Spring in Fengtian (4)
"Acting martial law commander... me?"
"If not you, then who else!?"
"There is still Inspection Commissioner She Ruqing, is there not?"
"The man is in Heilongjiang as we speak. There is no way he can reach Fengtian at once."
"But I am merely a major."
"Then you are a lieutenant colonel as of this very moment!"
Hmm. Martial law commander, huh.
Perhaps because I'd been a soldier of the Republic of Korea in my previous life, all sorts of bad ideas were popping up willy-nilly.
But no worries. I was Air Force.
"My superior, Brigade Commander Zhang Zuolin, has arrived at the East Gate and is securing the rebels. It would be far better to entrust the martial law command to Brigade Commander Zhang Zuolin."
"Hm."
"It would hardly be proper for me to accept such an undeserved post while my superior stands close at hand."
"Spoken like a true loyalist! Your devotion humbles me! Then we shall establish one more office beneath the martial law command—one charged with keeping the peace within Fengtian City—and invest you with it. Surely you can manage that much?"
"I would be gratefully—"
"And what shall we call it? Yes! You must look after both the throne and the safety of the city, so from this moment you are the Security Commander of Fengtian!"
"...I beg your pardon?"
"Security Commander Lee Tae-oh, Lieutenant Colonel! A pleasure working with you!"
What the hell just happened.
Converting the assembly hall into a gymnasium and gathering the unified will of the Manchurian people... Urk. Stop it! Get out of my head!
"C-could you perhaps just call me the Public Order Commander instead?"
"Hm? Eh, call yourself whatever you like."
"Thank you."
I stumbled out of the general headquarters, head swimming.
Just from walking, it felt like my hair was coming out in fistfuls.
"So what am I supposed to do now, Security Commander, sir?"
"Shit. Don't call me that."
"Pardon? But His Excellency the Governor did appoint you Security Commander, didn't he?"
"Just call me Public Order Commander."
"Ah—yes, sir. Understood."
In the distance, cavalry came galloping toward the general headquarters.
Familiar faces.
Zhang Zuolin reined to a halt in front of me and dismounted in a single leap.
"You made it out all right, sir?"
"Hey, you rascal. You hurt anywhere?"
"I'm perfectly whole, as you can see."
Blood stains clung here and there to his uniform, but none of it was his, so there was nothing to worry about.
"Good grief. Just how many lives do you have? Hearing your report, I rushed over as fast as I could—well, that, and I gathered up every last thing worth gathering—but what if that Nam Tianwei bastard had swept you aside before I arrived, hm?"
"It was all a precisely calculated operation, sir."
Six thousand against six thousand would have dragged the battle into a stalemate. But six thousand against one thousand, with me waging guerrilla warfare and street fighting that made their lives a living hell, forced them to think, 'Ah, forget it—let's just crush them with sheer numbers in one push.'
I caught on to that, and all I did was lay a web of fire in exactly the right place.
"So you brought everything, then?"
"That I did. Every heavy weapon I could lay hands on."
At Zhang Zuolin's raised hand, the soldiers pulled off the tarps that had been thrown over everything to keep off the dust.
Artillery pieces and ammunition crates.
"We can mount them all on the city gates."
"Should we just seal the whole thing shut?"
"That is how it will have to be for a while."
Until the situation was settled once and for all, no one would be entering Fengtian.
"Hey! Open the gate!"
"What's with this old man?"
"Hey, you bastards! Open this gate right now!"
"And who might you be, then?"
"I'm Wu Junsheng, commander of the 4th Brigade! Your superior officer, that's who!"
"Huh? We're the 1st Brigade, though?"
Having received Zhao Erxun's hastily scrawled letter and dragged his army over at what he believed to be the fastest possible speed, Wu Junsheng was now bellowing at the gate guards, who stood idly picking their noses beside a plaque reading [西門].
"Open the gate this instant! By order of His Excellency Governor Zhao Erxun!"
"Where's your proof you're the 4th Brigade commander, mister?"
"What?"
Wu Junsheng was dumbfounded.
Six thousand soldiers stood behind him holding banners. If he wasn't the 4th Brigade commander, then what in God's name was he?
"You could be a Tongmenghui agent, for all we know!"
"Tongmenghui my ass. Shut up and open the gate! That's an order!"
"Uh, seeing as we already beat the stuffing out of the 2nd Brigade, you can head on back to your garrison now. Thanks for coming out, though."
"Hey!!"
When they still refused to budge, the guards promptly loaded artillery pieces into the gun ports along the battlements.
"75mm high-explosive, one battery, three rounds. Ready to fire!"
"A-are you people insane?!"
"If you've got a complaint, take it up with our martial law commander or our Public Order Commander."
Wu Junsheng and the 4th Brigade turned around and marched home.
Fengtian was safe.
December 1911.
Zhao Erxun thought to himself.
Who am I?
The supreme power in all of Fengtian.
