The Military Command Token
The report, written in careful detail, described the mood inside the Chagatai Khanate as learned by a cell of Minjeongwon black agents who had posed as Yunnan peddlers traveling between the Central Plains and the Mongol plateau.
It covered everything Ibn al-Nasir had warned of—the massive purchases of iron ore and grain—and went further still, laying out the movements of the army itself.
According to intelligence obtained by winning the favor of a Noyon's wife with glasswork ornaments and jewels (Noyon: a title for generals and members of the noble class), the offensive will begin around the autumn harvest.
The point of attack is Yunnan.
We have not yet determined the exact number of troops to be committed, but judging by the volume of military grain Chagatai is stockpiling, this will be no mere probing raid like the last Oirat strike.
The same report also recorded, in careful detail, the names of Noyons reputed as great commanders, the tribes they came from, and the movements of their warhorses—all gathered through trade with local nomads.
Have they still not imagined that the Central Plains might send spies among them? They are far too open.
Hwiyeom was pleased with the quality of the intelligence, yet he still had to consider whether it might be a counterintelligence plant. He took up his brush and drafted an order.
An excellent report. However, an outsider who keeps asking after another nation's military affairs risks drawing suspicion.
A long tail is easily stepped on. Your clandestine work inside Chagatai is sufficient for now.
If war truly breaks out, our link with the outside of Yunnan will be severed, and they will continue to deal with the merchants who travel the Silk Road. Infiltrate among those merchants.
Report whatever passes between Chagatai and the traders thereafter.
Fortune favor you.
— Personal decree of the Young Master of the Sacheondang Family
Hwiyeom handed the letter to Ye-eun, head of the Minjeongwon, and said,
"Spare no support for the Minjeongwon agents suffering in enemy territory. And tell them this: more important than any intelligence work is preserving their own lives."
"Yes, sir."
Yellow agents—those working off the Yeowangchae debts the Sacheondang Family had absorbed by laboring in the shops—and white agents—those who gathered information while employed at Baekga-jaengsik or Hwiyeom's affiliate companies in exchange for bonuses—were not professionally trained operatives. There were many of them, and any one of them could be replaced.
The black agents were another matter. They were either orphans from the branch-office orphanages, selected for exceptional physical ability and fierce loyalty to the Dang Family and then put through Sakpungdae's intelligence curriculum, or warriors who had transferred from Sakpungdae into the Minjeongwon. Every one of them was precious, high-grade manpower.
The black agents now sixteen or seventeen years old were, by Hwiyeom's personal moral standard, still minors—though this age counted them as adults—and, from the standpoint of the public good, the next generation of leaders for the Minjeongwon. Nothing could be allowed to happen to them.
Ye-eun asked,
"Is the development of the chlorine and mustard poison munitions proceeding smoothly?"
"Development itself is finished. We're now working on mass production, the projectiles to deliver them, and the dedicated guns to fire those projectiles."
"Is that why Cheol-u-jeon has been using so much bronze lately?"
"It is."
Chlorine and mustard gas had originally been used by packing them into shells and firing them. Hwiyeom had first considered loading them into the bottle-type Dabal-shinggi-jeon—the same multiple-launch rockets already filled with toluene as an incendiary—but research had shown that for safer delivery over longer range, a cannon on the model of the General Fire Tube was superior to a rocket system.
The problem was the amount of powder that could be used. As the charge in a rocket's propellant section increased, thrust and range rose at first; past a certain point, however, the weight of the powder itself became a chain, the center of mass shifted rearward, and range actually fell. That was an unavoidable flaw so long as black powder remained the propellant.
The General Fire Tube, by contrast, was a large bronze or cast-iron gun that launched a wooden-shafted arrow—or a projectile shaped much like a modern missile. In its original form it simply hurled an iron warhead on a solid wooden body, smashing targets by mass and velocity. Hwiyeom intended to fit a gas-filled vessel to the warhead of such a tube.
That way, even if the powder charge was increased, the wooden rear of the projectile absorbed the shock of firing, so the vessel would not shatter and detonate prematurely. So long as the barrel itself could withstand the blast, more powder meant more range.
The warheads that would hold the gas were cast from corrosion-resistant bronze. They needed no great strength—they were meant to break—but if a stored warhead corroded from the chemicals inside and leaked gas, the result would be catastrophe.
The material of the guns themselves was no concern. The State-run Ironworks, with its large-scale reverberatory furnaces and reaction catalysts—chiefly charcoal and various minerals—could produce everything from high-carbon steel down to low-carbon pig iron and wrought iron.
Of course, the technique for making Hyeoncheol, the vanadium alloy, had never been shared with the State-run Ironworks; it could be produced only at the Dang Family's Cheol-u-jeon.
The steel from the State-run Ironworks was sold mainly into the interior provinces, but the Sacheondang Family could also purchase it by paying the Sichuan Provincial Administration Commission. Hwiyeom therefore poured private funds into buying steel billets without stint, melting them and pouring them into molds to cast steel cannon.
The expense was considerable, but he did not bear it alone; he billed the Yunnan and Sichuan Provincial Military Commissions.
Naturally they first protested that they could not sink huge sums into weapons for no clear reason—until they read the "Report on the Likelihood of War with the Chagatai Khanate and Projected Early Course of Operations" that Hwiyeom had prepared, and fell silent.
