WANTED, DEAD or ALIVE
"You want me to come to the Xinmin Office right now?"
"General Zhao Erxun wants to speak with you personally."
"Can't I just file a report? I haven't even washed yet."
"You know full well that won't fly. Better to hurry over there, feed the old man a few nice words, and come back. Move it, you rascal."
Two weeks after returning to Fengtian, Ma Jeom-san and I headed for the Xinmin Bureau building caked head to toe in dust. What's the Xinmin Bureau, you ask? Think of it as city hall. And its chief, the so-called Prefect, is basically the mayor.
"Your Excellency, I have never seen such lofty towers and spacious halls."
"And where exactly would those be?"
"Right here, aren't they? Eight stories in this world! It's not going to collapse, is it?"
"Ugh."
Truly, Manchuria-Western. A land of downward leveling where merely knowing your letters puts you in the top ten percent. Even Jeom-san — a man who can actually read four-character idioms — looked at an eight-story building and asked, "So, is that thing going to fall down?" Should I have bought him a mountain of books and built a library or something? Not that I could, of course — there isn't so much as a door-to-door encyclopedia salesman anywhere in Manchuria. If Kim Woo-jung had been born here, he wouldn't have sold encyclopedias. He'd have gone door to door selling ammunition. Even now, somewhere in Manchuria, some future Bill Gates is probably delivering a .30-06 Springfield someone ordered via Coupang Eats...
I was dragging myself through the entrance, drowning in fatigue and idle thoughts like these, when someone stepped squarely into my path. I assumed it was a guard — but the man blocking us wore the robes of a civil official.
"Would you be the famous Lee Tae-oh of Baguadao?"
"...And who might I have the honor of addressing?"
"I've been waiting until my neck fell off. I'm Shen Jinjian, the newly appointed Prefect of the Xinmin Bureau."
"Ah — the Prefect himself! Forgive my blindness."
Jeom-san and I snapped to a salute at once, and the Prefect nodded with evident satisfaction. As he'd said, a Prefect was a mayor-tier heavyweight. Yuan Shikai was overhauling the official hierarchy, so had the title changed too? But how did a man of that rank even know who I was?
"You're the only ones who could walk into this bureau looking like that — the Viceroy summoned you himself! Of course I know!"
Oh, right. We'd sprinted over without so much as a rinse. In uniform, the two of us were destitute beggars to the bone. Dirt, grime, sweat — we were basically walking germ farms.
"Quite apart from that, I confess I wished to meet the celebrated Yue Fei of the Northeast in the flesh. The reality cuts an even finer figure than the rumors!"
Yue Fei? Er... what was that again. Song dynasty's Admiral Yi, roughly?
"I am indeed Lee Tae-oh, but... that is a compliment I've never heard before."
"Ha! A true Manchurian through and through — humility's soaked into your bones. Enough of that. The Viceroy is waiting. Up you go."
For reasons I couldn't fathom, Prefect Shen — who had been propping me up to the point of absurdity — went clacking up the stairs ahead of us, and the two of us hurried after him, wary of trampling some great man's delicate mood.
The top floor, watched over by a handful of sentries. When the door of a room that had clearly consumed no small amount of premium timber swung open, an old man in official robes, his beard gone snow-white at the temples, sat listening as Prefect Shen spoke. Jeom-san and I saluted.
"We present ourselves to the General."
"Mm. Welcome. I am Zhao Erxun."
The old general rose from his seat and came toward us with his hands clasped behind his back.
"So you are Lee Tae-oh."
"Yes, General."
"That clever friend Zhang Zuolin used to speak of. Yes — with Zhang Zuolin and Lee Tae-oh carrying the government's name all the way out to the distant Heilongjiang, this old man could stretch both his legs out straight and sleep soundly."
"You honor us far too much, General."
The moment I finished, Prefect Shen bowed his head and chimed in.
"The Viceroy's judgment was sound, as ever. Without the General's lofty stratagems, and without the General's gracious trust in those two men, how could they ever have earned such merit?"
"Mm. True enough."
Lofty stratagems. Ah. I see. Well, I suppose the world isn't ordinary-crazy — you can slap a sheriff's badge on a gang boss. Especially a gang boss with an artillery battery. But wait — did they really drag me all the way up here just so everyone could admire me?
While that fantasy flitted through my head, the Viceroy and the Prefect spoke again.