With six thousand troops now firmly behind him, Zhao Erxun declared martial law, appointed Zhang Zuolin acting martial law commander, named Lee Tae-oh Public Order Commander of the city, and immediately convened the Advisory Council.
"Ahem. The Fengtian Provincial Advisory Council is now in session. However, unlike ordinary times, the situation confronting us is grave indeed, and so I, Speaker Yuan Jinkai, propose that in place of a regular session we convene a Public Security Assembly."
Speaker Yuan Jinkai ran his eyes once over the now-empty Vice Speaker's seat, then continued.
"As Vice Speaker Wu Jinglian is absent, and in accordance with my own judgment, I hereby convene the Public Security Assembly..."
For the record, Wu Jinglian had been shot dead the previous day for treason, on Zhang Zuolin's orders, at the hands of Zhang Jinghui.
"The resolution before this Public Security Assembly is the formal declaration, in the name of the Advisory Council, of our lofty intent to protect the throne and pacify the people. Are there any objections?"
"““......””"
"No objections having been raised, the resolution passes."
- Bang. Bang. Bang.
The council chamber sat in silence.
Yuan Jinkai kept reading steadily from the script in his hand.
"Furthermore, regarding the savage outrages now unfolding within our jurisdiction—above all, we shall resolutely strike down the violent elements of the Tongmenghui, and in defiance of republicanism preserve the national polity—"
"Hey! You Han traitor bastards!"
At last, Councilor Zhang Genren could endure no more. He sprang to his feet, jabbing a finger at Yuan Jinkai and Zhao Erxun behind him, and let loose a roar.
"Protect the throne? What throne, you frozen-to-death fools! You're nothing but Aisin Gioro dogs swallowing the continent whole!"
"Councilor Zhang Genren! Retract those words at once!"
"Go jack off your own cock, you Han traitor bastard!"
"Why you little—"
Yuan Jinkai glanced sideways, ever so slightly.
Acting Martial Law Commander Zhang Zuolin had drawn a pistol from his belt and taken the Speaker's podium in Yuan's stead.
"Gentlemen of the council."
Rapping the lectern with his pistol, he swept his gaze across the room.
"I, Zuolin, am a soldier. I protect His Excellency the Governor and the Speaker, and nothing more. If any of you care to air grievances, then even yesterday's comrade will be handled with this gun!"
- Clack.
The soldiers arrayed around the council chamber all drew their pistols in unison.
"Now, let us take the vote once more. Anyone opposed?"
"“......”"
"Good. None, so let us move on to the next item."
Thus dawned the spring of Fengtian.
As I said, Zhao Erxun was flitting about as if he'd grown wings.
Convening the Advisory Council and committing troops to the field weren't enough—he was firing off telegrams of loyalty and devotion to the Forbidden City as well.
Zhao Erxun was doing everything he'd ever wanted to do, exactly as he pleased.
At this rate, the seventy-year-old Zhao Erxun was getting more done than the three-year-old ever managed.
December 1911.
Zhao Erxun hunted down and shot Bogon and Tian Youheng, the secretaries who had served Zhang Rong in exile outside Fengtian.
The Lord of Terror, Diablo? Didn't he attempt world conquest four times and fail all four? A hopeless loser. Zhao Erxun, by contrast, conquered Fengtian on the very first try, so the Lord of Terror title suits him far better.
Another loss on your record, Diablo! Absolutely pathetic.
And so, awakened as the Lord of Terror and holding court, Zhao Erxun did in fact wield real power—every last ounce of which happened to be our very own 1st Brigade.
Third Brigade commander Zhu Qinglan received orders from Martial Law Commander Zhang Zuolin to march far off to Heilongjiang on a mission to sweep out bandits.
Call it bandit-sweeping all you like; what it meant was, get lost, and don't even think about staging a coup.
Fourth Brigade commander Wu Junsheng? Zhao Erxun shipped him off personally. He was ordered to move to Liaodong and hold the Liao River basin.
With his own neck on the line, he'd been crawling along at a snail's pace—must have made him absolutely livid.
And I, as the Security Comm— no, the Public Order Commander, had been handed the momentous task of confiscating the Tongmenghui's funds.
Good heavens. A chance to slurp up other people's money legally—and savor every drop.
You could stake Ma Jeom-san's savings account on the certainty that a blockhead like Zhang Jinghui could never swallow it half so deliciously as I could.
And unlike the twenty-first century, with its blockchain this and Swiss account that, the places to hide money in this era were only too obvious.
"Easy, easy—careful there!"
"It's tipping—!!"
I simply dismantled the houses where the Tongmenghui members had been staying, wholesale.
And sure enough, crates would come tumbling out one or two at a time—contents delightfully various. Silver dollars turned up, and name lists, and every once in a while—
"Gold bars!"
"Woooooh!!"
Ah, now that's the good stuff.
I never dreamed I'd get to feel the pleasure of cracking open gacha boxes in the twentieth century, but the dopamine after so long a drought was doing wonders for my mood.
