Chapter 54: You Do It Yourself

Like most nobles the world over, Russian nobles drew their wealth from land.

For amassing wealth by occupying vast tracts of land and monopolizing the income those lands produced was the traditional way of the nobility.

In truth, they didn’t much care how well Russia’s industrialization was going.

To be precise, they thought it perfectly fine for factories to spring up in moderation and for the workers to multiply.

After all, that would raise the value of the land they held and the food it produced.

They simply didn’t want the capitalists growing strong enough to threaten the nobility.

Why, in England alone, weren’t capitalists who didn’t know their place forever building up power and squeezing the political establishment?

That must never happen in Russia, and they had no intention of letting it.

In that sense, the crop failure was both a crisis and an opportunity for the nobles.

Because it was a chance to prove once again that no matter how much anyone prattled on about money this and factories that, human beings were creatures who could not live without food.

“It’s certain. This year’s harvest is ruined.”

“At this rate, the effects will reach well into next year, not just this one.”

A few weeks earlier it had still been touch and go, but now the estimate was in beyond all doubt.

This year, Russia’s harvest was finished.

To be precise, several regions had failed catastrophically, while the regions still running normally were expected to show decent yields.

But even this much could not fail to hit Russia hard.

“It’s about time we made our move.”

The nobles immediately moved on two fronts.

On one front, a theatrical production by the name of charity raised its curtain.

“How could we turn a blind eye while all of you go hungry in these trying times? Our house will be the first to open its storehouses.”

“A decision worthy of the House of Count Bobrinsky indeed. The other houses can hardly sit idle either.”

The great nobles raced one another to set up poor relief stations and began handing out grain.

The newspapers ran large illustrations of noble ladies offering bread to starving children.

In the churches, priests sang the nobles’ mercy to the skies until the spittle flew.

“Did you see? They say the Countess toured the slums in person.”

“Truly, it is the merciful nobility who hold this country up.”

Of course, the amounts they handed out were a pittance, but with things like this, all that mattered was that the picture looked good, no?

If they could buy goodwill with pocket change and whet that goodwill into a blade to drive into the Tsar, no bargain came cheaper.

“And yet the imperial house seems so absorbed in Manchuria that it won’t show its face whether the people starve to death or not.”

“Just so. The citizens are screaming over food prices that climb by the day….”

With one hand they played at generosity, and with the other they busily churned out false rumors and scattered them far and wide.

Of course, even amid all this, plenty of nobles were turning the present crop failure into a moneymaker.

“Don’t release a single grain of the wheat stored in the warehouses. We hold out until the price climbs higher, no matter what.”

“Yes, my lord. We’ve already made arrangements with the grain merchants as well. Beyond stockpiling, we’re sweeping up the stocks already circulating on the market.”

Noble after noble refused to bring the grain harvested from their estates to market, stuffing it into their warehouses instead.

Some houses even went so far as to take on debt to scrape up whatever grain the market still held.

With food already scarce being sucked into the nobles’ granaries, bread prices could do nothing but shoot through the roof.

Watching this unfold, still other nobles began joining in the hoarding.

“Grain prices are going to keep rising anyway. Shouldn’t we be buying up more wheat too, even now?”

“Quite right. The longer the lean year drags on, the more we stand to gain.”

For houses ordinarily squeezed by debt, there was no opportunity like it.

If this crop failure lasted just 2 years, they could clear off a good part of the family debts; who would listen to talk of releasing food now?

“Honestly, hasn’t the lean year arrived at just the right moment? What a stroke of luck….”

“Ho ho. Still, we must mind our words. The citizens are going hungry, which means we must grieve over this calamity more than anyone.”

And in truth, the scheme was plainly working.

“Bread costs more than a day’s wages! How the hell are we supposed to live!”

“If a day’s pay can’t buy a day’s food, they’re telling us to just go die!”

“Your Majesty, save us!”

