Pathway to Japanese Literature

I Five or six wheelbarrows raised their sails toward Ote.

And they passed through the slums. Dust-colored coolies were pushing them one per wheelbarrow. The lone axle of the wheelbarrow groaned agonizingly, bearing the full weight of an enormous hemp sack. Beyond the slums lay the blue-tiled Chinese barracks. The wheelbarrows, their diamond-shaped sails billowing, moved from the slums and disappeared into the shadow of the barracks’ earthen bricks. The sails vanished from sight. But the axle continued its groaning, far off and unceasing.

In the shadow of a sorghum stalk windbreak by a slum shack, a child relieving themselves squatted in a posture one might imagine Mencius having hidden in during his own childhood, poking at their excretions with a thin stick fragment.

Scraps of paper, tattered rags, straw fragments, shards of glass—such debris lay scattered everywhere across the ground. The foot-bound wives were like weathered antiques in a thieves’ market. The coolies with flattened faces rummaged hungrily through garbage, peanut shells, and gnawed watermelon rinds—they gathered and ate anything edible: ginseng roots, withered greens, radish scraps.

In the direction opposite where the wheelbarrows groaned, the match factory's mechanical saw screeched as if scraping bone through poplar logs.—From within the bluish-black Chinese barracks emerged four or five White Russian mercenaries.

“Need a ride?” A swarm of rickshaws seeking customers appeared from nowhere and descended upon the White Russian mercenaries. The seats of the coolies’ trousers sagged loosely. They clamored loudly, each trying to snatch customers for themselves ahead of the others. “Need a ride?” The Russians paid no heed to the swarm of rickshaws and plodded forward on their long legs. They had once fled their homeland to the Far East and made their way from Siberia to China. The clothes they wore—only what was on their backs—had already worn through, not even a single band remaining. But they, even without money, had managed to obtain clothes and coats from somewhere that matched the fashion of ten years ago. Their soiled black fur Cossack hats, their leather boots, their bluish-gray trousers—baggy at the waist and tight at the knees—they wore these things unchanged from days of old.

Both their heads and shoulders towered far above the short Chinese people. “How much did you get for this month’s wages?” A man in a Chinese daga’er jacket walked alongside them, talking. This was Yamazaki. “We didn’t get a single penny.”

“How much did you get last month?” “Last month too, we didn’t get a single penny.” “And the month before last?” “We didn’t get a single penny even for the month before last.” “Slap him down!” Yamazaki in his Chinese jacket lowered his voice. “Don’t hold back! Slap him down! Give that hulking Zhang Zongchang’s bloated cheeks a good hard smack!”

The White Russian mercenaries suddenly looked up and began laughing cheerfully. They had been bought by the Shandong Army after their leader Milukurof sold himself to Zhang Zongchang. Always mounted on short Chinese horses, their boots nearly dragging on the ground, they were perpetually stationed on the perilous front lines. Some fell dead on the battlefront, struck by bullets. Some became lame, others lost an eye, and still others were driven away after losing an arm. Some fled, sickened by the stench of garlic from the Chinese people. Some got into huge fights with Chinese soldiers they didn’t get along with.

When they returned from the battlefront to the Russian bar, the stench of raw blood and gunpowder had seeped into their flesh beneath the skin. “Bastard! What’s that hulking Zhang Zongchang worth—a man who nearly had his lips bitten off by some brothel madam? Twenty-seven concubines he keeps! Don’t hold back—slap him down!” The White Russian mercenaries kept laughing cheerfully, faces turned upward.

Before their eyes, the acacia trees lining the match factory’s corrugated iron fence were beginning to sprout fresh spring buds. Above them, against the city sky, a flock of small crows flew joyfully, their sides bathed in the setting sun.

II

The factory smoldered under a pale purple haze of dust, sulfur, phosphorus, and the acrid stench of burning rosin. In the "box-packing" section where boy and girl workers lined up at workbenches swiftly stuffed headed matchsticks into small yellow boxes like stage magicians, a ceaseless clattering—urgent as the tongue-clicking used to herd cattle—perpetually arose. It was a nerve-jangling, frantic urgency that felt like it could loosen the roots of one’s teeth. They grasped a measured amount of headed matchsticks transported from the drying room with practiced ease, packed them into small box compartments, inserted these into labeled outer boxes—accomplishing each motion with clapping-like hand movements that clicked-clicked through one unit after another in an instant. Boys and girls of seven or eight—still in the prime of their playful years—were also straining their nerves in ceaseless toil.

Chinese people carried their small children in baskets and made the slightly older ones walk to city streets to sell them. Half had been bought for seven or ten yuan. There were child laborers too. Being so young and short in stature, those children couldn’t reach the workbenches when seated on chairs of matching height with other workers. They had someone place a tray on the floor, set a small stool atop it, then sat there packing with their tiny hands.

They had all become ash-gray faces like parched earth. Due to matches spontaneously igniting and glass powder glued to both sides of outer boxes, they had wrapped their burned and mangled fingertips with bandages stained black with grime. From when work began until break time, they—the female and male workers—were forbidden from speaking even for work matters or casual chatter. They spent six hours merely moving their hands like mute little robots. At times came a hiss, other times a sharp crack—the sound of yellow phosphorus matches combusting instantly from friction. In those moments, the children burned their fingers. Simultaneously, their grimy forms blurred in pale purple smoke that wavered upward.

Not a single one of them uttered a word. Yet there, a cacophony of clamor and creaking overflowed like madness itself.

Mikitaro was walking round and round the factory there.

He too was permitted to carry a whip and pistol. Under him worked a Chinese overseer. The overseer too carried a wooden club. This club could be swung indiscriminately—smashing soft hands or breaking legs was fully permitted. Yet before the Japanese and this overseer, workers striving to demonstrate diligence through meticulous care rendered both clubs and pistols unnecessary. He was twenty-five years old that year. An excessively fastidious man with poor supervisory instincts—the sort who seemed averse to driving Chinese workers harder, ever primed with logical arguments.

The poisonous gas containing yellow phosphorus along with dust invaded his lungs just as relentlessly as it did the boys’.

“Are you Chinese at all?” “Or are you Japanese at all?” The irritable factory manager—who had been fuming under pressure from Swedish matches—blamed him for his habit of siding with the Chinese instead, casting a sarcastically sharp glare. The old man had finally become a heroin addict. Putting those two things together, Mikitaro made a lonely face. The Japanese could sell heroin without consequence. But they mustn’t smoke it like the Chinese. That heroin—the old man had sucked it down like the Chinese. He’d become an addict like the Chinese.

“We’re hated even by our own Japanese… In the end, I’ll likely get thrown out of this factory too…” In truth, Mikitaro felt closer to the Chinese than to his world-weary Japanese compatriots. Moreover, the workers too seemed more candid and approachable with him than they were with Koyama or Morita.

“How many more do you have left?” To Fang Hongji, who was clattering away at the axis-cutting machine while arranging matchsticks in a wooden frame, he showed a smile as gentle as a caress. Fang’s head was white with dust. Beneath his flattened nose grinned a row of large, grimy yellow teeth. “How many more do you have left?” “Three, three,” Fang answered in a fluster. “Three frame trolleys’ worth.” “Get it done faster.” “Right away, right away.” Fang fitted a clamp onto the wooden frame where small axis pieces stood planted like a forest across its surface. A creaking tightening sound rang out.

Mikitaro passed through from there to the dipping section. A phosphorus odor with a burning sweetness tangled with sulfur and pine resin assaulted the nostrils. From the opened rear entrance, the mechanical saw and axis-stripping machine roared as if grinding their teeth, screeching incessantly. Koyama, who had been examining a raw axis wood in his palm, tossed it into the sack as if spitting and returned down the grimy corridor. “You, what do you think of that Yu fellow?”

Mikitaro knew he was referring to Yu Liling—the uncooperative eccentric under his charge who never bowed his head properly. “I don’t think so.” “That guy’s work is always botched—you know that creates scraps at the dipping section, don’t you?” “That’s not quite the case.” “If in your eyes scraps don’t look like scraps, then that’s just fine by me.” It grated on him that defending the Chinese too persistently might invite suspicion, but joining Koyama in speaking ill of those under his own charge was something he found even more intolerable. The axis row, dipping section, and drying room had become Mikitaro’s responsibility.

“If you let that bastard run wild, by the time the Northern Expedition Army arrives, he’ll be completely out of control!” Koyama snorted through his nostrils in wounded pride. When Koyama became confrontational, Mikitaro felt a deliberate urge to back Yu up. Koyama’s mandible had rotted from phosphorus poisoning; moreover, his chest was afflicted, and he coughed from his torso. Yu was a Chinese man who looked down on others with contempt, snorting contemptuously and flaring his nostrils.

They walked. “Agh!” At that moment, in the packaging section where they were wrapping small boxes one bundle at a time in paper and packing them into larger wooden crates, a sudden swish-swish sound erupted—like blades slicing through air. From her fellow workers, Kougetsu Ga—considered the beauty of the factory, though to Japanese eyes she could never be seen as beautiful with her flat face—startled and drew back. Her legs were frail and slender. The matches inside the wooden box had rubbed together and ignited. Purple-black smoke burst forth from the six-hundred-bundle wooden box in all directions like a cannon blast. Enveloped in smoke, Kougetsu Ga seemed to have burned her fingers.

Koyama pressed his bony hand to his mouth, choking on smoke, and shot a piercing glare this way. Clutching her burned hand with the other as she raised her face to scan her surroundings, Kougetsu Ga met Koyama’s gaze—then immediately averted her eyes back toward the wooden box still emitting smoke. Mikitaro saw Koyama’s sunken mandible contort in apparent agony. Kougetsu Ga, still seemingly anxious, this time timidly glanced up at the foreman from beneath lowered eyelids.

Still enveloped in the thick, swirling smoke, Koyama continued to choke from his entire torso.

Mikitaro walked toward the office.

III

Chiang Kai-shek’s Second Northern Expedition and the violent, lawless acts of impoverished Shandong soldiers daily roiled the atmosphere in the streets. There were those who took up anti-Japanese propaganda as their trade to make names for themselves. When asked why they pursued anti-Japanese activities, some would answer that it was because they couldn’t put food on the table.

Governor Zhang Zongchang—who had not paid his soldiers even one yuan in wages for six or seven months—saw a pitiful beggar parent and child from his automobile near the city gate and had his attendant throw three hundred yuan at them. Zhang was such a capricious man. “Even the devil sheds tears!” The Chinese people also tore into Zhang Zongchang without mercy.

The air of the streets could not help but resonate with the factory workers.

Yamazaki, who schemed to build a fortune by treating allocated secret funds as personal savings before returning from China, made his rounds through M Flour Mill, Nikka Egg Powder, K Spinning, Fulong Match Company, and others in sequence. Rather than paying to buy unreliable scraps of information piecemeal from Chinese sources, he found it more shrewd to take the Industrial Association’s intelligence wholesale and tailor his reports accordingly. Yamazaki did precisely that. And the funds allocated for intelligence work went straight into his own pockets.

In his pocket was a Fulong Match Company employee’s business card. Also inside was a Nikka Egg Powder sales representative’s business card. Of course, he had never actually secured any orders for phosphorus matches, nor had he ever gone to procure materials. When he reached the factory entrance, he recoiled at the smoke, dust, filthy workers, and sulfur stench that assaulted his nostrils, pressing his long-nailed hand against the tip of his nose. He had just parted ways with Russian soldiers.

He prided himself on his speech, facial features, and gait being completely indistinguishable from those of Chinese people. He would wipe his nose with his hand and indifferently smear the snot from his fingers onto whatever was nearby. He wore a black brimless hat with a knob on top along with Chinese-style clothes and shoes. Growing his nails long was another emulation of Chinese tastes. However, there was one flaw he failed to notice—his sharp eyes, where the boundary between whites and pupils stood out too distinctly defined. This alone—despite all efforts—he could never mask his profession and ethnicity. His eyes differed from those of the Chinese people, which were murky and clouded. The occupation of sneaking from backstreet to backstreet had naturally taken form and manifested externally.

The conceited Yamazaki remained unaware of his own shortcomings. There was an amusing story about that. But just as he arrived at the workshop entrance, Mikitaro emerged from inside with yellow debris caked on the tip of his nose. Mikitaro suddenly grinned and said something. “What is it?” Yamazaki asked. “It’s quite an interesting tidbit.” “What is it?” “I’ll tell you right away—but if I do, will you pay me the information fee? Five yen will do. Just five yen will do.”

“I’ll pay—depends what it’s worth.” “If you don’t pay up, Mr. Yamazaki, you’ll be drowning in profits with nowhere to stash your cash.” Yamazaki’s lips twisted into an unpleasant smile. “What is it?” “Bandits showed up. “Yesterday at Luokou Marsh—went duck hunting and six-seven of ’em came charging from the Yellow River way.” Mikitaro burst out laughing. He laughed airily, like the whole fee business was just a joke.

“I abandoned the bicycle I rode there and ran away.” “It was a top-grade Kent bicycle, wasn’t it?”

Yamazaki stifled the bitter smile that threatened to surface. While I'm investigating grave matters related to the nation's (?) welfare, you're making light of some trivial nonsense! He made such a face. Noticing this, Mikitaro gradually adopted a stiff, unnatural laugh. Then Koyama emerged, his deep cough racking his entire body as he approached. The workers who had finished their day's contracted labor began approaching the exit with pallid faces. Mikitaro walked toward the office alongside Yamazaki. The workers had their daily output tallied in the attendance ledger. They received their meal tickets. Amidst the jostling commotion and metallic clangor of Chinese voices, a scene erupted around the foreman's desk.

The surroundings had grown dim.

“Here they remain, docile as ever.”

Yamazaki shot a piercing glance at the jostling workers. And whispered: "Far from just there—there are unsettling elements among management itself."

Koyama answered.

“Hmm, whether agents from the General Labor Union have infiltrated—us Japanese can’t really tell. We’d better be careful.” “What? If it’s just infiltration like that, using decoys would flush ’em out quick.” “But these days, you gotta plant another decoy on that decoy to stay safe.” “Tch! Makes no damn sense at all.” Koyama kept coughing. He spat phlegm nearby.

The three of them entered the office. There too, under the influence of phosphorus, sulfur, potassium chlorate, and the like, everything had faded; the desk boards were corroded between their wood grains and had turned a grayish-black.

Uchikawa, one of the associates who had purchased a single old rifle for three yen and sold thousands of them to Zhang Zongchang for fifty yen apiece, sat by the double-paned window with a gloomy, worried expression. His face, much like this factory itself, was rigidly ordered, solidified, and utterly parched. This was the factory manager. “What’s this? Whenever you show up, it reeks of garlic.” Uchikawa barked a laugh. Even his laughter was desiccated.

“That’s a relief. “If the garlic smell’s gone, I’d be no different from the Chinese at all, right? “How’s that?”

Yamazaki struck a pose like a banquet entertainer, proudly. "If you think so yourself—that's for the best—saves me the trouble." "Ain't I just like a Chinaman?" "How'm I different? Where's any difference t'see?"

Suddenly, Yamazaki bellowed in Chinese—something to the effect of: How am I any different from the Chinese? But this was clearly a joke, or rather, seemed more like a tactic to amuse Uchikawa. He was intent on wresting what had been promised from Uchikawa—the man who’d made a killing selling old rifles. He waited on edge: Would he hand it over now? Now? Now? —Mikitaro knew this.

That was truly a disgraceful sight. He strained every sense like a starving stray dog, sniffing around everywhere. Koyama—who would fully expose his bestial nature before those newer than himself—became a completely different person when the manager was present. He grew quiet and reserved. Yamazaki, precisely because he wasn’t under Uchikawa’s employ, still maintained an air of nonchalance. But even this was a deliberate performance. From behind that feigned ease, a sycophantic tone leapt forth.

Koyama showed great interest even in mainland politics—politics that he only knew from newspaper articles about a land he hadn’t set foot on in ten years—as long as it was something the manager cared about. Or rather, he pretended to show interest. He reacted immediately upon seeing Uchikawa’s dark expression. “I thought those bastards were doing better than last year or so—turns out Germany’s supplying them with new weapons, hasn’t it?” “Hrm.”

Uchikawa groaned. “How much are we talking? The quantity?” He tore open the sealed letter that had arrived just this morning and peered inside. Having stolen a look, he already knew the numbers. Yet Koyama pretended complete ignorance of that fact. “Westerners yammer on about churches and charity, but behind closed doors they’re running one hell of an operation.” “We’re playing in a whole different league!”

“Ordinary schools, ordinary hospitals—they’re completely in those bastards’ hands.” “Absolutely.” “Hmm.” “However, no matter how many elite weapons Chiang Kai-shek brings this time around, our grown-ups will have set up a last-ditch defense.” “If anything, it’s our side that absolutely can’t afford to lose this battle.” He had meant to present an expert opinion before Yamazaki. His face grew smug. Yamazaki noticed.

“So your reckoning is that Zhang Zongchang with his old matchlocks will lose to the new German rifles…” “What does it matter whether Lord Zhang wins or loses? It’s not like the person who sold the guns is responsible for such things either.” Yamazaki, beardless, wore a sarcastic smile around his lips that seemed to say: Do you lot have any right to be spouting and concocting such things?!

“The Northern Expedition Army’s still crawling with Communists who came out of the Political Department.” Uchikawa whispered bitterly. “No matter how many hunts they run, these vermin keep clinging like ticks—that’s what they say.” “What happens if those Red bandits occupy this town?” “What in hell’s name happens then?”

“The Communists are like air. Any crack, they’ll seep right in.” “But more’n that, whether the Northern Expedition Army’s even got the muscle to make it this far—that’s the real show I’m keen on.” “Sussing that out’s gotta be priority number one.” “And how exactly d’you plan to suss that out?”

“It’s money,” Yamazaki sneered. “To mobilize a hundred thousand troops, even two or three hundred thousand yuan would be like trying to apply eye drops from the second floor.” “If it’s money you’re talking about, the General Chamber of Commerce has already put up four million yen initially, followed by another two million yen.” “Well now, that’s not another false report, is it?” Yamazaki let out another sneering laugh. But that he was as delighted as if he’d caught a sea bream became clear when a camellia landed on the faded desk.

“Indeed, that would mean they contributed six million yen… Then they won’t come.” “Rest assured, they won’t come.” “Well now, that’s just splendid.” “That the General Chamber of Commerce contributed six million yen is just splendid.” “Well now, that’s just splendid.”

Koyama couldn’t quite grasp why Yamazaki was acting so foolishly exuberant.

IV

Uchikawa was called the Three-Pronged Dealer.

Besides the rigid, imposing match factory, he combined both hard and soft factions. The hard and soft factions here were certainly not the two distinctions found within a newspaper company. The business of handling weapons was the hard faction. And the trade dealing in opium, morphine, cocaine, heroin, codeine, and such was the soft faction.

All of it was business with the Chinese.

Vast, vast—in the turbidly chaotic Chinese interior, many resident foreigners made either the hard faction or the soft faction their real business. The British did it too. The French did it too. The Germans did it too. The Spaniards did it too. And on one hand, they anesthetized the Chinese. They reduced them to dementia. On the other hand, they supplied weapons and ammunition to warlords and bandits.

The warfare, plunder, and people’s anxiety were also born from this system. Uchikawa was a stubbornly single-minded man with shrewd foresight. He would not only gouge out a horse’s eye—he might have plucked a bandit’s eyeball too. When engrossed in matters, he begrudged even thirty minutes for a haircut. With his salt-and-pepper hair wildly disheveled and beard unkempt, he immersed himself in work.

Coded phone calls frequently came to the factory. No. 3: 18 units arrived in Tsubishi today. If they had reported that, four thousand yen wouldn’t have been moved. Ten pig snouts cooked into mixed rice. This meant ten rifles with corresponding ammunition and accessories had been sold.

Yamazaki knew such secrets of Uchikawa's. The mere fact that there existed an apparatus through which all manner of intelligence, daily developments, and incidents flowed in as readily as if taking them in hand—this dual role as a factory alone worked to Uchikawa's advantage. Chinese police, railway workers, and customs officials had long made it their custom to extort extra gains from the wealthy. Uchikawa had been skillfully exploiting this.

“Even if they come to the factory, you can’t tell which is their real job.” “If you keep hogging all the sweet deals for yourself, that stomach of yours will turn on you before long.” “Don’t say that—don’t you say that.” Uchikawa, seeing through Yamazaki’s veiled provocation, hunched his shoulders theatrically and waved a hand, trying to deflect with forced humor. “This whole thing’s like an acrobat’s tightrope walk.” “One misstep and you’ll plunge straight to your death.” “Even sitting here like this, I’m always sweating bullets.”

“The ones who’ll fall aren’t you—it’s the boys and other bastards.”

“No, no—it doesn’t always go that way, not always…”

The Chinese—every last one of them—could not get through a single day without No. 1, No. 2, or No. 3. They had been conditioned into such a habit. Whether provincial governors, local tyrants, laborers, or beggars— No. 1, No. 2, No. 3… these were codenames for opium, heroin, morphine, and other such substances.

Anti-drug activists fought against it.

Its import was prohibited. Its consumption was also prohibited. According to them, ever since the Opium Wars, the imperialist powers of various nations had been deliberately importing opium in an attempt to exterminate the Chinese nation. They would make them drown in it. However, no matter how much they prohibited it, those laws were never enforced. They slipped through the mesh of the net.

Even if they were confiscated or fined, they would bring them in through another method. They would conceal them in wheat flour, mix them with other chemicals, or wrap them around their stomachs. By any and all means, it could not be completely prevented. Yamazaki knew that.

Even if Uchikawa hadn't brought it in, someone else would have inevitably done so. Even if the Japanese hadn't imported it, the Germans or other foreigners certainly would have. —There Yamazaki found his justification for aiding Uchikawa. If nobody satisfied their cravings by supplying it, the addicted Chinese would simply writhe to death. In that case, he reasoned, he should support his countrymen. The French and Germans were brazenly importing preposterous quantities with shameless audacity. They filled six-thousand-ton ships to capacity and sailed them right in. Compared to them, the Japanese were excessively cautious and scrupulous—like that penny-pinching homeland across the sea...

But Uchikawa was exceptionally stingy and unjustly did not reciprocate. Yamazaki got his back up. He knew exactly how much Uchikawa and Takatsu of S Bank had made through their firearms dealings. Hard-line operations were far more challenging than soft-line ones. They had to conduct everything in absolute secrecy. The Chinese authorities were extremely strict. Where soft-line operations could get away with fines or jail if exposed, hard-line ones had to risk their lives. Having weapons and being discovered was a life-risking job in China. This was the true acrobat’s tightrope walk. There had even been cases where a junk dealer who had purchased old rusted rifle bullets along with other scrap casually fiddled with them, was spotted by the police, and ultimately executed.

The fact that they were so stringent meant weapons held that much importance. Particularly small warlords and bandits—when it came to weapons, they would kill to seize them. When it came to weapons, no matter how much money they spent, they bought them. Thus, even knocking off those bandits’ hats was in fact an easy task. Therefore, if only to prevent interference with their smuggling operations, they ought to have tossed out five hundred yen or so.

As for that—wasn't it he, Yamazaki, who had properly laid all the groundwork preparations? Uchikawa had made no attempt to reward him for that. Yamazaki fretted that if left unattended for too long, his efforts would become statute-barred. However, if Uchikawa was going to kick him out, then he, for his part, had his own plan. If by some chance you try to brush me off this time with a paltry hundred or two hundred yen in hush money, then when that happens—mark my words—I'll bring our future dealings to a complete end.

Yamazaki knew exactly what Uchikawa and the others were doing. And he could have given it up if he had wanted to. He had been protecting it because they were his compatriots.

It was a certain autumn.

Along a country road away from the city—further into mountain depths, into a deep desolate forest where trees bore withered brown hues—a long funeral procession pulled by long-eared donkeys was passing through.

The hearse was being pulled by six donkeys. The donkeys, despite their small torsos and four short legs ill-suited to the task, kept swaying their large heads in apparent distress, all six of them drenched in sweat. From their matted, filthy fur, steam rose.

The coffin was solemnly decorated in Chinese style with serpent heads and black cloth, befitting the mourning of the deceased. A man who appeared to be the chief mourner alone wore a coarse hemp mourning cap, while professional mourners followed behind, howling like dogs. The deceased from town was likely being taken back to their rural hometown.

But for a single corpse—and though heading toward the mountains while still traversing flat ground before reaching them—why were six horses sweating so profusely that steam rose from them?

Why was a single corpse so heavy? The patrolmen found it strange. For a time，they were safe. Ordinary funeral processions should not be pulled by horses but carried on people’s shoulders with poles. That too deepened their suspicions. But the two patrolmen were no match for the seven or eight burly men guarding the hearse. And the funeral procession drew closer and closer toward the forest，toward the mountains. However，before they could enter，there was still another village.

At the village’s gathering place, there was a cluster of patrolmen. The coarse hemp-clad chief mourner and the weeping women who had been following properly behind grew weary, yawned, and laughed strangely. That caught the eye of one patrolman. Then, when the funeral procession reached the front of the village outpost, the situation abruptly changed. The hearse was ordered to stop.

Patrolmen armed with guns and swords surrounded the vehicle.

The canopy covering the coffin and the black curtains were drawn back. The coffin lid was opened. Under the lid was not a corpse—rifles and hand grenades were packed densely and fully... "Holy shit!" Yamazaki was well aware of such things. Uchikawa was a man who took people by surprise.

V

Near Tenwang Temple, there was a filthy, labyrinthine street that stank of piss.

Mikitaro lived at the old man’s house there.

There lived his two parents, one motherless child, and two younger sisters. He commuted from there to the factory, cutting diagonally through the streets of the concession area. "Is that feeble old man Japanese?" When the Japanese compatriots heard from their Chinese acquaintances about Takezaburou—his eyes clouded yellow and white— "What? That guy's a Korean." they answered with an attitude of utter contempt. Here, the Japanese compatriots considered both laboring and becoming addicts to be national disgraces.

The Japanese compatriots believed that even when merely going three blocks away to buy vegetables, they must recline arrogantly in rickshaws while ruthlessly haggling down the fare paid to coolies before riding.

Suppose there were disgraced Japanese who joined the ranks of coolies and sold their muscle labor—such individuals certainly existed. — “Hmph—that guy’s a Korean!”

From their rickshaws, they scorned him as though on the verge of spitting. Takezaburou, the old man, was one of those who received such contempt. He could not live without his opium pipe, alcohol lamp, and No. 3. He could not go a single day without smoking anesthetic drugs. When the drug’s effect wore off from his body, he writhed in throbbing moans. It was like a carp leaping from a bucket—utterly impossible to endure.

Mikitaro had been unable to like that old man from the very look of him. The old man had become nearly incapable of doing work that could be called proper work. And taking the old man’s place was his younger sister Suzu. She had now returned to Japan proper to bring back three or four packets. The Japanese compatriots generally made this soft trade their business. The storefront signs of steamed bun shops, souvenir dealers, watchmakers, and antique stores were nothing more than literal signboards. If Uchikawa was a wholesaler dealing in bulk quantities, they were petty merchants.—There were at least a thousand people engaged in such trade here.

Takezaburou was also one of those people. Opium was far too expensive for coolies and factory workers. Therefore, in place of opium, a cheaper and far more potent No. 3-containing substance was used here. If one smoked opium continuously for three months, they still wouldn’t become addicted; however, with heroin, their complexion would already take on a sickly pallor within ten days. —This too had its main drug and adjuvant. If the mixture wasn’t prepared well, sales were poor. And these mixing methods were each guarded as personal secrets, like family heirlooms; they did not easily divulge them to others. Takezaburou had failed at various jobs and finally, as his ultimate last resort, began handling this No. 3 product. Initially, despite the poor sales, he struggled. Even after failing at everything—absolutely everything—he could not return to the homeland. He had been driven out of the homeland.

Even a pharmacy—rumored to be a recklessly lucrative, shoddy business—when he tried his hand at it, still required hardship and backbreaking effort. "Damn it! This time, I'll try smoking it myself. If you don’t do at least that much, there’s no way this business’ll ever work out."

At the time he was saying such things, neither he nor his wife yet understood the drug’s terrors.

“Don’t talk like a fool.—What’ll you do if you get addicted?” Osen laughed. “I can’t be spouting such carefree nonsense! No matter what, I can’t go back to Japan!” When his goods gradually began selling better, his complexion changed like a withered pear. The anesthetic invaded the cells of his body. He was an ant falling into an antlion pit. No matter how much he thrashed and struggled, he could no longer go without smoking it.

Suzu, Shun, and Mikitaro had only been here from Japan proper for about two years. Suzu handled everything from mixing "Rapid-Rise" to procuring supplies and occasionally selling it to pale-faced Chinese who slipped in through the back door, muffling their footsteps. Shun comforted and played with Ichirou, whom Toshiko had left behind. Ichirou was Mikitaro’s child. Toshiko was the wife who had returned home, disliking him and the household. And Shun had previously been on good terms with Toshiko.

After Toshiko returned home, Suzu, the elder sister, began devoting herself wholeheartedly to household matters. It was always Suzu who was made to return to Japan proper to replenish supplies. She, too, carried this out despite the risks.

Getting through the strict customs and bringing in contraband was far easier for women—especially innocent-looking girls who still retained some childlike qualities—than for rough men. When Takezaburou first brought Mikitaro, Suzu, and Mikitaro’s wife Toshiko from Japan proper, he immediately forced each of them to land with one packet concealed on their persons. Mikitaro was momentarily left speechless by the sheer shamelessness of the old man at that time. If it had been just the two siblings, he could have endured it. However, the old man shamelessly ordered even Toshiko—who had only been married into the family for four months—to do it. He still felt that half the reason he had to part with Toshiko after about a year and a half lay with the old man. There was a limit to his inability to understand people’s feelings.

But the first time, Suzu and Toshiko—who had been embarrassed and anxious—managed to pull it off smoothly and effortlessly. When the old man and Mikitaro landed, the immediate task of getting through customs turned out to be unexpectedly troublesome. The women went right through without a hitch. Once the old man got a taste of it, he took advantage of the situation and made Suzu return to Japan proper again.

Suzu began taking visceral pleasure in deceiving customs officials after just two or three attempts. “How did you feel back then?”

Unable to forget the terror of exposure and his resentment toward the old man, Mikitaro later asked Suzu. “I didn’t feel anything. It’s just that I felt sorry for Father.”

“You wrapped that powder in a bag around your belly—oh, didn’t you look like you were three months pregnant? You were terribly worried about that, weren’t you?” “That did worry me. I just couldn’t tie the obi properly no matter what—but that was nothing, really. It’s just that I felt sorry for Father—when I thought about how he had to make even a child he’d just brought to Jinan and a new bride do such things, I felt so sorry for him that tears spilled out.”

“What’s this? For someone who was trembling like a leaf about getting caught, you’re sure talking mighty cocky now.”

“So, Big Brother, you knew even back then that life here would be this shabby?” “We didn’t think it’d be this bad, no matter how much we imagined.” “I understood perfectly. … When Grandfather died and Father came back all alone without even bringing Mother along—that made everything clear, didn’t it?”

“Well, well—look at you talking so high and mighty after the fact.”

After his wife abandoned him with their child and fled back home, the two of them became tightly bound to each other.

To put it in terms a third party would understand, Mikitaro had wanted a better wife and cast Toshiko aside like a worn-out straw sandal. However, sending back a woman who had once been his wife was not something that could be accomplished so easily through mere utilitarian calculation. In his old-fashioned way, he had been beset by various hesitations, anguish, and wavering. The one who knew that was Suzu alone. He had grown profoundly fond of his sister. The children had also grown attached to her. Suzu had become as accustomed to people as Asakusa pigeons. Just when one tried to catch them, the pigeons would—at that critical distance of one or two feet—instinctively take flight and escape. There was that kind of wariness.

This was already the seventh time she had returned to Japan proper.

VI

The clamor of the streets and rumors of Chiang Kai-shek’s advancing Northern Expedition had grown more frequent by the day since her arrival in Japan proper.

The Japanese residents’ concern regarding the Northern Expedition lay solely in whether their properties painstakingly built over years, their decorated houses, their curiously gathered Chinese artifacts, and their very lives would be mercilessly, bloodily trampled by brutish Southern soldiers—just as had happened to expatriates in Nanjing and Hankou during the May 30th Incident.

