Chapter 39: <A Great Beginning 2 >
“…”
Kim Ki-woo was speechless for a moment.
‘What is this…’
He had finished the imperial meeting and returned to his office for the first time in a long time.
But as soon as he opened the door of his office, he saw a different scene than before he left for the expedition.
“Ha ha. Am I seeing things because I’m tired?”
Kim Ki-woo rubbed his eyes again and looked inside his office.
But nothing changed by denying reality.
“Secretary.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Don’t tell me those are all the documents I have to review?”
“…I’m sorry, but they are. You have been away for so long…”
Kim Ki-woo almost swore, but he held it back.
The empire was vast, and there were many issues to deal with.
Especially, Kim Ki-woo preferred to know as much as possible about how the empire was running.
The result was the mountain of documents in front of him.
Of course, he expected some documents to pile up…
‘But this is too much, isn’t it?’
It was too much, even if it was a lot.
‘Can I handle all of that?’
He couldn’t just ignore them.
He thought he would have to work on the documents as if he were dead for a while.
Kim Ki-woo sat down on his chair. Then the secretary gently placed some of the documents on Kim Ki-woo’s desk.
“I’ll leave them here.”
“Ha ha. You’re so kind that it makes me cry.”
“…I apologize.”
The secretary seemed to have some sense and lowered his eyes.
But soon Kim Ki-woo shook his head.
What’s the point of blaming the secretary?
Kim Ki-woo turned his attention away from the secretary and opened the first document.
‘By the way, the letters are changing strangely.’
As soon as he opened the first document, Kim Ki-woo noticed not the content of the document, but the letters themselves.
The empire’s letters were based on Hangul.
Of course, there were some letters added and dropped to match the pronunciation of the imperial standard language.
But from some point on, the shape of Hangul changed uniquely. This became more noticeable as time passed.
The reason for this was none other than metal type.
‘The effect of writing together.’
Kim Ki-woo arranged three characters vertically in order of initial consonant, medial vowel, and final consonant.
As a result, vowels had to be placed between consonants.
‘And newspapers played a big role here.’
Newspapers had a great influence on the dissemination of letters.
And newspapers were also printed with metal type.
Naturally, the imperial citizens became accustomed to vowels being sandwiched between consonants.
This led to a change in handwriting.
They also placed vowels between consonants when writing by hand.
They even improved it to make it easier to write and read.
This changed the system of letters so that they could write from initial consonant to final consonant in one go.
‘Eventually, the Hangul characters I first announced will disappear as ancient characters.’
Just as modern Koreans felt alienated when they saw Hangul from the Joseon era, Kim Ki-woo thought that future imperial citizens would feel the same way.
If not worse, at least not less.
Kim Ki-woo put aside his thoughts and began to skim through the documents quickly.
Some of them were boring, and some caught Kim Ki-woo’s interest.
‘Oh.’
One of them drew Kim Ki-woo’s attention.
‘They completed gunpowder?’
The document said that gunpowder production was successful.
The types of raw materials, manufacturing methods, mixing ratios of raw materials, and phenomena that occur when exploding were all neatly summarized in it.
‘Gunpowder!’
This was a great invention that changed the paradigm of weapons and even the shape of war.
‘I have to see it with my own eyes.’
He heard that there was a finished product of gunpowder at Imperial University. How could he stay still?
Kim Ki-woo decided.
He would go see gunpowder right away.
*
“Dean!”
Bang!
The door of the chemistry department’s dean’s office opened without warning.
“Pfft! Ouch ouch ouch!”
As the door opened suddenly, Woon Geurin Dalbit, who was drinking tea with steam rising from it, burned his tongue.
“Hey, why do you open the door so hard?”
“I’m s-sorry.”
“Ow! Ouch, my tongue.”
Woon Geurin Dalbit stuck out his tongue and fanned it hard with his hand.
After calming down a bit, Woon Geurin Dalbit asked grumpily.
“What’s all the fuss about?”
“Ah!”
Only then did Taeyang’s Shadow come to his senses and shouted quickly.
“His Majesty is coming!”
“What?”
Woon Geurin Dalbit wondered if this guy had eaten something wrong.
It was understandable, because His Majesty the Emperor had just returned to the front line today.
He must have been too busy to spare a moment.
But why did he visit Imperial University, and the chemistry department at that?
“What nonsense are you talking about?”
“Ah, it’s true! Why would I lie to you about this?”
“…Really?”
“Yes! The secretary just came and told me to prepare for His Majesty’s visit!”
Bang!
Woon Geurin Dalbit got up from his seat reflexively.
“Why on earth? What’s the reason for His Majesty’s sudden visit?”
Usually, he would give a notice to Imperial University a few days before he visited.
But he came without any notice.
“How do you know? You know, the gunpowder we recently completed. He came to check it out.”
“Ah…”
Then Woon Geurin Dalbit exclaimed.
It made sense if it was gunpowder.
Whatever the reason, the fact that His Majesty visited did not change. Woon Geurin Dalbit shouted.
“What are you doing at the door? Hurry up and tell the whole chemistry department about this!”
“Yes!”
That’s how the chemistry department prepared to welcome Kim Ki-woo.
And finally.
Kim Ki-woo arrived at the chemistry department.
“Oh, you’re here.”
“Yes. I heard you completed gunpowder. Is that true?”
“That’s right.”
“Ha ha. You’ve done a great job. Where can I see it?”
