Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Those Who Don’t Know China

Shock.

Great shock.

It was terrible.

This was a disaster.

“So... is this all?”

“...Yes.”

I had been greatly mistaken about something.

I believed that Great Britain which spreads freedom and democracy and opium all over the world would of course know roughly the information of various places in the world.

I did come here with the plan to say ‘Hehe. You really know nothing about the East.’

But I didn’t think they would really know nothing.

- What on earth is the difference?

Let’s think of me as an English teacher dealing with Koreans.

I have regarded the opponent I will teach as an English-don’t-know who stops at ‘Hello nice to meet you I’m fine thank you and you?’

But surprisingly when I actually met, this person doesn’t even know what the alphabet is!!

- It doesn’t seem to that extent? These guys know Chinese characters too.

Fuck!

Fuck!!!

This is the society where the guys who know the East best are gathered!

Not the British Museum or Oxford library but right here is the forefront of East-related research!

But.

But!

“Right now there is no collection of Li Bai and Du Fu in London...?”

“Is it to the extent of being that surprised?”

“There is no <​Zizhi Tongjian> in Britain either...?”

“Calm down a bit.”

“Can I calm down? Yes?”

I understand that there is no Zizhi Tongjian. That volume is terrifying. But it’s the same as there being no Shakespeare in the English book corner of the Beijing library right now!! Can I calm down!!

The easiest and fastest way for one country to understand another country is to learn literature and history. Not because I only dug that in Joseon but it is actually the fastest way to understand the opponent’s foundation.

But right now in the less than a thousand books that these East-don’t-know guys gathered... Yuan, Jin, Song, Yuan dynasties are all missing. There are some books related to Tang but then it jumps straight to Ming. Oh, fuck. Suddenly Yi Seonggye is coming out from Unified Silla.

“So your words-”

“It’s like the next chapter after the Anglo-Saxon invasion of the British Isles is the Hundred Years’ War.”

It’s stuffy.

The warrior Arthur Lee from the 21st century has no superpower... can I really enlighten these ignorant Saxon guys in the right direction?

“Perhaps are there books captured in this war? Like <​Siku Quanshu>.”

“What book is that again?”

“An enormous encyclopedia that Qing made decades ago. With just that the ship would burst.”

No way it exists. It didn’t even exist in Joseon. Anyway seeing this overwhelming blank makes my breath catch.

“Child. Then will you look at this once? It’s what we translated from Chinese characters.”

Fortunately in misfortune, some excellent scholar who passed away before I was even born at least made an English-Chinese dictionary and left. Right. If there is a dictionary at least minimal translation would have been possible.

But this incarnation of purity Arthur Lee was wrong this time too.

Setting aside that it’s hard to grasp the abbreviated meaning due to the characteristic of Chinese characters being ideograms... proper nouns like people’s names or place names were just interpreted as the meaning itself and it became a terrible thing of chaos japchae! Translating Sichuan as four rivers, is there any way a readable thing comes out!

- Seems fucked? What to do?

No.

It’s not.

I stroked my chin for a moment and fell into thought.

The Anglo-Saxon DNA flowing through my blood vessels was whispering a new delusion, that crisis is opportunity.

“There is almost nothing related to Joseon. Some books are Japanese side books not Chinese.”

“Hmm. I see.”

“Then do you have some good idea?”

“If I say I can write a brief Eastern history book, would it be helpful?”

They showed clear signs of reluctance. Setting aside that a child is smart, whether they can fully trust in the academic field.

I held back tears and decided to hit them with facts.

“Sorry but without Li Bai and Du Fu it’s the level of not knowing Shakespeare. Not knowing Joseon is not knowing Scotland.”

“Uuum...”

“Fine. Will you help us a bit?”

I nodded... not, and made a circle shape by attaching thumb and index finger.

You know I don’t even have a house, why are you like this.

Give some money.

***

- Is it good?

Of course good. At least I definitely put out the urgent fire.

I made acquaintance with various notables of this London.

And clearly imprinted the fact that I belong to the category of prodigy not an ordinary child or lucky drifter.

Getting some translation work is nothing.

The important thing is the reality itself that I do ‘work that a scholarly adult would do’.

There was an article that Queen Victoria wants to see me, and if I can only change the title from ‘the surviving child’ to ‘unprecedented boy scholar’ by then it is my perfect victory.

- Who on earth are you winning against...

Of course this barbaric world.

If it were the 21st century I wouldn’t have to do this crap. Just call the broadcasting station, or if not turn on YouTube or TikTok.

While gradually growing my position in the academic field, at the same time manage other weapons I can use.

Currently the biggest weapon for me.

That is precisely the connection with Joseon.

This era is still a period where the status system remains.

Despising colored races? Separate from that discrimination, if the opponent colored race is about royalty or nobility, at least a commoner scum can’t hold his head high. Because even if respecting black royalty, the same white nobles might nag that the lower one doesn’t know how to respect the upper one.

A bit more time passes and an era will come where mini countries like Joseon are just ignored, but it means not yet.

