Pathway to Japanese Literature

Five or six wheelbarrows hoisted their sails toward Ote.

And they crossed through the slums. Dust-colored coolies pushed them, one per wheelbarrow. The lone axle of each wheelbarrow groaned laboriously under the immense weight of hemp sacks it alone bore.

Beyond the slums lay the blue-tiled Chinese barracks.

The wheelbarrows, their diamond-shaped sails billowing, disappeared from the slums into the shadow of the barracks' earthen bricks. The sails had vanished. But the wheel axle kept groaning in the distance, endlessly. In the shadow of the sorghum stalk windbreak of a slum shack, a child relieving themselves squatted in a posture one might imagine Mencius himself hid in during his youth, poking at their own excrement with a slender stick. Scraps of paper, tattered cloth, straw fragments, shards of glass—such accumulations lay scattered everywhere. The foot-bound wife was like an antique from a thieves' market. The flattened-faced coolies dug through rubble, peanut shells, and watermelon rinds with famished desperation; they scavenged anything edible—be it ginseng roots, wilted greens, or daikon scraps—and devoured it.

In the direction opposite to where the wheelbarrows groaned, the match factory’s mechanical saw devouring poplar logs screeched as if scraping bone. From the bluish-black Chinese barracks emerged four or five White Russian soldiers. “Need a ride?” A swarm of rickshaws seeking customers swarmed around the White Russian soldiers from somewhere. The seat of the coolies’ pants was tattered. They argued vociferously, each trying to snatch customers for themselves first.

“Need a ride?” The White Russian soldiers ignored the swarm of rickshaws and plodded forward on their long legs. They had fled their homeland long ago for the Far East, escaping down from Siberia into China. The clothes they wore—already threadbare—had not even a single strip remaining. But even without money, they had managed to procure clothes and coats matching their decade-old fashion sense from somewhere. Soiled black fur Cossack hats, leather knee-high boots, bluish-gray trousers that sagged at the waist and clung tightly at the knees—they wore these unchanged relics of the past.

Their heads and shoulders towered far above the short-statured Chinese people. "How much wages did you receive this month?" A man wearing a Chinese-style dagua walked alongside them while talking. This was Yamazaki. "We didn't get a single penny." "How much did you receive last month?" "Last month too—not a single penny." "The month before last?" "The month before last too—not a single penny." "Slap him!" Yamazaki in Chinese clothing lowered his voice. "Who cares? Slap him! Give those bloated cheeks of that hulking Zhang Zongchang a proper smack!"

The White Russian soldiers suddenly looked up and burst into cheerful laughter. They had been purchased by the Shandong Army after their leader Milukurof sold his services to Zhang Zongchang. Always mounted on short Chinese horses, their boots dragging along the ground, they were perpetually stationed at the most perilous front lines. Some had been struck by bullets on the battlefront and fallen dead. Some became lame, lost an eye, or had their arms blown off and were driven out. Some deserted, unable to stomach the reek of garlic from the Chinamen. Some got into huge fights with Chinese soldiers they despised.

When they returned from the battlefront to Roshia Bar, the reek of blood and saltpeter had seeped into their flesh beneath the skin. “Bastard! What’s that Zhang Zongchang—who couldn’t even get his lips bitten off at the brothel’s upper floor—worth anyway? He’s got twenty-seven damn concubines! …Who cares? Slap him!” The White Russian soldiers looked up and continued to laugh cheerfully. The acacia trees lining the corrugated iron fence of the match factory before their eyes were sprouting fresh spring buds.

Above them, small crows, their sides bathed in the setting sun, flew in a cheerful flock across the city sky.

II

The factory was steeped in a bluish-purple smolder, reeking of dust, sulfur, phosphorus, and the scorched odor of pine resin.

In the "box-packing" section where boy and girl workers lined up at workbenches to stuff tipped matchsticks into yellow boxes with magician-like speed, a frantic clatter—like the tongue-clicks used to herd cattle—arose in relentless succession. It was nerve-jangling franticness. They grabbed set portions of tipped matchsticks transported from the drying room with practiced hands, packed them into small box drawers, inserted these into labeled outer boxes, then executed each one with a clapping motion—click-clack—one at a time in an instant. Even seven- or eight-year-old boys and girls, who should have been in the prime of their playfulness, were toiling diligently.

Chinese people carried small children in baskets and made the slightly older ones walk when coming to the city to sell their children. Half of them had been purchased for seven or ten yuan. There were also child laborers. Because they were so young and short, when those children sat on chairs alongside other male and female workers, their hands couldn't reach the workbenches. They had trays placed on the floor with small stools set atop them, sitting there while stuffing boxes with their tiny, delicate hands.

They all took on ash-gray, earth-like faces. Due to the spontaneous combustion of matches and the glass powder adhered to both sides of the outer boxes, their burned fingertips were wrapped in blackened, grimy bandages. From when work began until break time, the female and male workers were prohibited from speaking about work matters or engaging in casual conversation. They spent six hours doing nothing but moving their hands like mute little robots. Occasionally there would be a sizzle or a sharp hiss. It was the sound of yellow phosphorus matches spontaneously igniting from friction in an instant. At those moments, the children would burn their fingers. At the same time, their grimy figures were blurred by the wavering pale purple smoke rising around them.

Not a single one of them uttered a word. But there, clamorous noises and groaning sounds overflowed madly.

Mikitaro was walking around and around that factory.