“We’ve prepared it. Please follow me.”
Kim Ki-woo followed Woon Geurin Dalbit to an open space.
There, everything was already prepared.
“Is this it?”
A small bowl contained a small amount of gunpowder powder.
This was enough to not be dangerous even if it exploded.
And there was no fire to explode it.
Kim Ki-woo picked up the gunpowder powder and rubbed it with his fingers.
“So if I light this, it explodes?”
“That’s right.”
“Good. Why don’t you show me?”
“There’s no reason not to. But it can be dangerous, so don’t get close to the gunpowder.”
He had no intention of doing that.
Kim Ki-woo moved away from the prepared pile of gunpowder.
“Start.”
“Yes.”
As soon as Kim Ki-woo finished speaking, he lit an arrow. And he loaded it into a crossbow.
Whoosh!
The arrow tore through the air and landed precisely where the gunpowder was piled up.
Boom!
“Huh!”
“Aah!”
A sudden loud noise.
At that sound, the secretary and the guards who heard it for the first time screamed.
“A-are you okay?”
“Ha ha ha! Don’t worry about me. Why are you so surprised?”
Kim Ki-woo calmed them down and approached the place where the gunpowder exploded.
The black smoke of gunpowder obscured his vision, but as time passed, the smoke dispersed.
And he could see it.
The sight of the ground dug out by the explosion of gunpowder.
‘Good.’
Kim Ki-woo nodded his head.
It was gunpowder as he had imagined.
They could finally produce this gunpowder in the empire.
‘In fact, producing gunpowder was only a matter of time.’
Charcoal and sulfur were things that could be easily obtained in the imperial mainland.
The only thing missing was one thing.
That was saltpeter.
But coincidentally, they could get plenty of guano in the Andes region, which could act as saltpeter.
Not only that, he would be able to import saltpeter itself over time.
In other words, compared to other medieval countries, the Wakan Tanka Empire was in a very advantageous position to mass-produce gunpowder.
The source of the world’s saltpeter and guano was right nearby.
If they had the materials, making gunpowder was easier than they thought.
‘Now I can develop gunpowder weapons too.’
Of course, it would be hard to make cannons or fire guns in this war.
There were still many mountains to cross for that.
‘But I can still use gunpowder itself in this war.’
The enemies didn’t know about gunpowder.
Gunpowder exploded with a loud noise and smoke.
That meant that he couldn’t kill many enemies with gunpowder, but it was enough to confuse them.
Didn’t the secretary and the guards scream in surprise without having to look far?
If this happened in a large-scale melee…
‘It will be fun.’
That’s how the Wakan Tanka Empire got one of its secret weapons.
***
Time passed relentlessly.
Before long, the empire had almost finished preparing for war.
Now they had enough ability to carry out operations even if the war started right away.
From then on, the empire began to move.
“Thank you for taking the time to see me.”
“Not at all. I heard rumors of a powerful empire entering the big land in the north, but your ships are really huge.”
“Ha ha. We have bigger ships than that in the empire.”
“…Is that true?”
The man opened his mouth slightly as if he couldn’t believe it.
“Why would I lie to you?”
At that sight, Namu’s Warrior smiled faintly.
He was a member of the empire’s foreign ministry. And he was also a person who learned the language of Meso America from the Golden Parrot.
“I understand that you can cross that huge sea with your excellent ships. But why did you come here?”
The area where Namu’s Warrior was standing was not the territory of the empire.
It was none other than Meso America, the home of a tribe adjacent to the Gulf of Mexico.
Namu’s Warrior cut off all his words and went straight to the point.
“We are going to destroy the Aztec Empire soon.”
“…What?”
“We said we are going to destroy the Aztec Empire.”
“Huh!”
The man laughed incredulously at his sudden words.
It was too absurd.
“What nonsense are you talking about? You’re going to destroy the Aztec Empire?”
“Yes. I heard you are also fighting against the Aztec Empire.”
“That’s true, but…”
The current Aztec Empire had not yet grown into a complete loser in the region.
They needed more time for their heyday to come.
That is, the tribes around the Gulf of Mexico had not yet succumbed to the Aztecs. They were fiercely resisting against them.
‘But things are not good.’
They had eyes and ears.
They knew very well what happened to the countless tribes conquered by the Aztecs.
But as time passed, their chances of winning became darker.
The Aztec warriors were veterans of war.
Their jaguar warriors and eagle warriors were nothing but terror itself.
Namu’s Warrior fanned their fear of Aztecs.
“Do you think you can defeat the demons of Aztecs if time goes by like this?”
“…”
Both sides knew that their chances were slim.
Namu’s Warrior continued his words.
“The Aztec Empire is certainly powerful. But we are more confident that we are more powerful than them. We will help your tribes. Let’s fight against that cruel Aztec Empire together.”
But the man’s expression did not improve much.
Outsiders who crossed the sea with big ships without notice.
How could he trust them when they had no contact before?
” I understand what you are saying. But I don’t understand at all. What do you gain by destroying the Aztec Empire? Aren’t you just trying to invade this land too?”
The man’s concern was reasonable.
He might end up inviting a pack of hyenas while chasing a wolf.
But he didn’t leave this place with a bang.
If he stayed like this, he would lose to the Aztec Empire, and then his tribesmen would be dragged away as sacrifices without mercy.
So he doubted Namu’s Warrior’s words, but he also wished desperately.
That his words were true.
<A Great Beginning 2> End