Joseon Needs a Coup - Chapter 369



Only Noblemtl

#2-25. The Thin Red Line (3)

“Ahh!”

With a scream, the torturer could see a soldier lying on the ground, shot by a bullet, beside him. Those ghostly men, who had taken the lives of countless Imperial soldiers, including the Guards Division, in the last war, had become even more terrifying than before.

“Retreat, retreat! Get back to cover!”

In the distance, the voices of soldiers who were trying to maintain their formation while swearing could be heard, but they were soon drowned out by the sound of continuous gunfire.

“Damn it. What kind of freaking weapon did they bring!?”

“We have no chance of winning in the wild! I don’t know what trick they’re using, but every single infantryman is firing as if they’re wielding a machine gun!”

Behind the shocked commander, a bloody officer rushed in.

Upon closer inspection, it was the face of a fairly intelligent Beiyang Army officer who had studied at the Japanese Military Academy for about two years. It seemed that even the unit that had some clever people and could fight had collapsed.

“This is a disaster! Our 3rd Regiment has been destroyed!”

“What? The elite unit that the governor gave us?!”

“We aimed for the enemy’s flank, solidified our firing line, and then counterattacked, but it was no use! As soon as we got close to them, our troops were torn apart! On top of that, enemy reinforcements were also closing in… All of our battalion commanders are missing, and their locations are unknown!”

“Shit!”

The torturer expressed his anger by banging his fist on the table, but it was something that had no effect on his enemies at least.

All they could do was express impotent rage and wait for their enemies to strangle them moment by moment.

“At the front, an enemy infantry battalion is breaking through our hastily prepared defensive line!”

Even more devastating news arrived. The enemy’s vanguard, which had been under attack all morning, was immediately counterattacking as soon as they succeeded in defending themselves, and the front line was broken.

The soldiers were so exhausted and disorganized on the battlefield that they threw away their weapons and fled, not to mention defending themselves, and as a result, the enemies poured in.

The enemy infantry was much more agile and had more powerful firepower than our own infantry, making the unofficial slogan of the Japanese General Staff, “the infantry assault of all units,” seem meaningless.

If the strength of the Japanese infantry was that they could use their powerful infantry firepower to win the battle when the front line was formed with the enemy, these were opponents of a completely different level. They were able to infiltrate before the front line was formed, and they would move and pour out firepower.

The improved Japanese military doctrine, which was dull but advantageous in frontal combat, was no answer. The enemy instead chose to fight flexibly while reducing the size of the battalion force.

“That’s right, they’re assault infantry. Those guys, they really did come here with a plan!”

The firearms they were carrying, which were completely unheard of and unseen, were slaughtering soldiers who were trying to resist, however helplessly, and the grenades and automatic weapons that had shown their power in previous wars were also fearsome opponents.

But there was something even scarier than that.

“What the hell is going on?! Even the 3rd Regiment got hit? This is the end!”

“Retreat, retreat!”

“There’s water behind you, you idiots! Don’t push! Don’t push!”

The very name of the assault infantry was one that would cause panic in friendly forces with its very existence.

The most effective ally in battle was hope. The hope that victory was possible, or that even when the odds were against them, the hope that their allies would come to their rescue, gave soldiers indescribable courage even on the front lines where they were sure to collapse, and sometimes even brought about miracles.

But there was no hope to be found here. Only fear, a disease worse than dysentery or beriberi, had spread throughout the entire army.

The adviser had heard that the command post of the 1st Brigade of the Guards Division had been attacked in this manner, and that most of the regimental commanders and staff officers, including the brigade commander, had been captured or killed, and now he could clearly understand why.

“The bunnies are back behind us! They’re back in the rear!”

“They’re already charging into the rear?!”

Shouts of horror could be heard from all over the defensive line, and in the distance, through the darkness, the silhouettes of enemy infantry could be seen.

Soldiers with grenade launchers fired indiscriminately at them, but this had little effect on the enemy, who were approaching in a disorganized, line-by-line formation.

Rather, the enemy took advantage of the indiscriminate firing that blocked the friendly forces’ vision and expanded their breakthroughs here and there, taking advantage of the entire front line.

“Stop it! Stop it!”

“You go and stop it!”

The orders of officers and non-commissioned officers were no longer effective. In fact, they were unable to stop soldiers who were trying to escape.

The enemy’s tactic of simultaneously attacking from all directions, penetrating deep into the enemy’s territory and hitting artillery batteries, supply depots, and command posts first was having a tremendous psychological effect.