So the effect of this long title ‘Arthur Lee who was swept in a terrible disaster lost parents and drifted on the vast ocean and drifted to a distant mysterious country but was welcomed there and accepted as a guest of the chancellor no even received lessons together with the young king and fully showed off the cleverness and extraordinariness of Anglo-Saxons and received praise from Easterners’ is right now the peak. Robinson Crusoe? Please don’t compare me to such an ordinary person?

Here is the problem.

What is the most rational plan for me in this situation?

The answer is of course.

“Joseon is a small peninsula country attached to the end of the Chinese continent, but it has a large population and steep mountains so it is a country that has protected sovereignty even with a great power beside it. China calls Joseon the number one country, that is the first vassal state. They say for a dynasty ruling the continent to have its authority recognized it had to somehow conclude whether by threatening or conciliating Joseon.”

“Is it a relationship like the Ottoman Turks and the Crimean Khanate?”

“Seems so.”

“Joseon... then Japan?”

“The European continent and the British Isles are very close, but Japan is quite distant. They say Japan does not exchange much with China.”

Boost Joseon.

A lot.

“The Qing currently in China is a country established by a Tatar tribe called the Jurchen. In the past they were slaves of Joseon but took advantage of chaos to become independent and conversely toppled the master and conquered China too.”

“Hoo.”

“So a minority of Tatars are ruling the Chinese natives, and they say rebellions break out from time to time.”

Next is endless downplaying of Qing.

Roughly China is currently dominated by Mongols, and the majority Han people are full of poison and trying to start rebellions anytime and so on and so forth.

I didn’t lie. I didn’t lie. Joseon people who still don’t forget Ming taught it that way.

How can one compare the evil demon king army that opened a portal and invaded and founded Liao-Jin-Yuan-Qing with ‘orthodox Middle Kingdom’? I like jjapagetti too much and boiled it every Sunday but that doesn’t change the fact that jjapagetti is jjapagetti. If you ordered jajangmyeon and jjapagetti pops out from the iron bag. Would you leave that alive?

British people who encountered the new knowledge I provided of course can’t help but think in comparison to the world they knew.

“Indeed. It’s the same as Rome collapsing to barbarians.”

“Chinese dynasties all lost the robustness of the early founding and gradually entrusted national defense to foreign mercenaries and perished? Isn’t it because there is some natural, scientific law that the fates of distant countries are so similar?”

Good. Very good.

Listening to the words of these scholar lords, until the past the West generally thought of China as a distant utopia or a very powerful and wealthy country of dreams and hopes. To the extent that <​Chinoiserie> an Oriental style (but to my eyes not very Oriental style) art style commanded the era, that says it all.

But trends change.

They say these days the China-style liking atmosphere is gradually ending. Cases of evaluating it as a barbaric absolute monarchy are becoming more frequent, and since Qing collapsed too easily not matching its weight class in the Opium War, to these excellent European barbarians of the strong-weak-weak-strong it seems to be starting to look ridiculous.

I willingly provided a very minor motivation to this China-bashing movement.

‘This is not the real Middle Kingdom!’

‘That is Tatar! It was a fake Mongol Horde not the great China!’

‘No wonder the appearance has fallen these days, it was a similar product not the genuine!’

If one goes just one step further from here one might reach the bizarre conclusion that ‘the gentleman thief Britain who knows how to protect brilliant civilization must protect the real Middle Kingdom’, but Britain still doesn’t know enough about the East to exert that level of delusion.

The East, Orient that British people, further Europeans talk about was rather closer to the Middle East region and India if compared to nowadays. Even if Asiatic Society or whatever the main meta flow is mostly Middle East and India.

Especially the Middle East because of logistics, and India because it is Britain’s core interest so one has to research hard. Thus research on the three countries of Korea China Japan can’t help but be a side.

Moreover a somewhat ambiguous atmosphere was also created for me.

“Hmm hmm. China research is good too, but right now a bit...”

“Isn’t the Ottoman Turks side much more urgent?”

Damn. Is it because I don’t have a lightning-shaped scar?

The whole of Europe was startled by the amazing return of ‘the surviving child’ and Britain’s nationalist pride inflated like a balloon.

But right now scholars, especially scholars and intellectuals interested in archaeology, were paying much more attention to other places than China.

European explorers and scholars, diplomats found ruins of ancient cities in the Middle East ruled by the Ottoman Turks, Iraq by 21st century standards.

Its name Nineveh.

According to biblical expression <​Nineveh of Assyria>.

The Assyrian ruins began to reveal their identity.

“Kieeeek!!”

“Assyria? Assyria was a country that really existed?”

“As expected the Bible contained the truth!”

“This can’t be. Then Philistines and Moab were all real too? Does that mean Sodom and Gomorrah were real cities?”

Regrettably I can’t ride this gradually rising Assyria boom.

Because I was born with the mission to civilize this barbaric land of Britain.

I have to turn this bait, that interest toward the East somehow!

The salesman Park In-ho who took honesty and trust as his motto throughout his first life might feel a slight prick of conscience, but since it’s not fabricating completely nonexistent facts it doesn’t feel like that big a prick. A little exaggeration is something everyone originally does.

I decided to recite the magic spell that will move British people.

“In fact Joseon is precisely Cipangu.”

It was the moment interest in Joseon exploded greatly.

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Author's note

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