WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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Chapter 147: The World After the Flood (1)
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The Great Flood of the Gapsul Year left wounds on the Three Southern Provinces that would not easily fade.
The Geum River overflowed. The entire coast of South Chungcheong was swallowed by water.
In Jeolla Province, the breadbasket of the Korean Peninsula, waves rolled across every open field in place of rice.
The levees holding back the Nakdong River all collapsed. Geomseri Levee was the first to burst.
Andong was swept away. The Andong Station building was battered by the flooded river and twisted along with the railway tracks.
Yeonghoru Pavilion washed away, leaving only its foundation stones behind. Of the hundred laborers rushed in during a brief lull in the rain, eighty-four were swept away in the muddy current and went missing.
Printing presses across the land went dark one by one. In the end, only the newspapers in Gyeongseong continued printing extra editions.
As the typhoon that would later be recorded as Typhoon No. 3486[1] made landfall on the peninsula, the flood reached its peak.
Those isolated between the waters could not know whether the same disaster was unfolding beyond their own village. Those beyond the waters could not know how many people had survived within them.
But.
The farther north one went on the peninsula, the more conditions changed.
North of Hamgyeong Province, the rain had not fallen as heavily as it had in the Three Southern Provinces because the typhoon had lost its force.
But Gangwon was different.
Chuncheon.
Gangwon Provincial Office.
Rain still fell outside. But sunlight had already reached Gangwon Province Governor Lee Beom-ik's face.
“Yes, understood. Yes. Yes.
Ah! The weather station says the typhoon is dissipating... Yes, thank you very much for informing me. Ah, of course.”
Legendary Pathfinder Lee Beom-ik, guide to promotion, held the telephone with exquisite politeness, as if the hand gripping it were directly connected to the road of advancement.
In truth, it was.
“No, not at all. What have I done? This is all thanks to Your Excellency's guidance. Yes, yes. Ye-es, yes.
Governor-General, sir.”
With nimble waist movements unexpected of someone barely past fifty, Lee Beom-ik bowed and scraped to Ugaki Kazushige, Governor-General of Korea, on the other end of the line.
“Oh, a commendation... Hehe, I fear quite a few friends will be jealous if I receive another one. No, no, I can't possibly refuse it. It is being bestowed by Your Excellency, after all.”
The corners of the Korean administrative officer's mouth slowly lifted as the officer stood opposite Lee Beom-ik.
Of course, it was not because of Lee Beom-ik's bowing. If Lee Beom-ik prospered, the administrative officer would prosper as well.
And Lee Beom-ik's next words made the administrative officer's eyes widen.
“Yes, yes. Of course. Others besides myself who should receive commendations as well? Oh, certainly. I shall select several and recommend them. Yes, yes. Ye-es, yes!”
The reward the Government-General bestowed upon Gangwon could hardly stop with the provincial governor alone!
Several people in public office would receive it, and several civilians as well. Naturally, Governor Lee Beom-ik's intentions would carry decisive weight in determining who made that list.
In fact, this authority to recommend people could be called Lee Beom-ik's greatest reward. It would help him build his power base.
What? Forming a private faction was unthinkable for a public official?
Hm... It was 1934.
And by the same logic, rewards in 1934 were not handed out merely because someone had rendered meritorious service.
“Ah, supplies. Yes... Our province has some to spare. In that case, of course.”
When Lee Beom-ik tapped the desk, the Korean administrative officer swiftly slid over a report on the stockpiled supplies.
“Yes, that much won't be difficult. Of course! We'll send them as soon as transport routes reopen. In accordance with Your Excellency's wishes...”
Lee Beom-ik's smile deepened.
“Then I leave it in your hands, Your Excellency. Once the situation is stabilized, I shall come to Gyeongseong to pay my respects.”
A moment later, the telephone was set down.
“As expected of the governor, sir!”
The Korean administrative officer applauded fervently like a seal.
Lee Beom-ik took off his gold-rimmed glasses and cleaned the lenses as he chuckled.
“Timing was simply on my side.”
Naturally, he was only saying that.
Luck was a skill in itself. That was why the phrase “fortune in office” existed. It had existed in the Joseon era, under the Korean Empire, and it existed now as well.
Still.
“Wasn't it you, Governor, who decided we should prepare in the first place?”
“Oh, it was only a bit of insurance.”
It had certainly been Lee Beom-ik's decision, and now that it had proven correct, it was certainly an achievement.
If he sent that achievement south, he could preserve the Governor-General's dignity. The Governor-General would then preserve his dignity in return. Thus was completed the infinite ouroboros of dignity, with two middle-aged men circling endlessly around each other.
“This may bring forward the day I go to Gyeongseong.”
He did have some attachment to Gangwon. Becoming the magistrate of Chuncheon had been the first step on Lee Beom-ik's road to success.
But who would dislike Gyeongseong?
