Dogs and Monkeys (4)
Arriving in San Francisco, the Creditor Nation's delegation crossed the continent by rail and made its way east, through Philadelphia, New York, and Washington—the great eastern cities whose names were already familiar to our ears.
And the moment we arrived—
"Mr. Jin. A pleasure. I'm with the United States Department of Commerce."
"The pleasure is mine. I hope today's meeting will serve as a bridge between the Republic of China and the United States for years to come."
"Shall we start with J.P. Morgan, then?"
"Whew... Very well."
The bureaucrats led by Chen Jindao were spirited away in the clutches of the terrifying Wall Street bankers and the gentlemen from the Department of Commerce.
And I couldn't help but notice how the eyes of a man who had seemed, in this world, utterly unmatched in quickness of mind—the eyes of Chen Jindao—transformed into those of a Korean beef cow being led into the slaughterhouse...
Ah, too scary. I want to go my whole life never knowing that feeling.
And so I, a mere soldier, and Guo Songling, security attaches with no one left to guard, officially changed careers and became full-time tourists.
This was the twentieth century, so America hadn't yet reached the grandeur of its twenty-first-century self, but New York came remarkably close to the image I knew.
Of course, there was no Empire State Building and no yellow taxis, so by my reckoning it felt about five percent lacking.
If the Statue of Liberty hadn't been there either, it would have been twenty percent short—but since she was, I only docked the five.
"...Good heavens. Lieutenant Colonel, are you quite certain this city was built by human hands?"
But Guo Songling, glued to my side, gaped at every single step he took through New York, exclaiming in wonder over and over.
Well, he would. The tallest building back in Manchuria was hardly more than ten stories.
Skyscrapers exceeding two hundred meters, thronged with office workers hustling in and out like the Flatiron Building, must have seemed like another world entirely to him.
What's the Flatiron Building, you ask?
It's the home of the Daily Bugle—that magazine office with the cantankerous editor-in-chief who slashed the price of every photograph Peter Parker sold him in Spider-Man.
After a few days like this, Guo Songling, sipping a lemonade while adjusting his sunglasses with one hand, said:
"Lieutenant Colonel! Where are we off to today? Let's hurry!"
Hmm, right.
However wild our Manchuria might be, Guo Songling was only twenty-nine now. Still in his twenties.
He looked exactly like the eager junior employee I'd so often seen in the twenty-first century on his first overseas trip, and something about it made me feel a touch sorry for him.
"Today? We're going to West Point."
"Ooh! The United States Military Academy! I can hardly wait!"
West Point lay not far from Manhattan.
"Lieutenant Colonel Theodore Lee. I have an appointment to visit today."
"Welcome."
As the delegation's military attaché, I wanted to see how my homeland's cadets were faring here—and to have a look around this country's military academy while I was at it.
What a flawless excuse, don't you think?
To the cadets being paraded for inspection in the middle of summer on my account, I am truly, deeply sorry.
***
"Platoon, attention!"
"Present arms to our distinguished guest!"
"Splendidly disciplined. I can see now just how rigorous American military order truly is."
"Haha! The Europeans sneer at us as country hicks, but the United States Army is an elite fighting force, tempered by countless engagements against the western Indians."
The American officer guiding me stopped before one of the cadets in formation.
"This cadet is the one you were looking for, Colonel."
"Cadet Wen Yingxing?"
"Fourth-class cadet, Wen Yingxing!"
A sharp, clean-cut young man in a West Point cadet's uniform.
"A pleasure. I am Lieutenant Colonel Lee Tae-oh, Chief of Staff of the 27th Division."
"An honor, sir!"
"Virginia Military Institute, and now West Point—impressive. Your future is bright indeed."
"You flatter me, sir!"
"Do you have plans after graduation? How about the Northeast?"
"I am grateful for the offer, Colonel, but my heart lies in my hometown of Guangzhou!"
"Very well. I never turn away talent. Should your mind change, contact me at any time."
"Yes, sir!"
Just as I expected. The Tongmenghui has already gotten its claws into him.
"Shall we go, Officer? With cadets this disciplined, my expectations are high."
"Yes, Colonel. This way, please."
It didn't matter. My quarry was elsewhere.
***
"I beg your pardon?"
"I'm looking for an officer willing to serve as an instructor in our Manchuria for a year, perhaps two."
Manchuria—if it had been Beijing or Shanghai, maybe. But Manchuria?
Lieutenant Colonel Clarence P. Townsley, the current Commandant of Cadets at West Point whose appointment as the next Superintendent had been confirmed just two months prior, found the request utterly absurd.
"Is this a request from the central government in Beijing?"
"No."
"Then it cannot be done. I will not send one of our Army's valuable officers to such a wasteland."
Townsley was an extremely rigid man who held to rules and principles above all else.
"Bring me an official request from your government, or a formal order from the administration of the United States."
"Understood."
"Then good day—"
"I'll come back tomorrow."
"?"
Despite Townsley's puzzled stare, the Asian officer rose from his seat as though he had anticipated every word, and walked out without a backward glance.