They had been subtly prompted by someone to harbor such anxieties. They held a meeting at the residents' association for that very reason. The two chosen representatives set out to petition the consulate. Both those who had hoarded small savings and those living hand-to-mouth with empty pockets had fallen under the same suggestion, becoming obsessed with that matter. The unceasing minor clashes among warlords and the continuous disturbances rendered that suggestion all the more compelling. In reality, disturbances were constantly being repeated throughout the town.

Patrolling Chinese soldiers barged into the girls' school east of Yuuei Garden during daylight.

There were two Chinese soldiers. The two Chinese soldiers entered the dormitory where the female students resided and satisfied their starved sexual desires. However, the female teacher bowed to the soldiers and begged them to keep the matter under wraps. The soldiers demanded money. The teacher was exploited in her moment of weakness. She paid.

However, when the two soldiers returned to their dark blue barracks, they boasted about it to the others as if it were some glorious honor. When night fell, soldiers who had not yet had their taste descended upon the school in a mob. Chinese shouts and metallic clamor erupted noisily in the distance. In the town every night, scattered houses were attacked by soldiers armed with weapons. “Is Mr. I Mitsuji ×-san here? Urgent business!” While watching a movie, if someone was called from the gate, even those nearby who hadn’t been called flinched. —Oh, another robbery?

The soldiers were short on provisions. Their faces and heads wrapped in black cloth, they concealed themselves in large sack-like coats. Their raids were a chaotic free-for-all, carried out with reckless abandon wherever they went. These weren’t calculated strikes like bandits targeting houses with cash. That very fact made them all the more troublesome. Even the poor couldn’t rest easy. When they barged in—like nightjars scavenging for prey—they ransacked houses from corner to corner, overturning everything. As they leapt about kicking shins and thrusting hands into storage nooks, their coat hems flipped up to reveal military uniform pants beneath.

“Oh, they’re soldiers!” “What do you expect soldiers to do?” “Soldiers can’t live without eating either! The Military Governor hasn’t sent us a single coin either!” They were in no position to retreat now that their true identities had been exposed. “Mine! Yours is mine! (What’s mine is mine! What’s yours is mine!)” At the factory, Uchikawa was devising countermeasures against Communist-affiliated propaganda and organizational activities accompanying the Northern Expedition, as well as workers fleeing under the cover of turmoil.

Those who failed to bow deeply enough—the impertinent ones—were subjected to merciless lynchings.

Workers—whether men with wives or female workers with husbands—were absolutely forbidden from stepping outside the gates. Everything was confined to the two dormitory buildings. The factory gate was guarded by the police.

The police refused entry to anyone without the company’s certificate.

As a measure to prevent escape, wages were not paid. The workers had not received their month’s wages that were supposed to be paid at the end of March, and they went without pay for the work they had done since April began. Their work was entirely based on the contract system. They received tonzuru one and a half mon (approximately 0.09 sen in Japanese currency) for packing 180 boxes into cases. For one axle set (thirty wooden frames), tonzuru two and a half mon; per cart unloaded, one mon; small box pasting, axle wood transport, and courtyard sweeping were two or three yen per month. The back-breaking work, the filthy tasks, the exposure to phosphorus poison—they did all of it. The Japanese merely stood guard with pistols.

And thus matches were produced that differed not one iota from Chinese domestic goods. The trademark too followed Shina-style conventions—"Da Ji" printed on yellow paper. At each corner of the label glared the slogan "Promote National Goods" (Use Domestic Products!), rendered in bold characters. This was among the resolutions passed by the Anti-Japanese Committee. They had inverted its meaning with cunning precision.—For indeed, every last component had passed through Chinese hands. Manufactured in Shina's soil. Therefore these could claim without contradiction to be Shina's domestic products. If one overlooked the capital behind them.

Given the fierce anti-Japanese goods movement, how much more rational a method it was to use cheap Chinese laborers to manufacture so-called "domestic products" indistinguishable from Shina’s own goods right there in Shina and sell them locally, rather than importing unsalable Kobe matches and being charged tariffs, levies, and surtaxes.

Omi Trading Company had long since set its sights on this. It wasn’t just matches. The capitalists had been using this method in spinning, machinery, flour milling, oil extraction, and sugar refining as well. The shortfall from being unable to profit in the harsh, dead-end home country was compensated here.

The workers’ destitution gradually intensified. They were only given steamed buns and pieces of baked rice cakes to eat. And they were only given hot water to drink. There wasn’t a single coin.

Due to having no money, they couldn’t smoke a single cigarette. They couldn’t cut their overgrown hair.

They earned money to send home but couldn’t support their families.

Having gone three or even four days without food, their mothers, fathers, and wives came seeking to meet their sons in northern-style clothing, but the gate pass system refused them. Inside, there were sons who wanted to see their parents. There were daughters. There were husbands who wanted to see their wives. There were wives who wanted to see their husbands. Outside, there were parents awaiting remittances from their sons or husbands—and wives who waited. Koyama and the others, dreading the tearful aftermath of such meetings, refused to let them meet.

The workers in tatters made their way to the poplar lumberyard enclosed with barbed wire. In only a small part of that area, the corrugated iron fence had not been erected. There, they let out metallic, sorrowful voices. When the workers caught the groaning, shouting voices of their parents, they quietly slipped out of the workplace and crept up to the barbed wire. They secretly met across the barbed wire.

However, the sons had no money to give their parents. The husbands had no money to give their wives. It was a heartrending encounter.

Mikitaro was entreated by these workers to plead for their wages. “Mr. Inokawa.” Wang Hongji timidly approached Mikitaro, who was inspecting the soaking point. He was one of the meek, hardworking laborers. “What is it?” “Mr. Inokawa.” “What is it?” Mikitaro’s expression urged him to speak faster. “Mr. Inokawa.” “Could you... ask Mr. Koyama to let them give us even half our monthly pay?”

Mikitaro became aware of Wang’s voice—servile yet bashful. “My mother came and told me my wife gave birth, but they haven’t eaten for three days now.” Wang continued. “Until the day before yesterday, we got millet from my wife’s sister’s place and ate it, but now there’s nothing left at her place either.”

“They’ve decided not to hand out monthly wages for the time being.” Mikitaro made a perplexed face.

“My mother came carrying the older kid on her back and is crying outside the fence.—The kid’s crying too. My mother’s crying.” “Even to Accounting, even to the Manager—nothing I say has any effect.” “……”

Wang Hongji tried to say something and looked at Mikitaro with a strange expression. He was suffering both physically and mentally. His chest felt as though it were being crushed, and he couldn’t even breathe. Mikitaro sensed in Wang’s eyes something good-natured and unresisting, like a castrated ox at the moment its forehead is struck in slaughter. That remained unresisting—why the hell am I being killed! I’ve done nothing to be killed for! he continued to plead with such single-minded intensity.

Suddenly, he

“Alright, I’ll tell ’em! I’ll speak up!” he shouted indignantly. “They don’t even see you lot as human!” “Never mind that.” “Just wait—I’ll tell ’em! I’ll speak up!” “I’ll speak up!”

Mikitaro was the newest face among the Japanese at the factory and the least acclimated to colonial life. Factory Manager Uchikawa, Foreman Koyama, Otsu, Morita, and Accountant Iwai—all of them had grown disillusioned with Japan’s cramped mainland, yearned for unrestrained freewheeling lands, and ventured out to Korea and Manchuria. They either starved on the mainland or ran afoul of the law. It became unbearable to stay. So first they crossed over to Korea. When Korea didn’t satisfy them, they came to Manchuria. When Manchuria didn’t satisfy them either, they came to Tianjin. They came to Beijing. There too things didn’t go well. Such people had made their way here.

They had rampaged through Dalian, Fengtian, Qingdao, Tianjin and other such places. There was no telling how many Koreans had been forced to sell their daughters for seventy or eighty yen after Otsu - with his perpetually smirking face that somehow resembled genitalia - took his commission cut. Moreover, every last one of those virgin girls had been "sampled" by Otsu before being handed over to their buyers. The number of coolies who ended up crippled or dead from Koyama's club blows numbered no fewer than ten.

Iwai now wore a face that wouldn’t hurt a fly, having managed to save a small sum of money. But to obtain that money, he had resorted to methods that would eliminate anyone in his way—Japanese, Koreans, or Chinese alike. Even these brazen men—their skin as thick as two or three sun—had made Manchuria detestable through their own misdeeds. Tianjin had turned foul. Qingdao had grown hateful. And so they had come here.

The factory was filled with a peculiar kind of blunt camaraderie—the sort of air common in gathering places of villains who had clawed their way up, carrying a special quality reminiscent of detention cells. Here, not a single soul attempted to conceal their evil deeds. Whether it was rape, robbery, or theft, they brazenly blabbed about their own experiences. Anyone who entered that place felt compelled to fabricate and boast about crimes they had no memory of committing—otherwise, they couldn’t hold their ground. The more someone had in terms of various criminal records and bold criminal experiences, the more they could intimidate others, make people cower, and carry themselves with swagger.

Koyama, when faced with workers he disliked, would scoop up the head mixture—a thick, viscous blend of phosphorus, potassium chlorate, sulfur, and rosin melted together in a heated vat—with a ladle and forcefully splash it over their heads from above. When the Chinese workers saw the ladle gripped in his hand, they would let out ear-splitting shrieks and flee as if their world had turned upside down. Yet whenever the workers spilled the head mixture, he would vulgarly scream at them.

When they pushed Mikitaro Inokawa aside, they all began treating the workers with the same attitude one would show toward animals. Mikitaro Inokawa thought about how the workers managed to replenish the calories consumed during their fifteen-hour workdays merely by chewing on black steamed buns or fragments of sorghum flour cakes baked haphazardly and drinking hot water. To him, there seemed to be no one as tenacious and enduring as the Chinese. They did not complain. They strove to pack even one more match, intent solely on making money. The contract system provoked their love of money into making them work. It seemed to be a system devised for that one specific purpose.

“Idiots!” Koyama sneered. “Those bastards themselves ain’t even thinkin’ ’bout whether they get enough calories!” Koyama had calculated from his own experience that these workers were more uppity and less efficient than Manchurian coolies. He’d used coolies from Bishansou at Dalian Port before. “Gotta understand—the Chinese are a gangster race.” “Praisin’ ’em or any o’ that—that’s downright useless!” He lectured them with a senior’s swagger.

“They don’t have any sense of shame. No matter how much we do for ’em, it’s never enough. Even if you give ’em ten yen, they’ll just settle for a ‘thanks’. Give ’em one yen—still a ‘thanks’. Ten sen? Same damn ‘thanks’. That’s why loading big favors on those bastards is the stupidest thing you can do. Once they get something, they’ll slack off and stop listening to a word we say.”

“In Korea, in Manchuria—the Koreans and Chinese cower before us and scatter like dust.”

The factory manager repeated. "When there are no seats on trains," he said while reminding everyone, "those of us who board later make the yobos who got there first stand up so we can take their seats—that's how it should be." "But here these Chinamen swagger about like they own everything. "It's all because there's no Imperial Japanese Army stationed here." They had witnessed with grim satisfaction during their time roaming Manchuria and Korea how garrison troops would crush unruly yobos and coolies through military demonstrations and brute force.

They lamented that such a Japanese Imperial garrison had not come here. “However, everything is a matter of comparison.” Mikitaro said, resolved not to concede purity’s righteousness to villains. “When measured by labor itself, we Japanese fundamentally cannot equal the Chinese.” “Moreover, back in Japan proper—with unions forming and strikes occurring—workers subjected to such reckless exploitation under terrible conditions have stopped staying silent.”

“I don’t know about that—that’s something only a fresh-faced pup like you would know.” Koyama sneered at Mikitaro’s naivety. “You think we came all the way to China to sweat like coolies? We’re the ones giving those bastards work, ain’t we? If we hadn’t built this factory here, they wouldn’t have two sen to rub together! Even the rickshaws—who’d pay ’em sen if we didn’t ride? What—you want us to grovel in the dirt same as them?! That’s a fucking disgrace to Japan!”

“How could working be a disgrace?!” Mikitaro thought. “What an idiot,” Mikitaro thought. “Get older! Even you’ll come to understand soon enough!” Koyama barked.

At times, a man who had come from the countryside seeking work would suddenly appear and enter the match factory.

He came with a grime-caked futon slung over his shoulder and assorted kitchen junk crammed into a hemp sack, clutching it in his hand as he arrived. The police, following Uchikawa’s prior instructions, had let such men through the gate. Mikitaro handled these types of men. Uchikawa observed the Chinese man from the side while Mikitaro spoke in his classroom-perfect Chinese pronunciation. He based hiring decisions on whether they were docile, young, plump enough—men who could be worked to the bone without breaking.

A healthy-looking, though not clean, country-bred young man was hired. In exchange, elderly men afflicted with the match factory’s unique bone necrosis, long-term workers whose gums had rotted away leaving their teeth completely fallen out, and female laborers whose fingers—repeatedly burned, festering and suppurating—could no longer pick up small objects like clumsy tongs were driven out one by one. With only their wages. Malnutrition and lack of sunlight—compounded by work hours from 4 AM to 7 PM—combined with the use of yellow phosphorus, the most toxic substance banned worldwide, ensured that even healthy bodies were ravaged by toxins within an alarmingly short period.

The turnover of workers was fierce. When one entered, one was driven out. This was repeated time and again. Before long, Mikitaro realized that with each new hire, all the Chinese in the factory would turn deathly pale with terror and dread. It wasn’t just the timid old men likely to be fired or the ones under scrutiny. Even skilled workers indispensable to the factory and pitiable boy and girl workers of seven or eight years old all turned deathly pale, gazing with dull, sorrowful eyes in silent supplication at the Japanese who held the power of life and death over them.

No matter how desperately Mikitaro argued for paying the wages, Uchikawa and Koyama had no intention of accepting it. "You're just a greenhorn, yet you're as eloquent as a Chinaman." Koyama, acutely aware of Uchikawa's presence beside him, snorted derisively.

“Wages aren’t some charity we hand out from our side,” Mikitaro Inokawa said, ready to pick a fight. “This is money that must be paid. Labor is a commodity, after all. It’s only natural to pay for what you’ve bought, isn’t it?” No matter how much he appealed to their humanity, they were not the sort to listen. “Hmm—are you Chinese? Russian? Or a Bolshevik?” “I’m Japanese.” Mikitaro felt something violent squirming all at once within his chest. He had to do something about these two! Otherwise, the pain in his chest would not be soothed. But the outcome of what he intended to do was all too clear.

“If you’re Japanese, act like one!” Koyama said. “You can’t make matches just by spouting theories.”

“If you let the workers die, you still won’t be able to make matches.” What he had been holding back finally exploded. “Thief! Gambler!…”

He snatched up the chair beside him. Swaying unsteadily, he raised it high. But Uchikawa sprang up like a leopard and wrenched the chair from his grasp. “Idiot! Idiot!” “What are you doing, Inokawa?!” “What do you think you’re doing—?!”

Mikitaro was pushed out the door. Slam! And the door closed.

“Actually, he’s just young,” Uchikawa laughed tensely at Koyama, whose eyes blazed with anger. “He’s a hopeless case. “I’m only keeping him around because I feel sorry for his mother. “His old man’s a heroin addict—useless mouth on him too—but I just feel sorry for his mother...”

Seven

The yellow wind howled against the power lines.

The wind racing down from Mongolia seemed to sweep standing trees, sandy soil, and houses alike into its whirlwind force—whirling them upward and scattering them about. The sun grew pallid.

Humans, within the dust stretching from earth to sky, were crushingly compressed by their own powerlessness and insignificance. They thought of all sorts of things.

China, China—something is happening there, but China cannot contain it! Life here seems carefree, yet it is the most painful. It's unbearable!

Humans contemplated how their lives up to this point had been riddled with scars.—Some resolved that they must conceal those scars to keep living. Some collapsed under the weight of their own deeds.

Shun alone, amidst those sunk in gloomy contemplation, was the only one neither thinking nor pondering anything as she amused three-year-old Ichiro and played about. Ichiro, fumbling through fractured Chinese phrases like "Tianjin" and "Qiaotang" with his clumsy tongue, begged Shun for sweets.

“Ichiro looks just like Toshiko-san... That upturned little nose of his, those eyes, those slender eyebrows—they’re all exactly the same!” Shun laughed happily. She had been closest with her departed sister-in-law. “Even the palm lines that follow the heavenly path are exactly the same!”

Shun resented that her sister-in-law had been driven away. The target of that resentment was her mother. At first, when something was still novel, Mother would treat her with utmost deference. But after a while, when flaws began to show, she would nitpick mercilessly from then on. Shun hated that. She picked off bits of straw debris from the woolen dress she had knitted for Ichiro with her fingertips. And, supporting the child’s shoulder to keep him from falling while making him walk, she led him toward her brother.

Mother could hardly wait for Mikitaro to return from the factory after his shift. Suzu’s absence made her feel lonely. “What is it?”

Mother’s face was restless.

“If you let your guard down even for a moment, Wang’s already quietly taken out ‘Kuaishangkuai’ and started selling it.” “Hmm.” “Just the other day, he took three yen for shoe repairs—there should’ve been about one yen left over from that, but he went and kept it for himself.” “Now, now—just pretend you don’t know anything and keep quiet,” Mikitaro said. “You have to keep the drawer locked!” Completely consumed by Third Type, Takezaburou could no longer spare any thought for such matters. The pleasant smell of the drug seeped into every part of his body. He lay on a worn, somewhat faded red blanket with a high pillow, melting into a doze. He did nothing but greedily indulge in his ecstatic state as if it were a dream. He did not concern himself with anything else.

Mikitaro picked up Ichiro, whom Shun had made walk over.

“I heard three bandits were caught the other day.” “Another exposed neck on display then.”

Shun laughed happily. She was interested in this barbaric method reminiscent of the Tokugawa era. "However, one of those bandits was apparently a former sergeant from the Shandong army who'd been stationed at Kui Tree Barracks," he said. "They caught him after he stole four men's worth of bullets and rifles to join up with the bandits."

“How amusing—a sergeant taking guns and turning bandit! How amusing! Isn’t it entertaining? Isn’t that just perfect?” “Nearly every day now, some sort of riot breaks out.”

Mother was offering a lamp to the makeshift Buddhist altar. The drawer under the altar was the Third Type’s secret hiding place. "Why don’t we write to Suzu and tell her to stay in mainland Japan until it’s clear whether the Southern Army is coming here or not?" “She’s pitiable too, you know.” “Yeah.” Mikitaro thought for a moment. "But even if we send a letter now, it probably won’t make it in time. “...If she happened to be on the Nikko Maru, around today would be when it’s scheduled to arrive.”

“Do you think so?”

The old man had been dozing on the red blanket for quite some time. Thick, leaden-black lips let slovenly drool drip sluggishly onto the blanket. This was a phenomenon that always occurred when he entered an ecstatic state. “Rest well! Rest well! Take your time resting!” Shun pointed at her father and emitted a shrill voice.

At this time, if someone disturbed his doze even slightly, Father would display violent ferocity as if set on fire. Mikitaro and Mother remained silent too, making efforts not to even make loud sounds. The old man’s skin was dusky and tinged with yellow; his white blood cells, robbed of resistance by the drug, left him gasping feebly like a patient with one foot already in the coffin.

“Rest well! “Rest well!” “Take your time resting!” Mikitaro thought the old man would soon die. He himself was hastening toward destruction. He remembered how his father had been driven from his hometown. People like his father who came to the colonies and sank into depravity—four or five wouldn’t even begin to cover it. No—there was no telling how many there might be. This was a place where only those who found their hometowns unbearable came. Those driven to ruin with no way out; those with criminal records; those wanting to make money and return to their villages to swagger about—those burning to pay back the bastards who’d humiliated them! Or those who’d become indignant; those who crossed to Korea and Manchuria only to fail repeatedly there too, until they were driven to even remoter regions farther from mainland Japan—this was where they all came.

Takezaburou crossed over to Manchuria, leaving behind nine-year-old Mikitaro, five-year-old Shun, and three-year-old Suzu.

Behind the village, separated by a river, the towering Shikoku Mountain Range carved into the sky. In front lay the undulations of wave-like hills, and beyond them stretched a rough sea facing the Pacific Ocean. Mikitaro spent his boyhood in that village, ostracized by the other children. The sun crossed the narrow, blue-tinged, clear sky cut out by the mountains every day. In spring, the bell of the temple—one of the Shikoku Eighty-Eight Sacred Sites nestled at the mountain’s edge—would resound over the village with a rusted yet lively tone. Pilgrims passed ceaselessly along the narrow mountain path, ringing their bells. There, even when receiving beans from pilgrims into his small hands, Mikitaro was left utterly alone, ostracized by everyone. The reason stemmed from his father having plotted to frame the other children’s fathers—the village assemblymen—as criminals on corruption charges without any concrete evidence. This was the reason.

But was there truly no evidence? Did Father really scheme to frame the other village assemblymen?

The new elementary school was completed.

That was the year. Takezaburou was elected to the village assembly. He was a landowning farmer who also worked as a tenant farmer. Such a person was thought to lack even the qualifications to be a sanitation association squad leader, let alone a village assembly member.

Such was the time. The old man had possessed a mouth that could speak without fear before anyone. He had possessed an eye for piercing through hidden truths. When he showed his face at the village assembly, none of the other assemblymen were pleased. About a month prior, the old man had built a gate. He had cut down trees from the mountain for lumber. And he had served sake to neighbors who helped prepare materials, along with his brother-in-law and nephew. That proved his undoing. Matsubaya, who witnessed this, denounced it as bribery. It was customary to offer *omiki* (sake) as celebration for those assisting with lumber preparation. Yet after all the uproar, he ended up fined. The problem, they asserted, lay in his later purchase of two extra shō of sake and offering a cup to some man who happened by.

The village assemblymen made a fuss but quickly withdrew of their own accord.

A by-election was held. The old man shut himself in his house to show penitence. Even were they to threaten burning his house to ashes, he harbored not the faintest desire to become a village assemblyman or any such thing. He could not suppress his outrage. In such moments, he would burrow under the futon and endure through sleep. Then too he would crawl from that futon—flattened and steeped in greasy filth—eat his meal, then worm back beneath it. He passed some three days in this void. Yet despite all reason, Matsubaya’s tenant farmers cast their votes for the old man once more.

He was re-elected. The old man began to show a bit of ambition.

Not long after that.

The construction of the school, which had been underway for two years, was completed. For a rural village of that era, it cost an astonishing 30,000 yen. It was Western-style. It was freshly painted in a bluish-tinged paint. The roof was slate-tiled. The ridge formed a sharp angle that towered high into the sky. However, the pillars and beams were thin old timber; here and there, old holes were filled with wooden plugs or covered over with separate planks to hide the interior. In the unseen areas, corners were cut.

The corruption scandal involving village assemblymen connected to this new construction began being gradually exposed before the villagers' eyes. The old man had harbored retaliatory motives over having been falsely charged with bribery before. This certainly existed. He resolutely rejected attempts by Matsubaya and the village headman to draw him into their schemes as one of their own. To Mikitaro, everything surged vividly as if it had all happened just the day before yesterday. The old man had been sturdy and combative - when it came to shouldering rice bales, no one in the village could match his strength. He remembered each simple aspect of that old man as clearly as if holding them in his hands. But those events belonged to ten years past - no, thirteen years now.

It was March. Along the edges of the field, broad bean flowers—planted here and there in single clumps, their shell-shaped blossoms resembling uneaten clams—were beginning to bloom in clusters.

An incident occurred that briefly required the old man to be away. His sister was having trouble getting along at her marital home, and they had been causing quite a stir. The old man headed to the home of his brother-in-law, who ran a ship chandler on K City's coastal street. The incident had entirely worsened during his absence. Matsubaya, the fishery owner, and the village headman were all not prosecuted due to insufficient evidence.

Up to ninety percent of the village had been seized by Matsubaya, and the commotion abruptly died down. All evidence had been destroyed. The attack of false accusation now rained down upon the old man from the entire village instead. The village headman claimed that the pine tree cut for the gate’s materials had been taken from beyond the boundary of Takezaburou’s owned forest and was in fact from his own mountain.

The pine had been stripped of its bark, carved, and become a backbone-like supporting beam in the newly built gate.

The old man was a tree thief. The village headman demanded that the tree be returned. But to return that tree, they would have had to tear off the newly built gate's roof tiles, knock down the plastered walls, and disassemble the assembled timber piece by piece—having mistaken his forest's boundary line and tried to cover it up had utterly destroyed the old man's credibility. He had grown disgusted with these bribable villagers. And the villagers had completely written him off as both a tree thief and false accuser.

One evening at the end of August, the old man left the village, leaving Mikitaro and his sister behind. In the grassy thicket by the roadside, crickets began to chirp. On the drooping branches of the old persimmon tree in front of the house, astringent persimmons had grown very large, still green. When he passed through the darkness below, the fruits tapped against his head.

The old man crossed the boat bridge at the edge of the village and boarded a carriage. The candles within the clouded glass on either side of the driver flickered unsteadily.

“Goodbye!” “Goodbye!”

Mikitaro could not fall asleep for a long time.

It was from that moment that the old man’s downfall had begun. If none of that had happened, we wouldn’t have come to a shithole like China! Still, he clung to his hope of someday returning to the homeland. Knocked down by rotten bastards and left to rot—they’d become just like them now. Everywhere it’s the groveling dogs who lick the boots of their betters that get ahead! He lay awake for a long time.

A dog was barking persistently. The yellow wind roared and howled high in the sky. He was dreaming of the bony old man walking briskly through a Japanese-style house like a wooden puppet. The old man took a thick ledger and went out into the hallway. In the hallway stood a door. In the dim hallway, the old man’s legs twitched as if seized by cramps. At that moment, his rigid head struck violently against the door panel. A clattering sound rang out. It was entirely an incident from the homeland.

Mikitaro abruptly awoke. Indeed, someone had been knocking on the door. Mother cleared her throat. He sensed her rising hesitantly and approaching the doorway. The door was knocked again. It seemed a Chinese person stood outside. Mother peered through a narrowly opened gap, both suspicious and cautious. She then snapped it shut and returned. "A telegram has come at this hour..." "Who's it from?" Mikitaro half-rose.

“Well… have a look.” He twisted the switch above his head. Mother, in her nightclothes, was shuddering despite it not being particularly cold. “What could it be this late?” “Miss Suzu detained by Consular Police. Someone must come immediately to vouch.—Hanakawa-ya” “Oh, Suzu’s been detained.” Mother collapsed heavily onto the tatami mats. Ichirou, who had been sleeping on the nursery platform, startled by the noise, moved his head.

“So she arrived on the Nikko Maru today after all. She got caught by customs when landing.” Mother turned as pale as a chameleon. “They made her carry too damn much—that’s why they’d already memorized her face at customs. There you have it.”

VIII

Mikitaro had to go out all the way to Qingdao. He worried about Suzu's safety.

Here, the Jiaozhou-Jinan Railway stretched westward from Qingdao, merging with the Tianjin-Pukou Railway to form a three-way junction. This confluence occupied a strategic position.

Mikitaro had to endure being jolted for nine hours from here to Qingdao on a filthy train where Chinese passengers spat and blew their noses everywhere.

He left the house. There was no train as unreliable and lackadaisical as those in China. Unless you were prepared to waste three or five hours at the station, you couldn't board a train. He knew that while the manager constantly handled massive quantities of both hardline contraband and soft goods combined, he had never once been caught. The manager had been procuring amounts twenty times, thirty times—even fifty times—what his father and sister smuggled in, all with brazen indifference. And he walked about openly. Yet his feeble father and sister got caught bringing just one or two measly packets. Detained in the holding cells!

The consulate only protected the wealthy. Only those without money, scraping by with their meager businesses, were subjected to the harsh sanctions of strict regulations. Even here, as always, the more numerous the rotten bastards were, the more they got away with their schemes.

He emerged onto Daima Road. Bandits being dragged to the station-front execution ground, guarded by security squad soldiers, passed by in rickshaws while hurling foul-mouthed curses at the crowd swarming like flies and unarmed soldiers. There were three. Mounted officers and unarmed soldiers restrained the crowd surging through the street and cleared a path. Coolies, beggars, Germans, and Japanese alike surged through the streets like a wave.

“Gimme cigarettes! “Gimme cigarettes!” A bandit of the Debochin type—his dark eyes rolling wildly—sat defiantly sprawled in the central rickshaw, hands wrenched behind his back and neck yanked upward by tight bonds, legs locked in massive shackles, yet still bellowing equally at both the rickshaw puller and the security squad soldiers. The dusky rickshaw puller took out a Hademen cigarette (a paper-rolled brand) that the tobacco shop owner had charitably donated and placed it between his lips. Debochin chewed on it and ended up spitting it out.

“What’s this cheap-ass cigarette?! “Idiot!” “Paotai! Gimme Paotai!” “Paotai!” “Paotai! Gimme Paotai!”

The rickshaw puller hesitated for a moment. “Paotai! Gimme Paotai!” “Paotai! Gimme Paotai!” “Paotai! Gimme Paotai!” “Idiot!”

The first prisoner hung his head deathly pale and was utterly broken. The third man, his elbows bound backward at the joints as if they might snap, remained atop the rickshaw guzzling liquor until it spilled from his mouth, utterly plastered. This must be the sergeant.

The prisoners, while being dragged to the execution ground, demanded every item from the shops that caught their eye as they pleased. The shop owners couldn’t collect payment for anything they gave. The officials did not pay for what the prisoners ate and drank. However, even the greediest shopkeeper did not refuse the demands of prisoners who would pass through hell’s gate in an hour or two. The bandits showed no interest in gold and silver vessels—things they couldn’t take to the next world. They demanded nothing but alcohol, sweets, fruit, or tobacco. There was also a meek one who had someone let him stuff his cheeks with a single two- or three-sen pear from a street stall, eating it as if it were delicious.

As the rickshaws advanced, the crowd of onlookers swelled in number. Dust-choked from horse dung and garbage, they spilled into the wide road and followed behind.

At the station-front square, another, even more numerous mass of pitch-black crowds lay in wait, seething.

There was no execution ground structure, no bamboo fencing—nothing at all. Yet as they drew closer, the bandits' expressions abruptly stiffened. A low, indistinct cry—half-groan, half-prayer—rang out from the rickshaw. Leg irons clattered harshly. Only the third drunkard remained, his limp head knocking rhythmically against the rickshaw's mudguard as though he'd truly lost his mind.

"What'll happen to that drunk?" Mikitaro wondered. "If they finish him quick while he's still soused, maybe it's easier on him after all."

The soldiers drove away the crowd. The rickshaw puller lowered the shafts.

The third prisoner suddenly raised his head. Like drool, alcohol streamed from his earth-colored lips, which twitched and tightened. And then his eyes saw the sea of people. They were like the eyes of a dead fish.

“Do it, damn you! I ain’t scared! Do it, damn you!” He muttered incoherently, as if in a trance. The words were drowned out by the uproar of the crowd. The central Debochin—who had thrown a tantrum until they put a Paotai cigarette in his mouth—flicked away the butt, about a third smoked, from the rickshaw onto the head of a nearby security squad soldier. The lit cigarette butt slid from the hat and fell onto the nape of his neck.

“Ouch! It’s hot! Hot! Hot!” The young security squad soldier jumped up in shock. Debochin sneered viciously at the sky with bitter sarcasm. “Damn you!”

The three were dragged down from the rickshaw. The iron chains on the leg irons clanged with a rusty tone. The prisoners did not move. The crowd roared ominously. ソウ　リウユチエ　プル シュエ　テイ　ユーピンテン チュンチュ　シチュネン カイン　シュエ　タ　トンチェン チャン　ペイ　ハイ　ピエン

…………

Suddenly, Mikitaro heard the desperately reckless strains of Su Wu’s song. It was a familiar military song, one that even children often sang. When he looked, Debochin's bandit was humming with his lips twisted.

“That guy Debochin really has some nerve!”

Beside him, a young Chinese man muttered resentfully.

“...Still singing, damn him.” “There, still singing, damn him.” However, at that moment, Mikitaro was seized by a feeling akin to when he had studied Chinese poetry as a Japanese. In an instant, he was struck by a terribly lonely emotion. The meaning of what he had sung last was something like: “An aged mother longingly awaits her beloved child’s return; a newlywed bride in red makeup keeps her lonely vigil in an empty chamber.” Debochin had likely grown up in a rural village, where from childhood he had sung that song to the southern winds blowing down from Li Mountain until it became second nature. He might not have committed any evil deeds at all. He too must have had an innocent, carefree childhood!

チュアン　イエン　ペイフォン　ツイ イエンジュン　ハン　コアンフイ パイ　ファニャン　ワンアルツイ ホン　ゾアン　イ　コン　ウエイ “Bastards! Are you saying I’m some kind of murderer? Damn you all!” “Are you saying I’m some kind of murderer? Damn you all!”

