commanders of both Sichuan and Yunnan Provinces, turned his gaze with an awkward expression, Baek Beon was smiling sweetly at the end of that gaze.

"His Majesty the Emperor considers the present armament of the provincial armies to be sufficient."

"……."

The faces of the two Regional Commanders rotted on the spot.

As expected, the Emperor remained wary of the provincial military authority growing too large.

At the same time he hoped the Regional Commanders and the Sichuan Dang Family would keep one another in check.

So that the provinces could never permanently escape the influence of the center.

To keep the two Regional Commanders from harboring resentment toward him, Hwi-yeom met them separately and offered consolation.

"Please understand. With the Emperor's inspector watching, any action that strengthens the provincial armies would see our family fall like autumn leaves."

"…Well, nothing to be done about it."

"It is hardly adequate compensation, but please accept these."

Hwi-yeom gave each of the two Regional Commanders a pair of crossbows and their blueprints.

Seeing the crossbows, the two commanders tilted their heads.

"Isn't this just a nu? I've never seen one made this small, though."

"This is a compact repeating crossbow designed so a man can carry and use it himself."

At Hwi-yeom's words the Regional Commanders' eyes went round.

"Then… is this the legendary Zhuge Crossbow?"

The crossbows—nu—used in ancient China had been less hand crossbows and more like Western ballistae.

Weapons fixed in place, drawn by mechanical devices, and launching spears with high-tension strings—siege engines, in short.

The man who had created a nu that a person could draw and fire by hand, and that could shoot in succession, was said to be Zhuge Liang himself, and in this world it was regarded as one of the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠secret arts of the Zhuge Family.

That was why the Regional Commanders were so startled.

Hwi-yeom, wary of any trouble with the Zhuge Family, added a light seasoning.

"Come now, isn't that a weapon of legend? I was born and raised in Sichuan and have never even approached the Zhuge Family—how could I have created one of their secret weapons?

This is merely a weapon I designed so that I myself could use a bow more comfortably.

Because the string can be drawn and then hooked onto a catch like this, aiming becomes extremely easy.

Unlike a regular bow that requires training, even common soldiers can use it with ease.

I cannot give you Shinggi-jeon… but take this as a token of my regard."

At Hwi-yeom's words the faces of the two Regional Commanders flushed red.

"Without realizing that was Seonji Aryong's true heart, this man nearly fell into needless misunderstanding."

"Our trust will not change from this day forward."

From the standpoint of Regional Commanders who led provincial armies, they could not openly resent the Emperor, so their anger inevitably turned toward the eunuch Baek Beon.

Contrary to Baek Beon's intention of piling ill will from the local officials onto Hwi-yeom for not handing over the powder, the relationship between Hwi-yeom and the provincial officers only grew thicker.

After all, nothing forges friendship faster than a common enemy.

"Ah… please keep it secret that I gave you these…"

"Of course, of course. Don't worry. Even if that eunuch bastard hears of it, I'll insist I invented them myself."

"Hmph. I'll just say my ancestors appeared in a dream and taught the manufacturing method to me, who stays awake night after night defending this land."

The two Regional Commanders grinned.

While Hwi-yeom busied himself with external politics, the people of the Dang Family were being ground into dust at a mad pace.

"Body Team! How much longer?!"

"You think we make Shinggi-jeon bodies by just chopping bamboo out of the bamboo grove…?! If we half-ass the heat and moisture treatment and one goes off halfway, are you going to take responsibility?!"

"The powder inventory here doesn't match! The inspectors are coming any minute—where the hell did you hide the powder crates that were here?!"

"Huh? The Explosive Dragon of the Residence took those for an experiment earlier…"

"What? We're fucked! Where is he?!"

"Springs! We're short on springs!"

"Who the hell rifled these barrels?! You trying to make guns that explode the second you pull the trigger?!"

The Innovation Hall and the Blacksmith Hall were nothing short of war zones.

Not that any other department was having an easy time of it.

Architecture Division.

"T-trenches… you want me to dig this many? …Me?"

Inner Hall.

"Heh, heheheheh, these bastards, do they think the materials that go in here and the money spent over there just fall from the sky?"

Minjeongwon.

"How does it make sense that nobody knew the Oirat were coming all the way to Aba County? What? Not enough informants? Then put agents in! Even in the backwater villages—at least one person in every single place!"

Council of Elders.

"C-clear mind pills… clear mind flower…"

And finally,

the Family Head's Hall—no, the Young Family Head's office.

"Hm, hmhmhmhm~ ♬ Ah, now that the defense problems are gradually being sorted out~ shall we make something~ ♬"

Hwi-yeom hummed a strange little tune as he began writing the cover of a proposal.

It was finally time to start making those rubber products he had been letting sit.