The Eve of the Storm (3)
I took out the tea leaves I had been saving for a special occasion and brewed a proper pot.
"I hardly know whether a few cups of barley tea deserve to be repaid with leaves this fine."
"Haha, think nothing of it."
An Jung-geun chuckled and nodded.
After several refills and some idle talk about each other's health, he spoke at last, his face worn thin and gaunt.
"I hardly know where to begin."
"Please don't feel burdened. Speak freely."
"You think so?"
"This is my private office. No one enters without my leave. You needn't worry."
An Jung-geun turned the teacup in his hands this way and that, as if deliberating, then finally opened his mouth, his face set hard.
"Before I begin, I must first offer an apology."
"An apology?"
"The truth is, we were not merely men who crossed the Yalu because we hungered for land."
We were men who crossed it to save our fatherland, An Jung-geun added.
"And so, the other day, I had no choice but to lie to you. Had our identity been discovered, there was no telling what would have followed."
I offered no comment of my own and simply kept listening.
"Yet what I told this officer was true—this winter, we had planned to leave Manchuria behind and move on to Vladivostok in Russia. That much was no lie."
"Then shouldn't you have begun moving already?"
"...Something happened."
An Jung-geun pressed his lips together hard.
"As I said, we are the Righteous Army. This officer told us where the Japanese were so that we might flee them—but we could not simply stand by and do nothing."
"......."
He went on, pouring out everything that had happened over the past year or so.
"Our Korean Righteous Army fought countless engagements with the Japanese this past year, and we won. The devils even printed wanted posters bearing my name. It looks nothing like me save for the name, mind you. Haha!" He let out a hollow laugh. "...And then, things took a turn for the worse."
"A turn for the worse?"
"In a recent battle, we took a prisoner."
A young soldier who had trembled like a leaf. A boy barely old enough to shave.
"Our Korean Righteous Army is an army of justice. We fight to win back our nation's independence and its righteousness—we are not men blinded by bloodshed, I say. And so... so I released him. I told him to go home. I told him that if this war went on, we would all go mad in the end, and that he should return to his old mother and care for her."
An Jung-geun, visibly choked, drained his tea in one furious gulp before he could go on.
"Five days after we let him go, we discovered that they had spread an encirclement around us."
The reward for mercy shown to a prisoner was a full-scale punitive campaign by the Japanese main force.
"...Far too many of my men lost their lives. Should I have simply put a bullet in that prisoner after all?"
"Do you regret it?"
"Regret it—of course I regret it! ...And yet, if we do not walk the righteous path, how are we any different from those wicked men? No matter what befalls us, we must never step down from the road of justice."
If a soldier without a nation loses even his justice, who in this world would ever lend him an ear?
"That is what weighs upon me so."
In all likelihood, so long as the world remained ruled by the colonial empires unreformed, men like An Jung-geun and his Righteous Army would be branded terrorists by those who ruled it.
And so, to leave his enemies not even a single pretext, David had resolved to fight Goliath with his bare hands from within the hexagon behind bars.
I respect him.
He opened his mouth with a face caught halfway between a smile and sorrow.
"Forgive me for rambling on so."
"Not at all. I understand completely."
"Haha, I am glad to hear it."
"So. What can I do to help you?"
"...Did you not hear me? I am a wanted man."
"Then why did you come to see me at all?"
He fell silent.
He tugged his flat cap down slightly and rose from his seat.
"You are right, of course. Forgive my discourtesy. Pretend that everything I have said until now was the ravings of a ghost."
The man mid-rise froze in place.
"...Then let me ask one thing. Why on earth would you go so far for me? You have no reason to."
"I owe you a debt."
"I have never lent money to anyone in my life."
"Haha, money isn't the only thing a man can owe in this world."
I tapped the table beside his teacup as I spoke.
"More important than what the debt happens to be, surely, is the fact that I am well disposed toward you. Isn't that so?"
"...So it seems."
An Jung-geun returned to his seat, bowed his head in silence for a long while, and then slowly lifted it again.