He too had been permitted to carry a whip and pistol. Under him was a Chinese foreman. The foreman also carried a wooden club. It had been established that with this wooden club, one could indiscriminately clobber anyone—breaking soft hands or legs mattered not. However, in the presence of the Japanese and the foreman, the workers—striving to demonstrate scrupulous diligence—rendered both clubs and pistols unnecessary.

He was a twenty-five-year-old young man that year. A prickly sort—the kind who seemed to dislike driving the Chinese workers harder, his supervision clumsy and manner quarrelsome. The toxic gas laced with yellow phosphorus and dust kept invading his lungs just as it did the boys'.

“Are you actually a Chinaman? Or are you Japanese?” The Manager—already irritable from Swedish match competition—blamed Mikitaro’s habit of siding with Chinamen and glared at him with sarcastic sharpness. Mikitaro’s father had finally turned into a heroin addict. Combining this fact with everything else, he made a desolate face. The Japanese could sell heroin without issue. But they mustn’t smoke it like the Chinese. That heroin—the old man had smoked it like the Chinese. He’d become an addict like the Chinese.

“We’re hated even by our Japanese colleagues... Before long, I’ll be kicked out of this factory too...”

In truth, Mikitaro felt more affinity for the Chinese than for his jaded Japanese counterparts. Moreover,the workers also appeared more familiar and open with him than they were with Koyama or Morita. "How many left?" To Fang Hongji clattering away at the axle lathe while arranging matchsticks in wooden frames,Mikitaro offered a soothing smile. Fang’s head had whitened under layers of dust. Beneath his flat nose grinned large,yellowed teeth stained by grime.

“How many left?”

“Three, three,” Fang answered flusteredly. “It’s three on the frame trolley.” “Work faster.” “Right away, right away.” Fang fitted a clamp onto the wooden frame densely planted with small axles like a forest. A series of tight snapping sounds rang out. Mikitaro passed through from there to the dipping station. A sweet, burning phosphorus smell entwined with sulfur and pine resin made his nose twitch. From the open rear entranceway, the mechanical saw and axle base peeling machine ground and groaned as if scraping teeth. Koyama, who had been examining raw axles in his palm, tossed them into a gunny sack as if spitting and returned along the grimy corridor.

“What do you make of that Yu bastard?” It was understood he was referring to Yu Liling—the eccentric under Mikitaro’s charge who chronically refused proper deference. “I don’t think anything of it.” “That bastard’s work is always sloppy—you know it creates waste at the dipping station, don’t you?” “That’s not really the case.” “If your eyes see scrap as not scrap, then so be it.” It grated on him that persistently taking the Chinese workers’ side invited suspicion, but to join Koyama in speaking ill of those under his charge was even more intolerable. The axle rows, the dipping station, and the drying room were Mikitaro’s responsibility.

“If we leave that bastard alone, we’ll lose all control when the Northern Expedition arrives!” Koyama snorted through his ravaged nose.

When Koyama grew agitated, Mikitaro found himself deliberately wanting to back Yu. Koyama’s mandible had rotted from phosphorus poisoning; his chest was afflicted, and he coughed from deep within his torso. Yu was a Chinaman who looked down on others, snorting derisively through flared nostrils.

They walked. “Ah!” At that moment, in the packaging area where small boxes were each wrapped in paper and packed into larger wooden crates, a sudden sharp hiss sliced through the air. Hong Yue’e—considered the factory beauty by fellow workers though her flat features would never pass for comely to Japanese eyes—jerked back in shock. Legs trembled spindly beneath her. The matches inside the wooden crate had friction-ignited. Cannonbursts of purplish-black smoke erupted from the six-hundred-bundle-packed box, billowing outward. Enveloped in fumes, Hong Yue’e appeared to have scorched her fingers.

Koyama pressed a bony hand to his mouth while choking on smoke and shot a sharp glare across the room. Clutching her burned hand with her uninjured one while raising her face and warily scanning her surroundings,Hong immediately lowered her gaze back toward the still-smoking crate when she met Koyama's stare. Mikitaro observed Koyama's sunken mandible contort painfully at its edges. Hong appeared still troubled and now looked up fearfully at the foreman through lowered lashes.

The dense, swirling smoke still hung thick in the air as Koyama continued to choke from deep within his torso.

Mikitaro walked toward the office.

III

Chiang Kai-shek’s Second Northern Expedition and the violent outrages of destitute Shandong soldiers daily disrupted the town’s atmosphere. There were also those who made anti-Japanese propaganda their work to make a name for themselves. When asked why they engaged in anti-Japanese activities, they would answer, "Because we can’t make a living." Commissioner Zhang Zongchang—who had not paid his soldiers a single yuan in wages for six or seven months—saw a pitiful beggar parent and child near the city gate from his automobile and had his attendants throw them three hundred yuan. Zhang was that kind of capricious man.

“Even a demon sheds tears!” The Chinamen too tore Zhang Zongchang to shreds. The town’s unrest could not help but reverberate through the factory workers. Yamazaki—intent on turning allocated secret funds into personal savings to build a fortune in China before returning home—made rounds of M Seifun, Nikka Tanpan, K Boseki, Fukuryu Match Company and others in succession. Rather than paying money to buy piecemeal unreliable information from Chinamen, it was more shrewd to take Industrial Association intelligence wholesale and adjust reports accordingly. Yamazaki did just that. And he pocketed every allocated coin.