The faster food vanished from the markets and the steeper the prices climbed, the uglier public sentiment turned.

This time, at last, they would see that detestable Tsar’s face, forever playing the dullard, twist in genuine anguish.

The nobles could only pray that day would come, and come soon.

* * *

While the nobles indulged their hypocrisy to their hearts’ content and spread their false rumors, I did not lift a finger.

Frankly, there was no real reason to stop them.

The greater the height of the fall, the harder the impact, and the taller a tower of hypocrisy rises, the more eyes it draws.

“Your Majesty, I’ve compiled a summary of the nobles’ movements.”

“Oh, good. Let’s have a look.”

Having already heard that the lean year was souring public sentiment, Nicholas II flipped briskly through the report, then let out a long sigh.

“If you hadn’t urged me to prepare for a crop failure last year, we would truly be in dire straits. The mere thought of it sends a chill down my spine.”

“Only because Your Majesty believed me. Anyone else would have told me to stop talking nonsense.”

“Hahaha, and is this not exactly the politics of trust?”

But beside us, Witte, who had been listening to the report as well, wore an expression that was stiffening by degrees into something strange.

“…Wait. Preparing for the crop failure since last year, did you say?”

“Ah, yes. You wouldn’t have known. Mikhail proposed stockpiling grain in advance last year, and I gave my consent.”

“…Pardon? But… how.”

Witte stared straight at me.

Well, fair enough. To anyone with genuine common sense, the situation made no sense at all.

“Young Master, forgive my impertinence, but how on earth did you know last year that the crops would fail?”

“I looked over the condition of the land a bit, and it seemed like this year’s harvest would struggle.”

“Can a land survey accurately predict a crop failure? I’ve seen experienced farmers forecast one a few months ahead, but I have never heard of any method that allows preparation a full year in advance. Is there some secret to it, perhaps?”

Obviously no such thing exists.

Sorry, but this is one secret I can’t give away even if I want to.

“That’s a trade secret, so I’m afraid it would be difficult to say.”

“Ho ho… my word.”

Witte laughed as if at a complete loss, then soon nodded.

“It seems the Okhrana holds some internal basis for such judgments, then. Truly remarkable.”

Witte looked like he genuinely wanted to know the secret, so I casually turned back to the Emperor and changed the subject.

“In any case, Your Majesty, I believe it’s about time we went on the offensive.”

“Oho, is it. And how would you have us proceed?”

“Put the lean-year measures we’ve prepared into effect at once. Release the stockpiled grain, and for the time being, pour all the revenue coming out of Manchuria into famine relief as well.”

“Yes, yes. Truth be told, it has been agony holding back when I’ve wanted to show my hand for so long.”

For Nicholas II, who lived for the delight of hearing the citizens’ praise, how hard it must have been to sit and take an undeserved beating.

Just for keeping the secret and playing dumb the whole way through, he deserved real credit.

“Good. Very good. The people shall eat bread with my name on their lips.”

“And there is one more thing I’d like to mention.”

“Has some other trouble broken out? Go on, tell me.”

“It seems some nobles have lately been angling for excessive profits through hoarding and profiteering, so I’ve ordered a separate investigation. The results should come in before long.”

The Tsar’s eyes went round, and then he asked with a puzzled look.

“Hoarding and profiteering… Outrageous, to be sure, but out of so many nobles, how on earth did you sift out men like that?”

Before I could even open my mouth, Witte cut in first.

“As it happens, some time ago I requested a list of nobles hard-pressed by heavy debts.”

“What does that have to do with… Ah, I see. Those men were investigated first?”

“Yes. The deeper a man sinks into debt, the more likely he is to see a lean year like this as an opportunity. And sure enough, I’m told a good number of the names on that list have been caught in circumstances pointing to grain hoarding.”

“Hah. How remarkable, and how disgraceful.”

Hold on, Nicholas II caught on first, from just that much?

