Beiyang Dream

June 27th, the seventeenth year of the Guangxu Emperor's reign.

Seoul, North Korea.

People were standing outside Ying'en Gate early in the morning.

The head of the Joseon Dynasty, King Gojong, stood beneath the archway of Yeongeunmun Gate, dressed in a Ming Dynasty-style python robe. Beside him stood Yuan Shikai, wearing the robes of a second-rank official of the Qing Dynasty. Behind them stood several Joseon ministers, also dressed in Ming Dynasty attire, all craning their necks to look towards Dunyimun Gate.

King Lee Hee was forty this year, and had been king for twenty-eight years. What hadn't he seen? One minute his father was staging a coup, the next the imperial army from the upper kingdom was coming to arrest him, then the Enlightenment Party colluded with the Japanese to stage another coup, and then the imperial army from the upper kingdom beat up the Enlightenment Party again... But this was the first time he had encountered something like this. This time, the minister in charge of the upper kingdom had "successfully resisted Russia," and was leading his imperial army back triumphantly from Wonsan. That was resisting Russia! The Russians were truly Western barbarians. Unlike the Japanese, who were clearly just "little yellow people," yet insisted on leaving Asia and joining Europe to pretend to be Western... Joining Europe? Hmph, wasn't that just surrendering to the flag and becoming a bondservant? The Japanese, after all their fussing, weren't they just bondservants under the British Union Jack? And they still wanted to compete with the Qing Dynasty for suzerainty! What a load of rubbish, the Japanese themselves were bondservants, what would Korea become if they surrendered? Slaves in the bondservant family?

It seems that Korea still has to rely on the Qing Dynasty!

Thinking of this, he turned his head and glanced at Yuan Shikai beside him.

Yuan Shikai's smile was impossible to hide. His lips were upturned, his eyes were narrowed to slits, and his chin was held high, as if he had just found a gold ingot.

Li Xi knew in his heart that this Lord Yuan was smug.

How could I not be pleased?

Three thousand soldiers!

After the signing of the Tianjin Convention, Li Hongzhang took back the few battalions of troops under Yuan Shikai's command. As the Minister in charge of Korean affairs, Yuan Shikai only had four hundred embassy guards at most, which looked impressive but was actually just the demeanor of a "Minister to Korea." But now things were different. With three thousand Huai Army soldiers and six battalion commanders, he suddenly had a much stronger backbone.

Lee Hee glanced at the Joseon ministers behind him; their expressions were all grim. He knew what they were thinking. Three thousand soldiers had suddenly arrived from the superior nation. Was this Joseon the Joseon of the Joseon people, or the Joseon of the Qing Dynasty? And what if… the Qing Dynasty forced the Joseon people to shave their heads and change their clothes?

But Li Xi himself wasn't too worried.

He is not worried about the Qing Dynasty now, but about Japan and Russia.

Korea has been a vassal state of the Qing Dynasty for over two hundred years. If the Qing Dynasty wanted Korea to shave its heads and change its clothes, it would have done so long ago, but it hasn't yet. This shows that the Qing Dynasty had no interest in the hair of Koreans.

Japan, on the other hand, displays the true colors of a rising power everywhere! Its constant infiltration of North Korea is an open secret! Russia is even more barbaric... a country that originally had absolutely no connection to North Korea, has now become its neighbor by seizing territory from the Qing Dynasty. With these two countries constantly eyeing it, how are the North Koreans supposed to live?!

Li Xi sometimes daydreams. If only he had some magical treasures, he could just throw them at Japan and raze Tokyo to the ground! Alas, it's just a dream!

The only thing he could rely on was the army of the superior Qing Dynasty.

As Li Xi was pondering this, the sound of horses' hooves came from afar.

"They're here!" Yuan Shikai took a step forward and pointed towards Dunyi Gate. "Your Majesty, please look, that's the Chang Huiban team!" Li Xi didn't understand Chinese very well, but he understood Yuan Shikai's words.

He quickly squinted and looked into the distance.

A yellow dragon flag had already appeared inside the low gate of Dunyimen.

Following closely behind the flag appeared twenty knights. They were all dressed in black riding jackets, wearing red-tasseled hats, with sabers at their waists, and each of them stood ramrod straight, looking particularly dashing.

Yuan Shikai introduced, "Your Majesty, those twenty men in mandarin jackets, red-tasseled hats, and carrying sabers are all Eight Banner soldiers from Beijing! The elite Eight Banner troops!" These words were immediately translated into Korean by the official in charge of translation.

Upon hearing this, Li Xi gasped.

Eight Banners soldiers!

A place name immediately popped into his mind—Namhansanseong!

That was the place where his great-great-great-grandfather was besieged by the Qing army. During the Bingzi Rebellion, the Korean king and his officials were besieged in Namhansanseong Fortress for forty-seven days, and finally had no choice but to surrender to Emperor Taizong of Qing, Huang Taiji, by performing the grand ceremony of three kneelings and nine kowtows.

