Chapter 64: Five Is Too Many

Gojong, Emperor of the Korean Empire, spent every day consumed by anxiety.

“What in the world is going on! Why are the things We have said leaking out one after another like this!”

“Forgive us, Your Majesty.”

“Even the ministers are at it. A prince of Russia comes, and you go all the way to Manchuria to seek an audience with him. Is Russia our suzerain state now!”

“That was only because our collusion with England was exposed, and we feared Russia’s wrath might be directed toward the imperial house. All of us acted solely out of a desire to preserve the imperial house of Korea.”

Even when Gojong lashed out at his ministers, this was the answer he got.

We moved to clean up the mess you made, and you dare blame us?

When they came back at him like that, even Gojong could hardly criticize them.

To any outside observer, they were loyal ministers who had acted to clean up Gojong’s blunder.

Besides, though not quite to the same degree, the reality was that the court was already filled with the pro-Russian faction.

Even those loyal to the Emperor had an underlying goodwill toward Russia, so with Gojong’s abilities, there was simply no way he could buck the prevailing tide.

“If Russia develops Manchuria and stations vast numbers of troops there, would that not make it highly likely that they will turn us into a colony?”

“Which is precisely why we must secure guarantees for our safety in exchange for cooperating with the development of Manchuria. In the present circumstances, the only way Korea can preserve its independence is to join hands with a relatively friendly great power.”

They certainly knew how to make an argument.

Gojong had never been gifted with words to begin with, so he had no chance of defeating his ministers through logic.

Reluctantly, Gojong nodded.

Every point they made was correct, leaving him with nothing more to argue.

But the unease lodged in one corner of his heart like a thorn refused to fade.

“…We know your loyalty. Yet why have so many tongues begun slandering the imperial house of late?”

“Forgive me, Your Majesty, but that is merely because the public mood is unsettled. It is unlikely to be anyone’s deliberate doing.”

“No. We are certain someone is inciting them from behind the scenes.”

Articles like that were suddenly appearing as though everyone had agreed on it beforehand. Anyone who was not a fool could see that something was going on.

“From now on, We shall be watching your every move closely. The ministers in particular would do well to take special care with their conduct.”

“But of course. We shall devote ourselves body and soul to serving Your Majesty.”

Yi Wan-yong bowed his head with impeccable courtesy.

The more openly Gojong showed his suspicion, the easier it was to prepare for it. Yi Wan-yong was completely at ease.

The ministers themselves sincerely believed they had little to be called to account for in the first place.

After all, they did not particularly intend to openly depose the Emperor or strip the nation of its diplomatic rights or sovereign rights.

On top of that, public sentiment in Korea was already beginning to split in silence.

Loyalty to the imperial house remained intact, but beneath it, could one not feel an entirely different current beginning to flow?

The yearning of intellectuals who begged His Majesty to press ahead with reform and appoint talented men from all walks of life.

And the concern that perhaps the Emperor simply lacked the ability to lead this precarious country.

Those two new currents were slowly spreading not only through the capital, but even into the provincial Confucian academies.

Which meant all the five of them had to do was gently fan the embers so they could grow.

There was not even any need to say anything openly.

Every time the Emperor attempted something and it went awry, all they had to do was let out a long sigh and say, ‘See?’

What mattered more urgently was making a real contribution to the Manchurian project.

And amid all this, Minister of Justice Yi Geun-taek caused an incident.

Unlike the other four, Yi Geun-taek came from a military background. His instinct for attaching himself to the powerful was strong, but his capacity for subtle thought was lacking.

It would not be much of an exaggeration to say he had never possessed anything like Yi Wan-yong or Park Je-sun’s exquisite instinct for reading the balance of power.

Looking back, his career itself proved as much.

During the Imo Mutiny, he had been a close retainer of Empress Myeongseong; around the time of Gojong’s refuge at the Russian Legation, he became pro-Russian; and during the Russo-Japanese War, he weighed whether to be pro-Japanese or pro-Russian before simply sticking with the latter.

For example, even if he truly sold out the country, Yi Wan-yong would keep his head down while playing the part of a tragic patriot forced to make an unavoidable decision to save his people.

