NIS Agents Tearing Up the Japanese Empire - Chapter 28



Only Krnovel

– 6

Surprisingly, the Manchurian independence army was more polite and gentlemanly than the previous provisional government or Uiyoldan.

They must have all had a hard time, and their appearances were so fierce that they looked like they could catch a tiger with their bare hands, but when you actually talked to them, you found out that they were very gentle people.

“I showed you a bad attitude at the last meeting for a little bit of money. I would like to apologize for that.”

“No, well… that could be possible.”

Kim Dong-sam and the people of the Great Korean Council began by apologizing to me, telling me about the difficulties of the independence army and asking for as much support as possible.

“Ever since the last time the Japanese stirred up trouble in Gando, people have been reluctant to support us, and the communist bastards in the Maritime Province have been nagging us and are now taking over, so our situation is not good.”

“I heard that too. According to a statement released by the Soviet Union, the indiscriminate looting and murder by the Korean guerrillas caused trouble?”

At my words, Kim Dong-sam became enraged and raised his voice.

“Do you believe those red bastards?! It’s not like there aren’t any of them among us, but at least none of the guys under me are doing such nonsense!”

“I’m sorry. I made a mistake.”

“Hmm···. No···. Maybe what you said isn’t entirely wrong···. Huh···.”

Kim Dong-sam let out a deep sigh that made the ground collapse.

The Daehan Tong-ui-bu he formed was an organization created to revitalize the atmosphere that had been stagnant due to the Gando Massacre and the Jayu City Incident, rebuild the foundation, and unite the various independence armies that had been scattered throughout Manchuria to carry out a more efficient independence movement.

However, from the beginning, the independence army in Manchuria always struggled with supplies, and the Great Korean Provisional Government was no different.

It was good to gather them all together and establish an efficient command system.

No one would oppose taking back the country with a clear goal, rather than blindly hating Japan without any purpose or direction.

However, as always, money was the issue.

“As the organization grows, there are a lot of things to spend money on, but the hole where the money came in remains the same, so it’s killing me.”

“To what extent is that so?”

“It’s hard to get ammunition because we don’t have money, and even then, the means to get it are dwindling because the Japanese are stirring things up here and there. So it’s hard to train the soldiers to shoot, and there’s not enough food, so we’re only given two meals a day, and that’s slowly running out.”

The situation in Manchuria seemed even more serious than here.

Well, Shanghai was a place that was less affected by Japanese power, so if you somehow managed to get yourself back on track, it wouldn’t be that difficult.

However, unlike Shanghai, Manchuria borders Joseon, so Japanese interference would be more severe.

“The weapons we have are old and worn out, so we need to replace them with the latest ones right away… But we don’t have the money right now, so it’s difficult to just maintain the weapons we have.”

“Oh, like that.”

It was a situation that made me sigh just hearing it, but the problem is that this is not the end.

“But what is it that those bastards who clean up after the Lee royal family don’t like so much that they shoot each other and even leave our organization to start their own lives?”

“Who is that?”

“Who are they? Jeon Deok-won and the group of conservatives following him around!”

“A water polo shirt···?

As I listened to his words, it seemed that the conflict between republicans and restorationists was deepening in Manchuria as well.

Even though Joseon fell and the Yi royal family, who had been incorporated into the Japanese royal family, was living in luxury, eating food provided by the Japanese, who would have thought that there would still be people who wanted to put them back on the throne?

It was a spiritual world that was difficult for modern people to understand.

“Someone is running around saying they’re going to take back the country, but those guys are just playing around with the testicles of the losers. How frustrating!”

No, I will correct that.

It seemed that the problem of restorationism was incomprehensible even by the standards of this era.

No matter how strong the power of ideology is, there were few people who followed the ideology even when there was nothing to eat and their families and relatives were starving.

Those people were mostly passionate thinkers or people who benefited from the system.

‘In a situation where Japanese surveillance was getting more intense, what would be the benefit of leaving the Tonguibu, which was running smoothly despite its creaks, and creating a separate independence movement group?’

Among those who fought for independence, there was no one who was stubborn or docile.

Even if such people exist, if you do this vicious work, your mind will be worn down and torn by the things that surround you, and you will end up like a sharp dagger.

That is, people who have been doing this for a long time naturally tend to throw away thoughts about restorationism and royalty.

They may have really done that to advocate restorationism and to revive Joseon, but… I thought a little differently.

‘Is there someone lending money behind the scenes?’

I’ll have to do more research on the ground to know for sure, but based on what I’ve heard so far, that’s what I think.

‘Is the money coming from the royal family in Japan? They must be very closely monitored there. Did Emperor Gojong secretly smuggle some of the royal treasury here before he died?’

After the merger, the person in the royal family who had the strongest will for independence was King Gojong.

In fact, it was King Gojong who supported the volunteer army by providing funds and even sending secret royal edicts.

So, the possibility now isn’t completely out of the question.

but.

‘There’s no evidence whatsoever, so all we can do is sit here and speculate.’

But since there was no evidence for this, it ended up just as my guess.

“There’s nothing to eat right now, but if we were to fight the Japanese, we would be short on ammunition and weapons, and there would be internal chaos as well···.”

Kim Dong-sam’s grumbling continued.

He must have had a lot of pent-up anger in his chest, so he let it all out.

‘I guess you’re asking for some money.’

Since there was a need to extend a line to the Manchurian independence army anyway, I was thinking of providing some financial support to Kim Dong-sam and the Great Korean Provisional Government.

However, after hearing about the situation in Manchuria from him, it seemed that the plan I had vaguely thought about needed to be revised.

‘Within ten years, the Japanese army will invade Manchuria… It has to be this chaotic…’

It is impossible to stop the Japanese army with the independence army alone.