His pocket contained business cards from Fukuryu Match Company employees. It also contained business cards from Nikka Tanpan sales representatives. Of course, he had brought back orders for phosphor matches, but he had never once gone out to procure materials. When he reached the factory entrance, he recoiled at the smoke, dust, filthy workers, and nose-searing stench of sulfur, pressing a long-nailed hand to his nose. He had just parted from the White Russian soldiers.

He took pride in his speech, facial appearance, and gait being no different from the Chinese. He grew indifferent to wiping his nose with his hand and smearing the snot from his fingers onto whatever surface was nearby. He wore a black brimless hat with a knob on top, and his clothes and shoes were also Chinese-style. Even his long nails were an imitation of Chinese tastes. However, there was one flaw he remained unaware of—his sharply defined eyes, where the boundary between the whites and irises was too stark. This alone he could never disguise—both his profession and race. His eyes were different from theirs—theirs being dull and cloudy.

The occupation of sneaking through backstreet after backstreet naturally took form and manifested externally.

Yamazaki, the conceited one, remained unaware of his own flaws. There was an interesting story about that. But just as he arrived at the workshop entrance, Mikitaro came out from inside, yellow grime accumulated on his nose tip. Mikitaro suddenly grinned broadly and said something.

"What is it?" Yamazaki asked. "It's quite an interesting story." "What is it?" "I'll tell you right away—but if I do, will you pay me for the information? Five yen will do. Just five yen will do." "I'll pay... if it's worth it." "If you don't pay up, Mr. Yamazaki, you'll be drowning in so much money you won't know where to stash it all." Yamazaki let a displeased smirk spill from his lips.

“What is it?” “Bandits showed up. Yesterday, when I went duck hunting at Luokou Marsh, six or seven bandits came rushing over from the Yellow River direction.”

Mikitaro laughed.

He laughed with an air of guiltlessness, as if to say the intel fee was a joke.

“I abandoned the bicycle I rode there and ran for it. “It was a top-grade Kent model.” Yamazaki stifled a bitter smile. Here I am investigating matters critical to national security (questionable as that may be), and you’re making light of trivial nonsense! His face betrayed this thought. Noticing this, Mikitaro’s laughter gradually hardened into something stiff and unnatural.

At that moment, Koyama emerged, his entire body racked by an unceasing cough. The workers who had finished their day's contracted labor began approaching the exit with faces drained of color. Mikitaro walked to the office with Yamazaki. The workers had their daily output recorded in the attendance ledger. They received meal tickets. A commotion of jostling bodies erupted around the foreman's desk amid metallic bursts of Chinese.

The area had grown dim.

“Here, they’re as docile as ever.” Yamazaki shot a piercing glance at the jostling workers. Then he whispered. “Far from there—there are even unsettling elements among the executives.”

Koyama answered. “Hmm, whether any General Labor Union infiltrators have slipped in here is something we Japanese can hardly know for sure.” “We need to be careful.” “Bah, if it’s that kind of infiltration, we’ll know right away by using decoys.” “But lately, we’ve had to plant decoys on our decoys to stay safe.” “Tch! “Makes no damn sense.” Koyama kept coughing. He spat phlegm around the area.

The three entered the office. There too, everything had faded from exposure to phosphorus, sulfur, potassium chlorate and other chemicals; the desk boards had corroded between their wood grains, turning a grayish-black. Uchikawa, one of the associates who had acquired old rifles through government surplus sales at three yen apiece and sold thousands to Zhang Zongchang for fifty yen each, sat by the double-paned window with a gloomy, worried expression. His face, like this factory, was rigidly set and utterly parched. This was the manager.

“What’s this? You reek damnably of garlic when you come here.” Uchikawa laughed brusquely. His very laughter was parched. “How thoughtful of you.” “If the garlic smell’s gone, I won’t be any different from a Chinaman.” “What do you think?” Yamazaki struck a jester-like pose, brimming with pride. “If you believe that yourself, it’s for the best—saves everyone the trouble.” “我和中国人不是一様嗎。 “How am I not the same? Where do you see any difference?”

Suddenly, Yamazaki barked in Chinese. Where am I different from a Chinaman?—that was the gist of it. However, it was clearly a joke—or more precisely, seemed like a ploy to amuse Uchikawa. He was intent on securing his promised cut from Uchikawa, who had made a killing selling those antiquated rifles. He waited, wondering if it would come any moment now—now? Now? Mikitaro knew it.

It was truly a disgraceful sight. He strained every sense like a starving stray dog, sniffing around everywhere. Koyama—who before those junior to him would fully expose his bestial nature—became an entirely different person when the manager was present. He turned quiet and reserved. Yamazaki, not being under Uchikawa’s direct employ, still maintained an air of casual indifference. Yet even this was an affected nonchalance. From beneath that pretense emerged a fawning tone.

Koyama showed considerable interest—or rather, feigned interest—even in the politics of the Japanese mainland, which he hadn’t set foot on in over a decade, politics that existed solely in newspaper columns, so long as it was something the manager cared about.

He saw Uchikawa’s dark expression and immediately reacted to it. “Wait—if their situation’s better than last year’s, isn’t it because Germany’s providing new weapons now?” “Hmm.”

Uchikawa grunted. “About how much would that be? And the quantity?” He ripped open the seal of the letter that had just arrived that morning and peeked inside. He peeked inside and even knew the exact quantity. As for that, Koyama feigned ignorance about that particular detail. “Westerners go on about churches and charity, but behind the scenes they’re running quite the lucrative business. They’re operating on a whole different scale compared to us.” “Even ordinary schools and hospitals—they’re completely under their control.” “That’s just how it is.”