Eyes so clear and sharp they seemed as though they might cut.
So this is what the eyes of a man look like—one ready to cast everything away like straw for the greater cause.
"What I need are firearms. Something easy to carry, small enough that an inspection will never catch it, with killing power enough—and above all, it must not misfire."
"Shall I get you an American revolver?"
"An American six-shooter, you say. Good. That will do nicely."
He handed me a small slip of paper.
Primorye — Pyotr Semyonovich Tso
"Primorye... Pyotr Semyonovich?"
"The man under whose name I now shelter. Memorize the address, then burn that slip at once."
"Understood. I'll get my hands on one as quickly as I can."
"Thank you. The tea was excellent."
With those final words of gratitude, An Jung-geun was gone before I knew it.
Pyotr Semyonovich Tso of Primorye (Пётр Семёнович Цо).
I memorized the contents of the note over and over, then carried it to the oil lamp.
After Dr. An Jung-geun left, I paced the grounds of the compound, restless, unable to settle.
Was I agonizing over whether to help Dr. An Jung-geun or not? Please. Of course I was going to help him—was that even a question?
What troubled me was how much to help him.
With everything I had? Or in moderation? Or only faintly, barely at all?
I didn't know.
On the day Philip Jaisohn and the Independence Club came crashing down, I had resolved to keep my head down until the 1930s arrived—until Japan began growling at us in earnest.
If I poked my nose out before then with my shallow knowledge of history, I'd end up a corpse at best—and worse, there was no telling how history itself, and the future with it, would warp and twist around my meddling.
...Even if I refused his request, Dr. An Jung-geun would still carry out his deed. Even in the original history, where no such being as I existed, he became a hero to the very end.
And yet.
And yet I wanted to help him.
If my butterfly effect kept Ito alive, why not simply fire the shot in his place?
...But then, what would be the point of my rebirth? To replay the original history, beat for beat?
That couldn't be it. Surely that was not why I'd been granted a second playthrough.
"Ngh... whew."
I scooped the cold Manchurian air into my hands like wash water and scrubbed my face with it.
Let's sort this out.
Ito Hirobumi had to die. No question.
What if, by some fluke, my own butterfly effect kept him alive?
In the original history, Japan had tried to swallow the peninsula with crude, heavy-handed violence—and it backfired spectacularly. They scattered constables across the land, and in the end simply swapped those constables' uniforms for army ones and unleashed the so-called 'military police gendarmerie' to beat the people into submission. Yet the patriots of the three-thousand-ri land never yielded—not until the day August 15, 1945 finally dawned.
But Ito Hirobumi was different. Like a cancer cell spreading quietly through the body, he had tried to devour the peninsula gradually—a method quite unlike anything else the Japanese Empire had attempted.
If he lived—if Japan's rule became far more cunning and insidious than in the original history—if 'cultural rule,' which bred traitors by the hundreds even in the original timeline, bared its face that much sooner—
Therefore. Ito Hirobumi had to die. Unconditionally.
Only then, even if I failed, would a Republic of Korea still grow up in the end, exactly as it was meant to.
It was a painful answer, but an answer all the same.
Help him—yes. But never so much that history itself lurched off its rails.
All I could give him was the small favor he had asked for.
And then, quietly, where no one would ever notice—fill the seat he would leave empty.
The next day.
"Anyone know where our two second lieutenants went off to?"
"They should be strolling back any minute now. Ah—there they are."
He'd said something about visiting his family, hadn't he. Well, of course—once you pass the civil service exam, you're supposed to swagger home for the holidays and show your face in style. All of this was possible only because I wept my way through steering the man onto the right path. Am I not just the kindest soul alive?
"Hey there, Du Lisan."
"Wh-what is it, sir?"
I slung an arm over Du Lisan's shoulder and steered him off toward a spot far away where nobody was about.
"Wh-why are you—what's going on?"
"Nothing much. Can't a senior have a word with his junior? We're family now, you and I. Family. Isn't that right?"
"......."
Silence, as ever, meant yes.