"I would gladly watch your exploits a while longer, but a great pity — this old official is soon bound for Beijing."
"Telling you two alone, as a secret: the General's successor will be Xu Shichang, presently Minister of War in Beijing."
Xu Shichang? I think I've heard that name. If even this history-illiterate has caught it passing through one ear, the man must be somebody truly considerable.
"He is the sworn brother of His Excellency Yuan Shikai, who now heads the government and negotiates with the foreign powers. His Excellency wishes to settle as many of his headaches as he can before his successor arrives — to lighten the incoming Viceroy's load."
Ah. Completely understood. My successor's basically the Prime Minister and supreme commander's own brother? I'd work myself half to death finishing everything and hand over a spotless desk too.
"What would you have us do?"
"Good, quick talker. ...Do you know Du Lisan?"
"I'm sorry? Du Li... san?"
"You mean Du Lisan of Liaozhong, Your Excellency?"
Jeom-san, silent until now, shouted without meaning to.
"That's the one. Du Lisan of Liaozhong. The Horse Emperor!"
"Ooooh! You mean the peerless marksman who wields a pair of pistols from horseback as if they were his own hands!?"
"With Tian Yuben already dealt with, once that man falls, there won't be a bandit of any meaningful size left in the whole Northeast."
What is this. Is he a demon king? Is there a demon-king extermination order out?
"...If the man is truly that formidable, shouldn't it be the central army from Beijing riding out, and not a few shabby soldiers from the frontier?"
If he's a demon king, summon the Murim Alliance. Why is this our problem?
But Zhao Erxun and Shen Jinjian simply laughed.
"Haha, no need for such false modesty. Were you not the dashing hero who shot down Tian Yuben, that very bandit's rival, and shared his hoard among the common folk!"
I'm sorry — me? What I collected was the head of one of Tian Yuben's lackeys, not the man himself. And hoard? Surely not...
"Hoard, you say? I'm afraid I don't quite follow—"
"Mm? It's already the talk of every street that you seized Tian Yuben's treasure at Heilong Village and did a good deed with it. What is there to misunderstand?"
Hmm. That treasure. Which was, strictly speaking, found property. Salvage. Which meant that by all rights I should have reported it upward to my superiors at the Viceroy's headquarters. Naturally, since they'd never paid us a salary or issued us so much as a rifle, they wouldn't make a major case of it — but they could certainly manage a lecture or two. So I rubbed my hands together with the greasiest, most treacherous-minister posture I could muster.
"Your Excellency, about that treasure — the truth of the matter is—"
"Modest a sum as it may have been, to a people swept up in years of turmoil it was nothing less than rain after a drought. A deed worthy of emulation by every garrison in Fengtian."
What. Something about this conversation is badly off the rails. Six postal crates of precious metals, and it's a "modest sum"?
Quite unlike my scrambled brain, Zhao Erxun spoke with the utmost gravity.
"Capture Du Lisan, and I shall memorialize His Excellency Yuan Shikai personally, so that rewards are bestowed upon Zhang Zuolin and yourself. And should His Excellency refuse to approve it, I will pay out of the Viceroy's private treasury if I must."
"A... reward, you say?"
"How does five thousand taels of silver sound? Enough to whet the appetite, surely?"
Five thousand taels of silver?
Er — one tael is what, about forty grams?
......
Wait, wait, wait.
...That's two hundred kilograms of silver? You're raining two hundred kilograms of silver down as a bonus on one mere regimental commander? From the war chest of a country that's already lost two Opium Wars, one Sino-Japanese War, and a Boxer Rebellion and a Russo-Japanese War besides, and will go splat and vanish in a few more years?
Astonishing. So this is the imperial powers' bottomless lunchbox? What is this continent?
While I was off crunching numbers, Prefect Shen spoke up again.
"I say — Yue Fei of the Northeast."
"...That title rather overshoots me, I think."
"What name could suit better than one who crushes bandits and shares their spoils to bring peace to the people? If you insist, then — the world has taken to likening you and Zhang Zuolin to Wu Yong and the stronghold of Mount Liang from the Water Margin. Shall we call you the Wu Yong of the Northeast instead?"
Who's that? Some kind of Batman and Robin? I've read Marvel, DC, and Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but never the Water Margin. Better to keep my mouth shut — opening it would only expose my ignorance.