“Hmm.” “But even if Chiang Kai-shek comes this time with all his elite weapons, the warlords will make their last stand at the river’s edge. If anything, it’s the warlords who absolutely cannot afford to lose this battle.” He had meant to offer a substantial opinion before Yamazaki, the expert. His face grew triumphant. Yamazaki took note. “So you reckon Zhang Zongchang with his antique muskets will lose to those new German rifles...”

“Whether Warlord Zhang wins or loses—it’s none of our concern.” “As for such matters—it’s hardly the responsibility of those who sold the rifles.”

The beardless Yamazaki wore a sarcastic smile around his lips—Do you really think you're in any position to spout such nonsense and twist things around?! He wore a smile that seemed to say as much. "In the Northern Expedition army, there's still a good number of Communists who came out of the political department, you know."

Uchikawa whispered bitterly. “No matter how much we hunt Communists, they just cling on like ticks.” “What if those Communist bandits take over this town?” “What on earth will happen?” “The Communists are like air. If there’s a crack, they’ll seep in anywhere.” “But more than that, I’m thinking whether the Northern Expedition even has the strength to push this far—that’s what’ll be worth watching.” “But I think determining that should be the first priority.”

“How would you determine that?” “Through money,” Yamazaki sneered. “To move a hundred thousand troops, even two or three hundred thousand yuan would be as effective as trying to administer eye drops from the second floor.”

“If it’s money you’re talking about, the General Chamber of Commerce has already provided four million yen initially, followed by another two million.” “Oh? And this wouldn’t be another false report now, would it?” Yamazaki once again let out a voice tinged with a sneer. But it became clear that he was as happy as if he’d caught a sea bream when a camellia landed on the faded desk. “Indeed, that means they’ve put out six million yen.… Then they won’t come.” “They won’t come for sure.” “That’s just splendid.” “That the General Chamber of Commerce has donated six million yen is splendid.” “That’s quite splendid indeed.”

To Koyama, the reason Yamazaki was acting so foolishly boisterous remained slightly unclear.

IV

Uchikawa was called the Three-Pronged Fork. This was because, apart from overseeing the rigid, sprawling match factory, he handled both hard-line and soft-line trades. The hard-line and soft-line here were naturally not the two divisions within a newspaper company. The business of dealing in weapons was the hard-line trade. And the business dealing in opium, morphine, cocaine, heroin, codeine, and other such substances was the soft-line trade.

All of these were businesses targeting the Chinese.

Vast, vast—the majority of foreigners residing in the turbulent inland China had made either the hard-line or soft-line trade their real business. The British did it too. The French did it too. The Germans and the Spaniards did it too. On one hand they drugged the Chinese. Reduced them to idiocy. On the other hand they supplied weapons and ammunition to warlords and bandits. Warfare, plunder, and the people's anxieties all flowed from this wellspring. Uchikawa was a stubborn, single-minded man with a shrewd eye for immediate gain. Not only would he gouge out a horse’s eye—he might have even plucked the eyeballs from bandits. When seized by some obsession, he begrudged even thirty minutes for a haircut. With salt-and-pepper hair exploding wild and beard left ratty, he plunged into his work. Coded telephone calls frequently rang through the factory.

Type 3, eighteen units—arrived at Tsubushi today. If they had said that, the 4,000 yen would not have been moved. Ten pig noses cooked into mixed rice. To put it plainly, 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 organization through which all manner of information, daily changes, and incidents swiftly and tangibly flowed in—this dual role of the factory worked to Uchikawa’s advantage. Chinese police, railway workers, and customs officials had long made it their custom to extort money from the wealthy for extra gains. Uchikawa skillfully exploited that. “Even if they come to the factory, you can’t tell which is their real job.” “If you keep lining your pockets all by yourself like this, you’ll end up with a real stomachache one of these days.”

“Don’t say that—you—don’t say that, don’t say that.” Uchikawa saw through Yamazaki’s attempt to pose a riddle and comically hunched his neck, waved his hand, trying to play it off.

“This is like walking a circus tightrope, you know.” “Make one wrong move and you’ll plunge to your death, you know.” “Even sitting here like this, I’m constantly on edge, you know.” “The ones who’ll fall aren’t you—it’s the coolies and other bastards.” “No—no—it doesn’t always work that way, not always...”

Without one of No. 1, No. 2, or No. 3, not a single Chinese person could get through even a day. They had been conditioned into such a habit.

Whether governors, local tyrants and evil gentry, coolies, or beggars. No. 1, No. 2, No. 3... these were codewords for opium, heroin, morphine, and the like.

Anti-drug activists fought against them. Its import had been prohibited. Its consumption had also been prohibited. According to them, ever since the Opium Wars, the imperialist powers of various nations had been deliberately bringing opium into China in an attempt to exterminate the Chinese people. They would drown them in it. However, no matter how much they prohibited it, the law was never enforced. They slipped through the mesh of the net.

