NIS Agents Tearing Up the Japanese Empire - Chapter 302



Only Noblemtl

Episode 302

Homecoming? (5)

Something unusual happened.

A group of evil spirits hiding in the darkness were moving about, causing large and small disturbances throughout Joseon.

In all eight provinces of Joseon, boasting beautiful mountains and rivers, Koreans and Japanese came together to express their dissatisfaction with the Governor-General’s rule over Joseon.

“How on earth do you run this country that the price of rice in the market never falls!”

“What about the police who are always oppressive and violent?”

“Everyone thinks they own this place!”

“What a bunch of fucking bastards!”

The deep-rooted discontent and anger of the Korean people, which had begun around the time when Japan forcibly annexed Korea and began its colonial rule, or perhaps even before that, began to bubble up again.

Just like when the March 1st Movement exploded nationwide.

Of course, they weren’t like that from the beginning.

In the past, most people kept their mouths shut for fear of the police’s guns and swords, without even having to go to the Japanese military.

But not anymore.

To understand how things turned out this way, we first need to look at how this incident began.

* * *

It all started with a workers’ strike in the northern part of the Korean peninsula.

In Wonsan, which was the port of call for the Imperial Japanese Navy’s provisional battleship squadron, porters were hired to quickly move supplies and other necessities while the navy’s ships were anchored.

However, as battles broke out between the Navy and the Army, battleships sank, and various other incidents and accidents occurred, the Japanese Navy ended up withdrawing without paying wages.

As a result, the workers who had worked themselves to the bone for months were left with nothing to do but lick their thumbs, like a dog chasing a chicken looking up at the roof.

In this situation, the only place they could rely on was the Government-General of Korea.

From their point of view, they thought that if the Governor-General spoke to the Japanese government, they would be able to receive their wages.

But there was no way the Governor-General’s Office, which had its nose in stone, would take care of that right away.

No, from the beginning, the Government-General was a group that had neither the ability nor the will to do that.

If they had the ability, they would have prevented this wage arrears problem from occurring in the first place, and if they had the will, they would have gotten the money even if the Governor-General of Korea rolled around in the middle of Tokyo and made a fuss about it.

Is Governor Shinnosuke like that now?

Not at all.

Instead, what came back to them was… … .

“What? Unpaid wages?”

“Yes, the military didn’t pay me and just made me work for them. So please give me the money I didn’t get… … .”

“Why are you asking me that?”

“yes?”

“If you’re going to be in the military, go to the military and ask.”

“But wasn’t the Government-General originally meant to solve these kinds of problems?”

“I don’t know either. This is not something I can handle, so just go back knowing that.”

“Then why don’t you just delegate the work to someone who can handle it?”

“Even if the Governor-General can’t do it!”

Rather than listening to the workers’ words, the government-general officials looked annoyed and harshly pushed away those who had been defrauded of their money.

“Listen, teacher!”

“Oh, well, there’s nothing we can do?”

“teacher!”

As a result, only the workers were treated unfairly.

The amount of money stolen wasn’t just a few pennies, it was hundreds of thousands of won.

If the money was taken from here, the workers employed by the Japanese military would become fools who worked for them for months without receiving a single penny.

No, it was fine until then.

After all, no one pointed a finger at me for working under the Japanese.

but.

But… …they have families.

The workers’ families were starving or sick in bed because of months of unpaid wages.

Of course, there are some people who aren’t like that.

Most of those gathered here were poor, from what could be called the lowest class of society.

And these people from poor families often suffered from weak health because they did not eat properly since childhood.

Because of this, illnesses were frequent, and the same was true for the workers’ families.

So for them, a few months’ wages meant the lives of their families depended on it.

“These, these bastards… … !”

“Do you think you’ll be okay after doing this?”

“Heaven knows and earth knows, you bastards!”

“I wouldn’t feel satisfied even if I were to splash myself in this shit… …!”

When the workers realized that they could not receive help from the Government-General, they became enraged and rioted at the Government-General building. They were beaten by the dispatched soldiers and police and all of them were arrested.

They were indicted through a summary trial, sentenced to 10 years in prison for violating the National Security Act, and taken to Seodaemun Prison.

When other colleagues heard this news, they were very indignant.