***
A formal order, was it?
Well, that much I could wrangle out of someone.
That same day, Lee Tae-oh headed for Wall Street in New York.
Two Asians in blue army uniforms.
An employee at the stock exchange counter stood up and approached Lee Tae-oh and Guo Songling.
"May I... help you, gentlemen?"
"Theodore Lee, Lieutenant Colonel of the Republic of China Army. Nothing alarming, I assure you—could you tell me where the Standard Oil office is?"
A crisp British-educated accent.
Asians generally weren't worth a second glance, but anyone who dressed in a proper uniform and spoke a foreign language with that kind of polish was, without fail, a man of real ability.
The employee answered as courteously as he would have to any white man.
"Standard Oil? That's at 26 Broadway, Manhattan. A taxi will take you straight there."
"Thank you. Americans like their tips, don't they? Here, buy yourself something."
"Ooh! Thank you, sir!"
And sure enough, the Asian pulled out a Chinese silver dollar and flicked it with his fingers.
"I'll call ahead for you as well!"
This was Wall Street, New York.
The place where money solved everything.
***
"A Chinese officer? ...Ah, must be that military attaché with the delegation we heard was coming."
Henry Clay Folger, president of Standard Oil, answered his secretary with visible indifference.
"According to the call from the stock exchange, he seems to be rather flush with money."
"Hmph. Any chink who can make it to New York has money, that's for sure. But what's that next to our big cheeses? Peanuts. Do I really need to be bothered with reports like this?"
Standard Oil's backer was none other than Rockefeller—John D. Rockefeller himself. The oil king!
And yet some minor Chinese officer shows up, and it had to be reported to him?
"As if I didn't have a mountain of work already after the feds broke up the company last year. Don't rattle my nerves over trifles."
Rockefeller's Standard Oil, once a single company, had been carved up into more than thirty separate firms under Theodore Roosevelt's—that damned Bolshevik—antitrust laws, split up business concession by business concession.
Granted, a year on, none of them had actually moved out and parted ways like good little siblings, so the 26 Broadway building remained packed beyond capacity with employees of thirty-odd oil companies in a state of chronic gridlock.
And now, because one Chinese officer showed up, he was supposed to roll out hospitality? With a mountain of work on his desk?
...Although, it was true that the only monopoly Standard Oil had retained was the Asian market concession.
Had the man been a minister or cabinet-rank official rather than merely a field-grade officer, he'd have been shown in at once. But a mere lieutenant colonel? Please.
Yet the secretary, having delivered the visitor's message, fidgeted restlessly.
"Er... sir?"
"Look, I'm busy."
"A word in your ear, sir."
The moment Henry heard the secretary's whisper, his expression changed in an instant.
"Are you certain?"
"He, um—he says he won't discuss the details with anyone but you, sir."
"...Well then. I suppose I'll just have a look at him."
Oil... in Manchuria?
He would say it again: Standard Oil held the monopoly concession for Asia.
Yes. Asia.
Insanely far away.
To sell oil in Asia, you had to refine it in Texas, load it into drums, put those drums on a ship, and cross an entire ocean.
But what if an oil field were discovered in Manchuria?
Starting with transport costs—just how much money would that save?
Henry drummed his fingers on the desk, lost in thought.
"Er, sir?"
"Hm? Ah, yes."
He surfaced from his reverie and looked up to find an officer—not just young, but young—staring at him alongside the secretary.
A touch embarrassed, he extended his hand first.
"A pleasure, Colonel. Henry Folger, president of Standard Oil."
"The pleasure is mine, Mr. President. Lieutenant Colonel Theodore Lee, United States— forgive me, Republic of China Army."
Hmhm. Fine in every respect—why did it have to be Theodore, of all names?
Sharing a name with that Roosevelt fellow bothered him just a little.
Henry waved his secretary out with a glance and began talking to Theodore Lee, man to man.
"So. You're telling me there's oil in Manchuria."
"Yes."
"Then Standard Oil can hardly sit on its hands! We'll pay you handsomely. If the field is in truly good condition, I could go as high as fifty—no. One hundred thousand dollars. The President of the United States earns seventy-five, you know."
"Hmm. Well."
"?"
Bewildering.
The soldier before him was looking at him as though to say, what of it? So it's a hundred thousand dollars.
"Then—then what is it you want, Colonel?"
"I want to build a lasting partnership with Standard Oil."
Absolutely not.
What exactly would I be trusting you with?
But Theodore Lee spoke as though he could read every thought behind Henry's eyes.
"There is oil in Manchuria. Of that I am certain. But at present, it would be difficult for me to point you to precisely where."
"...You're a swindler."
"I am not."
Lee Tae-oh was not bluffing.
In his Air Force days, according to the contingency plans drawn up for every eventuality, the very first targets to be struck on sortie had been the Daqing oil fields of Manchuria and the Yalu River rail bridge on the China-North Korea border.
He knew the oil was there; whether it could actually be extracted now was another question.
But it was there, wasn't it?