From where I stood, that was the truly remarkable thing.

Had he really become the schoolhouse dog reciting poetry?

Witte, too, turned to look at me with an expression at once proud and astonished.

He would never have guessed the debt list he’d requested was being put to this kind of use.

-Truth is, before Witte asked for that list, we hadn’t thought of it either.

Ideas are meant to be passed around.

What matters is who takes them, and what results they get.

“Then will you expose this hypocrisy at once?”

“We’ll say that an investigation into the abnormal price of wheat on the market has uncovered some truly regrettable circumstances.”

Those wicked souls, playing at famine relief out front while squirreling food away behind the scenes.

Men like these were exactly the sort who ought to be put to work at the development sites that released grain and kept the citizens fed.

Off to Manchuria, then?

* * *

It was the day bread prices, breaking their previous high day after day, were charging toward all-time records.

An imperial edict handed down from the imperial house turned all of Petersburg upside down.

An announcement had gone out that the imperial house had released its stockpiled grain onto the market and would pour every ruble of revenue from Manchuria into famine relief.

With the Emperor himself stepping forward to feed the people, the Tsar’s name rang out in every street.

Redirecting the Manchurian revenue fell within the range of what anyone could have predicted.

But stockpiled grain?

Why on earth was there so much grain sitting in reserve?

The meeting hall of the Nobles’ Committee descended into pandemonium once again.

“What in God’s name is going on!”

“You said no one could predict a crop failure! And yet they have that much grain in reserve? How does that make any sense!”

The very men who had been certain of victory only days before were the first to fall into panic.

“They say the grain has been stockpiled since last year. Since last year!”

“Has the Emperor suddenly become a prophet? How could anyone possibly predict this year’s crop failure and lay in food for it!”

Far from tripping up the Tsar, the lean year had made him the savior of the people.

The sense of crisis they had inflated for their agitation had been converted wholesale into credit for him, so that in the end the nobles had done nothing but help the Tsar.

“Calm yourselves! This is no time for this.”

Durnovo raised his voice, but unlike before, the uproar refused to die down.

“Calm ourselves! And what are we supposed to do now with the wheat crammed into our warehouses!”

“However much of the reserve they release, it’s only a fraction. There are limits to what it can….”

However well the imperial house had prepared for the lean year, a mere year or so of preparation could never fully offset a crop failure.

A rise in wheat prices remained an unavoidable course of events.

But in the midst of it all, far more dreadful news came flying into the meeting hall.

“They say the Okhrana received a tip that the surge in wheat prices stems not from the crop failure alone but from hoarding and profiteering, and has opened an investigation. And that quite a few houses have already been caught….”

“Wh-what?”

“What did you just say!”

The air in the meeting hall froze in an instant.

For a good many of those seated around that very room had their own hands in the hoarding and profiteering.

“Th-then we’re under investigation as well?”

“Who was it! Who insisted we had to buy up grain no matter what! At this rate we’ll all be dragged down in a chain!”

“Everyone, calm down! The more we panic, the more we play into the Emperor’s hands! Now more than ever we must stand together as one….”

“Stand together, my foot! I’m getting out of here!”

A good number of the nobles who had until now trusted and followed the leadership’s word shot up from their seats, shouting at the top of their lungs.

“You mean to betray us now! Have you no fear of the consequences!”

“Of course I’m afraid! What terrifies me most is what will become of my house if we keep opposing that Tsar!”

For the great nobles who had long ruled this country’s roost, perhaps it was different; but for the petty nobles, living as the Emperor’s dog and living at the great nobles’ beck and call came to much the same thing.

And now they were supposed to keep making an enemy of an Emperor who predicted and countered not only the nobles’ every move but the crop failure itself?

You do it yourself.

And through the unity of the Nobles’ Committee, held together by the single-minded resolve to protect their own interests, there echoed the sharp crrrack of a fissure splitting open.

~~~

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