The Xinhai Revolution (2)
Commander of the 1st Battalion, Artillery Regiment, Guangdong New Army Local Brigade.
Lieutenant Colonel Ni Yingdian.
"Young people these days are the problem, I tell you. Running around spouting outrageous, deplorable nonsense about revolutions and whatnot. Whatever is this world coming to? Tsk, tsk."
"Quite so, Your Excellency the Viceroy."
"That's right. Republics and the like — they're so afraid of me they hardly dare breathe the word aloud. Clearly something strange has gone and seeped into their Western-poisoned heads!"
"Quite so, Your Excellency the Viceroy."
"Heh heh. I'm grateful you understand. If only more young men these days could become gentlemen like you, Colonel Ni."
"You flatter me, Your Excellency the Viceroy."
"Yes. Carry on serving the country with devotion."
Lieutenant Colonel Ni Yingdian.
In the eyes of Yuan Shuxun, Viceroy of Liangguang, he was an exceedingly courteous, upright, and honest young man — a rarity these days.
Of course, it is a general truth that a subordinate's judgment of his superior is usually accurate, while a superior's judgment of his subordinate is usually wrong.
But the young man Ni Yingdian was one of those rare few who truly lived up to his reputation — and true to his character, he had resolved to overturn this godforsaken country and joined the Tongmenghui, the Chinese Revolutionary Alliance.
"Comrade Sun Yat-sen's instruction is to be patient and bide our time until the day of revolution arrives."
"Do not worry, Master Huang Xing."
"With an upright man like yourself joining us, the cause is as good as accomplished. Haha!"
To be perfectly honest, most of the Tongmenghui were what you might call 'vacationing' revolutionaries. A serving senior officer with an actual combat unit in his grip was worth ten thousand reinforcements.
And so they waited quietly for their moment... and then the uprising broke out in Changsha.
When a place not far from his own hometown turned into a portrait of hell, the honest young Ni Yingdian lost his mind entirely.
"Now! These Manchu bastards! Their heads! We must take their heads!"
"C-comrade Ni, please steady yourself. The day of revolution will come soon—"
"And when exactly is this 'soon'? Comrade Huang and Comrade Sun sit warm and cozy in Tokyo, so perhaps they simply don't know — every single day on this continent is hell itself!!!"
In the end, he could not wait.
"Comrades! How long must we tolerate this tyranny? How long must we live in a land ruled by a foreign emperor more blind and obstinate than any beast?!"
"Hear, hear! Hear, hear!"
"My brothers! Follow me now, and let us cut down the traitors who serve these foreigners and set the world right!!"
"Follow Colonel Ni!!"
The men of the 1st Battalion, Artillery Regiment, drew their pistols behind Ni Yingdian and launched a surprise revolt, targeting the Viceroy's residence where Yuan Shuxun lived and the Navy Command where Admiral Li Jun was on duty.
"Wh-who are you people? Identify yourselves at onc—"
"Die, you traitor!"
— Bang! Bang! Bang!
"Gaaack!"
"Advance!"
The checkpoint at the Great East Gate on Guangzhou's eastern side was overrun in an instant.
"Rebellion! It's a rebellion!!!"
"A rebellion?! Some-someone! Someone stop them!"
"Your Excellency! It's Ni Yingdian! The 1st Battalion has entered the city!"
"Ni Yingdian? That son of a bitch repays kindness with rebellion!?"
"You must get out at once! The Navy Command has strong defenses — go there!"
***
"...Viceroy Yuan? What brings you here?"
"That lunatic Ni Yingdian has risen in revolt! We must muster every sailor and hold the line!"
"A revolt, you say?!"
Admiral Li Jun landed his ship's entire crew and built a defensive line on shore.
"Look here, Admiral. It's not that I distrust you, but this is land, that is the army over there, and we are the navy! Why not simply take to the boats and flee?"
"No need. We have a new weapon."
"A new weapon?"
"Have you ever heard of a machine gun?"
Before long, the ground before the Guangzhou Navy Command grew thick with the sound of rat-a-tat-tat.
The revolution failed.
And because it failed, it was called a rebellion.
***
Fengtian, Manchuria. The Viceroy's official residence of the Three Eastern Provinces.
"This Ni Yingdian fellow is a member of the Tongmenghui, led by that unspeakably wicked traitor Sun Yat-sen. And those rebels — they stretch their tentacles in every direction!"
"......"
"They may well be operating in Fengtian itself... no! No, not 'may well'! They are absolutely here! Of course they are! We simply haven't caught wind of them yet — but they exist, I tell you, they exist!!"
So ranted Zhao Erxun, spraying spit in all directions.
I glanced sideways at Zhang Zuolin.