Our troops, who were attacking the enemy infantry battalions in front, were also surprised and collapsed one after another along the attack start line, and to make matters worse, the enemies who were fighting in front were also organizing their troops and pushing forward the front line.

“The entire front, side and back are collapsing!”

An urgent scream, as if boiling blood, could be heard, and as if it were impossible to command any further, the commander was hastily mounting the steed he had come on with his staff.

If it had been a normal situation, if they had been just a little bit smarter, they wouldn’t have been beaten up so badly.

“Torturer! It’s all over now! Let’s get out of here!”

“Are you crazy?! Where are you running off to, abandoning all these soldiers?”

The vicious cycle was clearly evident. The incompetent command, the stupid soldiers, and the lax military discipline of the military officers who saw them as nothing more than a means of making money, exploded in a chain reaction when they were at their worst.

As if an ammunition depot had exploded, the 30,000 strong vanguard troops had all disappeared.

What can one expect from a people who are more suited to pillaging and arson than to fighting, and who are more accustomed to shooting helpless civilians than to the strict discipline of firing.

However, I thought that if we had studied the Korean military for a long time and transplanted appropriate countermeasures, something would have been different, but it was useless. The regiment that had properly learned it was also annihilated.

However, the adviser left open the possibility and suggested that they control the remaining troops and attempt a final counterattack, but the commanders thought differently.

He looked astonished and dumbfounded at the words of his commander, who advised them to run away to save their own lives since the soldiers who were running around in confusion could not be saved anyway.

“So are you saying we should all die together?!”

“We must minimize the damage by pursuing the remaining troops as much as possible! Victory and defeat are mutually exclusive, but when we lose, we must lose properly so that we can fight again later! If the command center disappears like this, we will never be able to fight again!”

The adviser recalled the conclusion he had once heard from his father about the Battle of Toba-Fushimi, which was the beginning of the fall of the shogunate and the victory of the new government forces.

Takenaka, the shogunate’s army chief, and Takigawa, the chief inspector who assisted him, both left the battlefield too listlessly or irresponsibly.

In the end, even though the damage was less than expected, the world looked upon the defeat and destruction of the shogunate, and so everything was decided by this one battle.

And he shuddered at the thought that the story he had heard then might be repeated to Jang Jag-rim and his men.

“We must preserve our troops even if it means dying! What they’re aiming for now is to destroy the command center and paralyze the subordinate units, so what if they do that on their own?!”

“So where are all my men? They’re either running towards the reservoir, scattering in all directions, or stuck and dying among the enemy forces!”

Then he immediately got on a horse with some of his subordinates and shouted.

“If you’re not going to go, we’ll leave! Soon, when their artillery fire starts pouring down again, there won’t even be a way to escape!”

“Shit!”

He didn’t know what to do, but instinct made him turn his steps toward the empty saddle of his horse. Amidst the screams, the explosions, and the continuous gunfire, he and a few others spurred their horses and began to retreat toward the mountainous northern region, which was almost the only place left.

***

“What?! Our forces were annihilated in Andong?!”

Jang Jag-rim, who had been growing his power by falsely claiming to be the King of the Northeast in Yeonggwang, shouted at the military officer who was watching intently, his whole body covered in sweat. How could he hear something like this while he was preparing to attack the settlements?

And around him were military advisers dispatched from Japan, subordinates who had followed him since the bandit days, and several officers from the Beiyang Army dispatched by Yuan Shikai, who were looking at him with the same feelings for the first time in a long time.

And in their minds, one sentence was lingering:

‘I’m screwed.’

This was a literal expression of “it’s a mess.”

What this meant was that the unit that Zhang Zuolin had carefully selected, trained in the Japanese style and raised by the Beiyang Army officer corps, and had the makings of a combat unit, was annihilated without being able to do anything about it.

By occupying Andong Station, they were supposed to block the Gyeongui Line and Anbong Line, force the Korean army to cross the river, employ delaying tactics, and in the meantime, Jangjakrim was supposed to advance south of Yeonggwang and expand, but that was completely shattered.

The reason the vanguard moved there at high speed in the first place was to take control of Andong Station and block the Korean army’s deployment to South Manchuria.

Once that was breached, the South Korean army would attempt a large-scale counterattack, unloading troops and supplies by rail at Andong Station, not Sinuiju, and supporting the ground forces advancing from there toward Yeonggwang.

There were still 70,000 to 80,000 troops left, but most of them were nothing more than soldiers. If there were any proper combat troops now, it would not be an exaggeration to say that there were almost none, except for the 27th Division that Jang Jag-rim himself commanded.