For a man who had once run a defense contractor, war-game simulation and the writing of such reports were among his core specialties.
The Yunnan Provincial Administration Commissioner read the scenario that assumed the absence of these "cannon," then drained a cup of scalding coffee as if his mouth had gone dry.
"…Gifted in military talent as well?"
"Hardly to that degree."
"No need for modesty. The report reads as if you went into the future and watched it yourself."
The summary of the report was this:
If Chagatai commits more than ten thousand mounted troops, Kunming will fall even with the advantages of a defensive siege.
The process was laid out in such detail that the Military Commissioner could not refute it.
On paper, the Yunnan Provincial Military Commission commanded one hundred twenty thousand men. Anyone who had read the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, with its casual talk of tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or million-strong armies, might think that no great number—yet in truth it was enormous. Consider only the rice such a force would consume: for Yunnan, which already had to buy grain from other provinces simply to live, it was not a standing army that could be maintained in peacetime.
The Gyeong Empire's military system, like that of early Ming, was not a standing force but something closer to a reserve, mustered only when war came; in ordinary times the army was kept up by commoners fulfilling their military service. Thus, though the books listed one hundred twenty thousand available, the number that could actually move at the outbreak of war was perhaps ten thousand, at most twenty.
Even granting the higher figure, these were no elite troops forged by rigorous training. They were tea farmers and coffee planters handed a spear. What real combat power could one expect from conscripts like that?
The enemy, by contrast, lived and died on horseback from birth, and most of their cavalry were skilled enough horsemen to shoot from the saddle. Even with the geographic advantages of walls and supply, if they were struck before the conscripts could be mustered, Kunming would fall with humiliating ease—just as it had when Genghis Khan's Mongols came down through Gansu and crushed the Jin.
The Yunnan Military Commissioner read the report with growing gravity, then said,
"…Yet this projection excludes Noksan's strength. I understand they have built outposts at every key point, stationed troops, and even deployed the new weapons?"
True to form for a medieval official—his first thought is to requisition the common people's property without a blink.
Hwiyeom answered,
"Noksan is not the imperial army but ordinary subjects, so of course they must be left out of the calculation. They will do their duty where they stand, but they are not organized under the Yunnan Regional Military Commission."
"In wartime the requisition of men, horses, and property is legal."
"Then I shall simply withdraw every Noksan laborer from Yunnan before war breaks out."
"You—!"
The Yunnan Military Commissioner flushed with anger and raised his voice.
"Do you take me for a man at play? I have a duty to defend Yunnan Province, and I hold the Golden Axe bestowed by His Majesty—the symbol of military authority!"
At that, Hwiyeom reached into his robe and drew out the Military Command Token granted by Emperor Sungui.
"…That—!"
The Yunnan Military Commissioner and the Sichuan Military Commissioner, who had been sitting blankly beside him, both rose and bowed to the token.
Hwiyeom said,
"I had no wish to proceed so high-handedly, but His Majesty the Emperor, in his wisdom, foresaw precisely this situation and entrusted me with the Military Command Token, granting me full military authority over Yunnan and Sichuan."
"…Crack!"
Something broke between the teeth of the prostrate Yunnan Military Commissioner. His pride was deeply wounded. No soldier who had climbed high as a military officer would take pleasure in seeing his command handed to a green youth—yet he could not deny a token issued by the Emperor.
Hwiyeom, for his part, had no intention of stripping the Commissioner of command. He knew full well that seizing formal authority would only provoke the man's subordinates and leave the army ungovernable.
"I have not the slightest intention of overstepping Your Excellency's military authority. I ask only that Your Excellency likewise refrain from casting greedy eyes on Noksan's forces, which are little more than a militia."
"…Very well."
"That said, I did not call this meeting so that we might each go our separate ways. It is so that we may cooperate as a single organism. The reason I barred the requisition of Noksan under Your Excellency's command is that their strongpoint-defense system is already in place."
If the Military Commissioner tried to command Noksan, would a band of former mountain bandits from the greenwoods really answer, Oh my, of course we'll obey the great lord doing the nation's work? They followed only because of the profit and the new status Hwiyeom held out as carrots; force them into the army and one would be lucky if they did not desert.
Even if they were jammed into the chain of command by force, they were specialized solely in holding the outposts to which they belonged. Once the Commissioner's scheme of absorbing Noksan's elite troops, redistributing them to Kunming and other key points, and inflating his numbers—what Hwiyeom saw as pure freeloading—was blocked, the Yunnan Military Commissioner looked conspicuously sullen, but he said nothing more.
Hwiyeom soothed him with gentler words.
"I cannot give you Noksan, but I will deploy the iron cannon our family has produced. They are terrifying weapons that spread our Dang Family's poison munitions over a wide area. You will be thoroughly satisfied."
"…For a fee, I suppose."
Hwiyeom smiled.
"This is work to strengthen the border and protect His Majesty's subjects. How could I seek private gain? If only His Majesty should deign to take notice, I would count myself more than blessed."
In other words, he would place them at his own expense first and then squeeze the cost out of the Emperor. The Yunnan Military Commissioner heaved a long sigh.
"And these… cannon. How many can you provide?"
"Well, for a start…"
Hwiyeom counted on his fingers.
"Three…"
"Three hundred? What am I supposed to do with—"
"Shall we begin with something on the order of three thousand pieces?"
"Eh?"
The Commissioner's eyes went round.