Even when confiscated or fined, they would find another way to bring it in. They would sneak it into wheat flour, mix it with other chemicals, or wrap it around each person’s stomach. There was simply no way to stop it. Yamazaki knew that. Even if Uchikawa had not brought it in, someone else would have inevitably done so. Even if the Japanese had not brought it in, the Germans or other foreigners would have certainly done so instead. It was there that Yamazaki found his reason to assist Uchikawa. If no one brought it in to satisfy their cravings, the addicted Chinamen would just groan themselves to death. In that case, he ought to side with his own compatriots. The French and Germans were boldly importing outrageous quantities with brazen composure. They loaded entire six-thousand-ton ships to bursting. By comparison, the Japanese—like their cramped homeland across the sea—remained far too cautious and honest…

But Uchikawa was exceptionally stingy and unreasonably did not reciprocate. Yamazaki twisted his cowlick. He knew exactly how much Uchikawa and Takatsu from S Bank had pocketed through the rifles. Arms dealing was far more perilous than drug trafficking. They had to carry out everything in absolute secrecy. The Chinese authorities were extremely strict. Where drug traffickers could get off with fines or jail if exposed, arms dealers had to risk their lives. Being found in possession of weapons in China was a life-risking job. This was the true acrobatic tightrope act. A junk dealer who had bought old, rusted rifle bullets along with other scrap fiddled with them idly, was spotted by a patrol officer, and was even executed in the end.

The very fact that they were so strict meant that weapons were that much more crucial.

Small warlords and bandits would kill people to seize weapons if they could get their hands on them. If it was weapons, they bought them no matter how much money they paid. Therefore, even skimming a cut from the bandits was in fact an easy task. Therefore, even if only to prevent interference with the smuggling, he should part with five hundred or so.

Wasn't it he—Yamazaki—who had laid all the groundwork preparations for that? Uchikawa made no attempt to repay that. Yamazaki fretted that if he left things alone for too long, his efforts would expire like a statute of limitations. However, if Uchikawa was going to kick him aside, then so be it—he had his own plans. If by any chance he tried to whitewash things this time with some measly hundred or two hundred yen pittance, then when that time came, he'd put an end to their future dealings altogether.

Yamazaki knew exactly what Uchikawa and the others were up to. And he could have given it to them if he had wanted to.

He had been protecting it because they were compatriots.

It was a certain autumn.

Along a country road away from the city, further into the mountain depths, into a deep lonely forest where trees stood tinged with autumnal hues, a long funeral procession pulled by long-eared donkeys was passing through.

The hearse was pulled by six donkeys. The donkeys shook their large heads painfully—grotesquely mismatched with their small torsos and stubby legs—and all six were drenched in sweat. Steam rose from their dirty, matted fur.

The coffin was solemnly adorned in Chinese fashion with snake heads and black cloth, befitting the mourning of the deceased. The man who appeared to be the chief mourner was the only one wearing a coarse hemp mourning cap, while the wailing women followed behind, howling. The one who had died in town was likely being taken back to their rural hometown. But for a single dead body—and though heading toward the mountains, still continuing across flatland without yet reaching them—why were as many as six horses sweating so profusely that steam rose from them?

Why was a single corpse so heavy? The patrol officers found it strange. They remained safe for a time. A proper funeral procession shouldn't be pulled by horses but carried on poles over people's shoulders. This further deepened the patrol officers' suspicions. But the two officers were no match for the seven or eight burly men guarding the hearse. The funeral procession drew nearer to the forest and mountains. However, before entering the forest proper, there still lay another village.

At the village outpost, there was a gathering of patrol officers. The chief mourner in coarse hemp and the wailing women following decorously behind grew exhausted, yawned and laughed unnaturally. That caught the eye of a patrol officer. Then, when the funeral procession reached the village outpost, the situation abruptly changed. The hearse was ordered to stop.

Patrol officers armed with rifles and swords surrounded the vehicle. The canopy covering the coffin and the black drapes were pulled back. The coffin lid was opened. Under the lid was not a corpse, but guns and grenades that had been densely packed to the brim... “Ugh!”

Yamazaki knew such things as well. Uchikawa was a man who did things that took people by surprise.

V

Near Juouden stood a filthy, labyrinthine town that reeked like pus oozing from loincloths. Mikitaro lived at the old man’s house there.

There lived his two parents, one motherless child, and two sisters. He commuted to the factory by cutting diagonally through the streets of the concession from there. “Is that feeble old man Japanese?” When Japanese expatriates were asked by Chinese acquaintances about Juzaburo—whose eyes had grown cloudy and yellowed— “What? He’s a Korean.” they answered with an attitude dripping with contempt. There, the Japanese expatriates considered both laboring and becoming addicts to be national disgraces.

The Japanese expatriates believed that even when going just three blocks away to buy vegetables, they must ride in rickshaws sitting back arrogantly, yet slash the fare they paid the coolies to absurdly low amounts. Suppose there were disgraced Japanese who joined the ranks of coolies and sold their manual labor—such individuals certainly existed.

And— “Hmm, that guy’s a Korean!” From their rickshaws, they looked down with such contempt it seemed they might even spit. Old man Juzaburo was one of those people who received such contempt. He could not have lived without his opium pipe, alcohol lamp, and No. 3. He could not go a single day without smoking the narcotic at least once. When the drug’s effects wore off from his body, he would writhe in throbbing groans. It was like a carp leaping from a bucket—utterly, hopelessly unbearable.

Mikitaro couldn't stand the sight of the old man from the very beginning. The old man had grown nearly incapable of doing any proper work. And his sister Suzu had taken over the old man's role. She had now gone back to Japan proper to fetch three or four packages.

The Japanese expatriates generally made their living in this narcotics trade. The storefront signs of steamed bun shops, souvenir vendors, watchmakers, antique dealers, and the like were merely facades. If Uchikawa was a wholesaler handling bulk quantities, they were small-time dealers.—There were at least a thousand people engaged in that trade there. Juzaburo was one of them too.

