Joseon Needs a Coup - Chapter 402



Only Noblemtl

#2 Part 12. The protagonist of an unwanted play (1)

“Oh, you’re here?”

The craftsman was chatting with others over a glass of wine, and when he saw my face, he came over as if he was happy to see me.

The craftsman was smiling, dressed neatly in a white suit, like a colonel who might like Kentucky chicken. For a moment, I almost burst out laughing at the thought, but I held it back and lowered my head.

“Don’t you all know this without me saying anything? He is my son-in-law whom I am proud of. I worked hard to bring him here today, so everyone should say hello.”

And the craftsman looked around at the older men with splendid moustaches and thick pipes around him and shouted proudly. It certainly seemed like he meant well, but I just stood there with a smile on my face.

“It is an honor to meet you. It has been ten years since I saw you in Pyongyang during the last war, and you have not aged at all.”

“Ah, you are Mr. Choi Jae-hyung, the big shot of the Maritime Province. How have you been?”

“I’m glad you remembered. Thanks to you, we were able to expand our business in Haesamwi. Even now, we’re in chaos because we don’t have any goods. It’s really unbelievable that we’re making more money because the North Korean army was destroyed.”

Mr. Choi Jae-hyung was still supplying military supplies to the Russian army in the Primorsky Krai, and was greatly expanding his business. It seemed that he was handling everything from small items like bread for soldiers to large items like iron pyrite needed for ammunition production. And the one who supported Mr. Choi Jae-hyung’s business from behind was his father-in-law.

“By the way, I heard that His Majesty said he would personally support a rifle brigade formed with Koreans from the Maritime Province. Is that true?”

“This is the first time I’ve heard of that too… … .”

Judging from the fact that he was suddenly talking about something I had heard somewhere, it seemed like the story was leaked from the Imperial Household Department, which I was the only one unaware of. It seems like they are trying to expand the Korean rifle regiment that was annihilated at Tannenberg into a brigade and do something about it.

Anyway, when I made a strange expression, everyone tried to cover it up as if they had made a slip of the tongue and soon moved on to a different topic. It wasn’t a particularly interesting story, and since they were just talking among themselves, they just looked awkward like children who had been put on a play they didn’t want to be in.

Fortunately, before my soul was completely lost in their conversation, Roha made a very unpleasant expression. It was as if he was asking what I was doing after bringing a guest here. As if he had seen this, the father-in-law intervened and said.

“Okay, now is not the time to talk about the main topic. Let’s eat together first. I’ve kept you waiting for too long.”

Then, the old man immediately offered me a seat and had me and Roha sit down. I asked the adjutant to leave the seat for me so I could go eat, and he quietly stepped back.

“No, where is our grandson? Since we’ve come to such a nice place, we should at least feed him something delicious.”

“I left her with my mother. It would be rude to bring that little girl here.”

“It would be great if you could show off some talent at times like this. You could show off to those old men… … .”

“Enough, let’s eat first, Father?”

Roha said, putting his index finger to his lips. His father-in-law grumbled as if he was upset, but other than that, the atmosphere was quite friendly during the meal. But that wouldn’t last long.

“… Anyway, that’s why I consider Italian and Spanish cuisines, which feature a lot of rice dishes, to be the best among European cuisines. Only old farts who don’t know much about European cuisines consider French cuisine to be the best.”

“His Majesty the Emperor said that French cuisine is the best… … .”

“That is what His Majesty says when he says that even among the Savior’s dishes, he only focuses on appearance. Anyway, how was the meal?”

“It’s worthy of the prestigious Sontag Hotel. I heard they have the best chefs in Korea.”

Roha said while wiping her mouth with a napkin. She had learned Western etiquette since she was young, so it seemed like it had been ingrained in her, as her movements were quite graceful. All sorts of trivial stories were exchanged like that.

If it weren’t for this place, it might have seemed like a normal family meal, but there was still a profound main topic that was about to begin. After the meal was almost over and the waiters had cleared away the empty plates and leftover food, and brought out coffee and tea cups, Roha spoke first.

Her white face still had the innocent smile of a young puppy, but the tone of her voice was quite fierce.

“So why did you call me here? Surely you don’t have something embarrassing to ask him about?”

“Well… it’s really difficult for a quick-witted daughter like you.”

“Because it was my father who raised me that way.”

The old man, who had been silent for a moment, avoided Roha’s gaze and bit into his pipe for a moment. Then, as if he had made up his mind, he looked straight at me and said this. And what he said next was enough to distort Roha’s and my expressions.

“Sir, would you be able to positively consider sending our troops to the war taking place in this Savior?”

“…Father. Do you know what that means when you say that?”

Roha spoke angrily, but he tried to ignore his daughter’s words and continued talking while fixing his gaze on me. No, to be precise, it would be more correct to say that he tried to continue.

“As you may know, I’m sure… … .”

According to information that Captain Cho Dong-yoon slipped into me once, it was discovered that some of the funds from the Ministry of the Interior and the Imperial Household were flowing into leading domestic companies. Of course, I could understand the meaning of this even without being told.