Nine

In China, it was customary that when bandits were captured, they would be dragged through city streets and publicly executed before crowds as a deterrent. The severed necks—three or four of them—were lined up and hung from roadside utility poles, put on display as severed heads. The necks were somewhat unsettling. One had its mouth agape, revealing filthy, tartar-caked teeth. Another looked as if it were laughing. Another wore a grimace. In summer, golden flies swarmed over the rotting flesh.

People would turn their faces away at first glance and pass by without looking back. Among the bandits, of course, there were those who had committed robbery. There were also those who had committed murder. Japanese nationals who were brutally killed numbered far more than two or three. They extorted money from village heads, and if it wasn't handed over, they would attack villages surrounded by earthen walls, seize wives and daughters, burn houses, and massacre all the villagers. Time and again, they did just that. No matter how many severed heads were put on public display, it might never suffice as retribution for their evil deeds. Therefore, the crowd that had tasted the ravages of looting actually welcomed these cruel methods of execution.

“Kneel!” The mounted officer shouted at the three men who had been taken down from the rickshaws. The three men collapsed limply to their knees on the ground. The soldiers roughly grabbed the prisoners’ shoulders. “Face west, you idiot!” “There’s no way you’ll face that direction to get executed, idiot!”

Again, the chains clanked. The three men were reseated at intervals of one and a half ken apart. A tall, corpulent soldier took the Green Dragon Sword from his shoulder and practiced slashing through the air with fierce shouts. The Green Dragon Sword gleamed only along its blade edge. It was like a hatchet.

“Bring steamed buns!” “Bring steamed buns!” “I want steamed buns!” Debochin, who had earlier demanded Battery cigarettes, rattled his leg chains and flapped his bound, immobile hands as he craved steamed buns—wheat flour skins stuffed with pork and steamed. “Don’t get greedy!” “Hey! Bring ’em here! Bring ’em here! Bring steamed buns!” “Bring ’em here!” “Bring ’em here!” “Bring steamed buns!”

He shook his head and continued shouting.

The crowd, ignoring the soldiers with guns who tried to control them, leaned further forward in morbid fascination. Mikitaro forced his way through the throng, engulfed in the stench of fat and garlic from the Chinese bodies around him. The prisoner—his hands wrenched up behind his back until they nearly touched his neck—had only the rope around his nape loosened. A pale man who had been sitting with downcast eyes raised his head, wild-haired and haggard. "I didn't become no bandit 'cause I felt like it or for some damn joke..." His voice rang hollow with grief.

Two local men supporting the prisoner’s head and back prodded him to keep him from moving. The reason they immobilized him was to make the beheading easier. “Gimme those steamed buns!” “Gimme those steamed buns!” “That Debochin’s throwing another tantrum.”

Beside Mikitaro, a woman in a purple dress whispered. Her bangs hung down. Then, the old man without front teeth behind her,

“Go on! Go on! More! Make ’em suffer!”

“Make them suffer!” he bellowed loud enough for all to hear, his voice ringing with unmistakable malice.

Mikitaro was jostled by the crowd when someone poked his shoulder from behind.

It was Yamazaki. And beside Yamazaki stood another man—a large-faced figure with a balding forehead—who glanced at him and offered a faint smile. He too was Japanese. It was Nakatsu. "You going somewhere?" Yamazaki, having keenly spotted Mikitaro’s handbag—which he clutched desperately to keep from dropping and being trampled in the surging crowd—amidst the shifting throng, inquired: Mikitaro explained the reason.

Nakatsu listened to the conversation beside him and smiled a complex smile that seemed both affectionate and mocking. This was the bandit-turned thug who had been terrorizing Japanese expatriates in the region. He served as Zhang Zongchang’s military advisor. “Hmm. Hmm.” Yamazaki nodded. “I’m about to head to Qingdao myself with another man right now. What’s your business here?” “Hmm, hmm... So your sister got nabbed at customs? That was one hell of a blunder she made.” “Hmm. Hmm.”

“They say if it’s business done by the Manager, no matter how extravagantly he pulls it off, they’ll keep turning a blind eye—but when it comes to my old man scraping by with his penny-ante dealings, they say that’s no good.”

“There’s no need to sulk, you know.” “……So you’re trying to go retrieve your sister now, huh?” “That’s right.” “Since we’re heading over there anyway, want us to go retrieve her right away?” Yamazaki looked at Nakatsu. “If we’re the ones retrieving her, it’ll be a cinch.” There was a hint in Yamazaki’s tone that sought to convey it. Mikitaro sensed it. It’s precisely in times like these that I have to make use of Yamazaki—it’d be a waste not to, he thought.

“How about it? I’ll do it for free—no information fee.”

And again, Yamazaki looked at Nakatsu. Nakatsu's bearded face bore an elusive smile. Mikitaro, sensing Yamazaki was retorting to a past joke, deliberately pretended not to notice.

At that moment, a violent surge of jubilation swept through the crowd. The two local men who had been supporting the prisoner’s head and back were drenched from their heads down to their arms in hot fresh blood. The headless corpse lurched forward and collapsed. The spurts of blood grew smaller as the heart's beats weakened. “Agh! Agh!” When the neck fell, the crowd roared. “Agh! Agh!” Some clapped their hands in delight. This emotion was incomprehensible to the Japanese.

Three or four minutes later, all three—the despondent one, the drunkard, and Debochin, who had kept demanding steamed buns until his neck was severed but never received them—lay as hollow shells in identical postures. From the encircling crowd, a foot-bound woman in black scurried out. Two or three others followed. Men mingled among them. Then, with sly grins, they clutched peeled steamed buns skewered on long chopsticks. This occurred as the officers and soldiers began withdrawing. When they neared the corpses, they frantically pressed those skinned buns against the severed stumps that had shrunk from being cut. The steamed buns contained no filling. They soaked up the spurting blood before one's eyes, crimsoning like boiled lobsters.

“They’re doing it, they’re doing it,” Yamazaki laughed. “No matter how much time passes, the Chinese remain nothing but a bunch of superstitious holdouts.” Nakatsu made a face that seemed to say this was only natural. “Even Zhang-daren takes a bite now and then.” “Do the Tenth Madame and her ilk eat them too?” “Of course they eat ’em.” “Because they say that’s the medicine for health and longevity.” “Zhang-daren is barbaric through and through… People from the mainland would be dumbstruck if they saw this.”

The crowd was still laughing and murmuring. They did not even seem to register that three humans had been killed. They didn’t even seem to feel as though a dog or cat had been killed. Mikitaro felt this keenly. It was as if they were no more moved than by a caterpillar or rice borer having its head torn off. Only the rickshaw pullers who had transported the prisoners remained ominously dejected. The three rickshaws were drawn quietly through the crowd without even sounding their horns. The rickshaw pullers had been forcibly rounded up. Once you transport a criminal, your luck will never improve for the rest of your life. There was such a superstition. Just as Japanese boatmen from the mainland detest loading drowned corpses onto their boats. That was why they were utterly dejected.

“Don’t let ’er see! Don’t let ’er see!” “Hey, don’t let ’er see!” Suddenly, as three rickshaws passed by each other, three more came charging at full speed toward the execution ground. From the lead rickshaw, a foot-bound woman in her thirties tumbled out and recklessly plunged into the wall of the crowd. Then, a flustered farmer came charging after her, struggling to drag her back. “Don’t let ’er see! “Don’t let ’er see!”

The farmer raised his voice desperately. The woman screamed something hysterically, raised her voice in wailing sobs, pushed through the crowd, and tried to approach the corpse.

The farmer was an old man over fifty. He strode widely, dodging her legs while spreading both hands to grab and stop the girl-like woman. And the woman threw herself into his arms. She wailed, flailing her foot-bound legs. “Wronged! Wronged!” She collapsed in tears into the farmer’s arms. “The bad one is my husband! The bad one is my husband! It was my husband who put my man through such an ordeal!” “Give it up, give it up! No matter how much you lament, the dead won’t come back to life.”

The old man calmed the woman. “There’s no way!” “Give it up!” “Give it up!”

The crowd tensed again and began gathering around the woman. She grieved for that man who had sung military songs, craved steamed buns, and begged for Fort Platform cigarettes. When Yamazaki saw the woman, he whispered something meaningful to Nakatsu. For some reason, Mikitaro felt something connect with his intuition. Nakatsu pushed through the people and hurried toward the soldiers. "Wasn't that Debochin the boy who used to work for the Factory Manager?" Mikitaro asked casually.

Yamazaki turned away as if he hadn't heard. “He’s innocent!” “He’s innocent!” “The bad one is the foreman!” “The foreman! It’s the foreman!”

The woman was still sobbing. "Her husband ain't no bandit!" the farmer explained to the people crowding around. "The Japanese foreman ordered her husband to go do business with the bandits." "But then he got caught by the authorities and ended up lumped in with 'em." "They have their boy do the dirty work, but once he's caught, the Japanese just insist they fired him so they don't know nothin'." "The one at fault's the foreman!... It's the foreman who's wrong!" "The Japanese are the ones at fault!"

Whether they were hardliners or moderates, those who handled things cautiously and piecemeal ended up being forced to make amends with their own blood tax when discovered. However, those who meddled in everything on a grand scale had taken in all they could take. The blood tax was made to be paid by the workers they employed. Countless Chinese workers, acting on their foreign masters’ orders, were arrested while transporting illicit goods, subjected to torture with water-soaked leather whips and sham trials, and sentenced to death.

Mikitaro's family was the sort that paid their own blood tax. He couldn't help but feel agitated. Even if conclusive evidence emerged of an inseparable connection between a captured Chinese worker and the foreign master who employed him, the foreigner would only stand trial at his own country’s consulate. Even if the boy was convicted, his master would get off with nothing more than a fine, detention, or a reprimand from his fellow countrymen out of compatriot love. The Chinese people’s desperate cries for the abolition of extraterritoriality and consular jurisdiction arose precisely from such injustices.

The crowd surrounding the woman and farmer was dispersed by soldiers who had been alerted by Nakatsu. The woman followed her husband’s corpse as it was borne to the cemetery. She had begged to have his body placed in the coffin loaded onto the third rickshaw, but local authorities refused. “All right, departure!” “Departure!” “We’re late!” The engineer who’d been mingling with spectators sighed in relief and sprinted toward his waiting train. The scheduled departure time had already passed by an hour.

10

The suspicious eyes of the consulate and Chinese authorities were trained on Takezaburou’s every movement.

Police officers from the 7th District Police Station, carrying rifles and swords at their waists, stood like sentries at the crossroads of the acacia-lined avenue, keeping watch over those entering and exiting his back gate. They were watching for people who came sneaking under cover of night’s darkness to buy anesthetic drugs.

Suddenly, Shun was drawn to that. She came out from the neighboring Ma Guanzhi’s house onto the stone pavement, pulling the hand of the toddling Ichirou. “Why are they standing over there like that?” Shun craned her neck toward the police officers and asked Ma Guanzhi’s wife. She had noticed that for the first time.

“Oh, Ms. Inokawa, didn’t you know yet?” answered the young woman with bound feet. The two neighbors were on very good terms. She hesitated awkwardly, her tongue tripping at the root. “Those fellows have been standing there every night for five days now. You’d better watch out for your household.” “What on earth are they trying to do?” “They’re keeping watch on the buyers, you know. “They’re watching people who come to buy Wanzi,” she said with a feeble sigh. “They’re standing there to keep anyone from coming to buy Wanzi.”

Shun, ashamed of her family’s business in front of Ma Guanzhi’s wife, blushed crimson up to her neck. She scooped up Ichirou and dashed back into the house. Takezaburou lay on the red blanket with a polished opium pipe clenched between his teeth, gazing at the alcohol lamp as he tried to slip into a trance. Mother was keeping company with the visiting antique dealer from Kairou. The antique dealer laughed about how the Shandong soldiers dispatched to the front that morning had been carrying umbrellas and buckets made by hollowing out one side of an oil can and threading thick wire through it.

“Those bastards don’t even act as proper guards for your place.” Shun’s report brought terror to her mother. To the antique dealer, it brought something entirely different. “Even if you question folks coming from the back alley, those thieves’ll just pretend not to see a thing.” “But surely even thieves would hold back some.”

Mother concealed her terror. “Don’t talk nonsense.” “Whether those bastards are there or not makes no difference—thieves know the score just the same.” “From experience.”

The police officers were convinced that people came and went during the dark, unrecognizable night. They did not stand guard during the day. Yet the business was wrapped up in daylight hours. From dusk until midnight they kept watch nonstop, but not a single catch was made. Still, this lack of catches did nothing to ease the officers’ suspicions. By day, Takezaburou worked with his scale, mortar and pestle. In daylight he felt secure. He blended various ingredients into No. 3 to form pills. The hand gripping the spoon shook more violently than any nicotine addict’s—this being heroin’s doing. Simultaneously, the leg propped on his chair quivered uncontrollably. Through the double doors of the neighboring house drifted Ma Guanzhi’s wife singing her grating violin of a song.

The pestle gripped in his trembling hand grated against the mortar’s inner surface with a sickening, teeth-chattering scrape.

“Heroin is 3,000 yen per stick... Heroin is 3,000 yen per stick...” The pestle grated around inside the round mortar as if muttering these words. To Takezaburou, it felt exactly like that. “Heroin is 3,000 yen per stick... Heroin is 3,000 yen per stick...” This was the deranged state of his mind. The sound of Chinese shoes echoed. Shun let out a scream as if she’d been flipped upside down. When Takezaburou turned around, a Chinese man in plainclothes with a broad frame was standing there. There was no time to hide anything.

“What’s that?”

Under the Chinese man’s dagua jacket, the sword clanked. He was a police officer whose face seemed somehow familiar. “What’s that?”

Takezaburou stared at the Chinese man with a frozen, pleading gaze full of sorrow.

“What’s that?” “Hey! Hand that over here!” “I’m taking everything.” “...Still hiding more, aren’t you?” “Out with it!” “Hand it all over now!” Takezaburou trembled doubly from heroin withdrawal and terror. The chair looked ready to collapse beneath him.

Then another small-statured, dagua-clad Chinese man entered briskly. By their demeanor, it was clear without a word that they were partners. The Chinese man’s large hand reached for the mortar without hesitation. “Wait! Wait!” Osen, who had been watching anxiously from behind, repeated some Chinese phrases meaninglessly and went into the adjacent room. She grabbed a one-yen silver coin from the desk drawer.

“Please wait a moment.”

And with trembling hands, she slipped the silver coin under the sleeves of the two dagua-clad men. Shun was watching her father and mother, who had turned pale. The police officer reached his hand into the dagua and fumbled for what Mother had slipped in. “Is this all you’ve got?!….” “Hand over another two yuan!” “Another two yuan!” Their voices were threatening. Mother looked at the pitiful Father.

The eyes that had once sought to expose the bribery of village assembly members had now become completely powerless and clouded. When their two demands had been met, the police officers put the mortar back where they had taken it from. Then they left with a “Tsk, tsk.”

Takezaburou breathed a sigh of relief.

From that day on, he came to be assaulted time and again by police officers who had gotten a taste for extortion. The money scraped together from heroin addicts who came to buy little by little was carried off by the police from one hand to the next. His complexion began to fade increasingly because of the drug. The trembling of his limbs grew even more severe and violent. He had now become a full-fledged addict. Without heroin for even a single day, he couldn’t pass the time.

——

Rumors of war, tinged with unease, began to spread. Zhang Zongchang, who had continued his retreat, joined forces with Sun Chuanfang’s troops to confront Chiang Kai-shek. From every barracks, almost all units were dispatched to the front lines. The barracks left behind were guarded by few soldiers.

From the bluish-black barracks, futons, floor mats, and bullets were carried out. And in town, they were exchanged for money. The sooty glass-chimneyed bean lamps and tables were also carried out to town. It was the doing of the soldiers left to guard the barracks. They carried out well buckets used to draw up water, fence posts from the walls, bowls, and teapots. In the end, all that remained were the barracks buildings themselves, which couldn't be taken away. Then they began removing the window glass and floorboards attached to those buildings and lumbered through the streets carrying them. Such scenes began appearing here and there. —This laid bare the might of their warfare.

Takezaburou’s house became as fresh as newly arranged flowers when Suzu returned.

“In Qingdao, there’s a cruiser and four destroyers anchored. “Marines carrying rifles had come ashore. “Boom—if they fire off a cannon, those gloomy Chinese start yelling ‘It’s a protest!’ you know.”

Suzu told such stories. Ichirou called out to Suzu with words that verged on addressing her as "Ma," as though she were his parent. Mikitaro—if only Toshiko were here now! Without consciously thinking about it, he felt a pang of nostalgia. Toshiko had bluntly denounced the old addict and his stepmother, who blindly revered him. If it weren’t for China—if they returned to the home islands—even Father and Mother wouldn’t be able to survive. They’re wrecks. If Toshiko were to say it, that’s how it would be—even the way those parents had often been disparaged now came back to him as something nostalgic.

Suzu had not put it into words, but she understood his state of mind. She harbored this sentiment: that rather than having her sister-in-law return once more for that purpose, she wanted to make her brother great and show Toshiko—"See this now!"—as if throwing it back at her. The reason she worked so hard to assist her father with his unpleasant tasks stemmed from that very sentiment. That sentiment became clear to Mikitaro. He thought it necessary to convince his sister that he himself held not the slightest hope of becoming what people called a great man. He thought it particularly necessary to demonstrate that he had no intention of selling heroin to make exorbitant profits.

But the feelings of the brother and sister had come to fit together perfectly as one, as often happens in times of misfortune. Suzu was twenty. And her younger sister Shun was seventeen. Shun was still at that age where dirty things seemed beautiful, and the most mundane matters struck her as unbearably amusing and funny—such was her youth. Both of them appeared to have not a single pathogen or wound in their bodies that would hinder the circulation of healthy, pure blood. In the way they wore their kimonos, how they styled their hair, and their speech peppered with fragments of dialect, there still lingered a strong scent of the home islands. This became immediately clear when compared to other girls born in China and raised in Japanese schools there.

When Suzu returned, Nakatsu—who had worked strenuously in Qingdao to make her his bride—began visiting with increasing frequency. A gambler, a drunkard—if you made him an ally, he’d devour your pockets without a care and become a nuisance; if you turned him into an enemy, he’d be even more terrifying—such was Nakatsu, a man capable of anything. He had been left lame from the Russo-Japanese War. When he walked, his entire body swayed unsteadily. He had an unobtrusive, drab appearance. Even when Nakatsu wore a new damask Chinese outfit, it looked as though it were covered in dust and grime.

Why such a man could command such a fearsome glare—Mikitaro couldn’t quite grasp it. He had retrieved Japanese hostages kidnapped by bandits—people captured for ransom—not just once or twice. When it came to cruel methods against enemies, he had many stories to tell. Mikitaro’s two sisters would giggle and bounce around the house with amusement whenever Nakatsu left. When Nakatsu called out from outside and had the boy Wang Jinhua undo the gate bolt, then came hobbling over the courtyard’s stepping stones, they watched from the window and once again burst into tittering laughter, bouncing up and down. Nakatsu kept grinning even when hearing this.

“Hey, Uncle, how come you can cut people down and shoot them as much as you want with a leg like that?” Finally, one day, Shun—carefully watching his expression to avoid causing offense—brought it up in a teasing tone.

“It ain’t this leg that does the cutting—pistols and swords, they’re in this hand.” “It’s this hand that does the work.” From the sleeves of his loose-fitting Chinese tunic protruded hairy arms with thick, stubby fingers. “But Uncle—if you go hobbling around like that, wouldn’t people just run off when you try to cut or shoot them?” Shun’s voice held a gentle laugh. But her eyes were fixed tensely on his face, like a cat confronting a dog.

"Nah, even this—when push comes to shove, I’m faster than the likes of you." “Right.—Uncle. Where did you get hurt?”

“Where?—That’s from way, way back in the past. You lot were still swimmin’ around in your old man’s balls back then.”

At times joining mountain bandits, at others fighting in the Fengtian-Zhili War, and still others prowling Harbin's outskirts to ransack Russian homes—this mysterious ruffian who had killed countless people remained, to the two sisters, nothing more than an odd and slightly comical uncle. He dashed across battlefronts with Zhang Zongchang, traveled to Beijing, guarded that neck of his from which hung a bounty of tens of thousands of yuan—and played tedious karuta with the two daughters. He taught them mahjong. He repeated the Chinese numbers one, two, three dozens of times like a fool.

He seemed to long for the scent of the home islands that overflowed within this family and to selfishly devour it.

When his younger sister had fallen asleep, only Father, Mother, and he remained. Mikitaro began to speak. "There's definitely something off about Mr. Nakatsu—he has feelings for Suzu... And he also seems a bit interested in Shun." "Idiot." Takezaburou laughed like a gust of wind. "Nakatsu's the same age as me—he's already fifty-three." "What would a fifty-three-year-old man do with some seventeen- or eighteen-year-old girls anyway?" "No, no—from the moment he comes in until he leaves, he doesn't look at anything else." "He does nothing but stare holes through Suzu and Shun—I know exactly what's going on."

“I’ve noticed that too.” Mother interjected timidly.

“That’s right. He must have feelings for them, I tell you.” “Idiot—how could a man of fifty-three possibly think of girls who could be his own children?” “But haven’t you heard the saying that the older men get, the more they prefer young girls? And besides, he’s still a bachelor.” “Idiot! Idiot! What suspicious lot you are.—Nakatsu’s my good and proper comrade. I’ve got his number good and proper. He ain’t the kinda man who’d pull such a duty-breaking, shameful stunt.” The old man had known Nakatsu for four or five years.

But Mikitaro’s doubts were not mistaken.

When Chimba came over, Suzu—who had been bouncing around the house in amusement—turned crimson to the roots of her ears at the sound of Nakatsu’s broad, insistent voice calling for Wang outside the gate and darted off to hide somewhere. Nakatsu’s gaze burned sharp and intense. When twenty-year-old Suzu met that gaze, not only could she not endure it—even Shun and their mother felt their hearts jolt. Nakatsu had shaved his stubbled beard clean and combed his slightly wavy hair—dust-tangled strands that tended to curl—into neat order, reeking pungently of hair oil.

He had been confined to the house all day. That this rugged former bandit—a man who had coolly committed every crime from murder and robbery to rape—should find himself so thoroughly undone by girlish Suzu was truly perplexing. He did not look like a man of fifty-three. He was utterly tormented by the girl’s charms, like a naive twenty-year-old youth.

One morning, Maguanzhi’s dog Hakuhaku barked as though set ablaze.

Mikitaro awoke to that. Suzu seemed to be waking up. The dog kept barking with fiery clamor. After a moment, Suzu rose to open the window. Then she returned to her brother's bedside with tense steps. "They're here again—so many from the consulate." Her voice held grave urgency. She looked ready to hide herself somewhere. Mikitaro bolted upright. The premises had been tightly surrounded by consulate police officers and others.

The inside of the house was stirred up as though a garbage can had been overturned.

This time, they hauled away a box of "Kuaishangkuai" that Takezaburou had nearly finished sealing, along with a mortar, scales, and other implements. Soon afterward, Nakatsu left for Suzhou where Zhang Zongchang was stationed. The battlefront's urgency left him no time to voice the concerns troubling his mind. He departed aboard the night train.

12

After sunset, for an hour or so, objects still appeared white and bright in the unseasonably warm evening. The daytime clamor and yellow ash-like dust had at last subsided.

The countless wandering crowd of beggars vanished into the darkness.

Between the brothel houses, women with flickering earrings began to show strange smiles.

Yamazaki emerged from between the houses. He was wearing a mouse-gray S University student uniform, different from his usual black Chinese clothes. The unseasonably warm street appeared damp. Anxiety and hostility grew worse as night deepened. The only ones unafraid of this were the beggars wrapped in horse blankets.

Yamazaki’s eyes were restless, as though impatiently awaiting something. Chen Changcai, who had been sneaking around the streets, still hadn’t returned. The Northern Expedition Army, which they had complacently assumed would at best push as far as Xuzhou or Lincheng, had already captured Yanzhou and was closing in on Tai’an.

Zhang Zongchang, fighting defensively, continued his retreat from Suzhou through Xuzhou, Lincheng, and Yanzhou. The wounded soldiers from the fierce battle at Suzhou were abandoned as they were on the battlefield. Not only that, but the other wounded who had followed from the front lines as hindrances also became sacrifices to the hasty retreat there, each and every one of them buried alive.

In Lincheng, he shot and killed his subordinate officers who were retreating like an avalanche with his pistol. The Shandong soldiers were pressed in the south by the Northern Expedition Army. The northern retreat route had been blocked by Commissioner Zhang. So they were brought to a standstill. A portion of them, forced to detour midway, crossed over the towering Mount Tai, passed through Mingshui and Guodian, and fled into the city they had long inhabited. The other portion surrendered to Chiang Kai-shek. The reason the Northern Expedition Army's momentum had risen unexpectedly was because they had money. Yamazaki had recently confirmed that the Fulong Match Company's report claiming the General Chamber of Commerce had funded Chiang Kai-shek was a lie. It was an American industrialist who had provided the funds. Through that—through that very amount—it had been precisely calculated how far Chiang Kai-shek could advance all the way to Beijing.

America, which was culturally plotting the invasion of China, established churches, schools, and hospitals everywhere. It conducted deceptive charitable works. It brought gifts. It waived the Boxer Indemnity. And it tamed the Chinese people.

"I fear Greeks—no matter how many gifts they bring, I fear Greeks! For the Chinese—who aren't Romans—those Greeks must be Americans!" Yamazaki thought.

The Chinese were being taken in by those gifts. Of course, Yamazaki knew exactly what all of this meant for Japan. "Jinan is indeed a strategic stronghold of the realm. By land, it lies midway between north and south; by sea, it controls the southern half of the Bohai Sea; with a single call to arms, it can seize control of the strategic positions of Tianjin and Beijing. If we consider the upstream area of the Luo River to be Beijing's back, then Jinan indeed appears to lie at its front and abdomen. Furthermore, along the line to Qingdao, approximately 1.8 billion tons of coal are deposited in Fangzi, Boshan, Zichuan, Zhangqiu, and other locations. Furthermore, over two hundred miles to the west lies Shanxi's massive coalfield, where 680 billion tons of coal—equivalent to approximately 80% of all coal reserves in Asia—and what could be called inexhaustible iron deposits lie dormant. If Japan is to achieve independence in the supply of iron and coal henceforth, it must not only refuse to disregard the value of Shandong coal but also cannot afford to overlook the global significance of the Shanxi coalfield." ("Japan and Shandong's Special Relationship," p. 19)

Yamazaki, of course, knew such things. “The special interests in Manchuria-Mongolia are what Japan has paid dearly in sacrifices and invested vast sums of capital to develop. They must be defended to the last. Even if Shandong were to be abandoned in certain circumstances, the special interests in Manchuria-Mongolia must be maintained to the last. Manchuria-Mongolia takes precedence; Shandong follows. For Manchuria-Mongolia, we must stake our national power and fight, but for Shandong, we have no choice but to endure to a certain extent. There are those who make such arguments. Of course, the territories of Manchuria-Mongolia are vast, their interests are extensive, and the gains and losses of their entire situation are of utmost significance. However, the Chinese national revolution that arose in Guangdong and the covert operations of the Communists have now completely permeated central China and are extending their sinister reach to northern China and Manchuria. Shandong serves as a barrier for Manchuria-Mongolia and possesses significant value. With Shandong in place, Manchuria-Mongolia too can be secure. How much more so with Shandong—in its geographical superiority, in its military value, in its encompassing of the Yellow River basin’s infinite treasury of wealth as a rear base area—we cannot, whether for national defense or the people’s livelihood, ever permit it to slip from our sphere of influence. American capitalists such as these have already taken notice that the Yellow River’s floodplains are suitable for cotton cultivation and have begun conducting surveys. If we were to secure cotton production in this region, a time may come when Japan would not have to rely on imports from America. If Japan were to lose its position of superiority as the dominant power in Shandong, then Japan will be unable to achieve independence in iron and coal in the future. Not only that, but Japan would be forced to retreat from North China, and under a policy of retreat and self-abasement, the nation’s fortunes would increasingly decline into ruin, with no means to prevent it. Vast though the China continent may be, the regions under our absolute economic dominion are Shandong alone, save for Manchuria-Mongolia. Over the past decade and more, Japan has expended vast capital and noble sacrifices (the Japan-Germany War) to develop Shandong's resources, and Japanese nationals' investments there have currently reached approximately 150 million yen. “We must declare it only natural that we protect, develop, and secure the economic foundation our compatriots have painstakingly built grain by grain through hardship.” (From pp. 31–32 of the same book.)

Yamazaki, of course, knew all these things thoroughly. What significance America’s maneuvers there held—any Japanese person should instinctively grasp it without needing to be told. He schemed to outdo his colleagues.

These matters had already been published in books. It was common knowledge to everyone. However, no one knew the more concrete facts pertaining to this land. And that is what was important.

He was planning to use Chen Changcai, a Chinese man he had recently obtained from Nakatsu, to infiltrate there.

13

Night was growing dark.

The flow of people thinned out.

However, in one corner beneath this night sky where stars glittered brightly, a clamorous disturbance was unfolding. The noise drifted through the air from nowhere in particular.

Yamazaki paced restlessly along the street where acacia leaves stretched out and white wisteria-like flowers emitted an alluring fragrance. He was in a foul mood. The source of his foul mood was Chen—who was supposed to go out with him—still not having returned. Beneath the acacia trees, children strained their necks upward until their shoulders stiffened, using long bamboo poles with hooks to pluck white wisteria-like flowers silhouetted against dim streetlights. Those children had been foraging for the flowers that had begun to droop from daytime into the night. They plucked those flowers and ate them.

A branch had been caught on the hook and snapped with a sharp crack.

"Don't snap off branches too!" The famished children ate the flowers to fill their stomachs.

“H-hey, Mr. Yamazaki!” Startled by the abrupt cry, Yamazaki—who had been lost in thought—jerked upright. As the rickshaw halted, Koyama from Fukurou Match Factory climbed down. The same Koyama who terrorized workers with his factory-floor authority now stood slack-jawed on the street—reeking of phosphorus, his gaunt frame wilted like a hollow stalk. “The Shandong Army’s been routedshu.” Koyama’s sibilants blurred into mush. The canine tooth anchoring his necrotic jaw had fallen out, lower incisors gone with it. “Even thoshe brave Cossacksh fledshu.”

Koyama’s fervor suggested this was no mere bystander’s concern. “Given how things are going, no matter what we do, communism’s gonna come right here!” he said with grave urgency. “We gotta get them to send troops from the homeland quick, or it won’t just be our property and factories—they’ll rip off our heads and dicks too!” “Have the Russian soldiers retreated now?” “Y-yesh, yesh, ash expected—(he couldn’t pronounce ‘shi’ properly)—they came on foot from Guodian. They rode those horshes too shard—half of ’em ended up collapsing on the way. They’ve arrived nowsh. The way things are going—there must be those somewhere giving Chiang Kai-shek a hell of a lot of backing. I do shuspect sho.”

“We’ve got to find out tonight and send a telegram, or those other bastards will beat us to it!” “What the hell is Chen doing?” He grew irritated. “No matter what, it’s got to be tonight.” “If we wait until tomorrow night, it’ll be too late.” “Someone else will get it done before us.” As the situation grew increasingly tense, five or six of his colleagues had been making their way here from various directions. On Erma Road, disordered, lifeless hoofbeats—like a limping gait—resounded. Those limping were numerous.

“There! They’ve comed!” “They’ve comsh.” said Koyama. And he started walking toward the direction of the sound. After several minutes had passed, White Russian soldiers mounted on short-statured Chinese horses with unkempt coats appeared in the dim streetlight glow—limp-bodied, their long boots dangling limply as if about to drag along the ground.

“These bastards are way stronger fighters than Chinese soldiers, I tell ya.”

Koyama said regretfully. Those who had ridden their horses to death were limping along, dragging their legs. The procession continued intermittently, stretching all the way to Station Street in the distance. It was said some had slipped away somewhere along the route. The withheld wages, food shortages, and Zhang Zongchang's forced battles had instead drained their will to fight. They were men who had fled back over Mount Tai. They formed part of that group. They resembled leeches made to ingest salt. Utterly spent, they had lost all capacity to think, observe, or even grip their military sabers—merely walking through inertia. Were they to stop now, they would likely collapse right where they stood.

