As dusk settled over Nagasaki, it brought not peace, but a new and more profound kind of terror. The fires from the day's battle had mostly been extinguished, but the air was still thick with the smell of smoke and death. By order of the new masters of the city, thousands of surviving citizens were herded by grim-faced Qing soldiers into the main city square. They were a terrified, silent mass, their faces numb with shock and grief. In the center of the square, a hundred of the city's most prominent citizens—the deputy governor, the chief magistrate, wealthy merchants, and the white-robed priests of the city's various shrines—were forced to kneel on the cold flagstones, their heads bowed.
On the steps of the captured government building, overlooking the square, stood Qin Shi Huang. He was flanked by a double rank of his Imperial Guard, their bayonets fixed, their expressions as hard and unforgiving as their master's. The Emperor did not sit. He stood, a small, dark figure against the fading light, looking down upon the conquered populace. He did not give a speech about their surrender or the terms of occupation. He gave an order.
He raised a hand and pointed a single, slender finger toward a nearby hill, where the ancient, graceful structure of the Suwa Shrine stood silhouetted against the twilight sky. It was the spiritual heart of Nagasaki, a place of pilgrimage for centuries.
A captured Japanese official, his face pale and tear-streaked, was forced to stand beside an interpreter and translate the Emperor's words, his voice trembling so badly he could barely speak.
"You believe your gods protect you," the Emperor's voice rang out, cold and clear, amplified by the terrified translator. "You believe your Emperor in Kyoto is a living god, who lends you his divine spirit to make you invincible." His gaze swept across the crowd. "Your city has fallen in less than a day. Your soldiers are dead. Your defenses are rubble. And throughout it all, your gods have remained silent. Your 'living god' has proven to be powerless."
A murmur of horror and fear went through the crowd. This was not the language of a conqueror; it was the language of a blasphemer.
QSH turned to Meng Tian. "Take a detachment of engineers," he commanded. "And bring that." He pointed to a captured Japanese artillery piece, a 75-millimeter Krupp cannon that had been dragged into the square, a spoil of war.
The Japanese officials on their knees watched in wide-eyed disbelief as Meng Tian's soldiers, moving with brutal efficiency, hitched the cannon to a team of horses and began to drag it up the winding path toward the sacred shrine.
The head priest of the Suwa Shrine, an old man with a long white beard, scrambled to his feet, his face a mask of anguish. "No!" he cried out in his own language, stumbling forward before being pushed back by the guards. "Please! I beg you! That is the home of the kami! A sacred place, for centuries! It is the soul of our city! You cannot! Do not commit this sacrilege!"
QSH listened to the priest's translated plea, his expression unchanged. "Tell him," he said to the interpreter, his voice devoid of any emotion, "that if his gods are real, then they are welcome to stop the shell. If they are not real, then their house is merely wood and stone, and it is in my way."
The head priest collapsed to his knees, sobbing. In the square, the people of Nagasaki watched in frozen horror as the Qing soldiers positioned the cannon, aiming it directly at the main hall of the ancient shrine. The world seemed to hold its breath.
Then came the flash, and the roar.
The cannon fired. The shell screamed through the twilight air and smashed directly into the ornate, curved roof of the main shrine building. The explosion was devastating. The ancient timbers, dry as tinder, were blown apart. The roof collapsed inward, and within seconds, flames began to lick at the sky, consuming the sacred structure.
A collective gasp of pure, soul-deep horror rose from the crowd. It was not a cry of anger or defiance, but a sound of profound, spiritual despair. They were not just watching a building burn. They were watching their world burn. They were watching their faith turn to ash.
With the sacred shrine burning brightly in the background, casting a flickering, hellish light over the entire square, QSH began to dictate again.
"Take this down," he commanded the translator, who was now shaking uncontrollably. "This is my first edict to the people of this land. It will be posted in every town and village my army captures. You will write it in your own tongue, so there can be no misunderstanding."
He began to dictate, his words falling like hammer blows on the stunned silence.
"'To the people of Japan. Your so-called 'living god' has failed you. Your kami have abandoned you. Your prayers went unanswered. A new, true power has now come to your shores. The Son of Heaven, the Dragon Emperor of the Great Qing, now rules this land.'"
He paused, letting the blasphemy sink in.
"'Your choice is simple. Lay down your arms. Renounce your false emperor in Kyoto and the primitive belief in his divinity. Submit to my rule, and you will be granted mercy. You will be fed. You will be protected. You will become subjects of the Great Qing Empire, and you will have a place in the new order of the world.'"
The burning shrine flared up, casting his face in a demonic orange glow.
"'Resist,' he continued, his voice dropping to a menacing whisper, 'and every shrine, every temple, every castle, every vestige of your culture will be ground into dust, just as your army was. Your cities will become pillars of smoke. Your fields will be salted. Your islands will be turned into a barren wasteland, a testament to the price of defying me. The age of your petty gods and your sheltered emperors is over. The age of my empire has begun. Choose.'"
The edict was finished. There was nothing more to say. QSH turned his back on the crowd, on the burning shrine, on the city he had conquered, and walked back into the governor's mansion without a backward glance.
In the crowd, a young boy, no more than ten years old, stared at the inferno on the hill that had once been the most beautiful place he had ever seen. He listened to the terrifying words of the alien conqueror, words that his father was trying to shield his ears from. He saw the despair on the faces of the adults around him, the utter collapse of the world they had always known. He didn't fully understand the politics or the strategy, but he understood the burning building. He understood the broken face of the kneeling priest. He didn't feel fear, not anymore. The shock had burned it away. In its place, in the ashes of his faith and the ruins of his city, a new and terribly strong emotion was taking root: a cold, hard, and patient hatred.
Qin Shi Huang had won the city. He had struck a devastating blow at the spirit of Japan. But in doing so, he had just sown the seeds of a bitter, fanatical resistance that would haunt every step of his conquest.