The Xinhai Revolution (4)
The calendar had rolled over into 1911.
The cold air brushed against my nose.
The Xinhai Revolution would come in the winter of 1911. There was still time.
If I wanted to send my sworn brothers home in one piece after they'd sworn their loyalty to me, I would need a proper plan. I took a sip of coffee, pulled out a map, and pressed my finger against it.
"Hey, Jeom-san."
"Yes, sir. What is it?"
"If you were one of those Tongmenghui bastards, how do you think you'd move?"
"Hmm."
Ma Jeom-san crossed his arms, thought for a moment, and spoke up.
"They'd go straight for the Viceroy's residence, wouldn't they? Just like they did in Guangzhou. They might even go after the homes of the branch elders, for all I know."
"Really? Why's that?"
"Well... to pull off whatever 'revolution' those lunatics have in their heads, wouldn't they have to wipe out every high-and-mighty nobleman at the top?"
"Hah. Fair point."
I brought over a handful of game pieces and set them on the map.
"Right now, the only garrison inside Fengtian City is a single company guarding the Viceroy."
After the rebellion of the Guangdong Local Brigade, Zhao Erxun had kept only his single most trusted company inside the walls and shipped every other unit at least forty li out of the city — our 1st Local Brigade, the 2nd, the 3rd, the 4th, all of them. The 1st Brigade held the north, the 2nd the east, the 3rd the south, and the 4th the west.
Any armed force trying to enter Fengtian City would have to punch through the inspections of the brigades ringing it on all four sides — which meant one thing.
"The Tongmenghui has probably secured one of the brigades — or figured out some way to keep it silent."
It wasn't pure nonsense to assume one brigade was already theirs. People always mix a grain of truth into their lies; a claim that's a hundred percent bullshit barely ever happens. And the fact that they were promising guaranteed success — enough real manpower to overpower a full company of the Viceroy's guard — told me they genuinely could move troops. Even if it was mostly bluff, they weren't bluffing about having men.
"From today on, drill the boys hard on the geography of Fengtian City every chance you get."
"Will their heads be able to keep up?"
"They can at least write their own three-character names now, and they can even write letters in the alphabet. If you make them memorize it properly, grind it into them, they can manage this much."
Our boys — the brigade's direct-command unit and 1st Battalion combined — were the only soldiers in all of Manchuria whose rank-and-file had received basic military training at all.
"I trust you. I trust our boys. And I trust the sweat we've poured out over this past year."
"We've certainly poured out plenty of it."
I drew a straight line across the map.
"A forced march from our position to the north gate of Fengtian City gets us there in under four hours."
"You're not even going to mention it to anyone?"
"We keep this absolutely under wraps. When no one's watching, our battalion moves out as the vanguard, breaks through the north gate, and digs in across the city streets. Send the cavalry out as the second wave. Go see Battalion Commander Zhang Baochen — he'll loan us the 2nd Battalion's troops."
Then I drew a circle roughly one kilometer across, centered on the Viceroy's residence at the heart of Fengtian City.
"This is our defensive line. Anyone who comes at us here dies. All of them."
Because I was more than ready to show those bastards what hell looked like.
"With all due respect, Mr. Hans Berger, I cannot hand that over to a civilian. No matter who you are."
"Phew. Is there truly no way? My identity is hardly questionable."
"The regulations are the regulations. What can I do? No — frankly, I don't understand what a civilian would even want with such a thing in the first place."
"Dammit."
Hans Berger finally rose from his seat and walked out of the Kiautschou Governor's office.
Oskar von Truppel — Governor of Kiautschou Bay and Vice Admiral of the Imperial Navy — was an utterly impossible man to deal with. Was refusing to sell off a few unused, reserve heavy machine guns really something that warranted such rigid, pompous solemnity?
Son of a pastor, and an old fogey to match. A class-A stickler.
"A pain in the neck, but nothing to be done about it."
Once a month, a military supply ship departed from the homeland and arrived at Kiautschou.
Governor Truppel ran his eye down the manifest of supplies that had come in that day.
"I say, Chief of Staff."
"Yes, sir."
"Why is it that four heavy machine guns have been written off as lost?"