“Brother, we must withdraw permanently. If we continue like this, the enemies will pursue us.”

Jang Jag-sang, who had been sworn brothers with Jang Jag-rim, advised him to withdraw. Having already fled more than 50km from his base in Yeonggu, it was difficult to secure supplies and even to recruit reinforcements.

Manchuria was clearly their land, but the Joseon bastards’ policy of domination was quite threatening to them. To put it simply, the Joseon bastards were close to ruling points centered around settlements.

And while there were lines connecting the dots, they were weak and far too inadequate to deal with a large-scale attack beyond the level of bandits.

That is why they thought that they could sweep them away all at once with their 100,000 strong army, and indeed, their 30,000 troops were able to subdue or bypass those strongholds and advance to the Han-Manchu border in an instant, but the problem started after that.

“These cunning men are continuing to gather supplies and manpower around the unconquered settlements and are preparing to resist.”

“What are you talking about? Aren’t those small towns the only ones that can do that?”

“Not at all, brother.”

At some point, Jangjak-sang began to recall the fragmentary information his subordinates had brought him. It was because his subordinates, who were born bandits, had been attacking settlements to clear them out, only to suffer great losses and end up losing money frequently recently.

“They are building stone walls all over Manchuria. There are three main types. One is the stone walls to protect the border police stations and post offices where their police force is located. Another is the stone walls built in each settlement for security and control. Lastly, there are stone walls located on the transportation routes connecting villages to villages and villages to police stations and post offices.”

“Even so, they’re still small in size. Can’t we just push them back with our troops?”

“This is a problem the deeper you go into the region. There may be dozens, or maybe even hundreds, of villages like this, rather than just one or two.”

There were no such settlements near Yeongdeungpo, where their sphere of influence was strong. At most, there were only Japanese residential areas sent by Dongchuk without notice, so they were able to deal with them relatively easily.

Because the organized defense system and facilities there were relatively weak.

But the settlements established by the Joseon people began to act like a thorn in the neck the deeper you went into the country.

In the case of the vanguard, since the goal was to strike quickly, they were able to occupy Andong by bypassing difficult areas without securing a supply line, but it was different for Jangjakrim’s main force.

#1 side story

#Episode 2 – The Retrograde Struggle of the Dual Empire (1)

In 1906, a very significant event took place at the port of Jemulpo, accompanied by a military band, to commemorate the establishment of the Austro-Hungarian embassy in the Korean Empire.

And this was something that Condenhove, the Austro-Hungarian Minister to Japan since 1893, had been advocating for over ten years, and it was finally coming to fruition. Looking at the expression of the newly appointed Minister, who was overcome with emotion on the podium above, it was somewhat understandable.

Of course, the Austria-Hungary Empire had already established diplomatic relations with the Korean Empire, but no embassy had been established. Meanwhile, affairs within the Austria-Hungary Empire in Korea were mainly handled by the Austrian embassy in Japan or the German embassy in Korea.

“The Austrians, who had been silent when I asked them to build a consulate, are now rushing to us like this. I guess I’ve only seen this much in my lifetime.”

“I guess that’s because our strategic position has become more valuable since the war. Please don’t look at it so negatively, Your Honor.”

In fact, there was a rather complicated story behind it, especially because our Navy’s intentions were considerably involved. Perhaps that’s why there was considerable discussion about the establishment of embassies on both sides. I will talk about the reason why the Navy welcomed the establishment of diplomatic relations with the Austria-Hungary Empire with open arms later.

In this process, for some reason, the Emperor, the Marshal’s Office, and the Cabinet, despite their different views, were in sync for the first time in a long time, and as serious opinions were exchanged, this led to the establishment of full-fledged diplomatic relations immediately after the war.

As it was a large-scale event with so much effort, many high-ranking officials were present. I responded appropriately to the whispering of the outside minister, Lee Sang-seol, and clapped my hands vigorously. And seeing students who seemed to have been mobilized from nearby schools cheering while holding the Taegeukgi and the flags of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, it seemed that the Incheon-bu governor had personally put in a lot of effort.

“The students stand out.”

“The Incheon-bu governor must have mobilized them because it was a big event.”

By the way, I heard that Mr. Condenhove had been studying Korean diligently since he was assigned to Japan as the ambassador, saying that his work in Korea was important. He spoke Korean fluently, albeit awkwardly, in his congratulatory speech.

“By the way, I really like that construction worker. He can speak Korean.”