“These bastards are way tougher than Chinese troops, I tell ya.” Koyama repeated himself. “If even they’re retreating here, this place’ll fall before you know it.”

At that moment, on the acacia-lined street across the way, a Browning pistol shot rang out, and someone darted through the disordered ranks of White Russian soldiers, sprinting toward them as if leaping. Following that, another gunshot rang out. Yamazaki and Koyama involuntarily came to a halt, startled. The fleeing man charged toward the two men. Consequently, the gun's muzzle was now aimed in their direction. In that instant, they sensed it. The utterly exhausted White Russian soldiers remained indifferent even to the gunshots. They did not even turn around.

The charging man came right up to the two men. Yamazaki realized it was Chen Changcai when the man came right before his eyes. “What are you dawdling for?” “You idiot!” He shouted in frustration. “What the hell have you been doing all this time?!” But Chen nimbly darted past Yamazaki and, like a monkey, ducked into the narrow, dark alley between the houses. “You idiot! “You’re utterly hopeless! “Damn you!”

“D’you know that guy?”

Koyama asked. “That guy? He’s a goddamn loose cannon.” “The bastard we’re stuck using—what a joke—he’s been diddle-daddling around somewhere for two full hours now…”

Chen Changcai was currently an indispensable person for Yamazaki. He was said to have been a Shanghai dockworker in his past. He was the man Nakatsu had brought from Zhoucun on his way back from Qingdao and handed over. Nakatsu called Chen over and said that if there was goodwill from one side there would be reciprocation from the other. “I’ll reward you accordingly.” “But betray me or my brothers,” “and I won’t let either of you live—not you nor your mother,” he added tersely.

“This bastard was spying for the Southern Army just yesterday, and now he’s already switching sides,” Nakatsu warned Yamazaki. “You gotta drip-feed him cash—only tiny bits at a time. Pay upfront and you’ll never see that money again. Keep him leashed tight around the clock.”

Then, again, “You can’t take everything this guy says at face value—goes without saying, but any Chinese’ll forge whatever plausible lie they can if there’s money in it.”

“Hmm, I know, I know,” Yamazaki replied. Chen had somehow obtained crucial evidence—invoices for weapons shipped from Germany, photos of their loading process, ammunition receipts, and other such items. When ordered, he had even prepared foreign passports—the type that should have been issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs—complete with stamps bearing accurate seals. Therefore, even those who couldn’t get passports issued in Japan could have Chen create them for Russia here by disguising themselves as Chinese and adopting Chinese names. They bore flawless penmanship down to the consulate endorsements. Interesting.

“At it again, are you?”

Occasionally，when he walked with Yamazaki，an unfamiliar man would grin at Chen and pass by. In a single day，they would encounter two or three such unfathomable characters. This man seemed to poke his nose into every conceivable matter.

“Who was that just now?” “That one? Oh, he’s just a shipmate I worked with when I was on a junk. With that, he’s made himself a hefty sum these days, he has.”

“You’re always bumping into pals—just how many damn people d’you know in this place anyway?”

“There ain’t but a few, sir. If we’re talkin’ folks whose faces I know, there’s probably three hundred or so.” “You idiot! Three hundred is just a few?!” There was nobody quicker than this bastard at sizing up what folks carried in their pockets. He moved faster than a pickpocket. For that very reason, Yamazaki himself had to stay on guard. Carrying fat wads of cash in China meant you had more chances to get shot down.

Chen had gone out into the city to investigate the Southern Army spies and plainclothes troops that had been gradually infiltrating alongside Chiang Kai-shek’s northward advance. Had he tried to steal money from someone carrying cash and botched it? Or had he been tailing the plainclothes troops too persistently, aroused their suspicion, and gotten shot at? Now he suddenly came fleeing back.

14 Approximately two hours later, the two were having a rickshaw take them to S University in the eastern part of the city. That university had become the base where plainclothes troops had actively operated during clashes between the Japanese military and the Southern Army. Japanese soldiers had been relentlessly tormented by those plainclothes troops. They were no different from partisans. They would watch for an opening to strike, only to immediately retreat into safe zones.

Three thousand officers and soldiers mobilized in full force to chase down those plainclothes troops. However, they couldn’t capture even a single genuine member. They were dressed in the same manner as ordinary, law-abiding citizens. To the soldiers, any Chinese person looked exactly the same as any other. The safe zone was an American school. Yamazaki heard from Chen that this seemed to be the case. And he resolved to infiltrate that den of plainclothes troops and see for himself. Chen Changcai’s reports were seventy percent unreliable. However, an intuition struck Yamazaki—this much was true. He thought he would confirm it definitively and decided to send a telegram that very night. If he could pull this off, he would outmaneuver his peers. And one more thing—his language, clothing, and hobbies were indistinguishable from those of the Chinese. He believed that no matter where he went, there was no risk of being discovered. He wanted to thoroughly test it and build up his confidence in advance.

Moreover, these dangerous stunts were becoming a source of pleasure for him—this would undoubtedly become one of my proudest stories to tell for the rest of my life, he thought.

Into enemy territory—moreover, into the very stronghold of those cunning plainclothes troops—he would infiltrate. This would undoubtedly become one of the crowning achievements of his life!

My life was only just beginning. The real work was still yet to come.

Humans continue to place their hopes in the future even when they reach their thirties and forties. But Yamazaki, at this very moment, was engaged in truly substantial work—the work of his lifetime. _Not the future—the present!_ He felt it.

Chen Changcai explained the circumstances under which he had been shot. And then, “Wouldn’t it be smarter to quit these death-defying stunts of yours?” he cautioned. “This time around, those bastards are raring to go, I tell you.” “No, I’m going,” Yamazaki stated flatly. “Call a rickshaw. The more fired up they are, the more we gotta go see for ourselves, ain’t that right?”

“Once you get shot with a bang and start regretting you shouldn’t have come, it’ll be too late for remorse.” “I know!” “Since I’m risking my life for this job, I need a hell of a lot more cash.” “If it’s some paltry sum, I want nothing to do with it from the get-go.” “Didn’t I say we’ll pay whatever it takes?” “As long as everything goes smoothly.” Yamazaki had changed into a student uniform earlier. Chen too had donned a student uniform.

On a strange path strewn with pebbles, uneven and dotted with landslides in places, the rickshaw could no longer advance any faster than walking pace. The two got out of the rickshaw.

In the usual desolate darkness of the university's suburban outskirts, there was a presence of people moving about. "Are you sure about this?" Chen whispered. Yamazaki himself didn't feel the least bit afraid. Yet his legs had gone utterly limp with weakness. What was wrong with just his legs? If he walked even five or six ken, would they give out completely? He feared they might.

“呀怎麽着了、儞！ (Hey, what are you doing…)” Suddenly, as they passed each other on the narrow path, a shadowy figure called out. But midway through, they seemed to realize their mistake, cut off their words, and looked back suspiciously. “Stupid fool! (You bastard!)” Chen Changcai bellowed without turning around.

Even in the thickets of shrubs about a man’s height near the path, he still sensed people moving. The night air seemed to have grown somewhat colder. They passed by the side of the first school building. Between the hook-shaped Third and Fourth School Buildings, enveloped by acacia thickets in the distance, a bonfire could be seen. The tips of the acacia leaves with their newly sprouted buds stretching forth were stained crimson by the bonfire. “Aren’t you scared?” Chen Changcai whispered tauntingly, confident that he held the upper hand should things come to a head. “Idiot! Don’t spout useless nonsense!”

Yamazaki scolded him earnestly. At the same moment, from between the acacia trunks came a voice in Chinese: “Who’s there? Coming this way?” The figure gripping a pistol in hand became visible through the distant bonfire’s flames. They’re being cautious, huh? If the opponent makes a move, we’ll go all-out—damn it! Having thought this, Yamazaki reached for the Browning at his hip. “Is Mr. Taft present?” Chen asked, still walking. To verify their faces, the black shadow approached from between the acacias.

"Who are you?" the shadow said. "I'm a student from the Normal School Department." "Your name?" "I have an appointment to visit Mr. Taft tonight." Yamazaki barked in Chinese from the side. "Why are you complaining about students entering their own school?!" After passing through the gatehouse-like entrance and entering the fenced school grounds, he hid in Chen Changcai's shadow and lingered a step behind to stay concealed from the bonfire's light.

Chen showed not the slightest sign of fear or pretense as he infiltrated this nest of plainclothes troops.

The two proceeded toward the dormitory. I wonder if this guy has some connection with those Southern Army bastards. Suddenly, Yamazaki suspected Chen. If you pay him, he'll spill anything, but in a real pinch, he'd switch sides. He’s probably that kind of guy.

Amid countless randomly partitioned pitch-dark rooms, only one had its light on. Chinese conversation leaked out. The two passed beneath the window and turned into a dark corridor. Emerging on the opposite side, they found the room's entrance left wide open. Sounds of guns clattering and bullets being counted reached them. These were clearly not university students. Inside, a Chinese man in black clothes bent his left elbow horizontally, balanced a pistol on it, and pantomimed taking aim.

The man pulled the trigger with a sharp click. “Bullseye!” But seeing no bullet chambered, he didn’t fire. “Huh—Russian bullets mixed in here! These ones are tapered at both ends.” The man counting ammunition snorted. “Russia’s gotta fight enemies on two fronts, see?” When they noticed Chen and Yamazaki at the entrance, they suddenly went quiet and fixed suspicious stares on the pair.

“Ya! Chi wanfan le ma! "(Oh, good evening.)" With forced nonchalance, Yamazaki took a step into the room. At that moment, he felt that Chen and the black-clad Chinese man had exchanged a knowing smile with their eyes. The flat-headed young man who had been fiddling with weapons in the dark corner heard his voice, deliberately came before the others, and stared fixedly at our faces. “So, gentlemen, where have you come from? …They say Shanghai’s economy is booming these days. Is that true?” “Is that so?”

No one answered anything. They exchanged glances that seemed to convey unspoken words, then remained silent. Yamazaki, regretting once more that he had spoken too freely, listened to the pounding of blood surging through his heart. In the room were approximately twenty rifles, with a box of pistols placed beside a pile of worn-out shoes. On one white wall hung two consecutive posters showing Tanaka Giichi stamping on maps of Japan and Korea with both feet, his demon-like hands with elongated claws reaching to seize Manchuria, Mongolia, and the Shandong region in one grasp.

"Chinese people, disunited hearts; Japanese devils, rampant ambition." Beside it was written: On the wall above the other window, a caricature of Zhang Zuolin—plundering and raping the people to sell out the country—and a poster denouncing the Communist Party and Soviet Russia as the “Communist bandit party” and “Red Imperialism” sat dimly side by side behind the electric light’s shadows. This was something I had already repeatedly encountered around Shanghai. The United States has already seen through our ambitions—seen through them all too well.

Looking at the poster, Yamazaki felt.

Manchuria, Mongolia, and the Shandong region—if we don't take them, America will seize them instead. The Americans have set their sights on China—where labor wages are subhuman, raw materials flow endlessly, and organized industry barely exists. They aim to establish massive factories and banking institutions. They want to reduce every Chinese person to wage slavery. "Did you come this late to drag us out whoring?" A short Chinese man with a comical face laughed, his eyes narrowing at the corners.

Yamazaki, responding in turn with a laugh from his side, addressed Chen Changcai: "How about we swing by Mr. Taft’s place?"

Then, “Mr. Taft! Mr. Taft!” repeated one long-haired young man. “You folks got business with Mr. Taft?” “We’ve made arrangements to call on him tonight.”

Yamazaki continued speaking hesitantly. "Hmm..." "Mr. Taft should be coming downstairs from the second floor any minute now." "Well now, seems we've arrived at just the right time then." His Chinese had become too polished—the words slipped out before he could stop them, expressing precisely what he hadn't meant to say. He didn't know Taft. The worst possible scenario would be Taft actually showing up here now. Chen sat down on a stool beside the Chinese man there and began asking questions—how many had come together from Nanjing, how many more might arrive later tonight, what monthly wages they received.

Yamazaki took out a Qianmen brand cigarette and struck a match. Once this one burned out completely, he would make his exit. He made up his mind. A Qianmen brand cigarette takes five minutes to burn down. During that time, he felt that Taft still wouldn’t come.

The rationale for determining one cigarette as the safe time had been entirely rooted in superstition. Yet once he set this rule, he followed through. Yamazaki was that sort of man. After lighting his cigarette, he offered the opened Qianmen packet to those present, but none except Chen moved to take one. The long-haired man from earlier stared fixedly at him—scrutinizing from his toes to the hairline with hole-boring intensity—before repeating his question about their business with Mr. Taft.

Yamazaki, sensing he was viewed with hostility yet feigning absorption in Chen Changcai’s account of Japan’s military dispatch, exhaled the smoke he’d drawn in and resumed speaking. Yamazaki laughed. "No matter how many Japanese troops come, against this Northern Expedition Army they’re just a mantis trying to stop an ox-cart." “Those devils—no matter where they come, they won’t leave without preying on people.” The flat-headed young man spat out resentfully.

"No, well... (He had been about to say 'devils,' but couldn't bring himself to use that term for his own side.) The Japanese military's strength only holds against properly uniformed armies." "Even against plainclothes operatives like us, they wouldn't dare lift a finger." Yamazaki continued in a testing tone. None offered even grudging agreement. The cigarette steadily dwindled. While maintaining casual laughter and chatter, his ears remained morbidly attuned to any footfall resembling Taft's approach in the corridor. Every clattering step of passing Chinese workers made him twitch like a startled animal.

"Alright, let's get out of here now." He crushed out the cigarette—now about five minutes old—with the tip of his foot while thinking. Chen lowered his voice and steered the conversation to Chiang Kai-shek having received twenty million yen from America. He began talking—this time about how only German military advisors were being allowed in, with even observation prohibited to the Japanese—was that true? And shouldn’t America be prepared to give more money to the Northern Expedition Army? Twenty million yen might be something for penny-pinching Japanese, but for America, wasn’t that just cheap?

Three or four people who had moved toward a dark corner began whispering suspiciously.

Yamazaki realized he wasn't just under suspicion—his cover had been blown. Feeling each minute stretch into ten hours as he willed Chen to end the conversation now—end it immediately—he moved toward the entrance. He strained to hear footsteps in the dark corridor. From somewhere above came the echo of boots descending steep stairs. Chen remained behind, oddly amused, his laughter booming through chatter. The footsteps kept drawing nearer.

He exited into the hallway without even a moment to think, muttering something to Chen. In ten seconds he had covered fifteen ken to reach the corner, his feet barely touching the ground. There he stopped. Chen showed no sign of following.

Yamazaki was being chased by the Chinese. While anticipating this, he nevertheless kept watching the situation for a brief while longer. Chen finally emerged, laughing amiably as if amused. Following that, the Chinese tumbled out in a chaotic rush. He froze. A blast erupted somewhere. Five seconds later, they realized a truck loaded with weapons had arrived at the schoolyard. Those who had been warming themselves by the bonfire and the group from inside the room carried in the weapons being unloaded from the truck.

Chen and Yamazaki stood on the dark, dew-covered lawn watching it. A tall American with a straight nose who appeared to be Taft was giving instructions in Chinese. The weapons had been fully loaded onto a large truck. "Hey! No more watch needed. It's secure. You all come help too." Suddenly, the man with the prominent nose spotted two uniformed students and called to them. "Yes." In that instant, Chen casually darted forward.

Yamazaki found Chen’s manner comical. Chuckling quietly to himself, he shrank back and retreated toward the rear.

“This here’s war either way!” He whispered to Chen as they were leaving. “But tonight of all nights, I’ll be thanking you.” “With this, I’ve completely pulled off a great feat… What a pleasant turn of events!” “You ain’t gonna forget about the money, right?” Chen was disenchanted yet calm. “Hmm, yes yes, as if I’d forget.” “I’ll make sure you’re rewarded.” “But either way, this here’s bound to turn into a war…” And he thought: This isn’t a war between the Southern Army and the Japanese military. This is a war between Japan and America.

15

This place was deemed certain to fall sooner or later.

The so-called "economic foundation painstakingly built grain by grain" would vanish into thin air. The expatriates were made to think that everything—their houses, armchairs, ornate tables, phonographs, antiques, and safes—would all be ravaged and looted by the lawless Southern troops. Brutal communist elements were mixed in large numbers among the Southern troops. Rumors spread that they were skewering innocent citizens and digging up graves along the roads.

The train station was in chaos, thronged with refugees bound for Qingdao shouldering as much luggage as they could carry.

Seven or eight boys were made to carry huge trunks—so large they could practically crawl inside them. The pregnant woman came panting heavily, having a Chinese boy carry two-part willow baskets—even more swollen than her belly—one hoisted on his shoulder and another clutched in his hand. Carriages of local despots and evil gentry, piled high with boxes and sacks, came rushing in one after another.

Prices reflected the minutiae of societal shifts. Their unrest and the state of the town were clearly told by prices. The Da Yang banknotes issued by the Bank of Communications and the Bank of China, which had maintained an exchange rate of twelve yen and thirty sen in gold notes against ten yuan, plummeted. From eight yen to seven, then five, until finally foreigners—including the Japanese—stopped accepting Chinese banknotes altogether. The Zhang Zongchang-affiliated Shandong Provincial Bank collapsed. The prices of pistols, gold, silver, gold notes, foodstuffs, horse carriages, and automobile fares kept rising. There were even cases where a single pistol was bought and sold for 858 yen. Expensive chairs, tables, mirrors, and silk fabrics were no longer given even a glance by anyone.

Simultaneously, the social upheaval was reflected in the actions of countless workers. Factory workers—male laborers and female laborers alike—street coolies, and thirty to forty thousand beggars had ceased fearing the supervisors’ whips and pistols. Police officers with guns and swords were scarecrows. The factory owners—at every factory—had barely managed to keep the workers tied down by continuing their tactic of withholding wages. That was all that kept them. The workers entered a work slowdown.

Around the same time as the plainclothes troops, Communist Party members infiltrated the city. Such rumors grew clamorous. A rumor spread that weapons were being distributed to workers to plot a riot. The rules that the factory owners had arbitrarily set, and their orders, were not treated as an issue in the slightest. For the workers, precisely at such times did favorable conditions for them to demonstrate their great power arise of their own accord—or so it seemed. The match factory workers had endured all they could endure. They had endured beyond what was endurable.

One evening, five representatives were put forward. They demanded the immediate and full payment of wages.

Wang Hongji also became one of the representatives. Yu Liling, with his stubborn refusal to bow and contrary nature, also became one of the representatives. Wang had received no word from his wife, who had given birth, or from his elderly mother since then.

The lack of news made him even more anxious. The workers had long been mocked and trampled underfoot. Some—dozens even—had suffered the most violent yellow phosphorus poisoning, their lower jaws rotting away. Seven or eight child laborers had their tender flesh decay within less than a year. Then they were cast out with nothing but their wages. Children bought from brokers for eight or ten yuan couldn't even collect their pay. They worked.

They worked, forced to sustain even their parents and wives through hunger. They feared the whip like castrated bulls. But to forever fear the whip meant remaining eternal slaves. The young laborer who yearned for his parents' home fled one night under cover of darkness without receiving a single sen in wages. The permanently purchased children had nowhere to escape—no home, nothing. They sat silent and desolate, tears brimming in their eyes as they stared toward the dormitory.

Wang Hongji and four others timidly entered the office at dusk. They had to obtain their wages by whatever means possible. That was only natural!

Iwao from accounting and employee Koyama refused outright with a “What’s this?!” from the start. They put up a fierce fight. The manager believed the workers remained attached to their wages and wouldn’t flee. Until receiving payment, they worked diligently—almost fawningly.—He hadn’t changed his usual view. To Chinamen, money matters more than life. Give them cash and they’d even offer their necks. That was his philosophy.

The five representatives withdrew. The two dormitories were filled with a menacing atmosphere. There, another meeting began. The workers set about plotting a nefarious rebellion (to use Koyama’s own words). From the dormitories, the workers’ metallic, enraged voices noisily leaked toward the office. “What are they making such a racket about?” When the boy from company housing returned from scouting out the situation, Koyama barked as if even the boy had gotten on his nerves unbearably.

“If you won’t give us our wages, then don’t—that’s fine,” they said. Liu, who had worked for the Japanese for eight years and could speak Japanese, fidgeted as though he himself had done something wrong.

“So, what’re they gonna do?”

“So they won’t give it.—If they won’t give it, the workers say they’ve got ideas.” The workers were planning to occupy the factory through violence and take control. They would sell the products and take their monthly wages from that. They would drive out the Japanese through the gates. They would beat to death any Chinese police officer who dared shield the Japanese!

“Don’t spout that nonsense!”

Koyama barked. Liu fidgeted nervously. "They’re lazing around doing nothing, yet we’re still feeding them from the factory! “To hell with them! If their parents are starving, why don’t they just gnaw on raw daikon or carrot stubs! “Living like beggars yet strutting about like lords!” If they paid the wages, there was a risk the workers would flee. And there’d be no replacing skilled laborers after that.

Foreman Li Lanpu returned after using up every possible word he could speak to calm his subordinates. “This won’t work at all. “There’s simply no way to manage them,” said Li. “If you could at least pay them half. “Without that, there’ll be no way to rein them in. “They say nowadays they can’t buy a single thing without cash, given how things are.”

“Bastard! You’re in cahoots with them bastards, ain’t ya?” “Mr. Koyama, I must protest this misunderstanding.” Li hurriedly cut in. “I must protest this misunderstanding!” “Shut up! Shut up!” “Shut up! Shut up!” Koyama barked. “If you keep spouting such impudent nonsense, I won’t stand for it!” “Shut up!”

He glanced back reassuringly at the pistol hanging on the wall.

The manager resolved that no matter what happened, there was nothing to be done. When it came down to it, he would have no choice but to rely on weapons.

The wives and children from the company housing hurriedly slipped out by automobile to the KS Club past eleven in the evening.

The workers instinctively united. The atmosphere grew thick with the imminence of riot.

The city faced not only the Southern Army’s incursions, looting, and destruction. There was no telling what horrors the Northern Army might inflict as they abandoned this place and retreated, taking advantage of their departure. They had always treated looting and rape as their regular work. This time for sure, what came next was left to Ass-Eating Kannon. They would go on doing whatever they pleased.

Foreigners felt somewhat heartened whenever they occasionally caught sight of someone from their own country.

Due to their shared nation and language, they had to unite their strength and endure through this chaos—no matter what hardships they faced or what assaults came their way. They found themselves seduced by a sentimental, feudalistic notion of brotherhood. “Ah, if only those khaki-clad soldiers would hurry up and come!” they all prayed in unison. They never once considered why the army was coming, or for whose sake. They simply believed the army’s arrival alone would rescue them from their dire straits.

The latter part of the month arrived.

The army began to arrive. The smell of sweat and leather gear wafted pungently. The expatriate residents, who had grown as forlorn as if stranded alone on a deserted island, couldn’t conceal their longing. More than anything, the accented Japanese spoken by those newly arrived from the home islands felt nostalgic.

On the 26th, in the predawn hours, a certain regiment arrived at the station.

A thick fog hung heavily.

The Chinese houses thickly painted in vermilion and blue; the rows of open-air shops shrouded in dust; the Chinese people shouting in raucous voices—all these were obscured by darkness and fog, rendered indistinguishable. Tormentingly stimulating spring, the acacia flowers permeated the air through the fog, their scent wafting pungently. The soldiers stacked their rifles and lowered their backpacks in the station square. They waited for the barracks to be assigned. They had already grown coarser in speech and action than when in the home islands, their very temperaments bristling with a fiercer edge.

“Ukichi!”

From among the crowd welcoming them with countless small Hinomaru flags, a woman suddenly leaped out in front of Private First Class Kakimoto. She was a middle-aged woman with traditionally blackened teeth. She clung to Kakimoto’s waist and burst into tears. “Ukichi! You’ve come… you’ve really come, Ukichi!…” “Aren’t you Auntie Nakajō?” The private first class made a slightly perplexed face out of deference to his superior officer. But eventually he said.

“Oh… Oh… Oh…”

The woman cried out as if joy and emotion were welling up within her. “You came… you really came?” “Oh... oh... oh... Now we’ll be saved...” “Oh... oh... oh...”

This emotion, though not openly expressed, permeated every heart of the expatriate residents who had turned out to welcome them.

The soldiers began a bonfire. The flames flared up suddenly. Kakimoto looked at this woman collapsed against his lap—her face pale, haggard, and gaunt. Indeed, only the familiar outline of her face from their shared village remained. How haggard this woman had become from terror and hardship. He thought while recalling her face from their village days. This woman was, from his perspective, a cousin twice removed. The difference in their ages was just enough for him to call her "auntie." In the village, she had been practically the sort of relative who wouldn’t even count among relatives. However, here, even he found himself welling up with a petty emotion akin to that toward close blood relatives when it came to this auntie.

The woman felt this even more acutely than he did. “Do you think we’ll be safe?” she asked. “It’s all right. Our division—an entire division—is coming. “Look at all this ammunition we’ve got,” (he shook the heavy ammunition box) “and our blades are honed sharp enough to split hairs.”

“Oh... oh... oh...”

The woman cried out again, weeping without trying to conceal her joy and nostalgia.

Deployments were assigned to the soldiers. The units were split up. One unit was directed toward the Egg Powder Factory. One unit was directed toward the Fulong Match Company. One unit was directed toward the Yokohama Specie Bank. Shouldering their rifles and forming ranks, they marched toward their assigned positions, each under the command of their respective officers.

Many expatriate residents stood watching nostalgically for a long time as the troops formed columns and departed in the opposite direction from their homes. The children followed after, waving their flags cheerfully.

But did the adult expatriate residents—who had scurried around passing resolutions to request troop deployments, gathered stamps one by one, and submitted petitions—truly not feel both resentful and astonished, as if deceived, when the soldiers they had so painstakingly brought here were deployed to guard factories and banks utterly removed from their own paltry homes?

16

Three hours later, the factory was armed with sturdy sandbag fortifications, barbed wire, and barricades.

Machine guns were installed. Khaki uniforms stood guard.

The yellow crumbly soil was dug up with heavy thuds.

The blazing sun of the continent glared down from on high, scorching the city, the people, the factories—everything in a single relentless gaze. Fine dust rose. It was inferno-like heat. The undershirt of the soldier who had removed his jacket bore a map drawn by greasy sweat across his back. Dust had accumulated on top in a yellowish-black layer that felt gritty. “Don’t dawdle around like you’re lounging in the barracks!” “This is genuine wartime!” Lieutenant Shigeto glared around with eyes narrowed into hexagons. “Hey! Who’s stretching their spine over there?!”

Meanwhile, the yellow soil being dug up was packed into hemp sacks by other soldiers. The soldiers did not even have time to wash their faces. Taking off their sturdy, toad-like boots, they had no time to let their stifled feet breathe. The work began the moment they took up their positions.

The hemp sacks swollen with yellow soil were transported to the front of the factory. They were piled up one by one. In the blink of an eye, the sandbag fortifications were built up. There was not even a five-minute break.

Another unit drove logs they had requisitioned from somewhere into the ground and stretched quadruple layers of barbed wire around the outer perimeter of the sandbag fortifications.

On the streets, they assembled even thicker logs to make barricades. The barbed wire extended from the factory’s perimeter, following distant streets and stretching across them; at S Bank, a round sentry sandbag fortification resembling a gas tank was erected. The flour mill and the Fulong Match Company were both guarded by sandbag fortifications, barbed wire, and armed soldiers. Factory Manager Uchikawa lavished smooth words upon the company commanders and attached officers. He also came over to the soldiers who were continuing their diligent work. While interfering with their work, he strained himself to communicate to the soldiers the conviction that this had to be handled by the military.

Next was the defensive fortification of an expanded perimeter area. Sandbags were piled up like walls as soon as they were made, only to be moved and stacked again in another location. No matter how many they made, it wasn’t enough. Personnel for patrol and inspection duties were assigned. Sentries were assigned. Duty soldiers were assigned. Cooking rotations were assigned. Night watch shifts were assigned. “Hey! Has anyone seen my jacket?” Kamikawa, who had been working in Kakimoto’s group, began prowling like a cat around the military jackets hung on the forks of acacia trees, flipping them inside out as he went. He was the man who had been called to join the patrol unit. His undershirt had turned khaki-colored from the yellow earth dust. From one acacia branch to another, his face smeared with grimy sweat and dirt turned upward, he began searching desperately. There was none. The sergeant leading them, waiting for the soldiers to assemble, cursed bitterly.

Kamikawa twisted the uniform insignia he had already checked once more with his dirty hands. "Someone must've mistakenly put on mine." He grew increasingly irritated. He made a sore loser's excuse. “Where did I leave it? Don’t space out.” “Where the hell could it be? It’s here.”

“It’s ’cause you’re spacing out! Before long even your life’ll get swiped! On the battlefield there ain’t no replacements!” The men swinging pickaxes had backs aching beyond endurance. The deeper they dug into the soil, the tougher it got to shovel. Lieutenants and company commanders and special duty officers kept hawk-eyed watch over the labor. Supervisors hounded the crews stuffing hemp sacks. “Trouble here? Lose something?” Factory Manager Uchikawa came scuttling toward the disturbance.

“I can’t find my jacket.” “Probably someone must’ve mistakenly put it on.” “Even though my name’s written on it.” He forced a feeble smile. The company commander listened yet feigned ignorance, his face twisted in displeasure. “Those Chink bastards must’ve stolen it,” Uchikawa said. “Weren’t they loitering around here earlier?” He jolted with sudden understanding.

“Don’t be careless,” Uchikawa snapped. “To have your uniform stolen by Chinks right after arriving… What a fucking disgrace!” “You really can’t let your guard down around those bastards for a second,” Kamikawa replied through gritted teeth. The factory manager laughed cheerfully, as if savoring this lesson in colonial discipline. They’d developed a taste for beating Chinese workers since their very first day on this soil.

When two Chinese men were dragged from the slums, Kamikawa—as if to vent his anxiety, rage, and mocked resentment through this act—raised his fists and lunged at them. Afterwards, the other soldiers also followed suit, descending upon the two beggars. Punching, stomping, kicking, hurling abuse in Japanese. However, no matter how much they did or what they tried, Kamikawa’s military jacket was never found.

Here too, they promptly began living the same military life as they had in the homeland. They cooked their meals. They did all of it—cleaning the rooms, cleaning the toilets, maintaining their uniforms, standing sentry duty, and performing guard duty. The distinction between first-year and second-year soldiers had somewhat diminished. But it still existed. The distinction between soldiers and non-commissioned officers, and between soldiers and commissioned officers, of course remained strictly in place.

“Sleep! Sleep!” “Sleep conquers all.” They drove the workers out of the match factory dormitory into another building, spread blankets over sorghum stalk mats there, and lay down using backpacks or rolled-up portable tents as pillows. Truly, for a long time, they had not slept and had performed countless tasks beyond what they could remember. They felt as though they had continued their labor and upheaval for a week—no, longer—omitting all time for sleep and oblivion. Ten days—no, twenty days.

"This place is strictly for lodging since no other adequately large buildings are available," the duty officer warned solemnly. "You are not to fraternize with the Chinese workers at this factory." "Particularly the matchbox packing areas and workers' dormitories - women are present there. You must not enter or leave those sections without legitimate purpose." “Yes, sir!” “Furthermore, be aware that some Chinese may harbor dangerous ideologies. We who carry the Yamato spirit must guard against such elements. Under no circumstances may we allow ourselves to be reddened by them." "Should this occur, it would bring disgrace upon us as Japanese soldiers."

“Yes, sir!” The soldiers, without removing their boots, uniforms, or undoing their puttees, simply dropped their heads onto their backpacks as pillows and were then dragged into the abyss, utterly overwhelmed by the relentless temptation of sleep.

17

The troops stayed in just one building of the factory dormitory.

They did not interfere with the workers at all!

It was exactly as Second Lieutenant Bando had cautioned. Both the company commander and the officers possessed a samurai spirit. The soldiers deemed it improper to meddle in labor-management conflicts.

Nevertheless, from the very day the troops arrived, the workers' slowdown was dragged back onto its original path like a horse shown a whip. The authority of the supervisors and foremen had doubled from before. Koyama, with his jawbone corroded and wracked by body-racking coughs, grew keenly aware with reassurance of the formidable force stationed behind him. That awareness amplified the club's brutal force threefold, even fourfold.