'Zhao Erxun may have been a fossil, but he wasn't this deranged, was he?'
'He wasn't. But now I don't think he is. Poor devil.'
What on earth is this? Dementia?
True, he was at an age when a stray draft could knock him flat any day, but wasn't this collapse a little too sudden?
"If those treasonous dogs dare raise a hand against us, I, Zhao Erxun, will show them no mercy! In my youth I was the famed general who personally beheaded hundreds of Taiping heretics with these very two hands!"
"Y-Your Excellency the Viceroy, your throat must be strained. Please, have a glass of cold water."
"Oh. Oh, thank you."
In the end, Shen Jinjian the Prefect deftly cut the rant short before it could embarrass anyone further.
Watching Zhao Erxun gulp down the water, Shen Jinjian cleared his throat and spoke.
"Ahem. His Excellency Viceroy Zhao regards this affair with the utmost gravity."
I could have figured that out without the explanation.
"Therefore, you gentlemen must—"
"Remember this! Unless we strike off the heads of those traitors and hang them from the city gates, the mandate of the Great Qing itself will perish — ours with it!!"
"......"
There it is. Really didn't need the explanation.
More than any of that, what I wanted to know was why Zhao Erxun had turned into this cracked old relic in the first place?
After carrying on for a long while longer, Zhao Erxun finally yielded to his years and handed the rest of the briefing over to Shen Jinjian before retiring.
Apparently the others were curious too — sure enough, Colonel Zhu Qinglan, commander of the 3rd Local Brigade, raised his hand.
"Speak, Colonel Zhu."
With Shen Jinjian's permission, Zhu Qinglan — who looked for all the world like a kindly schoolmaster — began.
"Might there be a particular reason the Viceroy has grown so paranoid?"
"I could not begin to follow His Excellency's lofty designs, and to claim otherwise would be insolence of the highest order. ...But if I were to hazard a guess, I would say his duties in Beijing were simply overwhelming."
"I see."
Overwhelming? He's a sixty-year-old man — how much work could you possibly have piled on him? That's not it.
Let me think for a moment...
Ah. Is that it?
When any organization collapses, the first to notice are the insiders.
And among them, the ones with easy access to high-grade intelligence are the first to react, like a canary in a mine.
When a company goes under, the president may never see it coming, but watch the capable directors and department heads beneath him quietly abandon ship one by one and you'll know soon enough.
The General of Shengjing is a rank-1a post, the very pinnacle of the bureaucracy, and after Zhao Erxun went to Beijing he served as Vice Minister of the Army. He must have been one of the very few men on this continent with access to virtually every state secret.
...I see how it is.
Zhao Erxun has found out that the ship called the Qing Dynasty is sinking. He has learned that no power on earth can save this country.
His surname tells the story well enough — Zhao Erxun is not Manchu but Han, a Zhao. A Han Chinese.
If the Manchu order truly fell, would the Han spare a Han official like Zhao Erxun who had climbed to high office by latching onto the Manchus?
So that's why he's become such a hysterical wreck. Poor devil.
By the time I had finished sorting through my thoughts, Shen Jinjian spoke again.
"There is no law saying that what happened in Guangzhou cannot happen here in Fengtian. Therefore, gentlemen, keep a firm hand on the troops under your command, and report to the Shengjing General's Headquarters immediately if anything looks the least bit off."
"Understood, Prefect."
"I am Lan Tianwei, commander of the 2nd Local Brigade. Might I be permitted a word, Prefect?"
Short in stature but solidly built, with a gentle, amiable face, the 2nd Brigade commander raised his hand.
"What is it?"
"These Tongmenghui people — what manner of men are they, that even scholars of learning rally to their cause?"
"That is... I can hardly bring myself to say, so deplorable is it. In any case, they are traitors."
"...I see."
"Come now, Brigadier Lan, why waste your thoughts on it! Whatever notions rattle around in their skulls, the order has been given — the moment they show their faces, we simply mow them down and be done with it."
Wu Junsheng, commander of the 4th Local Brigade.
Built like Dong Zhuo straight out of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, he rose from his seat, snapped a salute at Shen Jinjian, and bellowed.
"Fear nothing, Your Excellency the Prefect! So long as I, Wu Junsheng, stand, not one of those Revolution Society or Tongmenghui scoundrels will dare commit a single act of mischief in this Fengtian!"
"With Brigadier Wu saying so, my heart is at ease indeed."
***
"Wu Junsheng is an idiot."
"Can you really trash-talk a coworker like that?"
"That bastard, my coworker? ...Come to think of it, we do both wear uniforms, so I suppose it counts.
Suddenly I'm in a foul mood. Should I just quit and go back to banditry?"
"Oh, come on."
"Hwa-ha-ha!"