Even those Gyeongseong Troika Reds[3] desperately attached the name Gyeongseong to the front of their organization's name. Lee Beom-ik, who considered himself a model technocrat, naturally did not object to receiving a Privy Council appointment[2] sooner rather than later...
Of course, to do that, he would need to handle the cleanup perfectly.
Not because Governor Lee Beom-ik the Great Great Great possessed incomparable responsibility and an extraordinary love for Gangwon... Though he did have a little of the latter. It was so rivals jealous of him could not find anything to hold against him.
“How is the situation?”
The administrative officer opened another document.
“There has been some damage. The Hongcheon River overflowed. So did the Soyang River... But everyone worked hard to survive.”
Gangwon residents had prepared refuges throughout the province and moved their daily provisions and belongings to high places in advance.
“Not just here in Chuncheon. Inje, Hongcheon, Yangyang. Even those traitor bastards in Cheorwon prepared ahead of time and kept the number of displaced people from becoming too large.”
“Hehe, those people really are something.”
Governor Lee Beom-ik merely laughed, but the Korean administrative officer in Chuncheon laughed a little differently.
“When we prepared, they said the Chuncheon bastards were making a fuss. It seems they hurried to prepare behind the scenes. If something happened and they got washed away while we were fine... Hm. I suppose they couldn't bear to see that.”
Lee Beom-ik laughed again.
The people below really should be made to compete diligently. Not in a way that had them tearing one another apart and wasting themselves, but in a constructive direction like this.
“Yes, yes. Include them in the report as well. It will look proper if it gives the impression that the whole province prepared together. Makes us look mature too.”
“Yes, Governor.”
“Mm. And about these commendations.”
The Korean administrative officer stretched their neck forward like a giraffe. Lee Beom-ik snorted and nodded.
“I'll naturally take care of you... And send word to that young man who urged us to take out this insurance.”
“Send word?”
“Yes. Tell him to prepare to go to Gyeongseong to receive a new certificate of commendation once the situation is settled.”
The administrative officer bowed their head.
“Understood.”
The officer did not ask who that young man was. They merely left the office and told their subordinate,
“The governor wishes to see the sajang of Han's Myriad Commerce. Send word to Inje.”
Their subordinate blinked.
“Uh... What was that person's name again?”
The Korean administrative officer looked at the subordinate for a moment.
To think someone who did not even know that name worked beneath them. Clearly, the reason they had failed to rise until now was their subordinates.
“Han San.”
When sending someone, it was fastest to send a soldier.
Naturally, the Empire of Japan was by no means a militaristic country, but a sound and peaceful advanced nation. And on Korean soil, supposedly in the era of cultural rule, there absolutely should not have been any collusion between the government and the military.
Yet for some reason, such things happened from time to time.
It happened again this time. It was truly baffling.
“Chief. They say to send word to Inje.”
The Chuncheon military police commander spoke with their hands behind their back.
“Yes! I'll immediately grab someone who's free and send him.”
The reply came from someone who was, roughly speaking, the operations chief.
“Right, right. There are no problems anywhere, are there?”
“It is all thanks to the battalion commander's foresight in having us reinforce our positions so thoroughly.”
The operations chief rubbed his hands together as naturally as breathing, and the commander snorted.
“Enough, you brat. More importantly, this came from Gyeongseong.”
A document slid across the desk.
The operations chief stiffened as soon as he saw the sender.
Baron Kannoizuna Toono.
A telegram from the Silver Fox of Military Police Headquarters had only now arrived, as the weather began to clear.
Its contents were...
“Kim Gun-ok, chief Thunderbolt Master of the last Baekbaekgyo[4] remnants, fled to Gangwon with their followers amid the flood!?”
The operations chief snapped his head up.
“What? I'll pursue and arrest them at once!”
“Why? Not going to divide and rule this time?”
“No, um... Commander...”
The operations chief's face darkened at once. The memory of those people, whom he had tried to make tear one another apart, ultimately turning on him was still fresh.
The Chuncheon military police commander snorted once more, but did not tease him further.
Of course, they merely were not teasing him now. They were ready to take another passing shot at him whenever the opportunity arose.
A militaristic army was also the grand arena of the world's greatest grudge-holders.
What? Who had approved that operation?
Hm... The Chuncheon military police commander could not remember very well. Their final answer was that it must have been the operations chief's unilateral decision.
In any case.
“Forget it. With the roads like this, do you think we can track them now? Just send word to Inje.”
“Yes, sir!”
The operations chief gathered the documents at once and headed outside.
Before long, he arrived where soldiers and assistants were clearing the mud.
Corporal Ishihara was directing the work.
“Don't dig there first! Clear this side first!”
“Yes, Corporal!”
When a soldier jabbed at the blockage with a shovel handle, yellowish water flowed out with a gurgle.
The operations chief clapped.
“Good work! Our Corporal Ishihara is back, isn't he? Right?”
“Ah, Chief!”
Ishihara planted the shovel upright and raised his head. His eyes sparkled.