If it were normal, I would be angry at this inequality, but frustrated by the depressing reality that I can’t do anything about it.

If it were like before, it would have been like that.

But now it’s a different story.

“Dear port workers in Wonsan, I heard about your grievances through the newspaper.”

“We will actively resolve your grievances at our new publishing company.”

In the past, no one would pay attention to them when they complained, but now there are people who pay attention to their grievances.

“What is Shin Gan-Hwe?”

“We are people whose goal is to help all of the eight provinces of Joseon to avoid wronged people.”

“What the hell is that?”

“It’s not nonsense, it’s the truth. We are a charity organization that operates in accordance with the wishes of Mr. Vietnam, who passed away a few years ago.”

“Charity?”

The first to contact the workers in Wonsan was the Shin Ganhoe.

Since its inception, the Shin Gan Hoe has intervened in large and small incidents and accidents within Joseon and helped those in need, regardless of whether they were Korean or Japanese.

However, he maintained a close cooperative relationship with the provisional government by occasionally exchanging information with the provisional government in Shanghai, receiving support funds from them, and assisting with elections.

Such people came forward to help the workers.

Well, the port workers in Wonsan, who had nowhere to turn at the time, accepted their help, and the New People’s Association soon took action.

[A shout to the twenty million compatriots and millions of working comrades in the eight provinces of Joseon.]

Starting with a newspaper editorial written by a certain calligrapher and published in the Chosun Ilbo, the incident spread throughout the eight provinces of Joseon and even mainland Japan through newspapers, radio, and magazines.

To make matters worse, the head of the miners’ union at Dongyang Mining, run by our greediest tycoon in Joseon, declared that he would go on strike to solve the difficulties of his fellow workers, and in response, numerous workers declared a strike.

One ironic thing is that the miners’ union of the Dongyang Mining Company was created by the hands of the great man himself, and the union chairman is also the great man himself.

anyway.

The small strike launched by Daegal Daegam soon created a new atmosphere throughout the northern part of the Korean peninsula.

As Dongyang Mining, the largest company on the Korean peninsula, went on strike, workers at other companies also began to show signs of wanting to join the strike.

That would be the case.

At this time, the treatment of workers was extremely poor.

No, it was so horrible that even the word ‘poor’ is not enough to describe it.

Even if the work was difficult and arduous, most executives in major companies were Japanese, and they took the lead in squeezing Koreans, so Koreans could not help but feel dissatisfied.

Of course, there was no difference between Koreans and Japanese in that they squeezed and treated people like tools.

But there were differences between Koreans and Japanese.

Even though they were the same tools, Japanese tools were handled with a little more care, and if they seemed like they would break, they were given a break and even sent for repairs, but Joseon tools were used until they broke and then replaced with other ones.

If you handle things that way, won’t people get angry and give up?

“You’re saying that Dongyang Mining will join the solidarity strike to improve the treatment of Wonsan port workers?”

“What are you doing? Everyone’s speed is really good.”

“Shouldn’t we do something too?”

“Us? What?”

“No, let’s be honest and blunt. Is this the treatment we’re receiving? Isn’t this worse than pigs and dogs?!”

Here, people who were usually dissatisfied with their treatment began to raise their voices one after another… … .

“Damn it! Let’s go on strike too!”

“Arthur, if you keep doing that and get cut off, you’ll be the only one who suffers.”

“It’s said that even if firewood branches are weak, the bundle of wood is strong! And the ghost of Gyeongseong overthrew the Government-General and the Japanese Empire all by himself, so what can’t we do if we join forces?!”

“Hey, Inma! Do you think the ghost of Gyeongseong and you, who tilts a few things in the factory, are the same? Inma?”

“What’s the difference? If I didn’t have a family, I would have done everything like that guy, without any consideration for consequences!”

“Haha, yeah, I guess so.”

“Then are you going to be content with living this pig-like life? Are you going to make your wife and children spend their whole lives in a barn-like place like that?”

“… … That’s true too.”

As one person raised his voice, more people began to listen, and one by one, more people joined the strike.

What started as a small wave in Wonsan and its surrounding areas gradually gained momentum and swept across the northern part of the Korean Peninsula.

The wave was so large that solidarity strikes occurred even in Pyongyang and Kaesong, far away from Wonsan.