Li Lanpu, the foreman, received an extra 23 sen per day from Uchikawa compared to regular workers. For this reason alone, this Chinese man had convinced himself that the khaki-clad army would act as his protector and enforcer—suppressing unruly elements and Hui Muslims who resented his oak club—as if he himself were Japanese. He placated the workers, coaxed them, threatened them. It was also he who served as a spy for Uchikawa and Koyama. He also served as a decoy.

The soldiers did not interfere in any way with what the workers did. They had no intention of doing so. Moreover, they protected the workers. And they protected the factory. However, even so, the workers did not feel protected by the military—they felt threatened instead. The soldiers continued their work in the defense area. Across the streets, barbed wire was strung crisscrossed in all directions like a spider’s web. At every intersection, jagged barricades stood resolute.

The brigade headquarters and battalion headquarters were connected by field telephones. The battalion headquarters and the sentry lines were also closely connected. The soldiers were immediately placed in a state of combat readiness with weapons at hand upon the issuance of an order. At every intersection, sentries rigorously challenged each Chinese person coming and going with loaded rifles.

In just a day and a half, the city completely transformed its appearance. Abruptly, as if donning armor over everyday clothes. The barricade thrust its two jutting horns into the middle of the street. The machine gun, like sensitive antennae, stretched out its arms atop the sandbag fortifications. Factories, walls, company housing—all were sheltered under formidable iron bristling with thorns. It wasn’t just the Chinese who widened their eyes at the Japanese military personnel’s work efficiency. The soldiers themselves looked back at the endlessly continuous barbed wire and earthen ramparts resembling the Great Wall, astonished by their own labor’s results. Though these had been built to repel Chinese soldiers and fortify bourgeois factories, they felt as delighted as if beholding machinery they’d crafted themselves. If only this were armament to protect our own factory!

Captain Bansai of headquarters inspected the completed sandbag fortifications. He analyzed potential enemy approach vectors. Even when faced with perfection, Bansai couldn’t resist finding flaws to criticize. That which was utterly flawless became flawed precisely through its flawlessness. Things too perfectly made lacked room for further development by virtue of their completion. “This position aligns directly with Jinshou Station on the Tianjin-Pukou line. We must assume the Southern Army will concentrate their full force here.” He moved to the rampart’s southwestern corner, trailed by officers and NCOs. “Lieutenant Suenaga—do these flimsy sandbags look capable of stopping ten thousand enemies? Could they hold against even a thousand? Well?”

“Yes, sir.” “The enemy is the enemy. We must assume they’ll come charging at us from their position. ...Good—redo it! This’ll need one and a half times the height, double the width, triple the length, and twice as many machine guns.”

“Yes, sir.”

Beyond the southwestern rampart stretched vast grasslands, green fields upon loess soil, and scattered groves of acorns, oaks, and acacias. The view appeared hazy. The herd of goats that usually loitered about was nowhere to be seen. The peasants must have hidden them to guard against looting. Even with just a single rank's difference, soldiers were those who had to meekly obey orders. They were not permitted to express their opinions. Lieutenant Suenaga gave orders to the sergeant. The sergeant commanded the soldiers. The sandbag fortifications began having their quadruple layers of barbed wire torn off and rebuilt.

“More! More! Extend it this far!” Lieutenant Suenaga gauged the fussbudget Bansai’s expression while scoring the earth with his boot. If they made this corner especially sturdy, enemy forces would likely concentrate their attacks on the less fortified sections. And those would collapse. He kept thinking. “Dig dirt from here! That acacia’s in the way.” “Chop it down!” “Tsk!” “Bring that barricade over here.” Without betraying his calculations, he kept directing the soldiers. “...More! Bring entrenching tools and pickaxes!” “This is the only unfinished section!” “Too slow, Sergeant Furkaku!” “Hey! Stop dawdling!”

The men who had graduated from the Youth Training Institute had been delighted when their leave came after a year and six months. That became troop dispatch - their leave was indefinitely postponed. The men who had been on the verge of tears obeyed the Lieutenant's scolding commands and worked with desperate diligence. Their efforts stood out. Takatori, the punishment-duty soldier, wore a wry smile. Kakimoto performed his duties as usual. "That's right! Everyone - emulate Kuraya and Kinugasa's work ethic!" "Put full strength into those pickaxes!" The Special Duty Sergeant pointed at the training institute graduates. "Takatori!" "Pack that mud tighter into the hemp sacks!"

“Special Duty Sergeant, Sir! What should be done about these rat-eaten holes in the bags, sir? Should we stuff them with rolled straw?” “Hmm, hmm. Do that.” The sneering Special Duty Sergeant gave a satisfied nod to Matsushita, his fellow graduate from the training institute. Meanwhile, others over there were buttering someone up. Takatori, who hadn’t missed hearing that, repeatedly forced a bitter smile. (It's so obvious!) One hour and fifteen minutes later, the massive defensive installations had been completed exactly as ordered. With this, even demons could come.

The soldiers returned to their quarters utterly exhausted. They couldn’t wash their mud-caked hands, noses, or necks. There was no water.

The lunch trumpet blared. From the egg powder factory across the way, an answering call resounded as well. "This China place—it's only April but already feels like July weather... Ugh, damn it—so damn hot, and my stomach's growling like mad..." They shoveled down the cold rice rationed out in mess tins.

“Every last one of you—your canteens are all empty! —Hey, duty officer!” “Hey, ain’t there any hot water?” “Ain’t there any hot water?”

The duty officer, wearing an apron over his shirt, was in a fluster. The cooking utensils were incomplete.

“Hot water! Hey, hot water!” “Not only is there no hot water—we don’t even have water to wash the rice! We’re in trouble here.” “Tsk! The rice is stuck and won’t go down! You trying to kill me?” “Kill you? Don’t talk such bullshit!”

“The Chinamen are selling hot water, I see.” “A full kettle for an Igazuru—”

Fukui, who had gone to look, spoke. “How much is an Igazuru?” “See, one of those Chinese one-sen copper coins—that’s an Igazuru." “Two rin and five mo, or thereabouts.” “Selling hot water—what a stingy racket, I tell ya.”

Kuraya—a training institute graduate affecting refinement—laughed with exaggerated gusto.

Takatori stood by one of the walls, his face twisted in bitter resentment. A wall so tattered and peeling it seemed ready to crumble away. Tamada from the noodle factory asked why he was making such a face. "You there! Is the work too tough for you? Getting on your nerves?" "You’re making a moth-eaten face like that." "It’s not like that." "They’re the ones who’re hopeless bastards." "Those bootlickers like Kinugasa and Matsushita," Takatori sullenly said. "It’s because there’s so many of those bastards that the Chinese aren’t just stripped naked—they have the very core of their livers ripped out."

“So it’s them, huh.” “...Those bastards are like rotten whores.” “They’re slaves who, despite being thoroughly exploited by factory owners and landlords, still can’t help but bow their heads obsequiously and wag their tails.” “Those kinds of bastards...” Takatori glanced back at the lecherous Nishizaki beside him. He was a man who always had to taste the first fruits—one who’d never been known to purchase the same prostitute twice. “Those bastards are the biggest problem. "They’re mercilessly overworked, exploited, and tormented by the bourgeoisie." “Even so, they don’t know how to hate or resist.” “Using flattery, they’re trying to get the scraps thrown their way.”

“Well, well, that’s how it is, but... it’s not so bad, is it? Their bootlicking didn’t just start today, did it?” Nishizaki laughed lewdly. "Nishizaki! You bastard! Get in with those bootlickers! That’s what suits you!" From Takatori’s arm, a stubborn fist looked ready to fly out. “No, that’s not it, that’s not it. Ain’t no need to get so worked up here and now. ……Look at Kinugasa’s mug over there—ain’t it just like a soggy dick? Look, it really is just like a soggy dick, ain’t it!”

Nishizaki had derailed the conversation. Munching away by the far entrance, thick-lipped Kinugasa—oblivious to their conversation as he poked at his canned meat—truly did give the impression of a soggy dick. Tamada laughed. Nishizaki’s lechery was notorious. What a strange, eccentric fellow he was. He had hoped to taste champon now that he had come to China. It had been his wish even before coming here. Even during work hours, when women with bound feet and hanging bangs dressed in brown or purple Chinese clothes passed by, he would stealthily steal glances at them. Their hands and legs were very delicate.

Even the factory's box-packing female workers drew his interest.

They were not beautiful. They were soiled with dust, smoke, and phosphorus. Yet there was something different about them compared to Japanese women. They possessed something distinctly their own. That difference acted as a stimulus for him.

"They're up to something! Hey, the factory bastards are up to something!"

They ate and rested awhile. A man noticed the commotion near where the shaved matchsticks dried. Workers were being subjected to shockingly cruel treatment. “Lynch! Lynch!” Kakimoto lowered his voice as though in a confidential space.

“What?” “It’s a lynch! A lynch!” Yu Liling—a worker with shoulders tensed in anger and a sardonic face—was being wrung like a neck-gripped rooster under two foremen’s arms, his single leg frantically kicking at empty air.

"The supervisor was thrusting needles under his fingernails."

The shell-shaped nails were firmly adhered to the flesh of his fingertips. They thrust cotton needles between the flesh and nails. Starting from the little finger, needles were thrust into his ring finger, middle finger, and index finger. His hands had been pinned under his armpits by two foremen to prevent movement. Piercing through the factory's din came a guttural groan—u—uhh— The soldiers shuddered as if their own fingernails were being ripped out.

Yu Liling had always been disliked by the staff. His way of lowering his head was defiant. Even when the supervisors and foremen said something, he would snort contemptuously. That was the sort of man he was. That was why Koyama in particular glared at him.

Takatori knew that even at the egg powder factory, the workers were freezing up under the soldiers’ intimidation. There as well, lynchings by the staff were carried out. The soldiers saw it. And if such lynchings were going to be carried out, they declared they wanted no part in guarding the factory. The company at that egg powder factory was renowned even in mainland Japan. It had a history of being completely annihilated in both the First Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War. Every year, two or three ideologues who had been discharged from active duty within mere months would, strangely enough, find their way in. When the factory staff, hiding behind the military’s authority to abuse workers, perceived this mentality, the soldiers of that company refused to condone it.

That's right—these bastards here were hiding behind us too, Takatori thought. Damn it! They're treating people like fools! "You bastard! Try strutting around like when you came demanding wages!" Koyama bellowed. "What's this? Sniveling like a brat? Go on—try that arrogant mouth of yours again like that night!"

“Hmm, I’d heard there were fellows in Shina who beat workers to death, but they really do go all out with their madness.” The soldiers approached the scene as if drawing near to something terrifying, cautiously, step by step, threading through the mats spread with matchsticks. They had slapped people and been slapped themselves. However, thrusting needles into nails was something they were seeing for the first time now. The rusty needle pierced all the way to the white crescent at the base of the nail. Purplish blood had seeped beneath the translucent nail.

“It’s those greenhorns coddling scum like you that let you strut around so damn cocky!” (This was a dig at Mikitaro.) “You’re a Communist stooge, ain’tcha!” “Think you can seize the factory? Go on—try it!” “—Hey!” “Try running that big mouth again like you did that night!”

Koyama became aware that the approaching soldiers were his own shield.

His face, contorted with anger, briefly relaxed into a smile toward the soldiers.

But toward Yu, it immediately twisted back to its former shape.

In the workshop, the workers fell deathly silent, strained their ears, and continued their work. Only the noise of machinery in motion continued. Some workers stopped moving their matchstick alignment machines and, stealthily hiding from staff view behind windows, watched Koyama thrust a needle into Yu's other thumb. Sure enough, the timid young worker watching this felt as if he himself were being stabbed and turned his face away.

"You bastard! Still putting on that brazen act?!" "Li! This time it’s the wet leather whip—bring the wet leather whip!" Koyama’s furious voice reverberated. Even the workers who had been feigning ignorance and continuing their work were now startled. They stopped their hands and looked at each other’s faces. Yu Liling, who had become one of the representatives to demand wage payments, was now being made to pay for it. They knew it. At the same time, they knew that inflicting this lynch on Yu alone was not just about him—it was meant to intimidate all the workers. If only the soldiers weren’t here—we’d all rise up! And there were those who wept in their hearts.

“Don’t you think it’s about time you stopped this?” Kakimoto, the soldier who had been watching, said. The workers, seeing the wet leather whip gripped in Koyama’s bony hand, envisioned the scene—stripped naked, muscles torn to shreds, splattering as they were flayed.

It was a scene commonly seen in police interrogations. Yu’s scream and Koyama’s snarling voice rang out once more. The wet leather whip coiled around an object. Crack. Crack. It was a sharp, cutting sound. At that moment, a bold, rough soldier leapt out. “Cut it out, you bastard!” “Filthy bastard!” “You damn failure!”

The soldier struck Koyama’s sickly cheek. Koyama’s bony hand gripping the wet leather whip was twisted backward by the sturdy soldier’s arm. “You think just ’cause we’re here, you can get away with tormentin’ workers like this? We ain’t havin’ it!” “You ugly-faced bastard!”

Koyama was taken aback. “I’ll beat you to death! You ugly-faced bastard!”

The soldier was Takatori.

18

The rear guard arrived. The dormitory became cramped.

They had no beds, no straw mattresses; they spread blankets on the floor and slept in a jumble. The sorghum stalk screen was beginning to tear. From below, bedbugs came crawling out with a rustling sound. The bedbugs, perhaps sensing the sudden presence of skin glistening with sweat and grease instead of the sulfurous, phosphorus-reeking, malnourished, diseased complexions of the workers, must have worn looks of bewilderment. Takatori kept his distance from those who had arrived later for some time. They exchanged accounts of their journeys during that time.

When they had boarded the government-chartered ship from Moji, they had similarly picked up leaflets. Some had folded them into their breast pockets, concealing them carefully like talismans. “When we were walkin’ down Sambashi-dori, leaflets started rainin’ down from the sky outta nowhere!” he laughed. “When we looked up, what do you know—Yasukawa from the union was stickin’ his neck outta the window, tryin’ to pull it back in.—Hang in there and keep comin’ strong! When he called out like that, how could we not give it our all?! If you tell them that, make sure to join forces with those guys over there! They’re not lettin’ us through, I tell ya!”

He let out a carefree, booming laugh.

A Special Duty Sergeant approached from nearby. He had come to call someone. He said, “I wonder if we’ll go on to firmly shake hands with Champy.” He laughed loudly again.

His hands, unconsciously tearing at the frayed edge of the sorghum stalk screen, were calloused and hard as boards. “Kudo finally got taken care of inside the ship.” While keeping an eye on the Special Duty Sergeant out of the corner of his eye, Kiya whispered.

"I told him going off alone wouldn’t work and tried to stop him, but that hot-blooded fool just wouldn’t listen." “This time around, they’ve gotten real sensitive to labor unions and our opposition.” Takatori lowered his voice as if squeezed tight. “The times ain’t like the Japan-Germany War or Siberian Intervention days anymore.” “We know damn well we can’t let ourselves be used as the bourgeoisie’s lackeys—but turns out the bourgeoisie’ve gotten just as jumpy about us opposing the expedition.” “They’ll push through the March 15th arrests, force through the April 10th dissolution of three leftist groups.” “Then comes the expedition.” “From start to finish, doesn’t every damn thing show how the bourgeoisie got everything planned out way more thorough and organized than us?”

“They must think that no matter what obstacles stand in their way, they have to seize this place first.”

“That’s right, that’s right. They’re thinking that way to take over China.”

“But we’ll do our damnedest to slack off and throw wrenches in their works—our own way.” “Even if they tell us to shoot our guns, everyone’s just ain’t shootin’, huh?” However, they still hated their rulers and opposed the expedition, but not all of them were united in their views.

“In our current position here, we cannot immediately withdraw a single division back to the homeland and disengage from China. That’s an impossible proposition. However, we have our own work to do. No matter how the military may be used against our aims, that does not mean we should abandon our military duties. We are learning urban warfare for the day we are truly born into existence. We are learning how to operate armored cars. We fight for that day.”

Kiya spoke in a low voice. Takatori half-nodded and half-shook his head. "For that day, huh? "That's fine. But you're always so long-suffering! But what about the Chinese workers being crushed right before our eyes—by our own hands?"

The two of them had worked at the same factory until before enlisting. Kiya, with his meticulous, persistent, and energetic nature serving him well, had become a superior private. On the very day Takatori had completed one year of service and become a second-year soldier, he abandoned his sentry post to chase after a duck. And he was referred to a court-martial. At dusk, he tried to stab to death a sluggish duck that had become a stray with his bayonet-fixed rifle. And he gave chase.

From the drill ground all the way into the brushwood hills at the foot of the old castle—he ended up chasing the duck for about five chō. The duck, desperately dodging with its clumsy webbed feet, darted nimbly. In the end, he couldn’t stab it to death, so he crushed it under his boot. He felt relieved. And he stood up, lifting the duck—its long neck drooping—by its leg. At that moment, he was spotted by a patrol officer.

He neither felt ashamed of becoming a compensation duty soldier nor harbored any sense of inferiority about it. He liked using machinery. He especially liked using light machine guns. Even during blank firing exercises, he would go rat-a-tat-tat while imagining mowing down hordes of approaching bastards with this one gun, like rain pouring down. His slightly foolish, simple-minded nature fanned everyone’s favor. Together, they exposed their testicles for inspection; together, they entered the dim barracks and ate red rice. Together, they learned how to aim their rifles. They learned how to fix bayonets and learned how to shoot. That Kudo had been disposed of inside the government ship. Why he’d been disposed of—that went without saying! He was a man who liked sweet red bean soup. He was a man with eyes like fire. He had been killed!

That could not help but drive the soldiers' blood to fury. In the dormitory with its rough walls, low roof, and stifling air, they were each lost in their own thoughts.

Next to Takatori sat Nasu—searched all the way to his inner pockets where propaganda leaflets had been found, then beaten by Lieutenant Shigeto with such force that his cheek was nearly torn away. Nasu remained silent, saying nothing.

“No matter how many leaflets they confiscate or how much they rant, they can’t drag out our brains!”

Someone said. “That’s true,” Nasu silently thought.

“No matter what I think or do, that’s my own damn business!”

The wisteria-like acacia flowers were fragrant. Nearby, Kakimoto worried about how his aunt's family was faring.

He had no time to confirm their whereabouts.

Even the dregs of distant blood relations, once they crossed a single sea and left the home islands, came to feel as close as immediate family or siblings.

Under the pretext of protecting expatriates, he had been rushed here in such haste that he couldn’t even find time to return and visit his aunt suffering from appendicitis. However, he could neither directly protect nor even go to check on those dearest to him—the people scattered throughout the city districts eking out meager livings, or those connected by blood ties.

He was protecting the factory.

For this purpose, he worked until drenched in sweat. He continued the defense work until soaked through. The factory perimeter had been tightly secured with earthen berms, barricades, and barbed wire. Gripping rifles loaded with live rounds and with bayonets fixed at their hips, they stood guard over it.

No defensive works were carried out in any other locations. Kakimoto, having come all this way as a soldier, found himself unable to leave the area enclosed by these earthen embankments and barricades.

The expatriate residents were being told to come into this defensive area. And they were being ordered to receive protection within this area.

Then why had he come all the way to this China in the first place?…… “Hey, hey—these matches here’ll light whether you strike ’em on wood or stone, long as there’s a stick.” The three who had entered the workshop returned, each curiously carrying a small yellow matchbox. They were Matsuoka, Motooka, and Tamada.

The three rubbed them against pillars and floorboards and lit fires. “This’s different from the matches back in the home islands!” “We... when we were kids, I kinda think we saw matches like that before.” “They call ’em phossy.”

Nasu wore a somber expression.

“This here’s yellow phosphorus matches—that’s what the Chinese man over there is sayin’.” “He can speak a bit o’ Japanese.” Tamada, who still reeked of udon flour from the noodle factory, said. “—These have a lot of poison.” “Foreign countries don’t let their factories produce ’em.” “Our bodies break down quick.” “This stuff’s bad—real poison. Damn thing’s… These yellow phosphorus matches—they’re toxic and catch fire easy. That’s why every country’s banned ’em.” “Yet here they’re makin’ ’em.”

“This has a lot of poison. “People die,” Tamada continued imitating the Chinese man’s speech. “No railways, no toxic drugs—in the countryside, this is what you take to kill yourself. “A man and woman, a married couple, quarrel. “The wife wants to die—she scrapes off the chemical from the tip of the matchstick and swallows it. “She drinks ten boxes’ worth from this one. “She dies. “Japan avoids the thornbush, China’s yellow phosphorus matches…” “Hmm... If you understand that much Japanese, we should be able to talk, shouldn’t we?” Takatori blurted out without regard for those around him.

“Let’s bring that Chinese man here and talk with him.” “Wouldn’t that be something?”

19

Night shifts followed day shifts. Day shifts followed night shifts. There was no time to sleep. The soldiers became caked in sweat and grime. There was no water. Even when there was any, there remained only an extremely small amount. It sat murky - not liquid you could drink raw. Drink it, and your stomach and intestines would roar like thunder.

They had not bathed for a long time. Seven days—no, already more than fifteen days. On the day before departing the home islands, they washed off their sweat and dust in the bathhouse next to the kitchen. That was the last time. In the windowless, Chinese-style dark dormitory, the stinking breath of nothing but men stagnated. The factory was being protected by days of unending duty, deprivation, overwork, and suffering. Furthermore, the bourgeoisie were plotting to secure this resource-rich Shandong region as their own. The soldiers, even after coming to China for the benefit of the bourgeoisie who exploited them back in the home islands, were being tormented and ruthlessly overworked. In the workplaces of the home islands too, there was starvation, overwork, and exploitation. There was unemployment hell. Even in China, the same conditions existed. They—these men of worker and peasant origins—could never escape their suffering, no matter the circumstance or moment. They could not go on living without whittling away their own lives. “That’s right—how can we sever these obstructive heavy shackles?!”

Takatori thought. He began frequenting the match factory’s workshop without being urged by anyone. A bare fan rotated, cooling the viscous yellow phosphorus. Indifferent workers nearly had their heads sliced by the fan blades. The duty officer gave a few warnings about workshop access. The soldiers listened obediently. But after two or three days, they were wandering through workshops and Chinatown again out of curiosity. They couldn’t understand the words. Eyes conversed with eyes. Faces and eyes expressed emotions.

The conflict with the officers had deepened imperceptibly. Before landing, Kudo had been disposed of. This only intensified their sense of the officers' unapproachability. They were the enemy right before their eyes. Bathing, meals, duty hours, and resting beds were all clearly distinguished. The soldiers had barley rice. The officers had white rice. Sharing hardships and joys existed only among the soldiers. They had not bathed for a long time. The officers took baths daily at the Ice Manufacturing Company. Treated to beer, sweets, and tea by the Ice Manufacturing Company employees, they continued a conversation that dragged on like a cow’s slobber. The soldiers thought they could slip in later if an opening arose, but the officers’ interminable talk left them no chance to enter. By the time they could get in, the night had grown far too late.

One time, Kamikawa, who had lost his jacket, returned carrying a wet towel, his skin still pink from the bath. He had sneaked in early. He was delighted. “Whether the Ice Manufacturing Company madam had golden streaks glinting or not, she didn’t make any distinction.” “Even the bathtub’s available, so she’s tellin’ you to go ahead and get in.” “When it comes to protectin’ expatriates, whether it’s slush funds or bathtubs, ain’t no difference in how they work.” “...See? I done snuck into the first bath, ain’t I?”

“Hadn’t anyone else come yet?” “Hmm, they haven’t come yet.”

“The Ice Manufacturing Company madam is a young one, isn’t she.” “Hmm, she does have a somewhat cute face.”

“Alright, I’ll go wash off the grime too.” “I’ll go too.”

“I’ll go too.” They knew the thrill of stealing. Without tying their shoelaces, they tucked them into their shoes. Fourteen men, carrying sweat-dampened hand towels and without a single bar of soap among them, crossed from the match factory through the square where weeds grew thick and blue-green on the side opposite the slums—that’s too many people. But if even one was made to quit, then all fourteen would have had to give up. A massive water tank was perched atop a red roof. That was the Ice Manufacturing Company.

It was over a hundred meters away.

It was closer to where the company that had gone to the egg powder factory was located. They entered the gate. The pump was running.

Suddenly, from behind a red-brick door, a voice sharp enough to cut—likely that of an officer—barked out. A familiar first-class private, crimson as a boiled octopus, jumped out while shaking his index finger. He was pinching his military uniform trousers and undergarments as if handling a cat. “What company’s bastard are you?!” A voice sharp enough to slice rang out from inside the door. “Have you no consideration for others?! “Who the hell comes causing trouble at this hour?!”

The ends of his words rose shrilly. "What's goin' on?" Takatori, whose face was known to everyone in the regiment, asked the naked first-class private nonchalantly.

“It’s the brigade adjutant.” “What’s the adjutant doin’ here?”

The fourteen men came to a halt before the door. What was it?

The door was shoved open from the inside. The face of a lieutenant—aristocratic, with a conspicuously straight nose, his adjutant badge slung diagonally from his shoulder—stood blocking the soldiers’ path. The adjutant unfastened his sword-hanging button and glared suspiciously around at the fourteen men crowding in—What’s going on here. Why had so many of these brazen bastards shown up?! “His Excellency is here! Get out! Get out!” He let out a voice sharp enough to cut.

“Insolent bastards!” “Get out!” “Get out!!” Fourteen men were cut through by the piercing voice. “Tch!”

Takatori was dumbfounded. Like a traveler denied boarding a ferry at the crossing, he gazed regretfully at the bathhouse before his eyes. And he gazed back at the weed-choked square they had passed through.

“Tch!” “What’s goin’ on here?” He muttered under his breath. “Damn it! Any human being would feel just as gross with all this slimy sweat and grime!” “Tch!” “Guess I’ll have to put up with it again.”

The enlisted men who had entered the bath before the officers were scolded away and expelled. ...Before long, the scum floating in the bathwater had been neatly scooped away. They adjusted the bath temperature. The entrance to the bathhouse was guarded by two sentries with fixed bayonets. Acacia and roses were planted.

The sound of water splashing noisily escaped from inside the door. The water was drawn out, reheated, and replenished. There were signs of the duty soldier scrubbing backs. There were signs of a beard being trimmed.

Then again, for twenty minutes—no, probably thirty minutes—there wasn’t a single sound from the hardening tubs.

The sentry, flushed and wondering if he might be suffering from cerebral anemia, peered through the crack in the door. His Bearded Excellency was dozing while shaking his head against the edge of the bathtub. A contented snore escaped faintly. The sentry paced back and forth before the door, bored. The nape of his neck, caked with sweat and dirt, felt disgustingly gritty. Stones jutted out unevenly from the ground beneath their feet. The two were guarding His Excellency’s neck—which carried a 150,000-yen bounty and was being targeted by plainclothes troops. They were stifling boredom and a yawn.

The wristwatch passed one hour. Twenty more minutes passed. At long last, the old groom entered with a deferential posture, carrying a new three-legged grooming tool. A dry towel was needed. “Even just one night would do—if I could wash off this grime and sleep in a clean futon!” “Quit your luxury talk.” “Ain’t no such thing for the likes of us!”

At the machinery room of the ice plant, soldiers with feet covered in blisters, their toad-like boots caked in yellowish dust, shivered with impatience as they waited and waited for their turn. Twilight advanced in a white pall.

20 A caged canary was singing under the eaves.

The continental temperature drops rapidly when night falls. The cold undergarments against their skin felt disgusting. Even if the workers couldn't eat, they cherished their small birds. It was a peculiar habit. "Hmm, I see, I see! Interesting!" Takatori nodded. "Keep going! Tell me more!"

His voice sounded angry. He still showed no restraint in his surroundings. “The Hui Hui followers—wicked people.” “Not good.” “Winter days short.” “Dark comes early.” “No electricity.” “Factory dark.” “We can’t see faces.” “Men and women always sneak together.” “Start.” The worker with a stuffy nose continued speaking in halting Japanese. “Hui Hui followers—wicked people. While sneaking, they snatch matchboxes others filled and claim as theirs. Many boxes.” “They have much money.”

This was Shi Yili, a worker. A pale, gaunt man who looked old enough to be someone’s father, his body worn down to the bone. When asked his age, he was thirty-one. He was still young. “Hmm~ So when it gets dark, the male and female workers sneak around together.” “Taking advantage of that commotion, the Hui Hui followers snatch the matchboxes others have filled and pass them off as their own.” “I see, fascinating, fascinating,” Takatori nodded. “Keep going! Tell me more!”

The workers were gradually growing less afraid of the soldiers. The soldiers formed a circle around the workers reeking of garlic, grease, and some peculiar tobacco-like odor. "Over there—past the barracks beyond the shantytowns—there's a British hairnet factory," Shi Yili continued. "My sister works there as a mill girl, breathing nothing but dandruff and dust day after day." "My sister's hair reeks of that filth." "It makes you sick." "Lung disease." "The hair for those nets—they get it from country folk still wearing queues. They pay three or four sen to have it chopped off, then middlemen bring it to sell at the company." "They tell those who keep their queues to pay a tax." "The company haggles down whatever price the middlemen quote—sixty percent, fifty percent." "The middlemen come quoting padded prices." "My old man—a man of the old ways—got hit with that queue tax." "He didn't want to cut his queue." "The middlemen would come with constables—'Cut it off! Pay up if you won't!' That tax—no such tax exists! Just something they cooked up between themselves." "But if you kept your queue, they'd take the money anyway." "The British company lines those middlemen's pockets—and the constables' too." "The British... Americans... Germans... J—" He bit off the word. "...they all grind down China's peasants and workers." "We live." "It's hard!"

“Ahem!”

A thunder-like cough. A clatter of sabres and boots. Immediately came from behind the soldiers. Lt.Shigeto had come and stood behind them unnoticed. They flinched as one. Shi Yili fell silent like a mute. The lieutenant glared at Shi with hexagonal eyes. The Chinese stood up like criminals, silently hanging their heads. Then they hunched their shoulders weakly and left without making a sound.

“That bastard’s come to brainwash you with red ideology,” barked Lt. Shigeto. “This factory’s crawling with commie rats! Let those scum fill your heads with their propaganda, and you’ll disgrace the Imperial Army!” “Lieutenant,” Takatori protested, “we were just passing time with idle talk. That Chinaman knows a lick of Japanese, see?” “Liar!” The lieutenant’s face twisted into a snarl. “I heard every word! Idle talk or not—unacceptable! Disperse! Disperse now! Get to your bunks! And stay vigilant!” “Yes, sir. We’ll be on our guard.”

“Yes, sir. We’ll be on our guard.” The soldiers were drawn to Shi Yili’s words. And they gathered around him. The barracks were always dark. The walls were tattered and ragged, on the verge of peeling away.

That place felt like a cave where only people who were oppressed and tormented gathered.

Are soldiers and workers not twin siblings bearing the same fate? The grueling daytime labor drove both of them into extreme exhaustion.

By oppressing these Chinese workers, we're ultimately tightening nooses around our own necks. The ones pleased about workers being crushed like this are none but Ōi Shōji. There's nobody else.

Takatori laid it out plainly. Some soldiers shook their heads skeptically. Takatori continued speaking. He meant to drive it home. "We came all this way thinking we're serving Japan." "We believed we were safeguarding national interests." "So what do you think those bloated bourgeois bastards do next?" "In the end, only the bourgeoisie get fat!" "They rake in profits while tightening the screws on workers." "They'll line Darakan's pockets alright." "But the skilled laborers? They're getting choked tighter every day."

“To be soldiers—what fools we are,” Takatori said bitterly. “Though we come from poor peasant and worker stock ourselves, we wear these high-collared uniforms to crush worker and peasant resistance. Sent to the colonies, we risk our lives just to fatten the bourgeoisie! What in hell are we living for? We’re blind fools who can’t see the truth! We’re strangling our own damn necks with our bare hands!”

Everyone was deeply moved and found themselves unable to stop thinking. "Endure!" Kiya thought to himself. "We have to crawl under the whip—crawl our way up from the very bottom."

Here too existed a life similar to what they had lived in the factories and rural villages back in Japan—only more terrible, more bitter. They learned that the workers had not been permitted to take a single step outside a certain section of the factory for over a month. They had not received their monthly wages. Among the child laborers, there were as many as seven who were the youngest—six years old. Up to five of them had been permanently purchased for ten or twelve yuan each. Such children, emaciated, their ribs protruding from chests bared by removed shirts, desperately packed matchsticks into small boxes. They had small hands that could barely grasp the matchboxes.

Unless another platform was placed beneath their stools, they couldn’t reach their workbenches.