Having a junior read my heart so faithfully—it made this senior's chest swell with pride.
You lucky punk. Your life just bloomed.
"Second Lieutenant Du. Still toting that pair of pistols everywhere?"
"...I am, sir."
"Hand me one."
"Ye-yes?"
"Hand. One. Over."
With a face like he'd bitten into something rotten, Du Lisan opened his holster, drew out a pistol, and passed it over.
SMITH & WESSON — CALIBER .38
"Smith & Wesson, eh? Oho, someone's carrying the good stuff."
"Gi-give it back, sir."
"Aw, come on. Just having a look."
Not a speck of powder residue in the cylinder. A grip that fit the hand like it had been poured into it. Did he oil this thing every single day? I had never handled a pistol this smooth. What state was this thing in?
"Good. This one will do nicely."
"Yes? Do for what, may I ask?"
"How much do you want for it?"
"Sell it? Why on earth would I sell this?!"
Du Lisan recoiled in horror and began chanting my precious like some wretched cave-dwelling creature. Tragic, truly.
So what does one do at a time like this?
Obviously, trying to snatch it by force would end in disaster.
Which meant I had to gaslight him into believing that the thing he treasured was, in fact, no great prize at all.
What's that? Isn't that a nasty thing to do?
I'm afraid I don't follow. I am merely informing the man of his property's true market value.
Consider me one of those righteous souls at the Maple Country's flea markets who take down scalpers hawking work gloves at marked-up prices armed with nothing but a megaphone.
"Listen. This is the age of the 'automatic pistol' now. How long do you plan on hauling this antique around?"
"Antique? The only reason I ever earned the name Horse Emperor was thanks to this very six-shooter—"
"The new pistols coming out of the West these days don't hold six rounds—they hold ten, and fire them one after another. The revolver is yesterday's news, I'm afraid."
So sell it now, while someone's still willing to pay you a fair price for it. I'm only saying all this for your own good, you understand.
Yally yally yallyasyeong, and so on and so forth.
What's that? Isn't our Du Lisan a touch too credulous?
Well, exactly—he got hooked by our bait and came all the way to Fengtian, and then got hooked by my glib tongue and got reeled in as a second lieutenant, didn't he?
"Is that... truly so? You mean with that 'magazine' thing, one could load ten rounds in a heartbeat?"
"That's what I'm telling you."
Frankly, I had no idea. But it would be out soon enough, wouldn't it?
The Colt M1911—the legendary masterpiece that served for over a century. I knew it well; I'd fired one back in the twenty-first century. And as its designation promised, it would arrive in 1911, so the man only had to hold out two years.
"You've promised, sir. You must buy me one, whatever it takes."
"Have you ever once seen me go back on my word?"
"......."
Hm. Why are you looking at me like that? I truly cannot imagine what the reason might be.
Now hand it over.
January 1909.
"Then I shall announce the appointments."
Every eye in the room turned to me—gazes laced with expectation, wariness, even open admiration, a whole jumble of it.
"Jang Bokchim. Promoted to Lieutenant Colonel. You will take command of the 2nd Battalion, 1st Regiment of the Local Brigade."
"I shall obey the Brigade Commander's word, sir."
"Mm. Make it count."
Jang Bokchim bowed his head with a crisp salute, and Zhang Zuolin stroked his chin and nodded.
"Zhang Jinghui. Promoted to Lieutenant Colonel. You will take the 3rd Battalion, 1st Regiment."
"I shall obey the Brigade Commander's word, sir."
"Do well now."
Zhang Jinghui, too, saluted and returned to his seat.
"The 1st Battalion of the 1st Regiment will be organized as a brigade-level direct asset, together with the supply and engineer companies."
"Who commands it?"
"I, Zuolin, will."
Everyone nodded along.
"I say, Major Lee. A question, if I may."
"Of course. Go ahead."
"What of the 2nd Regiment? Doesn't sit right, appointing only the 1st."
"The 2nd Regiment are men who were already serving under the Shengjing Army. They won't take kindly to us meddling in their affairs."