Opium was far too expensive for the coolies and factory workers. Therefore, instead of opium, a cheaper and far more potent No. 3 compound was used there. With opium, one could smoke it continuously for three months without becoming addicted; but heroin would turn the user's complexion sickly within ten days.

—This too required a primary agent and adjuvant. If the mixture wasn’t properly prepared, sales wouldn’t improve. These compounding methods were each guarded like family secrets; one never spoke of them lightly to others. Having failed at every job he tried, Juzaburo finally resorted to handling this No. 3 compound as his last gamble. At first he agonized over poor sales. Even if he failed completely at everything, returning to Japan proper remained impossible for him. He had been exiled from Japan proper in the first place.

Even a drug business that was said to be a wildly lucrative, disreputable trade—when you actually tried it—still required toil and struggle. “Damn it! This time I’ll try smoking it myself. If I don’t do at least that much, there’s no way this business will ever work out.” At the time he was saying such things, neither he nor his wife had yet understood the terror of the drug. “Don’t talk nonsense.—What’ll you do if you get hooked?” Osen also laughed.

“You can’t be spouting such carefree nonsense. “No matter what, I can’t go back to Japan!” As his goods gradually began selling better, his complexion took on the sallow hue of an overripe pear. The narcotic was invading his body’s cells. He was an ant caught in an antlion’s pit. No matter how he struggled and writhed, he could no longer go without smoking it. Suzu, Shun, and Mikitaro had only been there about two full years since coming from Japan proper.

Suzu handled everything from preparing "Kai-Jo-Kai" blends to procuring raw materials and occasionally selling them to pale-faced Chinamen who slipped stealthily through the back door with muffled footsteps. Shun amused and played with Ichiro, whom Toshiko had left behind. Ichiro was Mikitaro’s child. Toshiko was the wife who had returned home, disliking both him and the household. And Shun had gotten along well with Toshiko in the past.

Suzu, the elder sister, began devoting herself wholeheartedly to household matters after Toshiko left. Suzu was always the one made to return to Japan proper to resupply raw materials. She too carried it out despite the risks.

Slipping through vigilant customs to bring in contraband was far easier for women—especially girls who still retained a touch of girlish innocence—than for rough-looking men. When Juzaburo first brought Mikitaro, Suzu, and Mikitaro’s wife Toshiko over from Japan proper, he immediately forced all three to land with one package each concealed on their persons. Mikitaro was momentarily stunned by the sheer shamelessness of the old man. He could have endured it if it had only been his two siblings. Yet the old man had brazenly ordered even Toshiko—who had only been part of the family for four months—to do it. He still felt half the reason he’d had to part with Toshiko after about a year and a half lay with the old man. The man had absolutely no understanding of people’s feelings.

But the first time, Suzu and Toshiko—who had been flustered and fretful—managed to accomplish it smoothly and effortlessly.

When the old man and Mikitaro landed, clearing customs right before their eyes proved unexpectedly troublesome. The woman slipped through without a hitch. Once he’d gotten a taste of success, the old man seized on it and sent Suzu back to Japan proper again. Within two or three attempts, Suzu began relishing the thrill of hoodwinking customs. “How’d you feel back then?” Unable to shake his dread of exposure or resentment toward the old man, Mikitaro later pressed Suzu.

“I didn’t feel anything. I just felt sorry for Father, that’s all.” “You wrapped that powder in a bag around your belly—oh, but it didn’t even look like you were three months pregnant? Weren’t you terribly worried about it?”

“That did worry me. “The obi just wouldn’t tie properly—but really, it was nothing. “I just felt sorry for Father—when I thought about how he had to make even the child we first brought to Jinan and the bride do such things, I felt so sorry for him that tears spilled out.”

“Oh please—you were trembling like a leaf, scared stiff of getting caught, and now you’re putting on airs with that smart mouth of yours.” “So, Big Brother, you knew all along—from that time—that our life here would be this wretched?” “However much we thought about it, we never imagined it would be this bad.”

“I knew all along.… When Grandfather died, Father came back all alone without even bringing Mother along—that alone made everything clear, didn’t it?” “Oh ho, you’re talking big now after the fact.” After his wife left him with their child and fled back home, the two became tightly bound to each other.

To any third party, it would seem that Mikitaro had discarded Toshiko like a pair of worn-out shoes because he wanted a better wife. However, discarding a woman he had once made his wife was not something that could be done so easily through mere utilitarian calculations. He, being old-fashioned, was plagued by hesitations, agonies, and wavering. Only Suzu knew that. He came to love his sister deeply. The child also grew attached to her. Suzu grew accustomed to people with the wary familiarity of Asakusa pigeons. When you tried to catch them, the pigeons would take flight with acute sensitivity, escaping just as you closed in within a foot or two. She possessed such shrewdness.

This marked 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 increasingly frequent since her arrival in Japan proper.

The Japanese expatriates’ concern regarding the Northern Expedition hinged entirely on one dread: that the property they had spent years accumulating, the homes they had decorated, the rare Chinese artifacts they had scavenged, and their very lives would be mercilessly, bloodily trampled underfoot by brutish Southern soldiers—just as their counterparts in Nanjing and Hankou had been during the May 30th Incident. They had been hinted by someone to harbor such concerns. They held a meeting in the Japanese Residents' Association for that purpose. The two selected individuals went to the consulate to petition. Both those who had saved up small fortunes and those living hand-to-mouth with nothing to their names were equally under the influence of this suggestion and became obsessed with it.