Yi Geun-taek, on the other hand, was the sort of man who would openly brag that thanks to him, his family would enjoy wealth and honor for generations to come.

And so.

“Now is the time for me to make my move.”

Yi Geun-taek decided that if he wanted to leave his other four rivals behind, he needed to show them something here.

Manchuria was supposedly desperate for manpower. If he gathered up more men than anyone else and sent them north, he believed he could seize the lead in their competition for loyalty.

Mikhail had explicitly ordered them not to engage in forced conscription, but how could that young Grand Duke possibly know what methods were used to scrape together workers in some remote corner of the Korean Peninsula?

Having made up his mind, Yi Geun-taek secretly assigned quotas to local magistrates in nearby areas under his jurisdiction.

“Conscript able-bodied men from every district. Anyone who fails to meet the required numbers will suffer severe consequences.”

On paper, it was voluntary recruitment, but in practice, it was forced mobilization copied almost exactly from the old systems of corvée labour and military service obligation.

As the local magistrates struggled to fill their quotas, screams and groans erupted everywhere, and some people even fled into the mountains to avoid being dragged away.

And the men who detected these signs faster than anyone else had no intention whatsoever of overlooking a rival’s fatal mistake.

“Well, well. Yi Geun-taek daegam is certainly making a spectacular mess of things.”

Yi Wan-yong clicked his tongue and picked up his brush.

Park Je-sun nodded beside him and added a comment of his own.

“He still has not shed his military habits. He handles people as if they were common soldiers instead of managing workers. Honestly.”

Without the slightest hesitation, the two men put brush to paper and sent denunciations to Mikhail and Witte stating that they had absolutely nothing to do with the affair.

“Yi Geun-taek never had quite enough sense of balance to truly work alongside us.”

“I quite agree. Hohoho. If someone is so blinded by the desire for credit that he behaves like that, does it not put the rest of us at risk of getting shit splashed all over us too?”

Above all else, five men were simply too many to stand at the top of this country.

Public and private matters had to be kept strictly separate.

The professional world was ruthless indeed.

***

By a stroke of perfect timing, the denunciations sent by Yi Wan-yong and Park Je-sun arrived just as I was preparing to leave Manchuria.

“Yi Geun-taek, Yi Geun-taek…. Yes, I think there was definitely someone by that name among the five.”

I had made it perfectly clear that forced conscription, at least, was off-limits.

-There’s always one asshole like this. Get enough people together, and one of them is guaranteed to be trash.

Sure, all five of the Five Eulsa Traitors might have been extreme opportunists, but that did not mean every last one of them had an exceptional grasp of reality.

It would hardly be strange if one or two of them were just single-celled idiots who followed the prevailing trend faster than anyone else and sold out their country with particular enthusiasm.

As Witte read through the denunciation beside me, his brow furrowed deeper and deeper.

“Young Master, we cannot simply let this pass.”

“You think so too?”

“Do you know what I learned the hard way while building the Chinese Eastern Railway? If you drag men in by force and dump them onto a worksite, they do not get the job done. They run away, they resist, and in the end, all it does is increase your costs.”

Witte tapped the table with his finger.

“Do you think a man dragged there against his will will swing a pickaxe properly? A worker brought in by force only adds to the head count. In practical terms, he is closer to dead weight. The worst kind of dead weight, one who does nothing but consume food.”

“And once word gets out, nobody will ever come of their own accord again.”

“Precisely. Once a negative impression takes deep root, no one knows how many years it might take to reverse it.”

As expected of a man who had spent his entire life in hands-on administration, he immediately pointed out the inefficiency of forced mobilization.

Forced labour might have some value as punishment, but as far as efficiency went, it got a failing grade.

-Your whole plan is to make Korea crawl under Russia on its own. Forced mobilization would be the absolute worst thing you could do.

Which was exactly why we were lucky.

I had learned about this before leaving Manchuria.

If I had simply departed, the forced mobilization might have continued for quite some time before word finally reached me. By then, the perception that Russia was just another country pretending to be benevolent on the surface would already have spread.

“But still, Young Master.”

Witte waved the denunciation with renewed curiosity.