The brigade had been split into three regiments, and the 2nd and 3rd were central army troops who had been serving under the Shengjing Army all along. Would those fellows really listen if we told them, 'Hey, our command structure sits above yours now, so fall in line'?
SLAM!
The table jumped.
"Damn right they'll listen!"
"That's so! If they ask who ordered it, tell them someone above did! There, problem solved!"
Hm. Barbaric as ever.
If that worked, then our little second lieutenants might as well waltz into a transfer and pull 'ahem—you're the company first sergeant, are you?' on a sergeant major, no?
When, oh when, would our bandit brethren ever grasp that mutual respect is the simplest way to keep from pointing blades at each other's throats?
"Say that where the men of the 2nd Regiment can hear it and they'll come running to brigade HQ with rifles in hand. You've all lost your minds."
Jang Bokchim rounded on the room, exasperation written all over his face.
Ah, beautiful.
Trust in him, as ever. Great Bokchim. Truly the light of our unit. One of the only sane men in this bandit-run world.
"Of course, those old-timers wouldn't be worth a single fistfight, but there's no sense poking the hornet's nest for nothing."
Retraction noted. This absolute lunatic. You're exactly the same as the rest of them.
"Ahem."
"Something to say, Major Lee Tae-oh?"
"I agree with everyone's sentiment here. But do you truly believe those well-fed, backside-warming troops of the 2nd and 3rd Regiments would lift so much as a finger for our sake?"
"Then it's settled! Let's snatch the regimental commands for ourselves as well!"
"But if we did, and then failed to carry out the mission Xu Shichang has handed down, there's no telling what would follow."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
What does it mean? It means: are you eager to be destroyed by someone even higher up?
"In a few months, a former Prime Minister of Japan will be visiting Harbin. We'll be committed to the security detail alongside the others."
"You mean, if the 2nd or 3rd Regiment sulks over this and drags its feet later, we'll be the ones left holding the bag?"
"Nothing dramatic would come of it, most likely. But if they decided to stage some deliberate go-slow, it would make us look incompetent from above, wouldn't it?"
"Tch."
Is this world for real? On one side, a hero; on the other, anger management issues with a rifle.
Just as I was quietly suffocating to death, a hand went up.
"One question, if I may."
"Captain Tang Yulin? Go ahead."
Tang Yulin, who had joined our unit on the heels of Du Lisan's capture and the reorganization of the order of battle, opened his mouth in a bandit's drawl.
"This security detail—will we be coordinating with the Japanese army as well?"
"We'll be coordinating with the Russians too."
"Goddamn. Three nations' soldiers guarding one man. Is that job ever going to run properly?"
"It was the Japanese who demanded the arrangement in the first place. We'll handle the outer cordon—we won't be doing close protection."
"Well then, if that prime minister fellow drops dead, none of it lands on us."
"As long as it doesn't look like a go-slow—no sprawled-out loafing that anyone could call shirking, that is."
And so I successfully strangled in its cradle the grand motion of 'Smash the 2nd and 3rd Regiments and let's all play musical chairs with the commands!'
"All finished, sir?"
"Yeah."
Jeom-san came sidling over, huffing on his gleaming second lieutenant insignia and polishing it as though it were some precious jewel.
"Oh, Major Lee, sir—almost forgot. The guards were saying today that a Japanese has entered Fengtian City."
"A Japanese?"
"Seems General Xu Shichang is meeting with the Japanese, from what they tell it."
"Who is it?"
"Some director of the South Manchuria Railway Company, they said."
"Director, my ass. That's a secret diplomat."
The other side must have been sweating plenty over Ito Hirobumi by now. Xu Shichang, for his part, would want to keep the peace of the three northeastern provinces—only just barely stabilized—out of the clutches of the Japanese army, that most prodigious of crime machines. Both sides, no doubt, would settle for a comfortable compromise.
"Anything else?"
"Because of that, they say joint training with the Japanese army is set to begin next month."
"Ah... damn it all."
I hated it. Truly, I did.