The incessant minor clashes between warlords and the unending disturbances further strengthened that suggestion. In reality, disturbances were constantly being repeated throughout the town. Patrolling Chinese soldiers intruded into the girls' school east of Yuuei Garden during the daytime. There were two Chinese soldiers. The two Chinese soldiers entered the dormitory where the female students resided and sated their starved sexual desires. However, the female teacher bowed her head and pleaded with the soldiers to keep the matter private. The soldiers demanded money. The teacher was exploited in her moment of weakness. She handed over the money.

However, when the two returned to their bluish-black barracks, they blabbed all about it to the others as if it were some glorious feat.

When night fell, soldiers who hadn't yet gotten their taste swarmed toward the school in packs. Shouts in Chinese and metallic clanging erupted noisily from the distance. Throughout the town, every night saw houses here and there attacked by soldiers bearing weapons. "Is X-san of Kaisanro present? Urgent business!" "Urgent business!" During movie screenings, when someone got summoned from Kido's place, even those nearby who weren't called stiffened in alarm. "Oh dear—another robbery?"

The soldiers were starving. They wrapped their faces and heads in black cloth and concealed themselves in large sack-like coats. It was utter chaos, regardless of location. It wasn’t a calculated operation like bandits targeting houses with cash. That very fact made it all the more troublesome. Even the poor could not rest easy. They would burst in and, like nighthawks seeking prey, ransack every corner of the house while overturning everything. As they jumped up, kicked shins, and thrust hands deep into storage areas, the hems of their coats flipped up to suddenly reveal military uniform trousers beneath.

“Oh! They’re soldiers!” “What do you expect soldiers to do?” “Even soldiers can’t live without eating. The Governor hasn’t given us a single penny either!” They were in no position to withdraw 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 racking his brains over countermeasures against Communist-affiliated propaganda and organizational activities accompanying the Northern Expedition, as well as workers escaping under the cover of turmoil.

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

The workers—both married men and female workers with husbands—were absolutely prohibited from going outside the gates. Everything was confined to the two dormitory buildings. The gate passes were guarded by the police. The police refused entry to anyone without a company certificate. As a measure to prevent escape, the wages were not paid. The workers had not received their March wages that were supposed to be paid at month's end, nor had they been paid for their April work, and remained in that state.

Their work was entirely under a contract system. They received one and a half mon per 180 boxes (approximately 0.09 sen in Japanese currency) for boxed matches. For assembling one axle frame (thirty wooden frames), they received two and a half mon per tonzuru; one mon per cart for disassembly; pasting small boxes, transporting axle wood, and courtyard sweeping paid two or three yen per month. All the backbreaking labor, filthy jobs, and exposure to phosphorus poison fell entirely to them. The Japanese just stood watch with pistols.

And thus matches were produced, indistinguishable in every detail from Chinese domestic products. The trademark too followed Chinese styling, with "Daikichi" printed on yellow paper. On all four corners of the labels was neatly written "Promote Domestic Goods" (Use domestic products).

This was one of the slogans resolved by the Anti-Japanese Committee. It had been cleverly subverted.—Indeed, everything from start to finish had been made by Chinese hands. They were made in China. Therefore, they were undoubtedly Chinese domestic products.

All it took was capital.

Given the ferocious anti-Japanese goods movement, rather than importing unsellable Kobe matches and being charged tariffs, levies, and surtaxes, it was far more rational to use cheap Chinese labor to produce "domestic products" indistinguishable from Chinese goods—manufactured in China and sold in China. Omi Trading Company had long since set its sights on this. It wasn’t just matches. The capitalists had employed this method in spinning, machinery, flour milling, oil extraction, and sugar refining. The shortfall from being unable to profit in the harsh, stagnant home islands was compensated there.

The workers' destitution gradually intensified. They were only given scraps of steamed buns and grilled rice cakes to eat. And they were only given hot water to drink. They had not a single penny. Because they had no money, they couldn’t smoke a single cigarette. They couldn’t cut their wildly overgrown hair. They earned and sent money but couldn’t support their families. Even when their mothers, fathers, and wives—who had gone three or four days without food—came pleading in pitiful states to see their sons, the gate passes rejected them.

Inside were sons longing to see parents. Daughters. Husbands yearning for wives. Wives aching for husbands. Outside waited parents and wives expecting remittances from sons and husbands. Koyama and his men banned the meetings, fearing the messy aftermath of tears. The ragged workers circled toward the barbed wire-enclosed White Poplar Lumber Yard. Only a sliver of this area lacked corrugated iron fencing. There they released metallic cries of grief.

When the workers heard the groaning, shouting voices of their parents, they stealthily slipped out of the workshop and sneaked up to the barbed wire. They met secretly, separated by the barbed wire. However, the sons had no money for their parents. The husbands had no money to give their wives. It was a heartrending encounter. Mikitaro was pestered by these people to speak to management about getting their wages. “Mr. Inokawa.”

Wang Hongji timidly approached Mikitaro, who was inspecting the dipping station. He was one of the timid, diligent workers. “What is it?” “Mr. Inokawa.” “What is it?” Mikitaro made a face that seemed to urge him to speak quickly.

“Mr. Inokawa. “Um… Could you ask Mr. Koyama to have them give us even half of the monthly wages?” Mikitaro became aware of Wang’s servile, bashful voice. “My mother came... my wife gave birth... they haven’t eaten for three days...” Wang continued. “Until the day before yesterday, we got millet from my wife’s sister and ate it, but now there’s nothing left at her place either.”