Lee Tae-oh had said it existed. He had never once said it could be pumped out.
And he had no intention of revealing this prematurely and fattening Standard Oil alone.
This era was an exceedingly, exceedingly harsh one for yellow monkeys. The possibility of being stabbed in the back and having only the sweet juice sucked out could hardly be dismissed.
So he resolved to hold his tongue until the other side wore out first and came crawling with a contract in hand.
Besides, even if a surveyor went about digging here and there, finding one oil field in Manchuria—that sprawling land of 7.6 trillion square feet—would be impossible.
Henry studied Theodore Lee calmly.
Eyes that had spent fifty years at Rockefeller's side building a vast oil kingdom scanned the colonel's imperturbable face.
...Damn it all. That is real. Those are the eyes of a man telling the truth.
Or at the very least, even if the story were false, they were the eyes of a man who firmly believed it to be true himself.
"At this stage, I'm not asking for anything grand. Send one geological surveyor, and we'll simply find out whether there's any possibility or not."
"That's all?"
"Ah—of course, a surveyor traveling to Manchuria would need an escort. A second lieutenant freshly graduated from that storied institution, the United States Military Academy: he'd build overseas experience, perform a bodyguard's duty, and make a fine impression on Standard Oil all at once. How could that be anything but a splendid arrangement?"
"...You're asking me to pull a West Point cadet out to Manchuria?"
"No. A freshly commissioned second lieutenant would be ideal."
What exactly is this Chinaman after?
But when he measured the risk with cold precision, it was hardly a difficult matter.
Had the man said, I'll tell you where it is, so pay up, Henry would have thrown him out on his ear. But one surveyor and one soldier?
Weren't geological surveyors sent everywhere—Mexico, Alaska, Mesopotamia?
Sending them out was like poking a persimmon you couldn't reach, just to see if it would soften; on a landmass as vast as Manchuria, not sending one would have been stranger.
And assigning a green second lieutenant to Manchuria was no burden at all for Standard Oil.
"And if I do this, you'll tell me where the oil is buried?"
"No. For now, we simply build trust between us, one step at a time. If you don't betray me, I won't betray you."
"Ha!"
Utterly absurd.
Henry clamped a cigarette between his lips and struck a light.
"Whew. Damn it. If you hauled up Hudson River water and sold it as spring water, it couldn't be more preposterous than this."
"Really, why so suspicious? Do you not understand what it means for the holder of the Asia monopoly concession to extract oil in Asia and sell it right there?"
"...Just how much do you know, Colonel?"
"I happen to know a few people in banking. And besides, even if it fails, it's not as though it would cost much. That money."
"Ha. So I'm to scratch this like a lottery ticket."
It was a feeling he hadn't experienced since the 1890s, when the government banned lotteries with righteous proclamations of A lottery? Why, this fellow! A devil's temptation encouraging gambling! Spawn of Satan himself!
Sending a surveyor, plus a soldier, would run him roughly three to four thousand dollars.
"Very well. I'll scratch a lottery ticket for the first time in a while. But on one condition: if oil does come up—now or ever—you and my Standard Oil do business together."
"That goes without saying."
The two men clasped hands.
***
"—As I said, if any of the newly commissioned officers volunteer, send one to Manchuria."
"Why would you send a valuable officer to such a barbaric place?"
"Now, Clarence, why are you giving me grief? I'm only passing along what came down from above. Besides, a little overseas deployment experience early on won't hurt the young man's career, will it?"
"That may be so, but—"
"Then that's settled. Goodbye."
Click. Click. Click.
"Hah."
Townsley set down the receiver with a look of pure disbelief.
It was an order. He had no choice but to comply.
...Right. They'd said volunteer, hadn't they?
Townsley trusted his cadets. Not one of them, surely, would be fool enough to volunteer for a wasteland crawling with those smelly, filthy chinks.
And then.
"Second Lieutenant Walton Walker! I volunteer, sir!"
"Lieutenant Walker. Are you out of your mind?"
June 1912.
With a bulldog's face, Walton Walker raised his hand alone amid the silence and declared, bold as brass:
"If our nation sponsored our commission, then I believe we must fling the honor and prestige of our United States across the seas!"
"The man who could've sat quiet and drawn Fort Sheridan—what on earth is wrong with him?"
"Sheridan's in Illinois, isn't it! I despise a dull posting on the mainland! Besides, the overseas pay is generous, is it not!?"
Damn. This is no small crisis.
The freshly minted second lieutenant was brimming over with enthusiasm.
And so, in the end—
"...Walker? Walton Walker?"
"Yes, sir! That's me, Colonel!"
"...Commanding general of the Eighth United States Army? The Walkerhill Hotel?"
"I beg your pardon, sir? I don't follow!"
"Nothing, nothing at all. Welcome, Lieutenant Walker!"
At the sight of the Chinese Army lieutenant colonel who welcomed him with such unusual warmth and a beaming face, something in Walton Walker's chest went soft and warm.
See? Volunteering was absolutely the right call.