“How is your cultivation of the mind going?”
“Ahaha... I showed you an embarrassing side of myself.”
Corporal Ishihara lowered his head, looking sheepish.
“By the way, I have traveled to many places. I went to temples. I visited churches of every denomination. I sat alone and thought a great deal...
Then I realized something.”
“What?”
“That God is ultimately in people's hearts.”
Corporal Ishihara truly seemed to have grown a whole notch more profound as he answered.
The operations chief blinked for a moment.
“That is a rather good thing to say... Right. God is among people and all that. Especially in a disaster like this. So we should respect people. Something like that...”
“For instance, I have decided to serve this god.”
Corporal Ishihara wiped his hands on his military trousers. After thoroughly wiping away every trace of mud and water, he took out a small paper envelope.
It was a photograph.
Inside, a girl with neatly styled hair smiled.
“?”
The operations chief narrowed his eyes as though he were looking at something strange.
Gazing tenderly at the girl in the photograph, Corporal Ishihara said,
“This is Lee Nan-young of Okeh Records[5]. She debuted last year.”
The operations chief looked back and forth between the photograph and his subordinate. His expression of strange disbelief remained, if anything becoming even deeper.
“A singer?”
“Yes.”
“A Korean?”
Corporal Ishihara's sparkling eyes clouded over in an instant.
“Chief... Surely, as a soldier of His Majesty the Emperor, you are not loading a round of racism right now?”
“No, what... Hey, no... That is not what I mean. A mere entertainer like this...”
“Chief... Surely, as a soldier of an advanced empire, you are not loading a round of occupational discrimination right now?”
“No, no! Hey, that is not...”
“Yes! Naturally, I knew you were not that sort of person, Chief!”
With sparkling eyes once again, Corporal Ishihara looked at the photograph.
“Her hit song is called [Phoenix]. Don't you think it is exactly the song this peninsula needs right now? Rising again after disaster, like a phoenix.”
The operations chief decided, well, not to think about it any further.
He shoved the documents at him.
“Fine. Go to Inje. Like a phoenix.”
“Ah, yes. Who should I deliver this to?”
“Who else? It's a message for that young man Han San, so go find his buddy. Right?”
The operations chief finished with a weary sigh.
“Give it to Sawada.”
At the refuge set up by Han's Myriad Commerce, wet clothes hung beneath the eaves.
Meat porridge that had been boiling without pause gave off steam as it was distributed to people with nowhere else to turn.
Sawada Kazuo, commander of the Inje military police detachment, walked around the refuge with his hands behind his back and nodded.
“It is running rather well.”
“Is that not all thanks to the commander's benevolence as a man destined to rule the realm?”
Chuk Jae-seok said it without the slightest shame. Sawada thought those words, slippery as a greased eel, reminded him of a certain Korean bastard, but did not take issue with it.
He merely lifted his chin slightly.
“I only did what needed to be done.”
“Ahaha.”
“So where is that sajang bastard of yours? Still no word?”
Chuk Jae-seok sighed.
“Yes. The rain has stopped for now, but...”
The roads had not yet dried, and no fresh news had come from Sebeom Valley.
“Hmph. He should have come when told to. What a foolish bastard.”
Sawada looked out the window with his narrowed one eye. The sky covered in hazy clouds reminded him of something else.
“Come to think of it. I heard that bastard said something about how the flood would end.”
“Ah.”
Chuk Jae-seok nodded at once and straightened his posture.
“He said something would appear in the sky. That we would know immediately from what we saw and the sound that came.”
Sawada snorted.
“Hmph. There will be a rainbow and birds will sing. Just like a Korean, saying something so obvious it need not be said...”
That was when it happened.
Sunlight shone through the clouds.
The timing was so absurdly perfect that Sawada shivered, wondering whether his one eye had finally awakened the divine power of a man destined to rule the realm and split the clouds to reveal a clear sky.
Fortunately for everyone, especially Sawada, who avoided adding another embarrassing memory to his record, that shiver did not last long.
Because a sound came before the rainbow.
Tatatata...
Tatatatata...
“What is that?”
“Uh.”
Sawada walked to the window. Chuk Jae-seok did as well.
Between the yellow-brown earth and the clearing sky, a small shadow flew through the air.
Footnotes:
[1] Typhoon No. 3486 was the numerical designation later recorded for the storm that struck the Korean Peninsula during the 1934 flood.
[2] The Chōsen Privy Council was an advisory body to the Japanese Governor-General of Korea, whose appointed Korean members held prestige but little independent power.
[3] The Gyeongseong Troika was a clandestine communist group in colonial Seoul; “troika” was a Soviet-derived term for a three-person leadership group.
[4] Baekbaekgyo was a Korean syncretic religious movement whose leaders became notorious for the killings uncovered after the sect's collapse in the 1930s.
[5] Okeh Records was a major Korean record label founded in 1933; Lee Nan-young was one of its early popular singers.
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