“I have already been informed, Father-in-law, that there is a positive public opinion in the business community about sending troops. And I have also been informed several weeks ago that this is connected to the funds of the Imperial Household Department and the Ministry of the Interior.”

“That has nothing to do with today’s story. It’s just for business expansion… … .”

“I have already heard various circumstances through the Records Bureau. I also know the reason why this place was created and why my father-in-law invited me here. You are planning to vote in favor of the resolution to dispatch troops at the Privy Council meeting tomorrow, or to demand mechanical neutrality.”

I said with a bitter smile. I felt regretful that I should have done the internal affairs reorganization project with Mr. Eo Yoon-joong a little faster if I had known this would happen.

After the war, the Emperor’s treasury, which could be called the Naejangwon, was forced to spend a considerable amount of money on national reconstruction projects, so they thought they had been hit hard, and so they focused on land reform, which was the root of the problem.

In the end, since it was never a good thing for the Korean Empire, which was in the midst of its early light industry-centered industrialization, to have landlords embracing their tenant farmers, they attempted to increase the proportion of self-employed farmers by dismantling the large landlords in the three southern provinces, which had been hit hard by the Far Eastern War.

However, this also enraged the bureaucrats and officers from the third southern provinces, so it continued for several years without any progress, and because they felt that they were being pushed out by the bureaucrats from the north, they ended up siding with the emperor in the hopes of balancing the power game, which led to a politically tangled situation in many ways.

The ongoing issue of declaration of war and dispatch of troops, which is currently experiencing growing pains, cannot be said to be completely unrelated to this.

“The grown daughter and the son-in-law she chose are both truly terrifying. But please listen to my story. If we were to dispatch troops, a huge amount of supplies and money would pour into Korea. The Russian army was largely destroyed, and it would take a huge amount of supplies to reorganize it. That’s why there are growing opinions in the business community that we should actively dispatch troops.”

“And if we could provide that in full, it would be a tremendous outpouring of wealth. That is true. Russia’s industrial capacity is so meager compared to the size of the empire that it would inevitably need the assistance of newly industrialized countries like us and Japan to maintain its huge army and navy.”

“That’s exactly the point. That’s why there’s a lot of talk that we can’t postpone sending troops forever. Japan is already encroaching on much of the power we used to have in trade with Russia. As relations between the two countries have improved significantly, we’re slowly losing the trade we used to monopolize in the Primorsky Krai and Priamur regions.”

If you think about it two-dimensionally, it was right. It was not for nothing that mass-produced nouveau riche emerged in Japan at this time. However, the reason we did not participate in the war and continued to declare neutrality and waited was because of the concerns of the cabinet and the Marshal’s Office, who had come together for the first time in a long time.

The cabinet and the Marshal’s Office were faced with the real and empirical fear that a great war might break out. With the instability in South Manchuria still unresolved, they had no idea how it would explode if Russia, which had been a huge boulder in the pressure cooker of so many problems, were to withdraw into the great war.

The cabinet and the Marshal’s Office approached both the Entente and the Allies in the early days of the war to resolve this issue. But all they got back was empty words. They refused to give any definite answer about South Manchuria, and just kept parroting that they would consider it positively.

“We are already giving it a lot of thought… but realistically, for us who are dealing with the South Manchurian issue, we will only be able to make progress in the discussion if we receive a clear guarantee from them regarding the region.”

It is not that I am unconditionally opposed to participating in the war or sending troops. However, it is also true that it is extremely difficult to accept this realistically.

Especially during the last invasion of Jangjakrim, it was an open secret that the Beiyang government and the Japanese Empire that controlled them were lurking around. This was because the Records Investigation Office’s 4th and 6th Section friends had already intercepted and directly confirmed the secret telegrams going back and forth between Beijing and Tokyo.

In this situation, if Russia had lost its standing troops, it could have been a huge disaster. It was not for nothing that there were many skeptical views within the Korean government about sending troops to Vietnam in the 1960s.

Withdrawing just two divisions from a country with a 155-mile front line was enough to cause security concerns, but no one could be sure what would happen if a corps-level force was withdrawn from South Manchuria, a much larger and more complex environment.

The security concerns of our military, which has a force of only 10 divisions, were still significant.

“South Manchuria… … .”

“Yes, that place where there are always sad predictions that it will become a place of eternal conflict. We cannot and have no intention of giving it up.”

I said with a bitter smile. Now, for us who have a standing army of 200,000, it was a very serious task to draft a corps-level force, which would amount to at least 25% and up to 50% of our total force.

Moreover, the Treaty of Portsmouth did not recognize our exclusive status in South Manchuria. It was only intended to place it within our “sphere of influence,” not to “territorialize” it.

‘Russia entrusted the land to a trustworthy man, and the great powers probably did not want to see one person monopolizing Manchuria, so they included such a clause… ‘

This is what Army Minister Min Yeong-hwan once said. His words were correct. Russia and the great powers also forced such unstable elements on us in order to keep us in check, and the result is the current insecurity.