The study in the Forbidden City was quiet, the air thick with the scent of old books and brewing tea. Ying Zheng, no longer a boy but a young man on the cusp of his majority, stood before the great map of his empire. His physical form had grown, but it was the change in his eyes that was most profound. The last vestiges of childishness were gone, replaced by an ancient, unwavering confidence, the calm certainty of a master strategist who sees the entire board and knows the outcome of the game twenty moves in advance.
Viceroy Li Hongzhang and Prince Gong stood before him, reporting on the successful conclusion of the negotiations in Tianjin. They presented him with a copy of the signed treaty, the Convention of Tientsin, its ink still fresh, its seals brilliant red against the fine paper.
"Your Majesty," Li Hongzhang said, his voice filled with a deep and genuine respect that had grown over years of witnessing the boy's impossible foresight. "The treaty is signed. The Japanese have withdrawn their remaining forces from Seoul, as have we. Prime Minister Itō believes he has secured a great victory. He sees the treaty as the legal foundation for Japan's future expansion of influence in Korea."
Ying Zheng took the document, his long, slender fingers tracing the elegant characters. He read the key clause, the one he himself had authored and passed to his negotiators through Shen Ke. It stipulated a mutual withdrawal of troops and, crucially, required either nation to provide formal, written notification to the other before sending any forces back into the peninsula.
A cold, thin smile touched his lips. "They have not secured a foundation," he said, his voice a low, calm baritone. He looked up at his two most powerful ministers. "They have willingly walked into a cage, and I now hold the key."
Prince Gong, who had come to understand the Emperor's serpentine strategies, nodded slowly. "You have given them the right to enter the house, but you have done so only to have the legal justification to attack them the moment they step through the door."
"Precisely," Ying Zheng affirmed. He turned back to the map, his finger tracing the narrow strait that separated the Korean peninsula from the Japanese islands. "A war with Japan is inevitable. Their history, their culture, their lack of resources, and their newfound industrial ambition make it so. They are an island nation, and like the British barbarians, they believe their destiny lies in empire, in conquest. And Korea is the first, most logical step in that conquest."
He explained his true, long-term strategy to his two allies, laying bare the chilling, beautiful logic of the trap he had just set. The treaty was not a tool for peace. It was a legal trigger for a war that would be fought on his own terms.
"The Japanese are an impatient people," he said. "They will not be able to resist the temptation to interfere in Korea's endlessly chaotic politics. The Korean court is a snake pit of rival factions. Sooner or later, one of those factions will stage a coup, a rebellion will break out, or the king will make a foolish move. And the Japanese, believing they now have the legal right as our equals, will feel compelled to send troops to 'restore order' and protect their interests."
He looked at Li Hongzhang. "And when they do, their minister here in Beijing will deliver a formal, diplomatic note to your Office of Western Affairs, notifying us of their intent, just as this treaty requires."
His eyes glinted with a light that was thousands of years old. "That notification will be their undoing. It will be the signal flare that begins our war. The moment that note is delivered, the Beiy-ang Fleet, which will be on high alert, will already be at sea, under sealed orders. Our new armies in Manchuria, which we will continue to drill and supply, will already be mobilized. We will 'receive' their notification of a peaceful intervention, and we will 'respond' to their blatant aggression with a pre-planned, overwhelming, and righteous counter-attack."
Li Hongzhang was left speechless by the sheer, cold-blooded brilliance of the plan. It was a strategy that weaponized diplomacy itself, turning international law into a tripwire for a perfectly timed ambush.
"You have used a peace treaty to create a perfect casus belli," the Viceroy breathed, a look of awe on his face.
"A war fought on one's own terms is a war half won before the first shot is fired," Ying Zheng stated, quoting a principle from his own long-dead time. "For the next few years, we will play the part of the peaceful, cooperative neighbor. We will adhere to every letter of this treaty. And all the while, we will continue our work. We will complete the modernization of the army. We will build more ships, larger ships. We will stockpile our arsenals with the new shells from the Tianjin works. We will train our officers, our gunners, our engineers. We will prepare."
He turned from the map and looked at his two most powerful subjects, his general in the field, Meng Tian, having already proven his loyalty. Prince Gong, the embodiment of Manchu political power. And Li Hongzhang, the master of Chinese industry and modernization. With Cixi neutralized and her faction broken, these were the men who now controlled the destiny of the empire. And they all, in their own way, served him.
"The Japanese believe they are the young, rising power in the East, and that we are the old, dying one," Ying Zheng said, his voice now a low, dangerous whisper filled with the weight of his true identity. "They see us as a sick old man. They are about to discover that the old man they so casually dismissed is, in fact, an ancient dragon who has merely been sleeping."
He had done it. He had survived his journey through time. He had conquered the court of his new era. He had neutralized his domestic opponents and consolidated his power. He had built the foundations of a modern military-industrial complex. And now, he had set the perfect legal and diplomatic trap for the first major external enemy he would need to crush on his path to eventual world domination.
All the pieces were in place. Now, all he had to do was wait for his arrogant, ambitious neighbor to make their inevitable, fatal move.