“We too, after all, were raised being scolded by our old man to work, work from six or seven years old,” thought Tamada, the noodle factory worker who had gotten up around one in the morning to start work, as he reflected on his childhood. “However, we were never sold off, body and soul!”

Many of the workers were former peasants from the countryside. They had quit being peasants and become workers. The peasants were even more wretched than the workers.

The peasants, propelled by the imperialist powers of various nations, faced the rapacious exactions of warlords ceaselessly clashing in minor skirmishes and the plunder of bandits and defeated soldiers; no matter how much they tilled the land or tended their livestock, not a single thing became their own income. A drought occurred. Cloud-like swarms of locusts descended. The entire harvest had been seized by armed men.

Some sold their land, homes, and livestock and migrated to Manchuria. Many migrated.—During their journey, they were caught by marauding soldiers on the march and had what little travel money they had taken from them. And after that, they could no longer go onward. Such people ended up entering as factory workers.

Some had left their families in the village and come to work away from home. The families left behind were either gnawing on tree roots or eating grass and leaves. There were also those who died from eating stone powder.

“That mom of mine back home in our soot-covered house on the outskirts of town—she’s just barely getting by sewing gloves to put food on the table,” said even the carefree fool Takatori, his voice thick with emotion.

“...Huh, must be sixty-three by now... No dirty old man’s gonna come sniffin’ round my wrinkled-up Mom anymore!” “Ain’t nobody gonna pay her any mind!” “You think sewin’ gloves alone puts food in her belly?” The soldiers compared these workers’ lives with their own back in Japan. In villages where wheat would soon ripen, some wondered how their old men—minds startin’ to wander—were gettin’ by.

“Wang Hongji’s wife recently gave birth to a girl child.” Shi Yili, who understood Japanese, pointed at Wang—a seemingly good-natured man with a somewhat slack face, now dejected and resentful-looking—and spoke to the soldiers. “Hmm, she gave birth, did she.”

The gazes of over twenty soldiers converged on Wang alone. Wang wore a timid expression as though he wished to vanish. “Wang has no money. Wife has no money.” “Foreman won’t give money.”

“Hmm, so they’re not paying out the wages.” “The factory’s doing this.” “Wang’s mother came to the factory crying with the older child on her back.” “The company staff won’t let her meet Wang.” “Hmm.”

“They can’t give money. There’s no money to give.”

“Hmm.” “The wife can’t get any rice to eat. Her milk won’t come out. The baby cries.” “Hmm.”

"The baby cried nonstop for six days straight." "The wife's starving." "All she drinks is hot water—doesn't fill her belly none." "She gets dizzy spells." "On the tenth morning, the baby went quiet." "She got up to check." "The baby was dead." "His mother came running to the factory." "Still them cops won't let Wang see her." "His ma talked through the fence slats." "Wang listened from inside." "Wang can't go home." "That foreman won't let him step one foot past the gate." "Hmmph!"

Wang Hongji did not understand Japanese. However, he discerned what Shi Yili was telling the soldiers from the tense expressions of both the soldiers and Shi Yili. “The children who were bought—it’s even worse,” Shi Yili continued. “Work and work, yet they don’t give us a single penny. They can’t get their hair cut. They can’t buy hand towels. At New Year’s, they only give us fifteen sen. The children work one year, two years, three years. They work endlessly. They only get fifteen sen at New Year’s—forever. They can never go outside. Eighteen people haven’t left here for three years—not a single day. They do nothing but work. They have not a shred of hope. They despair. Children of nine or ten—children like these—come to think death would be better. They steal yellow phosphorus and drink it. In February, two children died. In March, four children died. They drink yellow phosphorus; their stomachs burn.”

“They’re in agony.” “Thin, small children’s bodies reduced to skin and bones, their legs stiff as boards… The company staff and foremen laughed.” “The Chinese are spineless—they die just to spite our faces.” “Spineless….” “Hmm!”

The soldiers groaned as if their breath was being choked off.

21

Mikitaro was deprived of opportunities to make contact with the workers.

He was transferred from his duties in the dipping operations and the drying room to the accounting section in the office. He buried his head in the account books. From morning until night, he did nothing but work the abacus. This was a lenient measure.

The old man had still not come out of the consulate police detention cell even after over ten days.

That body, deprived of heroin, was more unbearable than hell. Amid nothing but the patrol officers’ scorn and contempt—unable to bear the humiliation—he continued his throbbing moans. At the factory, they came to regard Mikitaro as someone who sided with restive workers. The manager, foremen, and long-serving employees were all filled with disgust. If he were Chinese, he would have lost his head long ago. As a Japanese comrade, he was shown leniency. Activists from the General Labor Union had infiltrated the city. That was no mere rumor. It was a fact. And the factory was in turmoil both inside and out.

Before anyone knew it, propaganda leaflets had been plastered all over the outer walls and utility poles. Propaganda leaflets containing cartoons were scattered at the flour mill.

The Match Company was on guard against agitators infiltrating.

Entry and exit at the factory became subject to extremely strict controls. Not only were those inside not allowed out, but they also did not let a single outsider in. Moreover, the boundary between inside and outside was guarded twice over by armed soldiers and hired patrolmen.

"It won't be long before my neck gets lopped off too!" When he muttered this under his breath, Mikitaro's expression turned forlorn. He had witnessed Koyama systematically torturing workers who displeased him ever since the army's arrival. One of those tortures had been meant for him. The workers weren't just splattered with wet leather whips and stabbed with needles under their fingernails. Some were forced to make phone calls. Then from behind came a violent thrust aimed at the receiver's trumpet-shaped metal part. The wall telephone clanged. A nose smashed into the receiver like a round otafuku bun. At the face's center, the nasal bridge broke clean through the middle, caving into a trumpet-shaped hollow. Drops of blood dripped steadily. Others were bound from trunk to branch on an acacia tree, legs dangling mid-air as if crucified.

“I am an arrogant wretch, a slacker, a lazy good-for-nothing, a villain… This is my punishment… This is my punishment…” The worker bound to the acacia tree was made to repeat it a thousand times while hanging from the branch. A young worker resembling a wilted tomato counted the number under that tree. The ropes dug into his limbs and torso. The more he struggled, the deeper they bit. The tree-bound worker gasped as if his breath would give out. “I was an impudent wretch… a villain… sir…” Gasping like the wind itself, the worker spat out words along with white foam.

This had been conducted by waiting until the soldiers left for duty at their barracks—a practice initiated after they had discovered it once before. It was an order from the Special Duty Sergeant Major. The soldiers found themselves swamped with security arrangements due to reports of the Southern Army’s advance. The factory’s atmosphere shunned Mikitaro, keeping him at arm’s length. Mikitaro himself could not avoid sensing this.

"After all, I'm getting the boot! That attitude—they're telling me to get out right away."

While feeling an inexplicable, awkward discomfort surrounding the manager and Koyama, he thought. "They’re telling me to get out on my own before I get axed."

He knew the cause lay in his old man being a heroin addict like the Chinese and in his having demanded Wang Hongji’s wages on his behalf. He would sometimes slip out of the office. He entered the workshop as if to check the output of contracted work. He observed the workers deliberately and carefully. Yu Liling, who was slightly bowing his head while clattering the axis sorter and inserting matchsticks into wooden frames, nervously and hastily lowered his head again.

“Don’t act so nervous.”

“Yes, yes.” The usually arrogant and aloof Yu Liling had completely transformed into a terrified child. “So the medicine does work after all!”

Koyama’s gratitude for the military’s garrisoning and his pride in his methods grew more pronounced with each passing day. As lynchings multiplied, the workers’ behavior turned increasingly docile. They began kowtowing to company employees through obsequious bowing. “Bastards! “Even after sinking to such wretchedness, they still have to keep grinding away—that’s what workers are!” “Animals!” “These bastards are nothing but docile animals with their testicles cut off!”

However, Mikitaro felt that they themselves were also docile animals who didn’t even put up proper resistance.

To him, it all seemed to stem from a single principle—that his old man remained indefinitely jailed; that their home went entirely unprotected while the factory was stubbornly guarded; that even the workers’ most basic demand for their desperately needed wages met rejection, followed by each of them being beaten. It was the principle of sacrificing countless small things so that only the big ones could swell ever larger. The old man had once tried to expose a village assembly member who had funneled school construction funds to town geishas. Because of that, he was instead pushed off a cliff from above. And thus began his fall from grace.

They wouldn't accept it until we'd fallen to the absolute bottom—until there was nowhere left to fall! he thought. This wasn't about fate or destiny or any of that nonsense. The big ones get shielded by making the small ones fall. That's why we all have to keep falling till we hit rock bottom! But someday that whole damn colossus would come crashing down from its foundations. It had to happen.

He passed through the carving workshop—where white poplar blanks were being shredded like grated daikon by shaft-engraving machines into growing mountains of matchstick shafts—and from the lumber storage area peered briefly into the dim barracks devoid of soldiers.

Backpacks, blankets, tents, and overcoats had been haphazardly folded and lay jumbled together in a heap. In an opened empty can, cigarette butts were packed like maggots. The workers' garlic and onion odors intermingled with the soldiers' sweat and leather gear, seeming to cling to the barracks' thick, heavy walls. He walked on the tips of his shoes and passed through the eastern entrance where acacia trees stood. Then something scattered brushed against his leg. When he looked down, it was a leaflet. Hmm... he thought as he carefully surveyed the area once more. Between similarly folded overcoats, blankets, and tents, paper scraps had been tucked into each fold. Some scraps remained hidden within the folds unseen. But others had their tips peeking out from the creases like tongues. He took one and examined it.

It was a propaganda leaflet dreaded like scorpions. "Huh!"

Having slipped through the tightest security cordon, Mikitaro wondered how on earth these propaganda leaflets had been smuggled in without detection.

The propaganda leaflet had the following written on it. He read.

Japanese Soldiers: The Japanese imperialist bourgeoisie have compelled you to come swiftly to Shandong's soil, bearing rifles and cannons. And the military partition of China has already begun. Did you come here to protect Japanese expatriates' lives? Did you come to safeguard expatriate property? No! We resolutely deny this! Consider: You currently protect neither the lives nor property of impoverished expatriates scattered far beyond the commercial port. You merely guard factories, banks, and hospitals. To whom do these factories, banks, and hospitals belong!

Soldiers! Soldier comrades of worker and peasant origins! You must not be misled by such phrases as protecting the lives and property of expatriate residents and the dignity of the national flag. In Japan, you are exploited by capitalists and landlords in villages and factories; in China, you are being forced to wage a bloody war of life and death for the imperialist bourgeoisie. Who bears the enormous military expenses? Whether you smoke a single cigarette, use half a pound of sugar, or buy one pair of sandals—it all comes from taxes that are indirectly collected from you.

The imperialist powers who had strangled China's worker-peasant national revolutionary movement with bloodshed were now shifting from interference to outright land plunder. Japanese imperialism, seeking foremost to plunder, had exploited favorable strategic conditions to bring you soldiers to this land. Japan was attempting to make Shandong a slave colony like Manchuria. Had you gained even one sen from Mantetsu or the Fushun mines? Had your livelihoods improved one bit for Mantetsu and Fushun?

Manchuria has done nothing but fatten big capitalists and major landlords. The bloated big capitalists have bought off class traitors like Suzuki and Matsukoma, increasingly exploit you all the more, starve your wives and children, and fortify the reactionary fortress that will strangle even you. To suppress partition wars—this is the policy of the imperialists in China. The imperialists have already realized the first part of this detestable plan through the allied military intervention against the national revolution. The military occupation of Shandong is the commencement of the second part of this plan. There is a very real possibility that an imperialist war will erupt for the repartition of colonies.

Comrades, consider! General and Dictator Tanaka—this same Tanaka who drove you all the way to Shandong is the worst enemy of your class! That bastard exploits and tramples upon workers and peasants in the homeland. That bastard imprisons your brothers and fathers in jail and abuses your wives, children, and mothers. Japanese soldier comrades! Comrades, stop obeying orders to invade Shandong! Stop swinging your swords against the Chinese people! And comrades—join hands with China's workers, peasants, and soldiers! To achieve this unshakable revolutionary unity, spare no sacrifice! Smash through the counterrevolutionary front from both flanks! To defend China's revolution, unite your strength with her workers, peasants, and soldiers!

“Hey, what’s this?” “They’ve stuck these things between the coats.”

The strange paper scraps caught the eyes of soldiers returning from duty. A soldier unfastened his leg wraps and moved toward his backpack. The scraps also caught the eye of Tamada, the noodle factory worker. Nasu picked up one of the paper scraps too.

“Oh, this—we’ve gotta report something like this.” “Wait, wait! How can you report something when you don’t even understand what it’s about?!” Takatori suppressed the training facility with his commanding voice.

Dusk had fallen. In the dimly lit dormitory, they read it. When they finished reading, they exchanged glances with each other. And, hiding in the shadows, they flashed furtive smiles.

“What’s this… There’s quite an interesting fellow here.” “This is the Chinks’ doing.” “Tch!” “What’s this now. Something like this—even I know that!” The silent Nasu was intently re-reading it. “Comrades, to reach the firm handshake of revolutionary solidarity, refuse no sacrifice whatsoever.” Takatori read the final part aloud again. “Break through the counterrevolutionary front from both sides. In order to protect the Chinese revolution, comrades, unite your strength with China’s workers, peasants, and soldiers!—That’s right—absolutely correct!”

Before long, a great commotion broke out in the dormitory and inside the factory. The soldiers stood rooted to the spot. The panicked manager, employees, company commander, Lieutenant Shigeto, and special duty sergeant ran about frantically everywhere. Pockets were rifled through and cheeks brutally punched. From rush mats to blankets, from backpacks to personal effects—everything had been turned inside out. The infiltration route and source of the propaganda leaflets underwent rigorous investigation. Several hundred workers were stripped naked one by one. The female workers too were made completely bare.

The stinking workers were bound to the pillars like Christ. And the workers' flat-soled, dirty Chinese shoes kept desperately and repeatedly stomping in midair.

The propaganda leaflets had likely been smuggled in by some Sarutobi Sasuke-like figure. They searched until they were sick of searching, yet never discovered whose handiwork it was. The soldiers' slapped cheeks still burned with that lingering sting. Takatori—always first to draw suspicion in such cases—now sported a horn-like lump on his head. They cleaned up the mess and turned in for bed. Though wrung dry, some absurd humor rose from their guts. The urge to laugh kept surging up, making sleep impossible. Just when their snickers seemed spent, another would burst out—"Hff hff hff"— "Break through the counterrevolutionary front from both sides!"

The fact that they couldn’t figure out whose doing it was, the fact that the bigwigs had completely torn off their masks and started panicking, and the fact that the culprit was absolutely not any of the soldiers themselves—all this brightened their spirits and filled them with cheer. Takatori bit into his blanket time and again, trying to sleep. But someone’s words immediately scattered his focus. Again, childlike laughter resounded through the cavernous dormitory... It was past eleven o'clock. They still had not fallen asleep.

Suddenly, the duty officer came rushing in with loud footsteps.

“Get up! Get up! Everyone get up!” “Another inspection?” “Fools! This goes beyond inspections! The Southern Army’s breaking through! Zhang Zongchang just threw open the city gates and fled. All-night vigilance!” “Hff...hff...hff.” The soldiers rose again, laughter bursting through their lips.

22

Zhang Zongchang and Sun Chuanfang abandoned Tai'an without a fight. And tried to hold out temporarily along the Jieshou line.

However, pressured by Feng Yuxiang’s cavalry unit detouring around the Yellow River to press from the flank and Chen Diaoyuan’s superior unit that had threaded south of Mount Tai to emerge on the Mingshui Plain, they again abandoned the Jieshou and Yellow River lines without a fight. The defeated army retreated en masse like an avalanche to this ancient capital of Jinan. Subsequently, while destroying the Yellow River iron bridges, they retreated along the Tianjin-Pukou Railway toward Tianjin. The Shandong Army soldiers, fearing they would be left behind, vied to be first. They placed ladders against the freight cars’ roofs and clambered up. They nearly tumbled off. On the roofs, soldiers were lined up in rows.

Approximately six hours later, Gu Zhutong's Third Division of the Southern Army—which had spent the night at Wangsherenzhuang—entered the city at dawn. Next, Chen Diaoyuan's Thirteenth and Twenty-Second Divisions entered the city. The stationmaster of the Tianjin-Pukou Railway station—who had just secured an excellent locomotive for Zhang Zongchang—respectfully guided Gu Zhutong to the station and wireless telegraph office. Immediately, these facilities were occupied by Gu Zhutong's forces. One hour later, He Yaozu's troops arrived via the Tianjin-Pukou Railway line. Three hours after that, Fang Zhenwu—who had been advancing along the Yellow River from the flank—arrived. Combined, these forces would have numbered approximately twenty thousand men.

Night came. Near midnight, marching columns, automobiles, and porters carrying large luggage with pots and kettles arrived at the station.

On a splendid automobile stood two young soldiers with drawn pistols on either side, vigilant and attentive as they scrutinized their surroundings. Despite his desperate efforts, the young soldier found his brain assailed by an obstinate sleep that made him nod off repeatedly—standing at his post, he was nearly dragged into another world. The automobile was guarded by cavalry at its front, rear, and sides. More automobiles still followed behind.

The unit was blocked by the street barricades. Both horses and vehicles slowed their speed and barely managed to squeeze through the gap. From the window of the automobile where the pistol-carrying boy stood, a long-faced, somewhat sunken-cheeked countenance suddenly thrust out its neck. “What is this?” he thundered in a booming voice. “This was constructed by the Japanese military.” “For what purpose did they so tyrannically construct these things?” he said with keen eyes like black jewels that never stopped moving, surveying the vicinity. “There are sandbag fortifications, and barbed wire fills every corner here!”

“Yes, sir.” “They’ve stationed soldiers here, even set up machine guns—…this amounts to nothing less than hostile action against our Revolutionary Army! Why didn’t you demand the removal of these things?!” “Uh…”

The man on horseback beside the automobile also appeared to be either a staff officer or a division commander.

“We must immediately lodge a stern protest demanding they completely remove all these obstructions!” When they squeezed through the barricades, the automobile accelerated sharply. The young soldier who had been nodding off jerked awake when his head struck something with a thud. The convoy raced toward the city. This was the same force that one year earlier had received the bitter letter from his Moscow-based son Ching-kuo: “...Now you have become an enemy of the Chinese people. Father, you stand as a hero of counter-revolution and chieftain of new warlords. You slaughtered workers in Shanghai. For this, the global bourgeoisie will surely hail you with open arms—the imperialists will heap gifts upon you. But never forget the proletariat remains steadfast! Father, your coup made you the hero of this age. Yet I believe your victory shall prove fleeting. Father! The Communists prepare for battle with each passing day...”

It was the group of traitors from Chiang Kai-shek’s military headquarters who had been presented with this anguished letter.

Twenty-three In the crowd of demonstrators wearing Sun Yat-sen uniforms, a Chinese officer worked his mouth like a melon being gnawed at. The city streets became an exhibition hall for assorted propaganda leaflets. Above the peeling vermilion gate, a Blue Sky White Sun flag hung from a slender pole swelled mightily with wind.

The lame Nakatsu changed out of his Shandong Army cotton uniform and into a dagua. He left the city. And instead of boarding Zhang Zongchang’s escape train, he remained in the commercial district. Recently, Zhang Zongchang had been twisting his thick neck as if to avoid meeting his gaze. The Russian Mikhailov had also been no good. The only good one was Cai Deshu, the younger brother of the Fifteenth Wife. Nakatsu—since departing for Suzhou with lingering attachment to Suzu—had confirmed the intuition he long harbored.

"After all... she'd gone and stopped liking me."

Zhang did not say anything to him. Even when he stated that he had come, all he received was a nod of acknowledgment. "If she doesn't like me, I don't have to care either," he thought. “Human likes and dislikes are things that even I myself can’t control no matter what I do. That kind of thing happens to me too. It’s perfectly obvious.”

Even so, he had grown somewhat reckless in his desperation. He showed his former true nature. Without consulting Zhang-daren, he shot the retreating officers and soldiers with a pistol in Lincheng. "Dispose of the wounded soldiers with no prospect of recovery!" he issued the command. The wounded soldiers to be buried, "Please have pity on us! Didn't we fight for our leader and get wounded? Are you really going to bury us alive like this?"

they begged for mercy.

“You get wounded for Zhang-daren’s sake and get buried for Zhang-daren’s sake. You’re all such fools!” This was a phrase Nakatsu could have just as well directed at himself. “How pitiful is this! How pitiful is this!” They raised a clamorous voice and wailed.

The brutal work soothed his troubled emotions.

Zhang-daren had retreated to the old capital without any stratagem or resolve. He had abandoned the Governor's Office where he'd resided for two and a half years. To abandon this place meant utter ruin. The people's hearts had turned against him. He'd been censured by Zhang Zuolin. There remained no path but downfall. Nakatsu had discerned all this. "Damn it!" "Now's the time to sever this rotten bond with that bastard." ...He had reverted to his former ronin ways. Upon retreating from the frontlines, he immediately visited the Inokawa residence. Takezaburou lay groaning in a detention cell. The house held no men except Mikitaro. This one too was absent during daylight hours. This suited him perfectly. The time spent at the front without seeing Suzu hadn't dulled his feelings—rather, it had inflamed the passions of a fifty-year-old man.

His feelings toward Suzu were those of an old man who, in his twilight years, loves a young girl akin to his own granddaughter out of an irrepressible lust he cannot sever. The moment he realized he was feeling that way—damn it all, this worthless love and those pretentiously refined, sluggish formalities were such a hassle. Why not just take her away without permission in one clean sweep with a drastic remedy? That way'd be way more fun! And so, he commuted between these two places as if taking a shared ride. He found pleasure in savoring these ambivalent emotions of his.

He found pleasure in savoring them and fantasizing about what to do next.

Nakatsu’s second visit did not instill much fear in Suzu or Shun.

At the very edge of the city, where the streets ended, there was a river. The water that continued from the spring within the city walls—welling up since ancient times—made no sound. Unarmed Shina soldiers thrust their heads into it like a herd of hippopotamuses, churning up the water.

On one side of the street, soldiers in bluish-gray Sun Yat-sen uniforms crawled like ants across every surface. On the other side, khaki uniforms glinted within sandbag fortifications. It resembled gamecocks preparing to spar—first locking eyes in a glaring contest to seek out vulnerabilities. Beggars and vagrants who possessed nothing left to steal remained indomitable. Suzu, Shun, and their mother knew their house stood utterly alone—a solitary existence amidst swarms of Sun Yat-sen-uniformed ants and throngs of beggars and vagrants. And they trembled at this knowledge. Everyone else was Chinese.

The Shandong Army looted valuables at several locations during their retreat as opportunistic plunder and fired indiscriminately. The eyes beneath Sun Yat-sen uniforms brimmed with hostility. The anxiety grew increasingly severe.

The visit of Nakatsu—a hardened warrior risen from banditry—brought some subjective relief to this anxiety and fear. Nakatsu handled pistols skillfully. His glare carried weight. His presence strengthened their resolve. On the narrow garbage-strewn street paved with stones, Chinese people of uncertain intent wandered back and forth like suspicious dogs. Though built in Chinese style with heavy stone walls, Inokawa’s house remained immediately distinguishable from Chinese dwellings through its wall-cut windows and stone enclosure reminiscent of rural Shikoku. Whenever Suzu, Shun, or their mother saw those long baggy Chinese garments, they grew uneasy imagining pistols concealed in the pockets. They felt an anxious longing—the urge to cling to someone.

Nakatsu, while feasting his eyes on the simple yet vibrant kimonos of the Japanese girls in this household, their Shikoku-accented Japanese, and the soft youthful flesh of the girls—tender as chicken breast meat—that made him quiver with desire, pretended to share the family’s anxieties by putting on a concerned face and declaring he’d go out of his way to help them. Osen spared no expense from her meager purse so Nakatsu could breakfast, lunch, dine, and linger late into the night for their sake.

Shun was innocent. When Suzu tried to face Nakatsu with the same unreservedly familiar attitude she showed other third parties, it became a mental strain. For some reason, her face flushed crimson. Nakatsu had committed robberies, murders, rapes, and more—detested and feared by many as a dreaded scorpion. Yet in reality, he remained unchanged from before—a man bearing an absurdly comical yet cheerful smile. To Suzu, this felt bizarre yet paradoxically pleasant. But from the moment Nakatsu entered the entryway until he departed through the double-winged gate—lingering to glance back once more—whether twelve hours or fifteen passed, not for one minute did his smile-laden, fearful eyes leave her face, neck, or hands. For Suzu, this proved constricting and suffocating.

That persistent gaze remained fixed upon her even when she was occupied with tasks and not looking his way from where she stood. She sensed it.

At times, she worried that Nakatsu's thickly furred, sturdy arms might unceremoniously embrace her from behind and lick her neck like a bear. A shudder ran through her. Whenever her brother was absent, this fear grew even stronger. Whenever Mother was gone too, the fear and danger seemed to press closer and closer upon her. Suzu came to rely on her sister and her nephew who could barely walk. Like a small bird, she crouched in the corner.

Mikitaro felt the two terrors assailing his family. At the same time, he thought that while both his sister and mother harbored an obsessive fear of Shina soldiers' violence—strong enough to make them shudder—the women remained nearly oblivious to Nakatsu's terrifying nature. Above all, it was Mother who paid no heed to it. That left him dissatisfied. Mother appeared to be deliberately bringing Nakatsu into the house. He clashed with his mother. That sentiment, unbeknownst to him, may have taken form as words that Mother perceived.

One evening, they were discussing how a six-tatami storage room in the match factory’s company housing had become available—just one room—and whether they should evacuate there with only their valuables. Mother abruptly declared she wasn’t dragging Nakatsu into their house because she fancied or wanted him. Mikitaro felt the sharp edge of her words cutting toward him.

“Why am I getting so worked up? Do I look like I’ve ever once hinted that Mother’s sleeping with Nakatsu?” Mikitaro thought. “This is ridiculous! Totally off base!” He fell silent, as he always did in these situations. “If you hate it that much, you don’t have to go to the company housing at all.” He stated it bluntly and said no more. Mother turned hysterical—not a single day had passed since her marriage when she hadn’t worried about Takezaburou and all of you. “Then whose fault is it we’ve come all the way to China to suffer like this?!” she wailed in frenzied sobs.

Strangely, the inner workings of the household became topsy-turvy.

The following evening, Mikitaro, where his sister was,

“How much longer are you planning to stay put without running away, Nakatsu-sensei? You’ll end up a prisoner of war.” “He’s stopped following Zhang Zongchang.” “Why’s that?” “I don’t know why,” answered Shun to her brother, who had been stopped and questioned on his way back from the factory. “They say he’s been staying here all this time.” “When did they say that? When did you hear that?” “He said that on the day he returned from Jieshou. Over a week ago already. Brother, didn’t you hear?”

“What am I supposed to ask?! You bastard—why were you hiding that from me?” He too bellowed hysterically. “That bastard’s sticking around here forever because”—his irritation mounted—“he’s after Suzu!” “Don’t say that!” Even Shun flushed crimson. “You shouldn’t say such things!” “Idiot! Idiot! You bastards are glad the old man’s still locked up, aren’t you!”

What had happened? Even Mikitaro's very being had gone completely awry. He glared at his two sisters and barked as if to kick them away. "It's because the old man and I aren't here that bastard's swaggering in like he owns the place! Can't you see that?!" "Daddy! Daddy!" Ichirou, who knew nothing of this, clung to Mikitaro's knee.

24

In a corner of the dusty street, street vendors had spread out their stalls.

The Chinese were coated in reddish-brown dust like the street itself. The shops were their property. Behind the street stalls lay half-finished Chinese furniture in disarray. A throng in blue-gray Sun Yat-sen suits passed through. The dust-reddened vendors—maintaining vigilant skepticism—found themselves engulfed by the suits before they could fold their stalls. Shouts, curses, limbs thrashing like drowning men in mortal struggle, stalls overturned......Belly-laughs rippling through them, the Sun Yat-sen suits dispersed. Not one boiled egg from the dishes and baskets remained—not a single slice of oil-braised pork survived.

The Sun Yat-sen suits darted through the streets, munching cheerfully as they went. On the opposite side of the street, soldiers in khaki uniforms continued pulling barbed wire. They glared at each other. This side glared; the other glared back. A stone flew. At that moment, on a narrow street in the western outskirts—blocked by a sturdy sandbag fortification reinforced to triple its resistance—a Japanese man leading a Chinese man was being interrogated by a sentry with fixed bayonets.

“You don’t seem to be Japanese after all.” The sentry thrust his bayonet. “Your Chinese is too damn fluent.” “I am Japanese, shir.” “Hmm, is that right?” The grime-caked sentry started. “Truly, I am Japanese, shir.”

The man’s lower front teeth had completely fallen out. "What's with that Chinaman?" “Th-this one here, uh, escaped from the factory this morning—an unruly worker, shu. Now, this one…” His missing teeth made his speech mushy and indistinct. Two bayonets gleamed before his chest. Koyama wiped his sweat. That only served to deepen the sentry’s suspicions. The military is an exceedingly grateful institution. But if a single misstep occurs, it becomes something truly dreadful to be feared. Koyama, flustered, explained that he was the foreman at the match factory, that he had gone to capture a worker who had attempted to escape, and that he had even been housing soldiers at his own factory. Disjointed and incoherent.

The sentry with the firm countenance on one side then said, "Go to the squad leader," and took him to a cramped, dark Chinese-style house at the end of the street. The sentry’s suspicions apparently remained unallayed. In the lantern light, soldiers swarmed about. “Sergeant, sir! This man might be a Southern Army spy. “His appearance and speech are quite suspicious.” Things had gotten complicated. Despite all he’d done to accommodate the soldiers at the factory, Koyama felt a strange sense of contradiction.

“Well, what’s happened here?” A familiar voice suddenly called out from a dark corner.

“Ah! Mr. Yamazaki!” Koyama exclaimed sharply as he immediately recognized Yamazaki’s identity—the spy. "I’m saved!" To demonstrate his familiarity with Yamazaki for the sentry’s benefit—or rather provocation—he arrogantly strode over swarming soldiers and clasped hands.

Yamazaki in a black Chinese-style suit sat next to Nakatsu in similar attire on a long bench before a drowsy sergeant in the corner. “What happened?” “These soldiers here—they’re not the ones causin’ trouble at my factory, shir.” His tone practically screamed that soldiers oughta be bastards standin’ under my command! Koyama cut in with a tone that left the words unspoken. He told them how he’d chased after an escaped worker since dawn and caught him hiding behind straw mats piled with dried waste in the waste drying yard.

“That’s the one, shir. “That’s the one, shir.”

At the entrance, he pointed at the trembling, grimy, pale Chinese man who was rolling his eyes restlessly. He was twenty-one years old. His forehead had three lumps. They were lumps that had formed when he was beaten by him moments earlier; red blood had oozed out. "What a clueless bastard we have here. Even in Zhang Zongchang’s troops, there ain’t no fool who’d get caught after runnin’ away." Nakatsu sneered. "Why don’t we just off him? For the others, it’ll make a damn good lesson they won’t soon forget."

Nakatsu’s murderous eyes glistened as though he were about to lick his lips. Koyama narrowed his eyes and did not object. The soldier raised his face and looked at Nakatsu with belated curiosity. In the direction where they had been glaring at each other and hurling stones, a gunshot rang out. Everyone listened intently. Yamazaki and Nakatsu hurried outside. Yamazaki once again emphasized to the sergeant what he had instructed him to do earlier. “Y-yes, sir.” In the darkness, the sergeant bowed his head toward him.

On the street, a vagrant dashed toward the direction of the gunfire, driven by curiosity. A woman with bound feet came fleeing from that direction. Another gunshot sounded. Before long, as if to stamp out this minor skirmish, a gray armored car came charging forth with a ground-shaking roar, its machine gun turret at the ready. A dog prowled. “Tch! This is why you shouldn’t do things like this!” Yamazaki, covered from head to toe in the car’s dust cloud, clicked his tongue like a master dissatisfied with his disciple’s blunder. He had his own deep plan. He had labored for that purpose. He used anyone he could use. Nakatsu was also stock to be utilized.

“This is why you shouldn’t do things like this! If you want to win, first lose! That’s how it works!”

He muttered toward Nakatsu.

“There’s no winning or losing here! Just bring cannons and lick those ants clean in one go!” “That’s… In any work, unless you set up righteous justification, even victory becomes defeat.” “You people always fuss over complications!” Yamazaki had grown fond of Nakatsu’s daring and his extensive connections among the Chinese. This was an exploitable asset. Yet this half-baked thug became engrossed in other fantasies and refused to heed his counsel. It grated on him.