“This arrived not even a few days after the incident began. Does that not effectively mean those men were watching one another?”

“Well… I suppose so? It is not as though there is some great friendship between them.”

-Obviously. One fewer bastard means a bigger slice of the pie for the rest. These guys will sell out a country. What’s selling out one colleague compared to that?

I could hardly bring myself to say that part aloud, so I gave him a suitably vague answer.

“It probably just shows how badly they want to use our power to advance themselves.”

“Ambition, is it…? Haha. Yes, I suppose so.”

Of course, this was not merely a headache. It was also an excellent opportunity.

“Chairman, this has actually worked out rather well. It is a chance to firmly cement Russia’s image on the Korean Peninsula.”

“True enough. Russia itself will effectively have stepped in to stop a barbaric forced levy….”

“Exactly. If we give it just a little push from here, we can immediately establish the image of a merciful great power.”

As soon as the situation was understood, the Russian Viceroyalty of the Far East drafted an official letter, and before long, a notification issued in my name was sent out.

[As one entrusted by His august Majesty the Emperor with the office of Viceroy of the Far East and full authority over its development, I can never permit the barbaric practice of forced levy.

Not a single person brought in unlawfully will be accepted in Manchuria. I therefore call upon the Korean Empire to take humane measures.]

All forced mobilization canceled.

Minister of Justice Yi Geun-taek impeached.

The citizens of the Korean Empire were once again awestruck by the mercy of the Russian imperial house.

***

Once Yi Geun-taek was knocked out by impeachment, the organization formerly known as the Five Pillars had, before anyone knew it, reorganized itself as the Four Heavenly Kings.

Even so, the men gathered around the table drank tea at their leisure and carried on as though they were simply enjoying a pleasant conversation.

“As all of you are well aware, the intentions of the Viceroy of the Far East are clear.”

Yi Wan-yong looked around the gathering before continuing.

“He wishes to avoid disturbing Korean public sentiment and have us accept Russia of our own accord.”

“I see. Yi Geun-taek dug his own grave, then. There is hardly any reason to pity him.”

“If any of us crosses the line too egregiously, we may meet the same fate at any time. Keep that firmly in mind.”

Yi Ji-yong gave a faint chuckle and nodded.

“But that Grand Duke Mikhail truly must be the real power in Russia.”

“Had we not seen it with our own eyes, none of us would ever have believed it.”

“Let us make our plans on the assumption that Grand Duke Mikhail’s era is coming. Would it not be wisest to secure a place beneath his shadow in advance?”

The other three joined together in discussing how they might become that Russian Grand Duke’s closest retainers.

Yi Wan-yong made suitable noises of agreement, but he alone was drawing an entirely different picture in his head.

They were certainly all quick on the uptake.

They had accurately discerned that Mikhail would become the true power in Russia.

But Yi Wan-yong took the thought one step further.

From everything he had observed so far, the child called Mikhail was unquestionably the sapling of a towering tree that appeared perhaps once in several decades.

Yet no matter how brilliant he was, a child who currently acted as the mastermind behind the scenes would need time before he could step openly to the forefront of power.

At least 10 years, perhaps even longer.

But by then, would Mikhail truly keep these remnants of the old generation by his side?

Whenever a new ruler rose, was it not a universal law of history that the old power holders were weeded out?

And the vacant positions were invariably filled with younger, easier-to-handle men of the ruler’s own generation.

As Yi Wan-yong saw it, all four men gathered here were highly likely to become old relics shuffled off to the back room the moment Mikhail’s era truly began.

Which meant what he had to do was obvious.

The moment the meeting ended, Yi Wan-yong returned home and immediately summoned his second son.

“I will have a post created for you as Minister in Petersburg. Go there. Establish yourself, have children, raise them there, and see that they receive their education in the Russian manner as well.”

“What? Father, why so suddenly….”

To his bewildered second son, who had no idea what was going on, Yi Wan-yong spoke in a low voice.

“The way I see it, the coming age will belong to Russia. You and my grandson must become loyal servants of that imperial house to the very marrow of your bones.”

A man had to play the game appropriate to his generation.

That was the conclusion Yi Wan-yong had reached.

~~~

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