"The dockworkers mishandled a crane while unloading, sir, and dropped the crates straight into the sea. A pack of fools, if you ask me."
"...Hmm. Is that so?"
"I verified it personally. They're thoroughly soaked with seawater — hauling them up would be difficult, and they'd never function properly again — so we processed them as lost."
"Very well. Then request supplementary shipments next month."
"Yes, Your Excellency."
May 1911.
The Qing government committed a colossal blunder.
Whether they had somehow convinced themselves they were a Soviet republic rather than an absolutist empire, or Karl Marx had possessed the Emperor, no one could say — but one way or another, they threatened to nationalize the railway lines that had been built and nurtured with private capital. And then they actually did it.
If they had merely raised taxes, the people would have grumbled and cursed their way through it. If they had conscripted citizens for forced labor, they would have grumbled through that too. But when the state moved to extort the hard-earned pennies these people had scraped together through sheer blood and toil, their fury boiled over into rage beyond all measure.
From common investors in the railway companies to capitalists and local notables — everyone who woke up one morning to find their money vanished into thin air unleashed a wrath that began to swallow the whole world.
The Railway Protection Movement.
Protect the rails.
Protect my property.
"It's a disaster! The people are marching in the streets in Sichuan!"
"Then suppress it at once!"
"B-but what they're saying isn't exactly wrong, Your Excellency—"
"Oh? Then you're dismissed."
The Sichuan Governor, who had wanted a moderate response, lost his head — figuratively, for now.
The new Governor of Sichuan, Zhao Erfeng, addressed the New Army local brigade.
"As long as order is restored, you may shoot every last one of them dead."
"Go screw yourself, sir."
"Wh-what did you say?!"
The Sichuan New Army local brigade refused the order outright.
Shocked by this mutiny, the Governor scrambled to request reinforcements from neighboring Wuchang.
Ever since trouble had broken out in Changsha, the central New Army garrison there and every unit deemed sufficiently loyal had been pulled out of Wuchang and marched toward Sichuan. Sichuan, in the midst of its second round of the Changsha rebellion special, had become something out of a slaughterhouse. And yet, ironically, not a single loyalist New Army soldier remained in Wuchang.
"...Is it time?"
"The revolutionary bug's bitten. You raising the flag or what?"
The 8th Engineer Battalion of the Wuchang New Army local brigade rose in revolt. Once the call of revolution rings out, what reason is there not to raise the flag?
"Long live the revolution!!"
"If we don't rise now, we're next after Sichuan!!!"
"Kill every Manchu bastard!!!"
The 29th and 30th Infantry Battalions joined the uprising as well.
"In for a penny — to the Viceroy's residence!"
"A m-mutiny! Eeeeek!!!"
Not a single loyalist soldier remained. The Wuchang reserves, stuffed to the brim with proto-rebels, rose up in exactly the way everyone had expected them to. After all, if someone keeps calling you a born traitor, aren't you obliged to stage an actual rebellion and prove them right?
Perhaps because the place wasn't far from the land where Wei Yan once lived, it seemed as though Wei Yan's blessing watched over them.
Huguang Viceroy Rui Cheng and Wuchang New Army commander Zhang Biao fled over the walls and onto boats without even properly dressing.
The last authority of the Qing Dynasty had collapsed.
October 11, 1911.
The revolutionary army, having seized northern Jingzhou and Wuchang, established a government and declared independence.
The fact that Li Yuanhong, head of the Wuchang government, wasn't actually a revolutionary at all — that he'd been hiding under his bed when the rebels dragged him out and presented him with a binary choice of 'We happen to be short an officer to lead us. Would you like to be our head, or would you like to die?' — and that he'd ultimately agreed to be the revolution's figurehead, wasn't particularly important.
"W-withdraw the central army from Changsha immediately and throw them into Wuchang!"
"Understood!"
October 22.
The central army keeping martial law in Changsha marched north to Wuchang — and naturally, the Changsha local brigade rose in revolt. Jingzhou fell into revolutionary hands wholesale.
No harm done. Nobody's fallen for the same trick three times; you can forgive it twice.
"Wh-what do we do?!"
"Bingzhou! Send down the troops in Bingzhou!"