Gu Zhutong had occupied the Jinpu Line Station and the wireless telegraph office. That was an extremely dangerous situation. That tormented Yamazaki most severely. The reports sent to the home country and countries around the world had to be exactly as he envisioned them. For that purpose, he didn’t mind a little fabrication. Gu Zhutong controlled that communication network. After that, Chiang Kai-shek could no longer afford to advance his forces toward Tianjin and Beijing. From the perspective of securing Manchuria, this was the most unacceptable course of action. Therefore, some form of justification became necessary. It might as well be called a pretext. To create that, using a thug like Nakatsu as a pawn was the best approach.

An officer came rushing out from the side street. The minor skirmish subsided. The two of them walked toward Dongxing Wharf like fools who had only come to gawk at the peep show signs. “Hey, cut out those daily pilgrimages to that childlike Miss over there and give me a hand with my work for once.” Yamazaki broached the subject as if joking. Nakatsu, while walking down the street, became engrossed in enumerating the beautiful features of Suzu’s hands, legs, shoulders, nose, and mouth. He delighted in imagining a plan to abduct her. That plan was utterly absurd. He didn’t consider what the result would be—such points never crossed his mind. He single-mindedly thought of snatching the girl away. And he found planning and fantasizing about it delightful. Nakatsu, taking advantage of Yamazaki having brought up Suzu, pleasantly revealed his own plan with a grin.

“How old are you, exactly?” Yamazaki asked. “Fifty-three.” Nakatsu didn’t find it particularly strange. “That girl’s about the same age as your own child, you know. She’s probably only a third your age.” “That’s what makes it good, ain’t it? You don’t understand this feeling of mine. That softness, that utterly childlike quality—it’s unbearably good, isn’t it? I’ve never seen a girl like that in all my years. How should I put it… It’s a feeling that draws in my entire being—something I just can’t describe.”

“At your age, spouting nonsense like some fresh-faced youth in indigo work clothes!”

“This ain’t some light matter. No matter what you say, I can’t back down from this resolve.” “Hmph,” Yamazaki sneered. “She’s a cute little thing alright… But for you, that girl’s mother’d be more your speed." “You’d make a fine pair with that hag.” “How ’bout it? The old man’s a dope fiend locked up in the consulate—why not take the old woman instead?” “I’ll even lend you a hand.”

“Cut the damn jokes! That rotten hag? I’ve had enough of her! No matter what you say, I gotta have a virgin! A virgin’s taste is somethin’ special! I’ll never get my hands on a girl like that again!”

Koyama snarled "Eat shit!" at the soldiers in the Chinese-style house. He left the spot with a look that said as much. The captured worker followed after him.

25

Takezaburou was transferred from the consulate police jail to S Hospital. He smashed off his own little toe using the edge of a Seto-ware washbasin.

Therefore, he was able to get out of the detention center. A young Ministry of Foreign Affairs patrol officer, fresh from mainland Japan, followed him to the hospital with a sullen face, keeping watch.

At the match factory, regarding matters such as the removal of defensive obstacles in garrison areas due to Chiang Kai-shek's protests and the risk of clashes between Southern Army and Japanese forces, it was the factory manager rather than the military itself who grew anxious. The employees had been restless since morning.

The workers might collude with radical elements of the Northern Expedition forces. Around ten o'clock, Mikitaro was informed that his father had been transferred to S Hospital. Mother and a Chinese man in an ill-fitting stiff-collared uniform pushed aside the reproaching patrol officer and suddenly burst into the office. He was shocked.

Mother was gasping for breath, her eyes like those of a glassy-eyed child, unable to utter a word as if at a complete loss. The mere sight of this made Mikitaro fear Suzu might have been snatched away. "Quick! Go S Hospital! "Your father—injured! "Japanese doctor check—bleeding! "Hurry! Go quick!"

The Chinese man in the stiff-collared uniform—seemingly kind—mixed Japanese and Chinese haphazardly. He urgently tried to relay his message to Mikitaro. Furrows formed between his widely spaced eyebrows. The more he rushed, the more his Japanese tangled on his tongue. Finally losing patience, he shouted entirely in Chinese. Mikitaro understood. Suppressing his resentment toward the manager—who exchanged scornful glances with Koyama while sneering—Mikitaro offered a brief excuse. He immediately bolted toward the hospital. Soldiers heavily dragged barricades through the streets as they withdrew.

“Wait a moment.” Mother called after him. “……”

Mikitaro, knowing full well it was his mother, deliberately did not respond.

“Wait a moment!” Mother repeated. “What is it?” He spoke in an angry voice. “You have to take this with you.” Mother stood before the gate-inspecting patrol officer, her eyes like those of a glassy-eyed child. “You can’t go without this.” From between her obi, she took out a small paper box. “It’s Kwaishangkwai.” “Is the house all right?” Mikitaro ended up voicing his concern about Nakatsu despite not wanting to speak of it.

Mother remained silent, unable to comprehend what she was being asked. “Is the house all right with Suzu and Shun?” “Ah,” Mother said absentmindedly. “Just now, when you left, Mr. Nakatsu came by in passing. “It’s okay.” “Nakatsu came!—Who knows what he might do!” “……” “You need to go home from here.” Mikitaro thought he couldn’t afford to dwell on trivial emotions arising from circumstance. He said decisively.

“What about Father...?” Mother hesitated. “With Suzu and Shun there—who knows what they might do to them—we can’t let our guard down, can we?” “But…” Still, she seemed worried about her husband. Whatever happens! He couldn’t press her further. Mother followed after him as he hurried toward the hospital, accompanied by the Chinese man in the stiff-collared uniform.

He had vaguely sensed Nakatsu's dangerous scheme. While quarreling with his mother, he nonetheless repeatedly urged her in a roundabout way not to leave the house unattended. As he passed his mother, Nakatsu came to the house. That—even the sight of Nakatsu letting slip a lewd, knowing smile—was something he could imagine. And then, his anxiety grew ever more intense.

Takezaburou endured his heroin-depleted body in the consulate's detention cell as much as humanly possible. Yet he simply couldn't endure through the full twenty-nine days of detention. Under the contemptuous sneers of the young patrol officer keeping watch, he thrashed about in physical agony, groaning as if death might claim him at any moment. He had once been elected to the village assembly. He had tried to expose his colleagues who took bribes. Every trace of that era's dashing demeanor had vanished completely. Finding the old man in the surgical ward's white bed - this yellowish figure thrashing like a dying jaundice patient while nurses restrained him - Mikitaro first thought: Who did this to him?! We receive protection from no one! Japanese privileges are privileges that exclude the poor!

A young, masculine Chinese doctor was wrapping a bandage around the bony tip of the right foot. While being bandaged, the old man groaned.

The doctor had an appearance that seemed Japanese at first glance. From the old man's torn toe, red blood welled up steadily where the gauze had been wiped away. The white bandage turned crimson wherever it was wrapped. A Chinese guard stood nearby with a resentful expression. When Mikitaro entered, the young patrol officer from the consulate—wearing a hat with a maroon hachimaki—exchanged glances with his counterpart and stepped outside. Mikitaro had brought Kwaishangkwai to give to the old man. Thus the patrol officer tactfully withdrew—a fact Mikitaro immediately grasped.

The old man resembled a starved corpse, his bones jutting out, his eye sockets sunken deep, gasping and groaning. It would be better to endure not giving him the narcotic again now and put an end to this bad habit! thought the son. The old man, with eyes sunken sickly deep, noticed his son and—heedless of being overheard by the patrol officer outside the door—demanded "Kwaishangkwai" like a petulant child. “Tch! Can’t be helped!”

The medicine was administered. Takezaburou voraciously sucked it down with relish. In quick succession, he inhaled an entire box’s worth of narcotic. “It was so agonizing, so unbearable—I couldn’t take it anymore and ended up pulling this stunt." “I bashed off my little toe with a washbasin.—Had to do that to get outta the detention cell.” “No matter how much I thrashed around, those consulate bastards just kept smirking at me.”

Mother and the Chinese man in the stiff-collared uniform arrived. The drug having taken effect, Takezaburou forgot the pain in his foot. He grew animated among those surrounding him, even allowing a smile like that of a perpetually starved man to surface on his lips. "He's become heroin's utter slave!" Mikitaro thought. "He'd hack off his own finger just to smoke heroin! A finger traded for heroin! If he'd never even come to China, this would never have happened! If they hadn't driven him from that village, none of this would've happened!"

He felt terror. “No more?… Don’t you have more? Let me smoke it!” “Let me smoke it!”

The old man began whining like a child again. In China, there may be countless people who, like this Takezaburou, have become prisoners of opium, morphine, and heroin brought in by foreigners! Countless people are becoming addicts and being destroyed because of opium—who can say how many?...

Twenty-Six

A shabby, balding man with a limp entered a stone-paved alley sweltering with heat and dust. Shuffling along, he presented a grotesque outward appearance in his manner of walking. Yet he moved nimbly and briskly. After some time had passed, he emerged again from the stone-paved alley he had entered. He moved even more lightly than before, seeming to fly along on his lame leg. Soon he hailed a rickshaw and leaped aboard in a single bound.

“Hurry up!”

The rickshaw was sucked into the alley of dust and scorching heat.

In a house within a stone wall at the back of the alley, Suzu sat before a cheap hand-cranked sewing machine, sewing a dress, undoing stitches, then sewing again. The seams that refused to run straight and parallel displeased her. Ichiro with his upturned nose appeared all eyes across his face. His eyes were large and gleaming. He looked just like the departed Toshiko. He crawled up beside Shun. Ichiro tried to roughly snatch with his small hands the leaflet Shun was reading.

The leaflet was one issued by Chiang Kai-shek. It was also somewhat different from the Chinese classics textbooks used in schools. Shun couldn't quite read it.

“Wait, just a moment.” She pushed away Ichiro as he reached out with both hands to grab it. She handed him a toy dog. ――The Nationalist Government hereby exempts all taxes in full for this region only.… Ichiro threw the toy dog. Then spreading his hands again, he lunged to grab. The leaflet crumpled. Shun smoothed it out and read again. ―Zhang Zuolin, Zhang Zongchang, robbers, rapists, traitors to the nation… Suddenly Ichiro knocked the leaflet from her hands with both palms. The paper tore to shreds. It remained only half-read.

Shun did not think it was a waste. She was thinking about something. Suzu was focusing intently on the sewing machine. The needle moved rapidly and rhythmically up and down. The seam advanced with a gritty grinding.

“Hey, he was acting really strange today.” “Huh?”

Suzu’s reply was hollow. “There was something scheming about him—he wasn’t just glaring around the house and at us with those angry eyes. In his gaze and the way his mouth curled when he smiled, there was something dreadful.” “Do you think so?”

Cat-like Shun had been vividly recalling Nakatsu’s actions from recent days. Signs of something terrifying had lingered for two or three days—no, even four or five. “Hey! Hey!…” Shun called out to her sister again…

In a room at the Tōkō Inn of Shinashuku, Nakatsu's comrades—who had disguised themselves and remained in the city after Zhang Zongchang's retreat—had gathered. There were four or five of them. They were men who preferred rough, lawless jobs over honest work. Tang—a short, stocky man—was the sort who would barehandedly grapple with enemy sentries, bite through their windpipes, and seize their guns and swords. Every one of them had experience snatching up wealthy men's daughters and wives as hostages three or five times over.

Bed frames, low tables, desks, floral-patterned tea jars, traveling suitcases, a mountain of silver coins.

Nakatsu found his heart still wavering even as he reached the stage of executing the plunder plan he had refined countless times in his imagination. Perhaps he should abandon the whole thing from the start. To dote on her like a granddaughter—that was a good thing. That way might be better. He had never been this indecisive before. But he didn't let even a hint of it show to his comrades. In any case, he explained the execution method. He divided his comrades among three automobiles; when passing through areas under Japanese military control, he had negotiated through Yamazaki to avoid being challenged—because if sentries noticed them forcibly loading the kimono-clad girl into the car, it would cause trouble. When approaching areas where Southern Army troops were stationed, they would erect the Blue Sky White Sun flag they had obtained beforehand on their automobiles. They settled on that plan.

Two automobiles were cruising through the town. Nakatsu lured Suzu out and walked toward the spot. The lead car came to a sudden stop. In an instant, the gang members who had leaped out snatched Suzu into the car. Nakatsu rode in the rear car and followed close behind. This was how they had decided to proceed. If her sister and child came along too, they would take all three away. And from here, they would dash in one breath for about four miles along the Yellow River's banks to Luokou, then make their escape toward Tianjin from there. This was the plan. If Suzu did not fall for Nakatsu's lure, the five had intended to force their way into the house. They had no choice but to resort to violent abduction. There was five hundred yuan in silver. In addition, there were 3,500 yuan in worthless paper currency.

Nakatsu still needed to raise about 1,000 yen. Yamazaki, their fellow lodger, kept trying to dissuade them from this reckless scheme. What a miserly bastard. To Nakatsu, this read as Yamazaki trying to stop them out of reluctance to lend money. That had hit the mark. And the more they tried to deter him, the more mulish he grew. "Knock it off now—this nonsense..." Yamazaki said. "If you were pilfering provincial banknotes, I'd get it. But snatching some penniless floozy? What's the damn point?" "Don't make me laugh!"

“Shut your trap!” As the critical moment drew nearer, Nakatsu tried to conceal his agitation and project an air of forced composure. “If you’re so earnest at heart, why not just propose marriage instead of stealing her away? There’s no need for such barbaric violence—if you want her so badly, why not just formally take her as your wife? If you did that, even I’d support you.” “Don’t talk nonsense!” Nakatsu laughed. “Even Zhang-daren snatched up some beauty he’d just laid eyes on into his automobile on his way to Dong’an Market in Beijing and made her his wife right away, didn’t he? Fancy methods like marriage proposals don’t suit the likes of us. When you want something, isn’t it far better—and way more fun—to just take it without any damn hesitation?”

Kakufuki, Nakatsu’s comrade, narrowed his murky eyes and nodded in agreement. "You lot just can’t shake off those bandit habits, can you?"

Nakatsu laughed. "The only ones spoutin' that kinda crap are that logic-obsessed girl's brother and you." "In all this vast Shina." "Cut the bullshit." "I'm dead serious." "For your own good." "Serious my ass!" "...Take a shine to 'em? Snatch 'em up for wives. Get bored? Dump 'em and sell 'em off." "No strings attached - you can't imagine how sweet that feels!" "Don't push your luck!" "I ain't know shit 'bout gettin' past sentry lines!"

“Heh heh heh... If you don’t know, then you don’t need to know.” “But in return, I’ll spill your secrets too—I’ve got plenty of material stockpiled, you know.”

This was a bluff.

The five men who had gathered took a ceremonial drink before departure. Compared to them, Yamazaki still retained an unmistakably Japanese air about him. Even when offered a sake cup, he stiffly refused to drink. The five pistols pressed against his skin—all loaded—were betrayed by slight bulges in his Chinese tunic: two at the chest, two under each arm, one in his right hip pocket. This tightwad's been hoarding money like mad but won't lend a red cent to anyone! Nakatsu thought bitterly. Damn him! This bastard didn't come to Shina for some freewheeling life of liberty. He came here to stash away his filthy lucre! Tch! Shit!

The automobile arrived. Once again—if only Nakatsu would formally take her as his wife and dote on her like a granddaughter! he thought. That would have been more peaceful. That would have been better. But he had already taken that one step into the river. After all, he’d have to cross even a raging current!

“C’mon, let’s get movin’.” He stood up. It occurred to him they were short on funds. “Boy! Where’s them blankets?” Kakufuki—eyes narrowed in approval—barked. “Get them Russian blankets loaded in the front car.” The man narrowed his eyes again with satisfaction. “When we roll through town—if we don’t swaddle that bitch head-to-toe proper-like, this martial law shit’ll screw us six ways to Sunday.” “Them khaki-clad sentries find a gagged woman? We’re dead men.”

The five men finished getting ready and went out into the hallway. From the second-floor window, a blue-gray uniform was visible thrusting hands into the pockets of passersby. The bellboy brought the blankets.

“That ain’t it.” “That’s a Russian blanket!”

Kakufuki bellowed at the top of his lungs.

Nakatsu’s way of scattering money was reckless. Another beautiful, almost girlish bellboy who had been across the way came running over, clutching a reddish-brown Russian blanket.

“Ah, this is the one.” Kakufuki received it at the top of the stairs. It was an elaborate, thick blanket, somewhat like a coarsely woven mat. Kakufuki gave both hands a slight twist. In an instant, he had completely wrapped the beautiful bellboy in the blanket from head to toe.

“Aiya!” The bellboy was caught off guard and startled. “See? This is how it’s done.” Proudly demonstrating the method he had mastered, Kakufuki surveyed the others. “Once you do it like this, it’s in the bag.”

Nakatsu was smiling contentedly. Yamazaki watched these five thugs depart with lingering reluctance, as though still wanting to wring some last scrap of profit from them. Suddenly, he rushed to Nakatsu's ear and whispered something. Nakatsu nodded. ――Some money was handed to Nakatsu.……

The automobile exited Tai Malu onto Weisi Road—where movable barricades and barbed wire were not securely in place—turned at Qimalu toward Yongsui Gate, then detoured along a middle line that was neither the Japanese military's security zone nor areas where Southern Army troops were scattered. Nakatsu arrived at Tenwangdian by rickshaw.

The snatching away of the lured-out girl would be carried out in Kankieki Street. The arrangements had been finalized.

Nakatsu alighted from the rickshaw. About an hour earlier, he had darted into and out of this stone-paved alley; now he walked it again with the same hurried pace. The green leaves of the acacia rustled in the wind. He moved forward beneath them. Though dragging his limp, he walked with the lively step of a youth. It was as if his feet didn't touch the ground.

The gate was closed.

Nakatsu called Wang Jinhua. There was a presence inside. Yet there was no reply. Again he called. After a few threatening words from him, the bar clanked open. Inside stood a Chinese boy, trembling. “What’s going on!” “Yes… Welcome.” “What’s happened?” Inside the house, Suzu—who had been sewing at the machine until moments before—was nowhere to be seen, the half-finished dress left abandoned. Shun too was gone, and Ichiro had vanished.

“What the hell’s going on?”

Nakatsu rapidly made his way through room after room he knew by heart. There were signs they had fled with nothing but the clothes on their backs. “Damn it! They’ve caught on! They’ve hidden somewhere. They’ve run away, damn them!” He wandered around aimlessly for a while. The group that had been waiting impatiently in the automobile came noisily rushing in. They were a group that reveled in plunder and violence. They knocked over the Buddhist altar. They pulled out the drawer. From within, Kai Shangkuai and Tongzi’er cascaded down onto the floor like junk.

The various items in the room that had been tastefully arranged were haphazardly tossed out one after another. When their hands seized anything worthwhile, they frantically stuffed it into their pockets.

The plundering of girls had somehow transformed into the plundering of household goods.

That too was immensely amusing to them.

27 Mikitaro and his mother tried to return home from the hospital. They got into a rickshaw. From somewhere came five or six rifle shots. He thought they were fireworks. Through the streets raced a band of fierce Mongolian cavalry heading south, kicking up a cloud of sand as they flew like the wind.

The khaki-clad soldiers lowered their bayonet-fixed rifles and appeared sporadically behind them. The rifle fire, like popping beans, intensified in various places. When they approached Weiliu Road, the rickshaw puller recoiled in fear. "Hurry up! I need to get home and see what's happened!"

They reached Weiwu Road. Bullets fired from the second floor of a thick-walled Western-style building whizzed through the streets.

Soldiers ran. A barefoot Japanese man with his shirt hanging open ran. A woman with bangs, wearing crimson satin, ran as if about to stumble.

From there, they cut straight through to Weisan Road. During that stretch, Mikitaro himself could no longer help but feel it was dangerous. “Hurry up! What are you dawdling for?!” “I can’t go, sir. My life’s in danger.” “I don’t care! Go! Just go!” However, the rickshaw puller absolutely refused to go any further.

This was something that erupted rapidly following the plundering of his house. A house on the verge of collapse—even if one were to remove but a single wedge—would see its massive framework crumble all at once into splinters. When picking fights, the slightest brush of sleeves is enough. That became quite sufficient as a pretext.

Nakatsu's plundering became the trigger for urban warfare. Seeing Nakatsu's violence, blue-uniformed soldiers who had been loitering nearby surged forward. The house was smashed to pieces. Khaki-clad soldiers who heard this came rushing over. The exchange of gunfire began immediately. And in the blink of an eye, it spread throughout the entire city. As if they had been prepared and lying in wait all along. The fierce, renowned urban warfare had now been unleashed.

The earthen floor of the KS Club was packed with people who had barely escaped with their lives, having fled here in person. The evacuees kept pushing in from behind, still more of them coming.

There was a man who, finding his exit blocked by bluish-gray Southern soldiers, broke through a wall into a neighboring house, borrowed Chinese garments, pushed a passing rickshaw from behind, and escaped disguised as a laborer. There was a man who, while witnessing his wife being dragged away by Southern soldiers, managed to escape alone. There were those who came carrying blankets and bundles wrapped in cloth. People wearing nothing but loincloths and underkimonos. A small child with red eyes, carried on his father's back, cried in a sickly whimper.

"Oh, Hyakuhyaku-chan is so brave! When I asked him while bringing him here to evacuate, ‘What will you do if we get caught by the Southern Army?’ he said—‘I’ll slit my throat with a razor and die together with Mom!’ he declared!" "When I was bringing him here to evacuate, I asked—‘What will you do if we get caught by the Southern Army?’—and he said, ‘I’ll slit my throat with a razor and die together with Mom!’ he declared!"

The fabric store’s mistress, her belly swollen, was the only one speaking in a shrill-voiced, triumphant manner. “Isn’t he remarkable? This right here is a true Japanese boy!”

She lifted a flat-nosed child of about ten high and displayed him to the people. "Oh, this right here is a true Japanese man!"

Whenever she spotted a familiar face, this plump hen would proudly repeat her story, heedless of their concern. Suzu and Shun were huddled in a corner of the earthen floor, pressed small by the crowd as they crouched. Ichiro had been taken by the Southern Army! Seeing the red-eyed child fretting on his father’s back, they remembered it for the first time. Where had they lost him? They had no clear memory of it.

Going back to search for him was a matter of life and death. She was exerting all her strength just to protect herself.

Another large group of women came clattering in barefoot. They were prostitutes from Yongxianli. Chinese soldiers stormed into the brothel quarter. The prostitutes were thrown into complete panic. The man in a torn white shirt and trousers couldn't even sit on the ampera mat; he stood rigid by the window where a blanket had been hung as a bullet shield, biting his lip, one hand thrust into his pocket, staring ahead with gleaming eyes. A restless impatience manifested throughout his entire body. He was a man who had lost his wife and child.

“Oh, Mr. Koide! Do listen. “Our Hyakuhyaku-chan, you see…” Again, the hen began noisily repeating herself.

When Nakatsu and his men broke into her house, Suzu had been huddled under Bakanushi’s palm-frond-covered floor grating with Shun and Ichiro. She remembered that. There had indeed been three of them. The strange Chinese odor had permeated everything—the bed, the bedding, and all the surrounding area.

Back at the house, rough footsteps in great numbers, shouted curses, and the clamor of destruction swirled together. Boards were pried off with creaking and splintering snaps. The booming crash of a cupboard toppling, the shattering of glass, the thud of a wall collapsing.

Cautiously, cautiously, she crawled out from under the floor grating and approached the window. And, sticking out only her eyes, she peered outside. In the cobblestone, eerie alley, soldiers in bluish-gray uniforms were swarming in full force. There was a grimy man who, with her hand-cranked sewing machine tucked under his arm, disappeared into the alley opposite. A wire birdcage lay crushed.

They had often been hidden by Bakanushi's wife next door.

There was a sound of someone knocking on the gate from outside. She felt they had come to kill. She crawled back under the floor grating and pulled in her head. Rough footsteps approached. They held their breath and strained their ears.

It was Bakanushi. "It's dangerous for you to stay here. Hurry and hide in the toilet." Bakanushi was being kind.

They fled to the toilet. That place was too easy to find. She was at a loss. Another neighboring Chinese house pressed against this toilet, leaving a gap there. Shun frantically scaled the six-foot wall and jumped down through it. That spot would do. Suzu followed right after and jumped down.

The footsteps of five or six people clattered on the other side of the wall, kicking aside chairs and boxes.

It seemed they were coming to the toilet as well. The wall was kicked with a heavy thud. They strained their ears. The voices were in Chinese. _Was it Nakatsu or Southern soldiers?_ _Either way, if they were found, they would be killed or dragged off naked._

The gap between the houses opened onto an alley on the opposite side. In their panic, a figure fleeing in white tabi socks and barefoot was glimpsed through the narrow gap. Soldiers in bayonet-fixed khaki uniforms came charging. She had no time to think of anything. She rushed out into that alley. And she ran off in an instant toward where people were fleeing. She pushed aside those plodding along in front and ran. She had completely forgotten what had become of Ichiro. Refugees kept surging into the KS Club, more and more without end. When had things turned into such great turmoil? They found it strange. Her house had become the trigger for the urban warfare. She didn't know that. The ones at fault were the Southern soldiers. She had been made to think this way. Many people, of course, had thought the same. The triggers for incidents were always being manufactured as needed by reactionary thugs like Nakatsu. Such things were of course not known.

The cannons and gunfire echoed intermittently from places both distant and near, then continued without pause. With each cannon blast, the glass windows rattled violently. Someone whose head had been brutally hacked entered. Several hours passed. The man went out to wash the rice. When the rice was cooked, those men portioned it out only to acquaintances and prostitutes, while people on the opposite side ate until satisfied. But not a single serving reached those they didn't know. Suzu and Shun felt profoundly lonely, as though they'd been excluded. If Big Brother were here, he'd get us food. The thought suddenly crossed Suzu's mind. The courtesans in red kimonos were still being forced to make rice balls one by one, though they clearly had more than enough.

At long last, a meager portion of the leftover rice from the others' meal made its way to the bottom of the tub. They felt a simmering anger, as if they'd been relegated to some lower tier and given separate treatment. But if they missed this chance to eat, they wouldn't know when they'd get another meal. Everyone scrambled before others to grab at that rice with soiled hands. It was a scene as wretched as street urchins scrambling. In the evening, the people received an order to move to the S Bank dormitory. They said it was because they couldn't hold off the enemy here.

Suzu firmly gripped Shun's hand. They moved along the wall to the main street to avoid being hit by bullets.

The usually bustling main street lay deserted, not a single puppy passing through. Occasionally, gunfire could be heard: pop-pop-pop.

“Look at that!” “That… So many Southern Army bastards are getting wiped out.” A bearded man carrying a child on his back pointed toward the post office compound as he ran past. “What is it?” Suzu briefly turned her face in the direction he had pointed.

Inside a barbed-wire fence, soldiers in navy-blue Sun Yat-sen uniforms who had been disarmed, their hands bound behind them, were groaning and howling like beasts. How many were there—dozens? There were hundreds—the exact number was impossible to tell. Four or five khaki-clad soldiers stood scattered about, holding rifles with fixed bayonets. Suddenly, Shun cried out something, pulled her hand heavily downward, and collapsed to the ground with a thud. "What's wrong?"

Shun had been hit in the leg by a stray bullet. Blood was seeping through the whitish merino fabric.

“What’s wrong?”

More than the pain of the wound, the awareness that she had been struck by a bullet completely robbed her of her tense resolve. Shun could not stand up no matter how hard she tried. The others rushed past them one after another. Suzu had her sister cling to her shoulder, then hoisted her up and stood. The two of them alone were left behind at the very end. Time and again, she hoisted up her heavy younger sister. Cold blood dripped onto her swiftly shifting calves.

...the people spent the night on straw mats inside the S Bank building. Thirteen families sat on two straw mats. There was no doctor. Suzu tore her handkerchief and bound Shun’s purple-bruised thigh. The two of them couldn’t even get the edge of a straw mat. They sat on the wooden floor. “It must hurt sitting there. Sit here on this.” The small aunt with blackened teeth spread out her own nightgown in place of a straw mat.

Suzu did not know the aunt’s face. However, being careful not to stain the nightgown with blood while extending her legs toward Shun. The two of them lay down side by side and slept on the aunt’s nightgown.

“Ah, it’s so terrifying! How many people were killed or killed others today—the number must be beyond counting.” With that, the aunt let out a sigh and chanted Namu Amida Butsu.

“...How many people have lost all their property—it must be beyond counting... A hundred wouldn’t even begin to cover it.” “How many people have had their houses destroyed!” "...Ah, ah, it's terrifying!" “It's terrifying!”

Namu Amida Butsu. Namu Amida Butsu.

Night deepened. Shun clenched her teeth, trying to endure the pain, but a groan escaped through them of its own accord.

The cannons were still roaring in the distance, shattering the stillness. The sound of people’s snores and dogs barking could be heard. Only the electric lights were growing increasingly brighter. The military police boots clomped repeatedly down the hallway.

The next day, past noon, the two were taken to the hospital where their father and mother, who had leg injuries, were.

There, Shun received treatment.

28

In armies and war, massacre and plunder are inherent.

When war breaks out, plunder is carried out, requisitioning is carried out, and murder is carried out.

This was exaggeratedly reported according to vested interests. Conversely, depending on vested interests, they were completely ignored.

On that day, the number of Japanese nationals massacred totaled fourteen when combined with the nine discovered buried in the earth two days later. In the domestic bourgeois newspapers, this was reported as 280 people. The newspapers wrote that after stripping a woman naked and subjecting her to unspeakably cruel acts of torment, she was massacred. The girl had a rod thrust into her genitals, her arm bones smashed with clubs, and both eyes gouged out. They wrote. They reported that before the correspondent’s eyes lay brains from a corpse with its skull smashed open, spilled across the dusty road.

Regarding the plunder too, similar reports were made. They made off with valuables and clothing as a matter of course, ripped up floorboards, tatami mats and ceiling panels, even snatching away elementary school textbooks. Gold chains, gold watches, 240 yuan in silver coins and 380 yuan in paper currency were seized. The victims' testimonies were printed. Anyone reading this without hating the Southern Army must be deranged. Anyone not raging that exterminating those marauding troops was only just must be deranged. So potent was the force of such inflated reporting.

Public opinion, enmity, the soldiers' reckless courage, and outrage—all these were inevitably being generated from such reporting. Yamazaki understood this. And he exploited it. On the third day, he discovered the buried bodies of massacre victims beneath newly piled earthen mounds in the farmland northeast of the Tianjin-Pukou Railway embankment. The earthen mounds with clear, fresh hoe marks seemed somehow sinister. He dug them up.

One woman and two men lay sprawled out, emitting a raw, acidic stench. Furthermore, near the Asia Tank, just a short distance away from there, six more corpses had been hidden. Both ears had been severed; some of them had their bellies stuffed with stones, swollen and hardened. Both Jūōden and Tate Ekimachi had been thrown into such chaotic disarray from the looting and destruction that not a single house remained intact.

Yamazaki, dressed in Chinese clothes, surveyed the area. —I must inform them of this, he thought— the soldiers, the Japanese nationals, and the homeland.

From professional intuition, he understood exactly what would happen if this were disclosed. The man knew full well the monumental effect of inflating a dozen casualties into two hundred eighty. War couldn't be conducted without steering the populace into states of agitation and fervor. The enemy had to be propagandized as absolute evil. They needed to secure third-party sympathy! He knew all this perfectly...

The house that his friend Nakatsu had been the first to invade and loot remained in Jūōden as a scattered empty husk. That this had served as the catalyst was an unexpected boon for him. A beggar had gone in there. After the first round of looting, they were stealing broken chairs, straw mats, and a girl’s Western-style umbrella with a snapped handle that had been left scattered about. I really did make clever use of this opportunity.

“Oh right, this is Inokawa’s house,” he muttered, as if it were someone else’s affair. “It was those Southern Army bastards plundering this place that started the war!” “Exactly!” “The blame lies with the Southern Army!” This self-serving man stopped before it. In the shadow of a broken thick wall, a beggar was furtively rummaging through debris. “Hey Yamazaki!” A voice that had left an unpleasant memory in his ears came from behind. “Ah, Mr. Chen!”