That was the most humiliating memory of the Joseon Dynasty in Korea.

Now, the Eight Banners soldiers are here again!

Fortunately, this time they came to protect the Joseon Dynasty.

Li Xi took a deep breath and told himself: It's alright, it's alright. With the Eight Banners' elite troops protecting him, there's no chance of anything going wrong. Even if something unexpected happens, the Eight Banners soldiers can still escort him to the Qing Dynasty.

As he was thinking, the twenty Manchu soldiers rode past Ying'en Gate, their hooves clattering on the stone slabs. The leader was a young man, about twenty years old, with an unreasonable appearance. As he passed Ying'en Gate, he glanced sideways at King Joseon, making the king tremble in fright.

After the Eight Banners troops passed, the troops that followed were... even more terrifying!

One hundred and twenty infantrymen, each carrying a rifle with bayonets fixed, marched forward in four columns.

Li Xi's eyes widened the moment he saw it.

These soldiers were completely different from the Qing soldiers he had seen in Seoul.

He had seen the Qing army's embassy guards in Seoul a few times. The soldiers walked loosely, some wore their hats askew, some had disheveled uniforms, and their rifle-carrying postures were inconsistent—some carried them on their left shoulder, some on their right. They looked like a motley crew.

But these soldiers in front of me...

The ranks were perfectly aligned, forming a straight line both horizontally and vertically. Their rifle-carrying postures were also uniform: all on the left shoulder, butts pointing downwards, bayonets pointing upwards. The bayonets gleamed white in the sunlight, row upon row, a sight to behold.

Most of the soldiers were burly northern men. They marched in unison, their cloth shoes with thick soles hitting the ground with a "thud, thud, thud" sound, so synchronized that they looked like a single person walking.

Li Xi was stunned.

He turned to a minister who frequently dealt with Yuan Shikai and was considered a "pro-Yuan" official, and said, "These soldiers... how come they march so neatly?" The minister was also shocked and replied, "Your Majesty, these... these are probably newly trained Western-style soldiers from the Great Nation."

Li Xi thought to himself: If the three thousand soldiers stationed in Korea by the superior country were all such foreign-trained soldiers, then there would be no chance of failure. Neither the Russians nor the Japanese could pose a threat to Korea.

He started calculating in his mind again: This Mr. Chang seems to be a top-notch figure; I'll have to curry favor with him from now on. I wonder what he likes? Gold and silver treasures? Antiques and calligraphy? Or beautiful women?

He thought for a moment, then looked at Yuan Shikai, probably wanting to inquire about it as well.

At that moment, Yuan Shikai turned his head and looked at a two-story building next to Ying'en Gate.

It was a restaurant with a plaque that read "Yu Feng Lou" hanging above the door. It was a Henan restaurant, funded by Yuan Shikai and opened by one of his own chefs, not for profit, but to keep a close watch on the western gate of Seoul.

Looking at the restaurant, Yuan Shikai's lips twitched slightly.

He had just received a secret report that Mutsu Munemitsu, the Japanese Minister of Agriculture, Commerce and Industry, had arrived in Seoul early this morning and was currently with the British Minister to China, Walter, on the second floor of that restaurant.

Yu Feng Lou, second floor.

Mutsu Munemitsu stood behind the window, holding a small telescope and looking outside.

Today he wore a gray three-piece suit, a white shirt, and a perfectly tied bow tie. His hair was neatly combed, and his large beard was meticulously trimmed, with the ends slightly upturned. His face was pale, his cheekbones were high, and his single-lidded, triangular eyes always gave the impression of scrutinizing livestock when he looked at people.

He was originally arguing with Li Hongzhang in Tianjin—the two old foxes were deceiving each other, neither able to gain the upper hand. However, through the mediation of Lin Chun, the acting French Minister to China, he reached an agreement with the Russian Minister Cassini, requiring the Japanese Foreign Minister to make a trip to Vladivostok to bow and apologize to Nicholas II... at least to calm the young master down.

So after arriving in Incheon, Moben Wuyang boarded a French warship and went to Vladivostok.

The person representing Japan at the Six-Party Talks became the troublesome Mutsu Munemitsu.

Standing next to him was Wall, who was also holding a pair of binoculars.

"Do you see them?" Wall whispered. "Those infantry."

Mutsu didn't answer, but simply adjusted the focus of his binoculars, and then he saw the infantrymen carrying bayonets, their neat ranks, and their synchronized steps.

His brow furrowed slightly.