Even though the situation had escalated to this point, the Governor-General did nothing.

No, I couldn’t do anything.

If we had messed with it carelessly, it was clear that a national resistance on a par with the March 1st Movement would have occurred.

Last time, we managed to suppress it somehow with support from our home country, but this time it seemed a bit difficult.

In a situation where there is no support from the home country and the power of the Governor-General is greatly weakened, what if they try to suppress it by force and fail?

The colony is turned upside down.

So what?

The Government-General simply lay low and hoped that this whole situation would just pass.

But the capitalists who suddenly suffered huge losses did not just sit by and do nothing.

This was especially true for companies founded by foreigners.

From their perspective, strikes were the exclusive domain of communists, and workers who asserted their rights were communists.

And in their way of thinking, communists were beings that could be killed without hesitation.

So what?

They tried to use in Joseon what they had seen and learned in their own country.

“It’s the boss’s order! Get the extensions here and beat up all the strikers and turn them into little kids.”

“How much did you beat it?”

“I don’t care if a few die.”

“Oh, yeah, then what… … .”

The capitalists wanted to end the strike.

So they hired thugs and gangsters to attack the workers.

They attacked striking workers and their families to discourage them from joining the strike, and some were killed or seriously injured in the process.

The workers, who were deeply indignant at the actions of these capitalists, tried to fight back with force, but the Singanhoe members stopped the angry workers.

“Everyone stop! Violence doesn’t solve everything! So everyone, calm down and listen to me for a moment!”

“Teacher! Our comrade was killed by those guys, and you want us to just endure it?!”

“No! I didn’t tell you to be patient!”

“Then what?! Why are you blocking us!”

“Violence is not your thing.”

“What?”

The reason the New People’s Association stopped them was not to break the cycle of violence, but to say the same thing.

“If you step forward now, others will lose their chance to step forward!”

“Other people?”

As I have said many times, Shinganhoe had a very strong backing.

He is the person who contributed greatly when the Shinganhoe was formed and helped them every time they were in crisis.

And the man had an army.

There was a unit so outstanding that even the Japanese Empire could not dare to treat it lightly.

As the capitalists hired thugs to cause trouble, the Shin Ganhoe also hired mercenaries.

* * *

“Hey Mr. Park, who told you to go on strike or something? Huh? Isn’t it because you go out and do things like that that the house ends up like this?”

“Oh my… … Oh my… … .”

“I will strike or not!”

“Oh, I won’t do it! I won’t do it again!”

“That’s right.”

Today too, thugs hired by the capitalists were going around looking for and lynching workers who had joined the strike.

If it were normal, I would have beaten a person to the point where one or two places were broken, or if they resisted severely, I would have beaten them to the point of death and then backed off, but today was a little different than usual.

“Hey you idiots!”

“What?”

Someone was picking a fight with them.

Since they usually walked around with a bad vibe, no one bothered them, but suddenly someone bothered them.

And that too, alone.

“What the heck? What kind of person are you?”

“It is a hundred years too soon for punks like you to listen to this old man’s words.”

“Ha, the world is in chaos, so crazy people are running wild.”

“Are you introducing yourself?”

A punk walked toward the young man, holding a bloody club.

Then he poked his chest with the end of the stick and spoke to him in a rough tone.

“Where the hell did you come from, you crazy bastard? Who the hell is running around in our area?”

“Our area?”

“Yeah, this is our territory, you crazy bastard.”

“How could that be?”

The young man’s eyes lit up, and he pulled out his pistol like the wind and pulled the trigger.

-bang!

With a loud noise, the thug fell down and the young man’s face was revealed to the thugs.

“I don’t like what the Governor-General’s bastards are doing, but I don’t like it even more when punks like you are doing it too.”

“First, last… … ?!”

“You, what are you doing!”

“Who am I?”

At the young man’s words, people started to walk out from the crowd watching nearby.

Then he stood next to the young man.

“I am Hong Yong-hwan, a major in the Korean Independence Army.”

“Ah, the Korean Independence Army… …?”

Hong Yong-hwan gave an order, waving his hand.

“Put it away.”

Soon, a gunshot rang out in the alley and blood flowed.

This kind of thing happened all over the northern part of the Korean peninsula.

As the Korean Independence Army intervened, the situation began to become increasingly serious.