“That kind of person is the scariest. At least they know what we are saying and they will quickly figure out the hidden meaning or intention behind it.”

I said with a smile. Behind them, the cruiser Empress Elisabeth of the Eastern Fleet of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was anchored, and officers and sailors in splendid uniforms stood as if they were inspecting. Come to think of it, that cruiser also carried the Korea-Austria Trade Treaty document with the seal of Franz Josef in 1893 and visited Jemulpo often.

“By the way, the members of that ship were interesting.”

“In what sense do you mean?”

“It’s just that they have quite a variety of people. The engineer they’ve been escorting is Austrian, the captain commanding the ship is a Hungarian, and the crew is filled with Geurasian (Croatian) people. Unlike ours, they’re an army of various nationalities, so it’s going to be quite a headache.”

“You have a good eye for detail.”

Well, they said that their fleet was made up of elite people from Croatia. As if he found it amusing to find out something unexpected, Lee Sang-seol was watching them from the side and writing something down diligently. In any case, the commemorative event in Jemulpo ended successfully with congratulatory speeches from high-ranking officials, commemorative photos, and a military band performance, just like any other event.

And it could be said that the real work was just beginning.

***

“I wish to bestow these gifts upon you in the hope that deep friendship will flourish between our Imperial House of Korea and the House of Habsburg.”

“I am so grateful.”

Immediately after arriving at Hanseongbu, the new Austro-Hungarian ambassador to Korea had an audience with the emperor, where the two imperial families exchanged gifts. At the banquet to commemorate the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1893, a suit of armor and twenty Mannlicher rifles were exchanged, but this time they exchanged the opposite. The military uniforms sent by Franz Josef and the ten grenade cans and ten boxes of hand grenades that we provided were exchanged as gifts.

While the Grand Military Officer of the Order of the Golden Cross and the Commander of the Order of the Golden Cross were coming and going… and while the commemorative banquet was getting more and more heated, and the ambassadors of each country, government ministers, and social leaders were talking about this and that, I had to have a separate meeting with the military attaché of the Austro-Hungarian Empire for a slightly different reason.

And this was by no means a coordinated meeting.

“I did not expect you to come to me like this when no definite agreement had been reached. We declared neutrality under the last Treaty of Portsmouth, but we still remain friendly and de facto allies of the Russian Empire. I will say no more about the state of relations between your country and the Russian Empire, as you know better.”

I spoke softly, but with a grain of salt in my words, to the Austro-Hungarian attaché. These clueless old men, by now they should be chatting with Loha, having a drink, and dancing with her hand.

But it all fell through because these white men came out of nowhere and asked for help. Naturally, Rohan, with his mouth hanging open, said he would find another partner, spoke in French in front of them, and then suddenly disappeared. The atmosphere must have been bad, because his younger brother, who was drinking next to him, also disappeared under the pretext of “I’ll make sure that guy doesn’t dance with another partner.”

So who was this officer of the Dual Empire who now stood before me, so effusive and disconcerting? He was Lieutenant-Colonel Maximilian Burchani, who had served with the Russians in Manchuria as an attaché of the Austro-Hungarian Empire during the last Far Eastern War, and who was one of the few progressives who were now working hard to reform the armed forces of his country from the traditionalists who now dominated the Imperial and Royal War Office.

“Please forgive our rudeness in coming so suddenly. We are in serious need of your assistance, Commander. Oh, first, let me get straight to the point about why we are here. I was sent as an observer during the last war, and I analyzed the overall combat experience of all the battles that took place in the Far East for two years since the end of the war in 1904.”

I could see his sharp eyes. His eyes sparkled behind the glass of his glasses, and his voice, trembling in contrast, echoed through my room. The Imperial Navy officer standing right next to me was Lieutenant Georg Ludwig Ritter von Trapp, the real-life inspiration for the famous Captain Trapp in ‘The Sound of Music’. He had been in the Eastern Fleet and was also assigned to the Legation as an attaché.

Anyway, I answered their questions bluntly. I was trying to gauge their intentions, but more accurately, I was half annoyed and half annoyed.

“…So?”

“And here, in the Korean Empire, I was able to receive guidance for the future war. Commander, our Habsburg army is in an unprecedented crisis.”

“It’s a bit interesting that the great empire that is the ruler of the Balkans and the true rival of the Russian Empire is in danger.”