And that wasn't all. The surplus military materiel left behind by the annihilated 2nd Brigade also had to be claimed. This was precisely why I had ordered the 3rd Brigade and the 4th Brigade alike to get out of Fengtian City.
In Manchuria, a land thick with schemers, the naive don't survive.
Thus, in the middle of legally ballooning in size, I found myself invited to a sort of party thrown under Zhao Erxun's direction.
"To the ancestral shrines and the altars of state of the Great Qing! Cheers!"
Glasses clinked, and everyone laughed and made merry.
"So won't Your Excellency the Governor be enfeoffed as a meritorious noble now?"
"Ahem. Well, I imagine so. With Premier Yuan Shikai returned to command and driving the Beiyang Army all the way to Hankou, once those rebel rabble are cleared away, I should expect I'll be summoned to the central government."
They spoke of a hopeful future.
But the future most of them yearned for was nothing more than a struggle to resurrect a vanished past.
Desperate flailing—gathering up, scrap by scrap, the scattered soul of a dead empire.
At least, that was how it sounded to me.
"Why so glum over there?"
"Ah. Lieutenant Colonel Zhang Baochen."
"None of that 'sir' business. We're both lieutenant colonels now—just call me brother."
"There's rather too large an age gap between us for that."
"Eight years is close enough to be brothers."
"...Hmm. I suppose it is."
Zhang Baochen set down his glass and stared at me, expressionless.
Please, just spare my life.
"Er, hem. Understood... brother."
"Brother."
"Br-brother."
"Mm-hm. Good."
Zhang Baochen fished a cigarette from his pocket and shot me a meaningful look.
Got it—you want to step out for a smoke.
The two of us slipped down beneath the rowdy banquet hall, lit our cigarettes, and took a drag.
"So why is our Public Order Commander so glum, then?"
"Well, I've been mulling over this and that."
"Such as?"
"The year's about to end, isn't it? I was thinking about what we ought to do next year."
"Is that so?"
Zhang Baochen took a long pull on his cigarette, then spoke.
"What's your read on it, little brother?"
"I'd say a year for hiding our light and biding our time."
"Hiding our light, eh."
"This is the time to conceal our strength and shore up what's beneath."
November 1911.
The Qing dynasty's last hope—the Beiyang New Army central army, built by raking the treasury to the bone—had turned the tables on the ragtag revolutionary army marching north, hammering it back and locking it inside Wuchang once more.
Everyone feeding off the Qing's grain erupted in celebration.
The rebels had lost and the government army had won, and so hope spread that the good old days would soon return.
"But the central army's soldiers are made of flesh and blood, not machinery. Wouldn't you say?"
"True."
The fighting at Hankou had dealt the central army its share of damage as well.
"If I were Yuan Shikai, I'd cut a deal with the revolutionaries."
"A deal?"
"A transaction."
For instance—founding a republic and purging the Aisin Gioro altogether.
At my addition, surprise flooded Zhang Baochen's face.
He was a man whose emotions ran so deep beneath the surface that even this was nothing more than a faint twitch of facial muscle—but after more than ten years at his side, I could read it.
"Yuan Shikai is Han himself, after all. And those Tongmenghui fanatics worship nothing but Han blood, so if Yuan were to swing his gun around, he'd spare himself an unnecessary war—and the Tongmenghui, whatever else you call it, gets a republic with the Manchus expelled and a Han at the head. Everyone wins, no?"
"Even so—aren't they like dogs and monkeys? Natural enemies?"
"Which is exactly why we must quietly build our strength."
"Ho. Crystal clear."
"What's so fascinating that you two are huddled over here whispering?"
"Brother Zuolin."
Zhang Zuolin, face flushed crimson, came giggling 'heh heh heh' between us and slung an arm around both our necks at once.
"Ow, ow, ow."
"Heh heh. You lucky little rascals. If you're going to talk about fun things, you include me too, you bastards!"
"Brother Zuolin, how much have you had tonight?"
"...Two bottles?"
"Rice wine?"
"No! The crazy-expensive, crazy-strong stuff!"
No wonder the booze fumes coming off him were practically vibrating.
"So what was it you were talking about, anyway, you bastards!"
"...Hey, little brother?"
"Yes? What is it?"
"Entertain this drunk for me, would you?"
"Huh?"
Zhang Baochen simply dumped Zhang Zuolin onto me, and with an "uh oh" I caught him.
"So—hic—what waaas it you were talking about?"
"Well, you see—"
It looked as though tonight was going to run long.
Beijing.
"Your Excellency."
"Mm."
Yuan Shikai, supreme commander of the Beiyang New Army and Premier of the government, turned his head to look upon his subordinate, Duan Qirui.
"What is it."
"A telegram has arrived from Fengtian—"
"Fengtian? Isn't that where Zhao Erxun is posted?"
"It was not sent by Governor Zhao Erxun."
"Then who?"
"A man named Zhang Zuolin."