Yamazaki concealed his startlement. He had sneaked into S University disguised as a student. Ever since then, Chen Changcai had been promising compensation while repeatedly evading and failing to hand over even a single yuan. "How about it? How's business?" Chen looked at Yamazaki with a complicated smile. "Ah, that matter—we'll handle that next time. With this chaos going on, now's not the moment for that." "Next time? Next time?" Chen repeated. "...You've got no damn right to keep saying that over and over!" He took a step forward, cornering Yamazaki. By whose power had he managed to uncover America's secrets?! By whose power did you earn your accolades?! Those eyes seemed to be saying exactly that.

"That troublesome bastard's tailing me!" Yamazaki thought.

"Maybe I should just finish him off now, in all this commotion." He began walking. Chen trailed behind. He kept following doggedly from the rear, like a shadow. They emerged into Tate Ekimachi. They reached the corner turning onto Weiyi Road. No sooner had Yamazaki scanned his surroundings than his right hand slipped into the pocket of his dàguàr gown.

The next instant, a pistol report like popping beans erupted in the street. Almost simultaneously, a nickel-plated object glinted in Chen Changcai’s hand.

However, Chen didn't have time to pull the trigger. The hand holding the pistol jerked upward toward the broken roof; he convulsed violently, then collapsed with a heavy thud onto the debris-strewn street. "The bastard's dead!"

Yamazaki walked. With that single pistol shot, the three hundred yuan meant for Chen rolled into his own pocket. The thought sent a thrill through him.

He needed to show soldiers, refugees, and the general public back home the plundered state of Japanese nationals' homes, the female corpse with both ears severed, the male corpse with stones stuffed into its belly. He thought about that. He needed to make it known to the whole world!……

He came before the headquarters. “Halt!”

The sentry's voice didn't register in his ears. "Halt!" He kept walking, absorbed in thought. This checkpoint had maintained rigorous uniform inspections and security measures since before the Northern Army's withdrawal. Even Sun Chuanfang's automobile had been forced to stop here before. The vehicle's owner was hauled out. His pockets were rifled through. "I am Sun Chuanfang!" The balding old man beneath the gold-braided cap stamped his feet in vexation.

"I am Sun Chuanfang! You impudent cur!" But to the sentry, whether it was the Commander of the Zhili-Shandong Allied Army or some worthless scum made no difference at all. Everything was the same. He was just fulfilling his duty. "Tch! Sun Chuanfang? Who the hell's that! Look at this flashy bastard in his fancy gold-braided uniform! Who do you think you are, you piece of trash from god knows where?!" It was this sentry line that Yamazaki was passing through. The sentry challenged the man in Chinese clothing who reeked of China. "Halt!" Yamazaki had forgotten about his Chinese clothing and had slipped entirely into the comfortable mindset of being Japanese. He was engrossed in imagining that boiling spectacle—inciting the crowd's fervor with cruel information. I'll tell them! I'll inform them!... And he felt that it would be other Chinese people who got challenged. That's what he had intended.

“Halt!” Still, he did not notice. Then a gunshot rang out. Yamazaki, who had kept five pistols and an 8,000-yen bankbook close to his body at all times, collapsed abruptly. He croaked. Finally!

29

An airplane came flying in.

When it approached over the city, it began dropping black lumps one after another like a bird relieving itself. A whoosh drew a line through the air, followed by a boom that shook the ground. Bombs away! Three planes. They flew in a V-formation, maintaining distance between each other. Circling the city like an old nest, they soared in a large arc across its sky. They reached over the western edge. One of them burst apart like a glass marble. Then, immediately, sparks scattered. Then, the aircraft spewed black smoke, turned into flames, its wings snapped cleanly in two, and it plunged straight down toward the earth as if burrowing into it.

The urban warfare had ended.

The soldiers, utterly exhausted, gained two and a half days of rest. Alcohol. In two days, they made up for the week they hadn’t smoked.

Chinese corpses lay scattered everywhere in the streets.

A sour stench! Countless droning flies. Shaggy-furred stray dogs and beggars licked their lips gleefully; the dogs wagged their tails and prowled among the corpses.

The antenna mast of the demolished wireless station, which once thrust skyward, snapped halfway up, tilted, and was about to collapse. No one looked back. No one came to repair it. A figure as dark as earth scooped brains from a skull lying beneath into a bucket.

Sudden deployment!

It was 4:00 a.m., when their fatigue had just begun to fade and sexual desire was starting to stir. The soldiers were abruptly roused. When Kakimoto jumped from the stone window of the Chinese Trading House, he scraped his shin. The area where iodine had been applied became infected, and the puttees tightening his leggings rubbed against the wound. Limping, he joined the formation. The eastern sky had only just begun to pale. They were to attack a city wall four jō in height, seven ken in width, and three ri in circumference. The crisp, cold command of the company commander. Unseen faces. Lieutenant Shigefuji walked gripping his military sword. Having rolled up the barbed wire, through the narrow exit they had cleared to one side, the soldiers' ranks marched along the utility poles.

The road was damp with dew. It was deathly quiet. The only sound was the synchronized tramp-tramp of boots being swallowed into the dark sky. To the west of S Hospital, with low forceful commands, the artillery unit clattered their vehicles into position and deployed their gun batteries. The soldiers advanced in silence. The bluish clouds, dyed a pale purple by the red sunrise rising from the east, drifted slowly. The sky brightened.

The civilian house, its roof ridge broken by the crashed airplane, crouched like a crab with its carapace crushed. Only soldiers remained. The house showed no signs of life. The grass had been trampled underfoot by people until its form was no longer recognizable.

Gradually, the faces of Takatori, Kitani, Nasu, and others became clearly distinguishable. Like mindless puppets, they walked shouldering their rifles, with mess tins attached to backpacks strapped to their backs. Beyond the terror of war, Kakimoto was distraught with worry—the woman from Nakajō's child had been killed, her house completely plundered, leaving her with neither shelter nor food from tomorrow onward. Even though I'd gone to the trouble of coming here, I couldn't do a damn thing to help!

There was a reason why Takatori and the others were walking like mindless puppets. They were enduring in silent submission.

The company entered the utterly destroyed city. Window glass, doors, walls, roofs—everything lay shattered, splintered in chaotic ruin. A wicker-soled woman's geta with only one strap still attached struck against a boot as it lay discarded. The soldiers circled around a tall stone house and its sturdy wall before emerging onto a vast plain of ravaged grassland. They cut diagonally across it. Then once more they plunged into the rubble of demolished dwellings. Like thread through a needle's eye, they sharply turned along the narrow path.

The sun emerged brilliantly and vividly from between the jagged broken roofs. The tattered clouds that had been scattered across the sky vanished without a trace. It was going to be hot again! All the jumbled objects were harshly illuminated.

The company emerged onto the main street. It led straight toward the outer gate of the city wall. Above the outer gate's structure, the Blue Sky White Sun flag fluttered conspicuously. Somewhere, what seemed like a signal had been heard. Then from far behind where artillery batteries were positioned, cannon fire thundered across the land. The barrage continued. Shells howled through the air before detonating ahead. As if answering this onslaught, gunfire erupted in rapid succession from the eastern opposite direction. Kakimoto's calf muscle twitched—once, twice—in spasmodic tremors. Then his whole body convulsed in a full-body shudder.

At that moment. The company's column abruptly came under fire from the flank. The company commander caught the sound of several gunshots cracking right above his ear. It was from the second floor of T Hospital. Kakimoto also heard it. The gunfire ceased. "Ah, ah—they're ambushing us from over there!" The Special Duty Sergeant Major let out a pitiful voice and dropped to the ground as if to hide in the shadow of an acacia. The soldiers exchanged glances. A wry smile involuntarily formed on their lips. Simultaneously, they heard their astonished company commander issue the order to scatter.

“Here we go—another charge into this hellhole.”

Takatori smirked meaningfully and said to the solidly built Tamada. Kakimoto heard it too. “What the… There’s nothing here.”

Tamada lifted his head and looked around the two-story hospital. Before he could finish looking around, the right flank—with Lieutenant Shigeto at their head—forced open the swinging doors, thrust out bayonet-fixed rifles, and charged into the creosote-stinking interior. Soldiers came swarming in tumultuously behind them. Nurses in white uniforms scattered about. Patients lay in their beds. Pleurisy, nephritis, gastric ulcers, cardiac valvular insufficiency—internal medicine and surgery occupied separate wings. Doors partitioning off rooms were flung open one after another—bang, bang. Mud-caked boots leapt onto beds. The operating table's thick glass cracked with a web of fractures.

This was the incident recorded at the time as follows: “When the ＊＊＊ Regiment gradually approached the city gate while groping through the dark night, they suddenly came under fierce fire from Chinese soldiers inside T Hospital to their north, reaching a state of utmost peril. However, given its nature as a hospital, they were temporarily at a loss regarding appropriate measures. However, given the urgency of the situation—for any hesitation would inevitably result in significant losses from the rogue soldiers’ indiscriminate firing—Captain N dispatched a unit to expel them. At the time, as an emergency measure under pressing circumstances, it was truly unavoidable.” Thus did official accounts explain the incident.

Approximately thirty minutes later, the soldiers withdrew from the hospital, the unpleasant memories seared into their minds. The unpleasant memories lingered all day, impossible to shake off. The next day as well, they would not leave. Kakimoto moved with visible reluctance, his actions grudging. And he became lost in thoughts he himself couldn’t comprehend.—“The sick child was impaled on the wall. And then blood gushed from his chest as he crouched down unsteadily beneath it. How could they do such a thing?! How could such things be permitted?!” He was tormented by something akin to remorse. “The pale-faced woman lay sleeping in bed, her mouth agape and unaware…… The blanket had a small triangular hole. And so that woman will sleep forever without waking... My hands trembled at that moment. The strength had suddenly drained from my arms! That’s right! We were even forced to do such things!”

They reformed their ranks and headed toward the city gate. The siege battle was already raging at its peak. Rat-tat! Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-TAT! Machine guns from inside and outside the city gate echoed rapidly in quick succession. Just when you thought they'd ceased, they'd resound again. Howitzer shells were detonating against the city walls. When he looked at Takatori, Tamada, Matsushita and the others, they wore sullen expressions, their faces as if they'd bitten into something bitter. Even Kuraya—a training institute graduate—sat brooding with a grim face. That's right—they're all being choked by unpleasant memories too! Kakimoto thought.

The lowest-ranking soldiers, who directly wielded swords and killed in combat, had become unable to determine for whose sake they were killing. It was as if they had been seized by some unseen force.

Fellow Japanese had been brutally slaughtered. They had been plundered. Even a single ceiling board had been stripped away. And so, they concerned themselves only with these facts. And they felt anger, passion, and vengefulness that compelled them to exact double retribution for every life taken.

That their anger, their passion, and their vengefulness were the most crucial elements in defeating the so-called 'enemy' was beyond dispute. Driven by this fervor, they slaughtered approximately fifteen times as many Chinese as the Japanese killed in the urban warfare, and kicked away the corpses. For what reason did they do it?! For whom did they do it?!

30

Two mornings later, at six o'clock.

The scorching day on the continent had already begun.

The soldiers lined up in a corner of the match factory's poplar lumber yard. Astute Lieutenant Shigeto noticed how the soldiers' eyes avoided meeting their superiors' direct gazes. He observed turmoil, collapsing morale, and reluctant actions performed with visible distaste. He had long sensed the hostile atmosphere fermenting among the ranks. Someone's hiding in the shadows up to no good! he thought.

Brave, simple, and emotional, Shigeto possessed a keen ability to intuitively discern the demands and instincts of the soldiers under his command. Through his own intuition, he knew the soldiers were furtively up to something in the shadows beyond their superiors' sight. Their behavior was malicious. They were clearly no longer compliant. Takatori had beaten the foreman and forced full wage payments to the workers through violence. Since then, it had become impossible to tell whether at least five or six soldiers had come to serve their nation in this campaign or to join forces with the workers in committing outrageous acts. Among them, he focused particular attention—above all others—on Takatori. Moreover, many soldiers had voluntarily become drawn to Takatori's rhetoric. He understood that too. There had to be a reason for this!

The Special Duty Sergeant handling personnel matters had also noticed this. The Special Duty Sergeant gravely suspected they were conspiring with Chinese Communist Party members to plot some scheme. But regarding that point, Shigeto had dismissed it contemptuously - whatever those grunts did couldn't amount to anything significant anyway.

When he saw the turmoil, anxiety, and spinelessness in the eyes of the soldiers lined up before him, he immediately pinned the blame on Takatori and his lot. And on this day of all days—they were going to lose. There’d be countless wounded. They’d make some colossal blunder! He grimaced. Takatori was last to finish rewrapping his puttees. Dragging his boots, he moved to join the formation. Shigeto closed in on him. From the side, he struck Takatori across the cheek—deliberately, where every soldier could see.

“Hey, Takatori, don’t slack off!” “…” “Do you hate working for your country? A bastard like that is a traitor!” And then he struck three more times. “Do you understand?” “…”

Takatori’s eyes burned as though they might leap from their sockets and charge forward. He couldn't comprehend why he was being suddenly struck.

The lieutenant disliked Takatori's eyes. He couldn't stand his dismissive attitude.

“Hey! If you don’t take this seriously, it won’t end well for you!” he bellowed. “What seems to be the problem, sir?” “Hey! Takatori, stop!” He rattled his saber.

“I can see right through your guts! There’s not a single thing you’re doing that I don’t know about! You don’t even realize the horror of what you’re doing yourself.” “I haven’t done anything at all, sir.”

Takatori momentarily faltered. But immediately, he stared at the lieutenant with gleaming eyes. “Stop it!” Shigeto said solemnly. “I know everything!”

“Yes, what is it?” Having become a penal soldier, he had already been beaten several times before. He was kicked. He was struck hard enough to bend an officer’s sword. He had endured it countless times. The others weren’t much different either. "So what exactly are we being forced to do through all this? We're tying nooses around our own necks! That's all it is! There's no bigger fool than a soldier who lets himself be used!"

When the soldiers struck Takatori, they weren't just striking Takatori alone. They were striking their entire group! they felt. They were just trying to intimidate us. Their faces paled. Perceptive Shigeto, like a precise barometer, immediately noticed it. He noticed the soldiers becoming agitated and strangely unsettled. If we keep beating him any more, it'll only stir up a hornet's nest. He had intended it as a message to the entire unit, but the momentum of his tone betrayed his awareness. Takatori looked up and tried to say something. The lieutenant cut him off.

“What on earth are you all scheming up? “Huh? “What on earth are you all plotting?” “We do not wish to work merely to be tormented.”

“Hmm… So you’re saying you don’t want to be tormented.” (He deliberately twisted his opponent’s words.) “…Then listen well to orders! Just follow them and that’s all!”

“…….”

Shigeto did not press any further. Even he, bold and daring as he was, felt fear before the multitude. He cut off his words while watching the soldiers' expressions. Yet from his experience handling common soldiers, he knew he must never betray any hint of doubt that his orders might go unheeded. His commands would be carried out without fail - this he believed absolutely. He projected this conviction. He understood its necessity. And so he adopted the manner. Takatori's attitude gave him no satisfaction whatsoever. Nevertheless, as if declaring this reprimand concluded, he straightened his posture and turned toward the ranks of common soldiers.

31

The soldiers fell like straw dolls, clattering down.

Fang Zhenwu stubbornly remained stationed within the city walls. No matter what interference they faced, they demonstrated their resolve to advance and attack Tianjin and Beijing without fail. The city gate was sturdy and could not be breached easily. The city walls were thick. The Blue Sky White Sun flag continued to flutter vigorously within. They were not weak. Their weapons were also new. Chiang Kai-shek would agree to any demand from Japan—just let us pass through here to attack Tianjin and Beijing! he proposed. That was not accepted. The commander knew that Manchuria was threatened. Therefore, the Chinese soldiers dug in their heels.

As other units captured positions at the Northwest Corner, Tai’an Gate, and Xinjian Gate one after another, the officers of Kakimoto’s unit frantically rushed to attack their own assigned areas. More of them began to fall with a clatter. The officers’ ambition for glory and competitive spirit were structured to bear down upon the soldiers like a crushing weight. Even Kakimoto and his men saw this clearly now. They had no time to undo their puttees. They were utterly spent. It was unbearably grueling. While setting their rifle sights, they would suddenly doze off.

The comrades became so entangled in the chaos that they could no longer tell where they were or what they were doing. The city streets were scorching, as if red-hot pokers were raining down.

The fresh green leaves of the acacia trees were torn off by the yellow wind and flew through the streets mixed with dust like blinding grit.

That night, the soldiers in blue-gray uniforms ceased firing. They returned to the factory and stretched their legs. Around two in the morning, they were tormented by terrifying nightmares. The roughly two hundred battle-hardened men in the barracks were simultaneously choked, let out guttural groans, and jolted upright in waking reality. In desperate agony, they clawed wildly at empty air with both hands. This mirrored what happened back on the Japanese mainland when a first-year recruit—one who could never straighten his shins during double-time marches—had been beaten bloody by his instructor until he hanged himself from an old castle’s pine branch, and how that very night his entire platoon had been gripped by nightmares. Then too, every man in the company had been strangled. They groaned. And awoke at once. None could explain it.

“This... something ominous is happening.” “I thought I was being strangled to death. “It was so painful... I just couldn’t breathe.” “Someone’s actually being done in!” “They’re being done in—brutal and lawless!” When they regained their senses, they said.

“Is Takatori here? Takatori! Is Takatori here? I can’t shake this feeling that Takatori’s come before my eyes with someone!” Kakimoto said, his face still bearing the look of one who had seen a phantom.

A chill ran through them—the sensation of their bodies being dragged into a deep abyss. The next morning, they realized Takatori, Nasu, Okamoto, Matsushita, and Tamada hadn't returned. Everyone wondered at the strangeness of it, yet none gave voice to their thoughts. They spoke with their eyes.

Kiyatani and Kakimoto examined the hospital’s injured and the corpses in the morgue. They weren’t there. Evening came.

They still had not returned. Two mornings later arrived. They still had not returned. The relieved sentries, pale from sleep deprivation and night dew, entered the barracks. There was no news.

Lieutenant Shigeuji, the commander of Takatori and the others, returned from somewhere with a face like he'd been licked on the cheek by a macaque. Kiyatani and Kakimoto in the corner of the room noticed the Lieutenant’s manner of laughing—forcing himself to conceal his wounds yet still managing a smile. Kiyatani’s intuition snapped firmly into place with that laugh. He felt he could almost grasp the lieutenant’s state of mind as if holding it in his hands. “How about it? Today’s the attack on Luanyuan Gate…”

“Is that so.” Kiyatani answered his commanding officer’s guilt-ridden expression—approaching as though currying favor—with an unaffectedly brusque voice. “Today’ll see it fall if you lot just push hard enough.”

“Is that so... Lieutenant, sir! What’s become of Takatori, sir? They haven’t returned since the day before yesterday, sir. We’ve searched everywhere and can’t find them.” “What the hell do you think you’ll achieve by asking that?! Kiyatani! What business could you possibly have with Takatori?” Suddenly, Lieutenant Shigeuji narrowed his eyes fiercely, raised his voice harshly, and closed in on Kiyatani. He looked ready to execute even Kiyatani by firing squad. “I have business. Isn’t it only natural to worry about what’s happened to my comrades?!”

Beside them, Kakimoto—who had been watching the exchange between the lieutenant and Kiyatani—suddenly gripped his rifle and stood up, resolve and anger etched between his brows.

The soldiers who had been wrapping their puttees and smoking cigarettes also tensed up. In the opposite corner, someone stood up and took their rifle, then there was a clack as they worked the bolt to load a bullet. "Hey, Kakimoto! What do you think you're doing?" shouted the lieutenant. "There’s no need to say what I’m going to do."

Lieutenant Shigeuji witnessed an authentic collision of force against force. The lieutenant had believed himself to possess the authority to command an entire platoon. But now, before the rifle of Kakimoto—a mere private—he was reduced to nothing but a living organism. Just as Takatori, Nasu, Okamoto and the others—whose weapons had been seized two days prior—had been reduced to feeble organisms. Thereupon, he abruptly deployed another cunning stratagem from his arsenal. He retreated five or six paces from Kakimoto and,

“Now then, fall in!” “Fall in! Fall in!” “Everyone, take your rifles and get outside!”

he dashed out of the barracks as if fleeing, all while continuing to shout.

“Damn it! That bastard’s disgracing the officer’s name!” The soldiers cursed angrily in unison. Kakimoto thought of Takatori as something of a fool—unrefined and carefree. Where had that cheerful, straight-talking guy disappeared to? He’d seemed simple-minded, but in truth hadn’t been foolish at all. Takatori had been first to reach out to the workers. And he’d grown as close as friends with them. In the Russo-Japanese War and First Sino-Japanese War, soldiers had thrown their lives away. Now they were staking their lives to protect Japanese nationals’ lives and property. Yet all of it was pure lies. Takatori had been first to say so outright.

“In reality, they don’t let us do anything but take out Chinese people,” Takatori said. Then he asked Kakimoto in a friendly, commiserating tone what had become of his aunt’s house outside Pulimen.

At that time, Kakimoto still hadn't known that his aunt had evacuated to S Bank with literally nothing but the clothes on her back, nor that his five-year-old daughter had been killed. Even the silver coins hidden in the underground secret room had disappeared when he later went back to check. He hadn't known that either. "Isn't Pulimen the area that suffered the worst damage?" "That seems to be the case. I still can't even go see for myself." "What are we even here for? After coming all this way, we can't even protect or see our own families... I just hope they're safe—at least physically."

“Yeah, I can’t stop worrying about it!” “Even if we do got real parents out there, we can’t even protect ’em—not after being shipped all this way." “……That’s the truth of it.” “This here’s what our position really looks like now.” "Only them with fat wallets get protected." “And for that, they don’t give a damn—no matter how many of us get sacrificed,” Takatori pressed on. “Here we are guarding the factory while they torment the workers. "The Southern Army—we chase ’em out. “They’re fixin’ to use this to grab Manchuria’s interests tight.” “Manchuria’s what them bastards care ’bout most, see.” “All we get’s seven yen a month if we’re lucky." "And our lives? Tossed out like trash." "Ain’t no benefits nowhere." “Go back home? Still gotta work our asses off for cash.” “Even if we become Manchuria’s damn wall, they ain’t feedin’ us for life.” "If it’s really ’bout protectin’ nationals, why stuff us in this stinkin’ match factory dorm crawl-in’ with bedbugs?" “Plenty cleaner places—grade schools, Residents’ Hall, KS Club—all over." “And way more convenient too." "So why plant us here? ’Cept to crush workers and guard this factory—where’s the sense in that?”

Kakimoto, unlike Takatori with his bold manner of speaking, found himself sinking into a somber mood. “The more we’re used as tools to crush China and interfere with the workers’ and peasants’ movements, the harder life back home in Japan becomes for us.” Takatori also spoke of such things. “Only the wealthy are smiling as they suppress China.” “The wealthy—they’re making money off that too.” “...If they make money, they’ll use that money to push us down from an indirect angle back in the homeland.” “No matter which way you look at it, there’s no way only us can get better off in parts.” “Unless we get the Chinese folks to do a hell of a lot for us, our work back in Japan won't go smooth either!”

That Takatori had vanished.

Kakimoto still did not fully grasp the meaning behind those final words.

The brass were more concerned about the Sarutobi Sasuke-style propaganda leaflets being scattered, Takatori, and the Red indoctrination of soldiers united with workers than about either the Southern Army holding out within the city walls or bandits. They feared that above all else.

That was not disputed.

32

On this day, yet another desperate, frenzied attack was attempted.

At three o'clock in the afternoon, Kakimoto was shot through the shoulder by a bullet that came flying from the shadow of the city wall amid piles of refuse. He arrived at the hospital jostled in a truck among a crowd of wounded. Wounded soldiers overflowed every hospital room. Those carried on stretchers and those who could walk were crammed into the wards with such density that newcomers could only force their way in. The surgical ward was packed solid. Parts of the internal medicine and infectious disease wards too had been invaded by casualties.

The room where Kakimoto was placed was the ward for treating Chinese—the one where they had expelled the Chinese. Iron beds with peeling white paint, straw mattresses covered in stains, blankets reeking of pus. There were no sheets or quilt covers. It was worse than an ordinary hospital room.

With throats parched by scorching thirst, wounds that were stealing away lives, the struggle against them, and the pain, the ward resounded with howls like those from a cage.

The ferocity of the fighting across all sectors was fully expressed by both the number of wounded and the brutally unrestrained nature of their injuries. “It’s our own artillery’s shrapnel shells taking out the infantry near the city gate.” “It’s because they’re firing wildly even though their aim is off.” “It’s our own bullets exploding right over our own men’s heads.”

The stretcher bearers who had brought the wounded muttered bitterly beside the beds.

“Aren’t they using bullets abandoned by the Southern Army?” “Hmm, maybe that’s it.” “It’s because they do shit like that that the shells go wild and our own artillery ends up killing our own infantry!” “Tch!” “As if that could even happen!” “This was a shitty war from the start!” No sooner had the wounded from one truck been carried to their respective beds and the clattering footsteps of stretcher bearers temporarily faded than—before the military doctors’ wound treatments could even reach a third of them—the next truck came roaring into the hospital grounds. Once again, stretcher bearers clattered in with their boots, carrying heavy wounded.

“In □×’s unit, they’re getting hit the worst.” “Battle deaths have already reached nine men.” “It’s ’cause the Regiment’s brass are scrambling to grab glory for themselves first.” The newly arrived stretcher bearer at the bed next to Kakimoto’s spoke in a thick whisper to the wounded man he’d brought in. “Officers’ ambitions got this nasty habit—they gotta trample us to get anywhere!” “Even during Port Arthur, they piled corpses mountain-high.” “And then some general gets himself worshipped like a damn god!”

Kakimoto had dimly heard. □× was his regiment. When he looked, it was Kuroiwa from the company being transferred to the bed. The triangular bandage cut from his trousers and tied around his leg had stiffened into a reddish-black mass. They were being forced into reckless charges and advances by their commanders' glory-seeking ambitions and rivalry with other units. They watched helplessly as comrades fell wounded. ×× Unit Captures □□! △△ Company Seizes Such-and-Such Position! It was those bearing "commander" titles whose vanity burned hottest at these reports.

“It’s ’cause they’re overdoing it.” “Showing off by trying to do in one breath what nobody could ever pull off!”

Kuroiwa spoke in a manner more agitated by frayed nerves than by any sensation of pain from his wound. “Ain’t every unit pushing their grunts to the max?” Kakimoto suddenly cut in from the side. The stretcher bearer fell silent for a moment and stared at him curiously. When Kuroiwa realized it was Kakimoto, a shadow of a smile flickered at the corners of his mouth.

“Could be.”

“That’s right! It’s gotta be!” “The numberless wounded.” “War’s a battleground for company commanders’ ambitions, see?” “That’s just how it’s built.” “That’s how they end up driving out every last Chinese soldier.” “We get used as stepping stones by those commanders—losing arms and legs in the process.” “Hah! And those commanders? Their own ambitions get stoked even harder from above.” “Medals—that’s what they call ’em.” “And above them? There’s always someone higher!”

“Aren’t we the ones at the very bottom?”

“Yeah—there’s heavy stones three or four layers thick stacked right on top of us!” “Damn it!” The carefree military doctor grinned as if taking pleasure in the soldiers’ agonized screams and their limbs flailing uncontrollably against the pain, calmly continuing his treatment. He cut through the shirt stuck to him with dried blood using scissors. “One general’s triumph requires ten thousand soldiers to fall.” Having caught snippets of the soldiers’ grumbling, he lightly hummed in a poetic recitation tone.

Kakimoto received treatment from the military doctor. And then he put on a new white hospital gown.

The city walls fell the following morning. Sitting on the bed, he heard that. The pain from his wound gradually lessened. The shoulder injury posed no hindrance to walking at all.

On the third day, Koyama and Yamashita came to visit. “Hey, Kakimoto. How’re you holding up?” Koyama shouted in a masculine, gruff voice. “Takatori and the others were killed! All five of them were found as skeletal remains by the Yellow River’s banks, eaten by dogs.” He had probably sensed that things would turn out that way. But when he actually heard it, Kakimoto’s heart lurched violently.

“I see… So that’s how it was after all. That nightmare I had that night wasn’t just some empty dream or a joke after all!”

“Now, all five of them have been brought to the morgue.”

“Who the hell did this to them!” Kuroiwa said. “Who the hell did it! Don’t you even know who’s responsible?” “Shut up!” “Knowing won’t change anything.” Koyama waved his hand solemnly. “I know without being told. It’s that bastard!” “That bastard?” “That bastard!” For a while, they stood silent. With his injured arm dangling from his shoulder like a broken toy, secured by a triangular bandage around his neck, Kakimoto walked with Koyama and the others to the morgue. Kuroiwa, his thighbone shattered, remained immobilized.

The city visible from the hospital grounds lay in utter ruin. The grass, trampled and caked in mud, still struggled to lift its head. The acacia trees, despite the wind, were even more verdant. In the morgue, nurses, patients, soldiers, and townspeople crowded like a black mountain outside the entrance and windows. They stood on tiptoe, trying to see the five corpses that had been chewed by dogs. Takatori and the others were already decomposing from the heat. The sour, unbearable stench of rotting flesh and the smoke of incense entwined, striking the senses. It was impossible to tell which was Takatori, Nasu, or Tamada. They were covered with white cloth. They had been left as they were killed. Apparently, until the search party arrived, shaggy-furred wild dogs had gathered and licked their chops while gnawing.

“It’s those bastards’ filthy hands that dragged us into this hell!” Yamashita muttered. “But from what part of this very flesh did they crawl out to destroy us?”

Yamashita asked suspiciously.

“That… I don’t quite get it myself,” said Koyama. “But those bastards got scared our weapons would turn against ’em and struck first! To protect their own interests, they’ll sacrifice anything without a second thought!”

The three crossed the grassy embankment and emerged onto the meadow with trenches. In the shadow of a large acacia tree, a crematorium had been built. “We might’ve been killed too if we’d made one wrong move,” whispered Koyama as he jumped across the trench. “Those bastards are scared of us. But this time, when we take up our swords, they won’t get to strike first. First, we’ve gotta skewer their hearts on a spit!”

三三

――Postscript――

The five soldiers with only half their flesh remaining were declared to have died "honorable combat deaths."

Their bodies, placed into coffins and doused with oil, turned into foul smoke and vanished within the crematorium furnace. Their parents back in the home islands must truly believe they were struck by despicable Chink bullets and died in battle. Yet because of this, all soldiers now burned with fresh hatred toward their officers. As a result of the military expedition, anti-Japanese and anti-imperialist movements in China instead surged with renewed strength.

The completely destroyed Luanyuan Gate bore the slogans: "Swear to Wipe Away This Humiliation" and "Have You Seen This Now?" "Do You Remember?" - these words ignited a fire in the hearts of the people.

The Japanese bourgeoisie had nearly achieved their initial objective of "securing Manchuria as a colony," albeit temporarily. Through events like the bombing death of the down-and-out warlord Zhang Zuolin and the execution of Yang Yuting—who had allied with Chiang Kai-shek—Japan's bourgeoisie found themselves compelled to seize control of Manchuria and Mongolia by force and fully colonize the territory. For this purpose, they concentrated all their strength there.

The workers of Fulong Match Company subsequently shook hands with the soldiers and rose up. The wives from the company housing once again fled by automobile to the KS Club, just as they had before. And they never returned to the company housing. The workers' power was formidable. And Uchikawa and his associates joined forces with Swedish capital intent on unifying the global match industry. The workers once again had to confront a formidable enemy.

Then, finally, Mikitaro Inokawa lost his home, his job, and his child in all this chaos. He was fired from the match factory.

It remained completely unknown where or how Ichiro had been lost. He had probably been seized and killed by Chinese people. He regretted that. He had lost a child who closely resembled Toshiko. That was regrettable. However, on the other hand, he also thought that if he were to be killed, then so be it.

But one day.

He was wandering aimlessly around the vicinity of Jūōden, near his former residence. The aftermath of destruction had not yet been restored. The town was even dirtier and dustier. Chinese people were gnawing on the stumps of raw daikon radishes.

“Daddy! Daddy!”

Suddenly, there was someone approaching his feet. It was a child wearing dirty Chinese clothes. His head had been shaved in the manner of Chinese children, leaving bangs and a small tuft of hair.

“Daddy! Daddy!”

Toddling unsteadily, the child walked away from the group of playing children and came over. When he looked, he saw it was Ichiro.

Bakanushi's wife was standing by the acacia tree with a split branch at the crossroads. He involuntarily picked up the child. Ichiro had been saved by Bakanushi.

(November 1930)