Although they pretended not to know, internally the Austro-Hungarian army was in quite a state of disarray by now. This was due to the lack of a grand strategy, the deteriorating diplomatic situation, the lack of any real direction for military reform due to traditionalists within the army, and finally the somewhat unusual composition of the imperial army.

The Austro-Hungarian army at this time had an interesting structure. First of all, there was the Joint Forces, which were directly coordinated and controlled by the Imperial and Royal War Ministry, the Landwehr, a separate national guard force operating in Cisleitania, and the Honved, which was separately controlled by the Royal War Ministry in the Crown Territory of St. Stephen.

Not only that, in the case of one legion under the Honvéd of the Crown of St. Stephen, there was a separate unit organized under the control of the Croatian Ministry of War of the National Council, and in some ways it could be called a ragtag army.

In other words, in the case of the joint forces, which could be called the true imperial army of Austria-Hungary, it could be said that it was not at all easy to increase or decrease troops at will as a single army, unlike the neighboring German Empire, or even like us or Japan.

Given that it was such a place, it could be said that it was a place where progressives like Lieutenant Colonel Burchani had a hard time establishing themselves and raising their voices.

“As you know, Commander, look at the wars that have been fought in the world in recent times. From 1899 to 1905, we have witnessed two great wars, and in them we have seen a glimmer of the future war, and yet we have done nothing about it.” “Isn’t that the result of your country’s chronic problems?”

I said with a shrug.

“At the very least, it is necessary to be able to persuade the people in the Imperial and Royal War Office. Lord Hötzendorf, the Chief of the General Staff, is too much in league with the Empire, showing a double-faced attitude and hesitating at crucial moments when it comes to military reform, and the Kaiser is sympathetic to traditionalists who have a strange hostility to new technologies and new ways of war. In reality, military reform is impossible.”

“…So in the end, you learned something from the main office and decided to overcome the crisis your country is facing.”

“It’s shameless, but it’s true. The Commander-in-Chief reorganized the Korean army into something fit for future warfare, and I found the direction of the Habsburg army there.”

Perhaps it was because he was excited to finally be able to talk to someone he could understand, but Lt. Col. Burchani took out his notebook to scribble something down in a stiff English accent that I could barely understand.

The reason they could act so desperately and, in a way, shamelessly was because of the close cooperation between the navies. To be precise, for the emperor who had a strong desire for the navy and for us who had an operational environment similar to that of the Austro-Hungarian navy, their know-how and doctrine were quite tempting.

Especially in the case of the Emperor, he had already lost half of his trust in me and the army, having already staged a coup once. He had already experienced several mutinies in the army, and had responded to them by either inducing loyalty or dividing them, but he had come to the point where that no longer worked.

Regardless of whether they were royalists or not, the army’s key commanders and soldiers were declaring that they would sacrifice and serve for the country and the people rather than being loyal to the emperor personally, and at some point, the slogan “Long Live His Majesty the Emperor” that had been used so often during the previous Far East War began to gradually disappear. And in its place were the words “country” and “people”, and it began to take on the appearance of a full-fledged national army rather than the emperor’s private army.

That is why the emperor wanted to somehow get the navy into his hands. Many imperial states, even up until the modern era, had a navy that was close to a central military, so it was natural that he would have such a thought. The problem was that even the navy did not show any particular loyalty to the emperor.

Rather, they were even more rebellious than the army that the Emperor himself had abandoned. They deliberately ignored the Emperor’s orders or simply sabotaged them, focusing only on their own missions. They chewed up everything from small issues such as naming ships to large demands for transporting the Emperor’s personal supplies.

He noted that the basis of the rebellious navy was not the empire, but the French Republic, a nation of revolutionaries and a history of beheading kings. He concluded that it was the officers who had been soaked in the dirty water of the Republic in Paris and the École Nationale (French Naval Academy) who had fostered rebellious spirits against the emperor and the empire, and accordingly the emperor looked for opportunities to train a navy from a second or third country other than France.

Britain was still openly supporting Japan, so they didn’t touch it in the first place, and the United States, like France, was excluded because it was a ‘free’ republic. Of course, Russia, which had shed blood together in the previous war, helped by accepting Korean naval cadets, but not only had subversive movements been detected here recently, but there were also signs that the fleet that the Emperor should have operated was being used as an ‘auxiliary fleet for the Russian Navy to operate in the Far East’, so they couldn’t help but be on guard.

In any case, his own divisions and ships should be operated only under his command as the Emperor of Korea, and he could not stand by and watch them being operated by a specific country, individual, or group other than the Emperor. When the army was divided in this way, it was ultimately he who was threatened.