It would probably be difficult to bring in the Fengtian clique that had settled in Manchuria.

What I wanted was to use the Uiyoldan to create confusion within Japan and Korea before the Japanese army advanced into Manchuria, thereby weakening Japan’s capabilities, and to actively use the provisional government’s diplomatic line to prove our legitimacy and have our rightful right to engage recognized.

During that time, they trained the independence army and raised it into the Korean Liberation Army, which was then sent into the country.

That’s my plan.

Originally, it was a plan with an extremely low probability of success, but Japan, which has been hit by the Great Kanto Earthquake, the gold ban, and the Great Depression, will soon be faced with a situation where it cannot even take care of itself.

There is some hope for the Japanese Empire, which is reeling from its first great economic crisis, if it is dragged by the hair into a war that has no benefit whatsoever.

The most important thing in this plan is how much the independence army in Manchuria and the Maritime Province can grow.

‘I should stop by Manchuria sometime later.’

When I gave Kim Dong-sam and his comrades some money for their activities, they even shed tears and promised to pay it back, but since they weren’t giving it to me with the intention of getting it back anyway, I just let it slide.

After sending away Kim Dong-sam and his comrades who were talking specifically about how to destroy Japan, a new group of people came to our house.

“Is this this teacher’s house?”

“······Dosan?”

The one who came to our house was Dosan Ahn Chang-ho.

My conversation with him was nothing special.

After sharing a few personal stories, the rest was simply an invitation to lend a helping hand in reforming the currently chaotic provisional government.

But since they came all this way, I couldn’t send them away empty-handed, so I gave them a little bit of activity fee and politely sent them off, then turned around.

“Is this the house of this teacher who came from Gyeongseong?”

“her.”

Those who came this time revealed themselves to be the Koryo Communist Party and harassed us for a long time, talking about how we should destroy the corrupt provisional government and establish a new national representative council.

They were only able to send them out after giving them a small amount of money for their activities, along with the words that they were tired.

But that wasn’t the end.

Since then, many independence activists have come and gone from my house as if it were a neighborhood chatroom and expressed their own opinions.

“The current provisional government is corrupt and···.”

“That bastard Syngman Rhee is a shameless man who sells out a country that doesn’t even exist. The provisional government with such a man as its leader is also···.”

“Syngman Rhee was the central figure who brought the provisional government together during a time of confusion, and he discussed the issue of Korean independence at the Paris Peace Conference and the Washington Conference…”

“We must destroy the provisional government! We need a new government fit for the new era!”

“Haha… So, have you thought about the delivery thing from last time? It would be great if you could lend a hand….”

“Hey, Mr. Lee~ I came to get some food again today.”

As the leaders of the independence movement frequently visited my house, spies also flocked there like flies to food.

They were so polarized that the police in the concession area, whose faces you rarely see, would come to your house and give you a rather brutal warning.

“Whatever you do here is none of my business, but if people start dying or a bomb goes off, I know it won’t be fun.”

“······.”

Since I was the center of attention from so many people, it was only natural that my information would have reached the Governor-General’s Office in Gyeongseong through spies.

Gyeongseong is in chaos, the culprit is nowhere to be seen, and a new figure has appeared in Shanghai.

I wonder what the Japanese Government-General of Korea thinks.

“This is driving me crazy.”

If possible, I hoped that the Governor-General or the Black Dragon Society would find out that I was in Shanghai late.

After settling down in Shanghai and laying the foundation, I was thinking of starting a money copying event while seriously printing out supernotes···.

‘There are so many eyes looking at it like this.’

However, if we kill all the spies as soon as they appear, we are worried about the Japanese response.

The more active I am, the faster my identity will be exposed, and my enemies will adapt to my methods and become more sophisticated.

So now I needed to adjust the pace so they wouldn’t get used to me.

“I really need to start a company.”

In the end, this is the only way left.

******

Shanghai was a city with many foreign concessions, and it seemed like a world’s fair was taking place in the streets every day.

The streets were filled with cars and Westerners, a rare sight in Gyeongseong, and among them, there were a few black people, a rare sight in the East.

“Let’s see… I got the business license, so this time I just need to find some simple machine tools and employees….”

I went around the government office building here and there and diligently oiled the place, and the business permit was issued in one day.

So now we needed machine tools and workers to make up the difference.

‘If you just go around selling machine tools and bring them in from abroad through Westerners who are stuck in the concession area, that’ll be it.’

The problem was the staff.

Since what I do is work, I can’t just hire anyone.

If I hired someone, it was clear that Japanese spies or people sent by the Black Dragon Society would contact the employee and extract information.

So, instead of people who were just thinking nonsense, we needed people who would keep their mouths shut if we gave them a little money.

Since I couldn’t run the factory by myself, I needed employees. But when it came to hiring people to work at the factory, there were a lot of things to consider.

Chinese people will work hard if you give them money, but they are not very trustworthy people.

However, I was a little reluctant to use Japanese or Korean people because they might be spies.

So what was left were the Westerners, most of whom were either there to do business, planning to do business, or were fleeing Shanghai after their businesses failed.

If not, they were all people who belonged somewhere, were either doing something important or stopping by Shanghai for a short break.

‘Should I ask the provisional government a question?’

Last time I looked, there were a lot of people who were healthy and ready to work, but it seemed like there were quite a few people who were just wasting time.

Although it was only a short time, I had invested a lot of money there, and during that time I had steadily built up a goodwill by meeting many people, so if I asked them to send me some people, they wouldn’t have much to say.

I asked someone with that thought in mind…

“This teacher!!!”

“I came from the provisional government!!!”

“Please open the door!!!”

A large number of unemployed young people flocked to the provisional government.

And among them were those I had been keeping an eye on.

It was all just as I thought.