This time they marched the central army in Shanxi southward.
October 29.
The moment the central army pulled out of Chang'an in the north, the Chang'an local brigade rose up in identical fashion and declared independence. Every Manchu official was shot dead.
Well, fine. So they can fall for it three times.
But they just kept falling.
Every time they pulled out the central army. Every time they yanked the lower stone out to prop up the upper one, the building crumbled a little more.
Jiangnan collapsed. Yunnan — the land of Meng Huo — collapsed. The most prosperous city of all, Shanghai, collapsed.
And by the time anyone noticed, the falling dominoes had reached the Three Eastern Provinces.
Zhang Rong, leader of the revolutionary cell in Fengtian, was tremendously emboldened by the string of revolutionary victories.
"Comrades! Our victory is at hand! Let us convene the Advisory Council at once!"
"The Advisory Council? What was that again?"
Oddly enough, even this circus of a Qing Dynasty possessed something vaguely resembling a parliament.Granted, it had been convened only a handful of times in Fengtian, but it existed — the Fengtian Provincial Advisory Council. And its speaker, Wu Jinglian, was a revolutionary.
'The people of Fengtian, in the name of the people, declare the abdication of the Qing Dynasty and its Emperor — and proclaim independence!!'
'The Qing Dynasty is hereby nullified! NULLIFIED, hoorah—!!'
Ram the council into session by force, slam the speaker's seal down stamp-stamp, and simply escort Brigade Commander Lan Tianwei's 2nd Brigade inside the walls — and what would they have?
A perfect revolution, qualified on both the civil and the military fronts, without a single disqualifying flaw! If they played it right, they could swallow Fengtian and the entire Three Eastern Provinces whole, slurp and all. It was a delicious option, and their hearts were moved.
"But what about Zhao Erxun?"
"Once Brigade Commander Lan Tianwei and the 2nd Brigade arrive, what in God's name could Zhao Erxun or anyone else possibly do?!!"
"That's... compelling!"
With six thousand armed troops deployed, what could Zhao Erxun possibly accomplish by screaming 'Aaaaagh! Summon the entire police force!'? With nothing in his hands but a measly handful of policemen and a single company, he was as good as dead already.
And so, November 12th.
"Your Excellency! Your Excellency the Viceroy! It's a catastrophe!"
"Wh-what? What has happened?"
Zhao Erxun — Viceroy of the Three Eastern Provinces and General of Shengjing — rubbed his eyes and woke from a fitful doze.
"Yuan Jinkai...? What are you doing here?"
The man shaking him awake was Yuan Jinkai, vice speaker of the Fengtian Provincial Advisory Council — in other words, the holder of one of those sinecure titles handed out to local gentry as a formality.
"...Did you come to play mahjong, perhaps?"
"Have you taken a blow to the head?!! You must get up this instant!! Those Tongmenghui fiends are convening the Advisory Council as we speak — they mean to proclaim a republic!!"
"...What? N-no, then the council speaker — what is Wu Jinglian doing?! Did they seize him?"
"Wu Jinglian is one of them! That bastard was a revolutionary all along!"
His heart plummeted like a stone.
"P-paper! A brush! Quickly!"
"Here, Your Excellency!"
Zhao Erxun took up the brush with trembling hands. Who — who did he need to call?
"Y-yes. Wu Junsheng! Get word to Wu Junsheng this instant! Tell him to bring the 4th Brigade — quickly!"
"At once, Your Excellency!"
The moment the 4th Brigade crossed the gates of Fengtian City, he could gun every last one of those bastards down!
The 2nd Brigade first, or the 4th?
The kind of race that would make even an F1 driver tip his helmet and say, 'Mind if I make a move, gentlemen? You lot are a riot.'
Zhang Rong, Wu Jinglian, and the rest of the revolutionaries evacuated toward the east gate, through which the 2nd Brigade would arrive. Zhao Erxun and Yuan Jinkai fled to the watchtower above the west gate, where the 4th Brigade was expected.
But neither gate opened.
"Tch. Cold as a witch's tit out here."
Lee Tae-oh wiped his nose and looked back over his shoulder.
"1st Battalion — breach the north gate. Move in."
"““Sir, yes, sir!!!””"