The news of the complete victory at Isahaya and the subsequent annihilation of the Japanese Second Army was delivered to Qin Shi Huang at his command center in Nagasaki. He received the report from General Song Qing, his face showing no more emotion than if he were reading a daily accounting of grain supplies. The other commanders in the room, however, could not contain their elation. They had avenged Pyongyang. They had broken the back of the enemy's military resistance on the island.
"Your Majesty, General Nogi and his staff are all dead," General Song reported, his voice filled with pride. "The enemy is shattered. The road to the north is open. What is our next objective? The city of Fukuoka? We can march immediately."
QSH looked up from the report, his gaze sweeping over his eager generals. "No," he said, the single word instantly quelling their excitement. "The military phase of this campaign is largely over. What remains is a mop-up operation, a task for junior officers. The primary objective has been achieved." He stood up and walked to the great map of Kyushu. "Now, the administrative phase begins. The true conquest. The war of silver and rice."
The generals exchanged confused glances. War of silver and rice? What did he mean? QSH turned his attention not to them, but to the two men who understood this different kind of warfare: the elderly statesman, Li Hongzhang, and the new, trembling governor of the province, Tanaka Kenji.
"Minister Li," QSH began, his tone shifting from that of a general to that of an administrator. "I want our transport ships to bring not more soldiers, but more administrators. I want engineers, tax collectors, census-takers, and merchants. The next wave of our invasion will be an army of bureaucrats." He then fixed his gaze on Governor Tanaka. "Governor, you will conduct a full and immediate census of this province. I want to know the name of every family. I want to know the location of every field, every workshop, every fishing boat. I want a complete inventory of my new province."
He let that sink in before delivering the order that would shatter the foundations of Japanese society. "You will then issue a new edict, in my name. As of today, the feudal system on this island is abolished. All land previously owned by the samurai clans, the daimyos, and the feudal lords is now the sole property of the throne." He tapped his own chest. "My throne."
Li Hongzhang's eyes, which had been weary, now lit up with a dawning understanding. He saw the brilliant, brutal logic of the move. "And the peasants who work the land, Your Majesty?" he asked, prompting the Emperor to continue.
"The land will be redistributed," QSH declared. "Any peasant family that swears a public oath of loyalty to me, as their one true Emperor, will be granted a legal deed and title to the land they have always worked. They will no longer be serfs, bound to a local lord who takes half their crop. They will be free farmers, subjects of the Great Qing Empire." He paused, a cold smile touching his lips. "But they will, of course, be required to pay their taxes. Directly to us. In silver."
General Song Qing finally understood. "Majesty," he breathed, a look of awe on his face. "This is… revolutionary. You are destroying the samurai class from the ground up."
"Precisely, General," QSH replied. "The samurai are the heart of their military resistance. Their power, their authority, their very identity, comes from their control of the land and their authority over the peasantry. I will take their land and give it to the peasants. I will take their authority and give it to my governor." He looked at Tanaka. "I will break their power not with a sword, but with a deed of title. The average farmer cares little for the honor of a distant lord who bleeds him dry. But he cares deeply about the small plot of land that feeds his family. His loyalty will now be to the man who gives him that land, not the man who demands his rice."
It was a masterful stroke of social engineering, a way to win the peace by making the majority of the population direct beneficiaries of the conquest. But he was not finished.
"Furthermore," he announced, his gaze sweeping the room. "As of tomorrow, the Japanese yen is no longer legal tender in this province. It is worthless paper. All transactions, all wages paid to dockworkers, all purchases of supplies, and most importantly, all taxes, will be conducted using only the Qing silver tael." He turned to Li Hongzhang. "Minister, you will arrange for the treasury to ship ten tons of our silver coinage to Nagasaki on the next transport. We will flood this island with our currency. We will control their economy completely. From now on, they will work for our silver, eat with our silver, and live on land we have granted them."
Li Hongzhang bowed deeply, his mind reeling from the sheer, breathtaking audacity of the plan. "You are not just conquering them, Your Majesty," he murmured, his voice filled with a new level of reverence. "You are digesting them."
"An empire does not just rule, Minister," QSH said quietly. "It assimilates. Japan will be the first. And their assimilation will serve as a model for the rest." He looked at his stunned commanders. "Send the orders. Begin the census. Prepare the deeds."
The meeting was adjourned. The generals and ministers filed out, their minds struggling to keep up with an Emperor who had pivoted from a war of cannons to a war of economics and social revolution in the span of a single afternoon.
The episode concluded with a final, quiet scene. In a small village at the foot of the Isahaya hills, a dejected Japanese peasant, a man named Kenjiro, stood looking at the ruins of his landlord's storehouse, burned during the recent fighting. His family had worked this small plot of land for ten generations, always giving half of everything they grew to a samurai lord they had never met. Now, the lord was dead, and the future was a terrifying blank.
A Qing official, a stern-faced man in a scholar's robe, approached him, accompanied by Governor Tanaka and two soldiers. The peasant fell to his knees in terror.
"Do not be afraid," the official said through the translator, his voice surprisingly gentle. "I am not here to harm you. I am here to conduct the census." He asked for the man's name, the names of his wife and children, the boundaries of the land he worked.
When the questions were finished, the official produced a heavy, official-looking document, covered in intricate Chinese characters and stamped with a brilliant red seal in the shape of a dragon.
"By order of the Dragon Emperor," the official declared, "this land is now yours. You are a free man. You are the owner."
He handed the peasant the deed. Kenjiro took it with trembling hands, staring at the foreign characters he could not read. It felt impossibly heavy. Then, the official placed something else in his other hand. It was a silver coin, heavy and cool to the touch. It was larger than any coin he had ever seen, and on its face was the image of a fierce, coiling dragon.
"Your first tax payment is not due until after the next harvest," the official said. "The Emperor is benevolent."
The official and his party moved on to the next house, leaving Kenjiro standing alone in his field. He looked from the deed in one hand to the silver coin in the other. He thought of the samurai lord who had demanded his rice but had given nothing in return. He thought of the resistance fighters in the hills, whose war had brought nothing but fear and death to his village. And he looked at the deed that said this land, his family's land, was finally his.
His old loyalties, the ones he had been born with, to his lord and to his Emperor, began to dissolve in the face of this new, profoundly life-altering reality. Qin Shi Huang's conquest had moved beyond the battlefield. It had entered the homes, the fields, and the very hearts of the Japanese people, and it was a war they had no idea how to fight.