"The point is not how resplendent an epithet hangs before Zhang Zuolin's name and yours. The point is that this Manchuria, which has known no calm wind for a decade, has lately grown quiet — thanks to the two of you. For the first time in ten years, the common folk of the three northeastern provinces can feel the word peace in their own bodies."
"I see."
Hm. So a Manchuria where Russian Cossack cavalry loot villages with crescent blades in hand and Japanese troops raid neighboring hamlets at gunpoint for rice — that counts as peace. The bar seems a touch low, but I'll let it pass.
"So we simply bring you Du Lisan?"
"Drag back his head on a pike, or break a limb or two and bring him breathing — makes no difference to me. He hangs either way."
"Understood, Your Excellency."
Jeom-san and I saluted one last time, side by side, and walked out of the Xinmin Bureau.
"The Horse Emperor versus the Yue Fei of the Northeast! A duel for the ages — a dream match, if ever there was one!"
"Jeom-san. You've finally lost your mind."
"Lost it? A man's palms sweat just imagining it — the match of the century—"
Ah. No.
No, thank you.
I really, truly cannot adapt to this era.
"Du Lisan?"
"Yes, Boss."
"Should I just kill that bastard Zhao Erxun?"
Ah. That barbaric flavor. Now it feels like home.
Zhang Zuolin irritably stuffed a pipe with tobacco.
"Tae-oh, what happens if we skin Zhao Erxun's scalp off quietly?"
"His replacement seemed a far more severe, solemn, humorless sort of man, sir."
"Aw, goddammit."
Legs crossed, he let the curses ooze out thick and slow.
"Fine, whatever. Viceroy changes or doesn't, we've still got to stomp Du Lisan flat either way, don't we?"
"Do you happen to have a clever plan, Boss?"
"Nope? That's your job. Get that brain of yours churning, and quick."
I'm jealous of Dobby the house-elf. When, pray tell, is my Harry Potter arriving with my socks? 1945?
"First thing, then, we need intelligence."
"Intelligence on Du Lisan."
Zhang Zuolin took a long drag on the pipe and opened his mouth.
"Shoots a pair of pistols like the devil himself, keeps maybe three hundred men under him—"
It got worse the more I heard. The bandit's stronghold sat in a village called Qingmakan, in Liaozhong County. The problem was that the walls of an old fortress dating back to the Ming-Qing transition still stood there, and Du Lisan had forcibly conscripted the surrounding peasants to repair them into a proper fortress. And around that fortress, checkpoints and sentries lay spread thick as a net — even sneaking close was out of the question.
"Well. I don't have the faintest glimmer of how to take it."
"Confidence to spare, I see. That's exactly why the fool writes letters demanding the Emperor in the Forbidden City grant him an official title, and struts around crowing like a rooster."
Ah-ha. No wonder the Viceroy marked him for death before he left — so that happened. The man has a real gift for hurrying his own funeral. Truly impressive.
"And the fellow's father lives over in Heishan County."
"Sorry — why don't they live together?"
"...The man's father. Du Banlin, that is — the old gentleman runs a village schoolroom. You know why Du Lisan's so obsessed with official titles? It's because of his father."
Ah. So basically—
'Lisan. Come sit here a moment.'
'What now?'
'What in blazes do you do, cooped up in that room all day? Every boy your age is out taking the civil examinations, and you while away your best years in a corner of the house. Why?'
......
'Are you even studying your letters these days? The first glory of a family is for its sons to serve in office—'
......
'Never held a post in your life, just fooling about with those cursed guns of yours—'
'Aaargh! Enough!'
'You wretch — your own father is admonishing you and you yell?'
'You know nothing, Father! ...Fine. If it's what you want, I'll go out and get a title. Happy now?'
'What? Li—Lisan? Lisan!!'
Oh. Oh no.
I Vowed Never to Return Home Until I Made It Big After Running Away, and I Became the North's Strongest Sword Master — this is seriously a third-rate novel plot, and it's real life?
"But how does the Boss know the private affairs of someone else's household?"
"Du Banlin and I go back a ways. We swap New Year's gifts and all. Man cries his eyes out every time he drinks, going on and on about his son."
This madman socialite. Is there a single soul in Manchuria he doesn't know?
"...Hearing all that, one scheme does occur to me."
"Ha! Knew I could count on you, you rascal."
"In exchange, I'll need letters from Prefect Shen Jinjian and General Zhao Erxun."
"Something that small? Those two will hand them over gladly enough."
And I opened my mouth.