After the Fengtian Army's top command meeting ended, Zhang Zuolin and I found a bar in Fengtian with a private room and ordered liquor and lamb skewers.
Zhang Zuolin knocked back straight baijiu, then bit into a sizzling-hot skewer.
"Mm. Good stuff. And as I said — Wu Junsheng is an idiot."
"Why?"
"Because he's from a self-defense militia, same as me."
"Then doesn't that make you an idiot too, Colonel?"
"Naturally. And you, working under me, are an idiot as well."
"Ahem. Honestly."
"You little rascal. Laughing on the inside and pretending otherwise."
"Pretending? I didn't laugh."
"Keep it up and I'll skewer you on a stick instead of the lamb."
"...It wasn't bad, I suppose."
"Sour as vinegar."
He pressed a skewer into my hand too, then went on.
"Back when Wu Junsheng ran his militia in the next village over, word about him filtered through to us, you know."
"What kind of word?"
"The moment he sniffed money, his greed knew no bounds — he'd siphon army horses and run side businesses. Thick-headed to the bone, a fossil of a man with a heart of stone.
But maybe that's exactly why he's uncannily good at stroking his superiors' egos. How do you think he landed a brigade command? The man kisses up like it's an art form."
"...Hearing that, though, doesn't he sound like the perfect man for the job?"
"Him? For what?"
"For crushing the revolutionaries."
"Hm."
Zhang Zuolin stroked his jaw.
"Think it through. A fanatic, a corrupt embezzler, and entangled with the higher-ups so there's not the slightest worry he'd ever turn traitor. Isn't that convenient?"
From the revolutionaries' standpoint, they must be dying to put a bullet through that Wu Junsheng's forehead.
And conversely, Wu Junsheng must be dying to put a bullet through the revolutionaries' foreheads — the bastards threatening to smash his precious honey pot with a sledgehammer.
Clang.
Zhang Zuolin tossed his stripped skewer sticks carelessly onto the plate.
"Damn it all. Then if the Tongmenghui ever makes its move, won't Wu Junsheng be the one to steal all the credit?"
"Why do you think that?"
"Why? Because as you said, he's exactly what the higher-ups love. It's plain as day they'd summon Wu Junsheng to put down the revolt."
"No. We simply make the first move ourselves, don't we?"
"...Make the first move?"
He leaned in toward me.
"Tell me more."
***
"How has the world come to this — that a man like Wu Junsheng wears a colonel's eagles and commands six thousand men?"
Lan Tianwei, commander of the 2nd Brigade, murmured quietly in his own quarters, gazing up at the night sky.
"What keeps Your Excellency stargazing at this hour?"
Lan Tianwei turned his head to look at the guest staying in his home.
"Ah, Zhang Rong. It's you."
"Yes. I thought I might keep you company."
"That's kind. But worrying for one's country is an old, chronic ailment that no ten thousand medicines can cure. What miracle drug could there possibly be?"
"Haha, is that so? So you believe there is no such medicine, Excellency."
"......"
Lan Tianwei made no reply. Instead, he held his silence for a long moment.
"Zhang Rong."
"Yes, Excellency."
"I still do not truly understand your purpose. I only pray that this continent may stop its decay."
"Who in this world does not know your goodness?"
"Does the Tongmenghui truly possess a miracle drug to save this country?"
"I shall answer without flinching. Yes. We do."
Should he trust this scholar?
And if not him, was there any other way to save this nation?
...He did not know.
Lan Tianwei wrestled with the question without end. And to him, Zhang Rong — a member of the Chinese Tongmenghui — adjusted his thick horn-rimmed glasses and said:
"Fengtian is already teeming with men who share my convictions. When the hour comes, Your Excellency need only open the way."
"......"
"Excellency. Guo Songling, newly commissioned into the 1st Local Brigade, was my private student at the Fengtian Army Primary School, and he is one of those who hold republicanism to be beautiful.
And he is hardly alone. For the past four years, men who studied under me have been planted throughout every corner of the Fengtian Army.
Colonel Zhu Qinglan of the 2nd Local Brigade is likewise one such scholar. When I visited the primary school recently, he spoke with genuine anguish about the turmoil of the age."
So you see, Lan Tianwei —
you alone need only open the way.
"......"
"Excellency. A decision, if you please."
"If — if — this uprising takes place, the 2nd Brigade will seal its barracks gates and watch how matters unfold."
"Excellency!"
"I will grant you three days, no more. Any longer, and even I will be forced to move my troops."
"Your decision, Excellency, has saved this country!"
"I'm tired. I'm turning in."
Lan Tianwei walked into his room, hands clasped behind his back.
In the courtyard where only one man remained, a soft, quiet laugh spread through the dark.