"This isn't the training method of the Huai Army," he said. "The Huai Army's formations are loose and their morale is low. But these soldiers... their formations are so neat, their steps so uniform. This is a new army trained using German methods. Although their uniforms and flags are the same as the Huai Army, their core is different." Hua Ershen raised his binoculars again to look for a while, then put them down, smiling as he said, "Right now there are only two hundred men. In a year, at most three thousand. But you Japanese have seven standing divisions, with seventy thousand active-duty soldiers alone, and two hundred thousand reservists who can be mobilized at any time. The Qing Dynasty doesn't have such a mobilization system. Three thousand men against two or three hundred thousand... they can't beat you."

Mutsu did not respond.

He put down his binoculars, turned around, leaned against the window frame, and looked at Wall.

"But," he said in a low voice, "he is still a threat."

Hua Er paused, startled. "Who?"

"Chang Desheng!" Mutsu said. "That Qing official. He excelled at the Prussian War Academy, helped the Chinese in West Borneo seize Pontianak, contributed to the steel mills in Luanzhou, and completely outmaneuvered our people in Yuanshan. He's only in his twenties, yet he's already a powerful fourth-rank official. If he were alive, what position would he be in twenty-five years from now, when he's my age?"

Hua Er remained silent for a few seconds.

Mutsu continued, "He's now a fourth-rank circuit intendant with at least 1,500 private soldiers. When Li Hongzhang was his age, he hadn't even passed the imperial examination, right? Twenty-five years later, in 1916, he'd probably be the Governor-General of Zhili and the Minister of Beiyang, wouldn't he?"

He coughed, took out a handkerchief to cover his mouth, and then casually put the handkerchief back into his pocket.

"If," he continued, "he could have lived as long as Bismarck... perhaps into his eighties... that would have been 1951, wouldn't it?"

Mutsu looked into Walter's eyes and said, slowly and deliberately, "I don't know who was leading the Empire in 1950, but I can say for sure... I don't want to see a Chang Desheng living to 1951!"

Just as Hua Er was about to speak, he suddenly noticed that the queue outside the window had changed again.

"Look!" he said, "He's here."

Mutsu quickly raised his binoculars.

He saw that behind the 120 infantrymen followed a dozen or so horses. On the horses sat personal guards dressed in gray cloth uniforms, with revolvers at their waists. These guards were scattered on both sides, forming a loose perimeter.

In the center of the cordon are three horses.

On each of the two horses sat an officer wearing a Huai Army uniform, and on the middle horse sat a young man dressed in the robes of a fourth-rank Daotai (a high-ranking official). This must be Chang Desheng.

Mutsu held up his binoculars and stared at the young face for a long time.

Then he put down his binoculars and muttered, "Youth is wonderful!"

Hua Ershen lowered his binoculars and looked at Mutsu: "What do you plan to do?"

Mutsu did not answer.

But he had already made up his mind.

Once the war against Russia is over, we must find a way to get rid of Chang Desheng.

We cannot leave such an opponent to the Empire in 1951!

At the same time, a horse-drawn carriage bearing the sign of the German Consulate General in North Korea was parked in an alley near Yeongeunmun Gate.

There were two people sitting in the carriage.

One was Nathalie von Bülow, the wife of the newly appointed German Consul General in Korea, Count Bülow. Today she wore a light green dress and a small round hat.

The other was Count Cassini, the Russian Empire's ambassador to China. He was wearing a white shirt, his coat tossed on the seat opposite him, and holding a folding fan, fanning himself as he looked out the window.

Natalie pointed with a folded fan at Chang Desheng, who was passing through the intersection ahead, and said in Russian, "Count, that is our friend, Mr. Chang Desheng."

Kassini glanced at him and scoffed, "He's not a friend of our Russia."

Natalie smiled and turned to look at Cassini: "No, he is."

Cassini raised an eyebrow: "Oh?"

"He only has one enemy right now," Natalie said, holding up one finger, "and that's Japan."

Kassini looked at Natalie: "You mean...?"

"In Kapsan County, South Hamgyong Province, North Korea, there is a large copper mine," Natalie said. "It was discovered sixty years ago and has been mined by North Koreans using rudimentary methods ever since. Do you know what that means?"

Kassini narrowed his eyes: "Sixty years of rudimentary mining methods... This suggests that the copper mine's reserves may be enormous. Sixty years of mining could be done even with just the shallow veins."

"That's right," Natalie smiled, "How about our two countries jointly develop the copper mine at Mount Kapok?"

Cassini didn't answer immediately. He hesitated for a moment, then looked at Natalie: "What about Yuanshan Port?"

"The International Settlement," Natalie said. "The Russian Pacific Fleet can spend the winter in Wonsan, but it cannot station troops on shore. Once the port of Vladivostok thaws, it must leave."

Kassini was silent for a moment, then looked into Natalie's eyes and suddenly asked, "You and him...?"

Natalie smiled: "We're friends, very good friends."

Kassini looked at Natalie's smiling face and didn't ask any further questions.

I only started to plan it in my mind.

Jiashan Copper Mine.

Wonsan Port.

The International Settlement.

Just how big a game is this young man from the Qing Dynasty playing?