Chapter 50: The Dopamine Is Boiling Over

Sergei Witte had always stood in extreme opposition to the nobility.

Witte himself was, strictly speaking, a noble in his own right, but trace the line back and he was of German stock; he wasn’t even born of authentic Russian nobility in the first place.

His family had become hereditary nobles a mere 50 years ago.

Through his childhood, he hadn’t even come from a hereditary noble family at all.

His mother was from a fairly distinguished house, but Russia was a society that prized the paternal bloodline, so it counted for little.

Above all else, Witte was a man who had risen to Minister of Finance of Russia on ability alone and carried countless reforms to success.

From the gold standard to the construction of the Chinese Eastern Railway to the industrialization of Russia, he had driven reform after reform, achievement after achievement, proving his ability all the while.

He took pride in being fundamentally different from Russia’s homegrown magnates, born with nothing but blood to their names; and that, in the end, became the seed of his downfall.

“Your Majesty, Witte is a man who trusts only in his own talents and holds noble blood in contempt. However capable he may be, we fear that if men of his sort rise to power, the very autocracy of Russia may be shaken.”

The nobles kept slandering him in this vein, and the Tsar, who disliked Witte anyway, sided with them.

As a result, the man who had directed Russia’s entire economic policy as Minister of Finance was shunted off to the Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers, a sinecure post with nothing to it but prestige.

On paper it was a promotion, but the Chairman of the Committee of Ministers was a mere honorary post with no authority to control the ministers.

The Chairman did not stand above the ministers and direct them; each minister reported to the Tsar individually.

For Witte, already at daggers drawn with the nobility, these past few years had been nothing short of one humiliation after another.

“Witte? He’s a has-been now, isn’t he?”

“Imagine being Minister of Finance and then sitting in that chair like a scarecrow for years on end. The sense of loss must be crushing.”

“Let him rot. Who told him to throw his weight around like that? If he’s a noble, he ought to act like one, not spout bullshit about industrialization or whatever while sneering at agriculture.”

Witte’s fall was the nobles’ victory, a turning point in history that proved once more that the landed gentry were the true masters of Russia.

Pushed out of the mainstream, Witte began writing his memoirs to vent this fury, and naturally he steeped them in resentment toward the Emperor and the nobles.

And yet his position had grown so delicate that, unable to rein in his wife Matilda’s extravagance, he endured the humiliation of borrowing money from the Tsar.

She was shunned by society on his account and held her banquets at their own mansion instead, and Witte’s pride would not permit him to tell her to stop.

And so.

Witte could not take it at face value when Director Yakov turned up with some child in tow and told him to attach himself to the Emperor once more.

Frankly, the fact that he hadn’t cursed the man out on the spot was restraint enough, wasn’t it?

“Hah… So now, after all this time, I’m to become the Emperor’s loyal servant again?”

“I never said anything about a loyal servant.”

“Same difference, isn’t it? He needs to cut the nobles down, he wants to strengthen the crown, but he has no channel for bringing in men, so he wants me to play that part.”

“Your insight is sharp indeed. To see it at once.”

The man didn’t drag things out or beat around the bush; the clean admission itself wasn’t a bad sign.

Truth be told, Witte had rather wanted a long, unhurried talk with the head of the Imperial Okhrana, the talk of all Russia these days.

The man had surely been an unremarkable mediocrity back when Witte was Minister of Finance; how was he producing results like these?

No; before even that, what defied understanding was how the Tsar, that holy trinity of incompetence, impotence, and ignorance, had eaten something that disagreed with him and suddenly begun striding about like an autocrat.

However wounded his pride, he simply could not tell the lie that he wasn’t curious about the current state of affairs.

“Did you, perhaps, work His Majesty over yourself?”

“…Pardon?”

“Because I cannot make sense of it. Don’t even think of lying to my face. I was Minister of Finance for 11 years, no less. I watched the Tsesarevich from the days when the late Emperor still lived, and after that Tsesarevich became Tsar, I watched him for another 9 years on top of that.”

And now, suddenly, the Tsar had in fact been acting for 9 years, and not a single soul had noticed?

Who on earth could believe that?

“I fully understand your confusion, Chairman. But let me tell you clearly that everything happening now is proceeding under His Majesty’s will and His Majesty’s plan.”

“Hah… hahah, and I’m to believe that? When more than a few people are saying you’ve become the most powerful man in Russia in all but name?”

“A post with an expiration date, nothing more. Within 5 years at the earliest, I will hand it over to Young Master Mikhail here and be promoted into an honorary post.”

Witte’s gaze turned to the small child leisurely sipping tea at Yakov’s side.

He too had heard that the Emperor was grooming some boy from a collateral branch of the Odoyevsky house as the Okhrana’s next leader.

It was common knowledge, after all.

But… 5 years at the earliest?

“What utter nonsense is this. Handing the most powerful post in this country to a child not yet of age? Unless you mean to run the nation into the ground….”

“Ah, formally, of course, he will only become chief after coming of age. But even before then, we will have a structure in place that lets him run the organization in practice. And the nation will not be shaken. The greater part of the Okhrana’s current achievements are the Young Master’s work to begin with.”

“What in the world….”

Witte was seriously beginning to suspect that the man before him was making sport of him.

But what would a man who had come to persuade him gain by saying such things?

“Wait. So you’re telling me, truly, that this child is the one behind you? Who else knows this?”

“A good number of the Okhrana’s core personnel know. Why else would His Majesty grant someone so young even a provisional rank and have him accompany me everywhere?”

“…….”

“I am telling you, Chairman, because once you return, you will inevitably be spending a great deal of time working with us. If we don’t tell you now, you would certainly find yourself bewildered later.”

If the man was willing to go this far, there seemed no way not to believe him.

True enough, returning to active service only to find some child with his hands all over the Okhrana would have been more than reason could bear.

But… really? He was supposed to accept this?

“Ah… my head aches. This is maddening.”

“His Majesty said that now is the perfect moment to set Russia right. When you were still in office, Minister, the time, regrettably, was not yet ripe. Had His Majesty taken your side back then, His Majesty himself might have been in danger.”

“Haah….”

“We owe you an apology, Minister, but thanks to your removal, the nobles grew insufferably smug. They believed the world was theirs and let their guard down completely. We scooped up every one of their blunders, and out of that the Imperial Okhrana of today was born.”

Now the overall picture was roughly coming into focus.

Certainly, an emperor commanding an organization that gripped both intelligence and investigative authority, and could even conduct independent military operations, was all but impossible to unseat by coup d’état.

So that was the message. Every condition was now in place, the reforms would proceed without a glance at the nobles, so come back.

But even so, wounded pride did not heal that easily.

Trust and follow, once again, the man who had shut his eyes, plugged his ears, and played dumb through every warning, then flung him into a sinecure post?

Not easy.

Least of all for a man like Witte, whose pride and vanity had both punched through the ceiling.

“And His Majesty didn’t happen to say he was sorry?”

“He said the past was regrettable.”

“…Tch.”

Then again, as if that Nicholas II would ever sincerely apologize to a subject.

“Am I supposed to just take this like a pushover?”

“Chairman Witte.”

He was weighing whether to drag things out for a few days when a young voice suddenly reached his ears.

Turning his head, he saw that the boy who had been sipping his tea had set down the cup and was staring straight at him.

“I understand perfectly well that your feelings are hurt, Chairman.”

The tone was far too mature for a boy of ten.

“If you understand so well, then you also know why I can’t simply accept.”

“Yes. Of course.”

The way he nodded went past precocious into the outright uncanny.

Yakov had said earlier that this child was the real power behind the Okhrana; Witte had a feeling it might actually be true.

“But isn’t it fun?”

“Fun?”

This situation?

“His Majesty isn’t restoring you to favor simply to hand you the day-to-day work, Chairman.”

“I imagine not. I’ve guessed as much.”

“What His Majesty is aiming for is a system built on a powerful autocrat, supported by a corps of capable administrators. A structure that selects talent on ability alone, beyond the reach of the nobles’ influence, and places real power in their hands.”

Witte’s eyes moved, ever so slightly.

So that was it. They would realize the ideal system he had dreamed of since his days as Minister of Finance.

“And so? I’m to be given the chance to pursue my ideals, so I should forget the insults of the past and come crawling meekly back? And I’m to find that fun?”

A bitter smile escaped Witte’s lips.

“No. As if that could ever be fun.”

The child’s answer was unexpectedly firm.

“Think how hard the nobles will fight to stop a system like that. They would never surrender their interests quietly, after all.”

“…Naturally.”

“His Majesty has already told the nobles he will draw the sword if he must. And he has. He purged the Grand Dukes, gave the Okhrana investigative authority, and smashed their scheming at the hearing.”

All facts Witte knew well.

Watching from a distance, he had wondered why the Tsar had changed so suddenly.

“And in that process, the ones holding the hilt of the sword will be the Okhrana… and you, Chairman Witte.”

“Purges, if need be, without flinching….”

The corners of the child’s mouth curled slightly upward, and he went on in something close to a whisper.

“Doesn’t the mere thought of it delight you? The men who dismissed you as a has-been, who froze even your wife out of society, clinging to your trouser leg and begging for their lives.”

Witte’s mouth twitched.

He cupped his chin in his hand to hide the rising corners of his mouth, but it was already too late.

“That… would be fun indeed.”

There was no emptier advice than to set aside personal grievances and pursue one’s ideals.

What he had suffered, he would return in full.

Not merely watching from a front-row seat as those incompetent wretches, born with nothing but blood, came crashing down; he himself could smash to rubble every tower they had so painstakingly raised.

Ah… there was no resisting this.

Witte nodded, feigning reluctant surrender.

After all, revenge was one of those things a man simply had to have.

* * *

A few days after Witte decided to return.

The nobles, confident they had delivered Nicholas II a firm warning, were watching the situation at their leisure.

They didn’t believe the Emperor’s promise to give the matter his active consideration, but they judged they had time enough to watch his next move before responding.

If the Emperor knew what was good for him, he would grant the nobles a stake in the Manchurian ventures.

“Whatever the Emperor tries to do, he has no men. What could he possibly accomplish?”

“Even if France lends him the money, there’s no one to put it to work, is there?”

“We need only drop a quiet hint to the French as well. Without us, the venture cannot so much as begin.”

But this complacent optimism was smashed to pieces in less than a week.

[A Special Committee for Far Eastern Development and Industrial Finance is hereby established.

Its Chairman shall be Sergei Witte, Chairman of the Committee of Ministers, serving concurrently.]

The Nobles’ Committee, upon receiving the imperial edict, reacted with something close to panic.

“Wh-what! Who did he just appoint?”

“This is beyond absurd….”

Don’t tell me he had made the decision long ago this time as well, and merely bought time by pretending to hear the nobles out?

But more shocking than even that was the simple fact that the Emperor had called Witte back.

“Don’t tell me… even Nicholas II’s hatred of Witte was an act?”

“S-surely not.”

“And it isn’t only His Majesty. Witte must loathe the imperial house himself….”

The air in the room froze solid.

What if Witte’s very downfall had been a stone laid in advance, so that he could be recalled later and wielded against the nobility?

What if those 3 years of demotion had been an act to lull the nobles into complacency?

“N-no… it can’t be. It can’t be.”

Once again, something without precedent had happened.

Every piece of common sense they knew was collapsing.

~~~

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