“The monthly wages won’t be paid for the time being... I’m afraid.” Mikitaro made a perplexed face. “My mother came carrying the older brat on her back and is crying outside the fence—the brat’s crying too. My mother’s crying too.” “Whether it’s accounting or the manager—my words have no effect at all.” “…………”

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 something kind and unresisting in Wang’s eyes—like a castrated ox at the moment its brow was struck for slaughter. That remained unresisting—why should I be slaughtered?! I have no intention of being killed! he pleaded wholeheartedly, as if to say...

Suddenly, he—

“Alright, I’ll tell them! I’ll speak up!” he shouted indignantly.

“They don’t even consider you people as human beings. “Never mind.” “Wait, I tell you! I’ll speak up!” “I’ll tell them! I’ll speak up!” Mikitaro was the least acclimated to colonial life among the factory’s Japanese and a newcomer. Manager Uchikawa, Foreman Koyama, Otsu, Morita, and Accountant Iwai—all of them had grown weary of the stifling homeland, yearned for unrestrained, wide-open lands, and ventured forth to Korea and Manchuria. They either starved in Japan or ran afoul of the law. They found it hard to stay. Then they would first cross over to Korea. Korea didn’t satisfy them; they came to Manchuria. Manchuria didn’t satisfy them; they came to Tianjin. They came to Beijing. That didn’t satisfy them either. Those people had wormed their way in there.

They had ravaged Dalian, Fengtian, Qingdao, Tianjin, and other places. Countless Koreans were forced to sell their daughters for seventy or eighty yen after Otsu—his face bearing an uncanny resemblance to genitalia as he perpetually leered—took his cut of the profits. Moreover, every last one of those untouched girls had been defiled by Otsu before being handed over to buyers. The coolies who fell victim to Koyama's club—crippled and left to die—numbered no fewer than ten.

Iwai now wore an innocent face, having managed to save some petty cash. But to obtain that money, he had chosen methods that would not hesitate to eliminate anyone in his way—whether Japanese, Korean, or Chinese. Even these hulking men, their shamelessness seemingly two or three inches thick, came to detest Manchuria through their own misdeeds. Tianjin grew detestable. Qingdao grew detestable. And so they had come here.

The factory was steeped in a peculiar, unvarnished atmosphere—the kind often found where upward-failed villains gathered, reminiscent of a detention cell. Here, not a single soul tried to conceal their evil deeds. Whether rape, robbery, or theft, they openly bragged about their experiences. Those who entered felt compelled to fabricate and boast about crimes they'd never committed, exaggerating them beyond recognition. The ones with more varied criminal records and bolder experience in wrongdoing could better dominate others, instill fear, and carry themselves with arrogance.

Koyama would scoop up the head mixture—a viscous blend of phosphorus, potassium chlorate, sulfur, and pine resin melted in a cauldron—with a ladle and splash it over the heads of any worker he disliked. When the Chinese workers saw the ladle gripped in his hand, they would let out earsplitting shrieks and flee. Yet when the workers spilled the head mixture, he would curse them viciously. After sidelining Mikitaro, they all treated the workers with the same attitude reserved for animals. Mikitaro marveled that the workers could replenish calories burned through fifteen hours of daily labor merely by gnawing on black mantou or scraps of gaoliang-flour cakes—sloppily baked like pancakes—and gulping hot water.

To him there appeared none as tenacious and patient as the Chinese. They didn't complain. They tried to cram even one extra match into each box, focused solely on making money. The contract system exploited their money-loving nature to drive them. It seemed a system devised precisely for that single purpose. "Idiot!" Koyama sneered. "Those bastards themselves don't even bother thinking whether their calories get replenished!"

Koyama was convinced, based on his own experience, that the workers there were more insolent and less efficient than the coolies in Manchuria. He had experience using coolies at Hekizanso in Dalian Port. “You gotta understand that Chinamen are a yakuza-like race.” “Praising those bastards or anything like that—that’s completely unnecessary.”

He spoke in a lecturing tone, playing the senior. "They have no sense of shame." "No matter how much we do for them, they'll never be satisfied." "Even if you give them ten yen, they'll just say xiexie and leave it at that." "Even if you give them one yen, they'll still just say xiexie and leave it at that." "Even if you give them ten sen, they'll still say xiexie the same way." "Imposing grand favors on them is pure idiocy—once they take it, they'll slack off and stop listening to a damn thing we say."

“In Korea and Manchuria—the Koreans and Chinamen cower before us and scatter.”

The manager repeated.

When there were no seats on the train, it was considered perfectly natural for them—having boarded later—to make the Koreans who had gotten on earlier stand up and take their places. Reminding them all of that,

“But here, the Chinamen lord it over us.” “As expected, it’s because there’s no Japanese military here.” They had witnessed—with a sense of gratification—how recalcitrant Koreans and coolies in Manchuria and Korea were crushed by garrison shows of force and brute military power. They lamented that such a Japanese Imperial garrison—the kind that crushed resistance elsewhere—had not come here to their aid.

“However, everything comes down to comparison.” Mikitaro said, determined not to yield the righteousness of purity to villains. “When measured purely by work ethic—by that metric alone—the Japanese simply cannot match the Chinese.” “Moreover, back in Japan proper, labor unions are forming and strikes breaking out—workers being driven so recklessly under horrendous conditions that they’re no longer staying silent.” “I wouldn’t know about that.—That’s something only you greenhorns would know.” Koyama sneered at Mikitaro’s naivety. “Would we ever come all the way to China just to labor like coolies?” “Aren’t we the ones giving jobs to those Chinamen? Eh?” “If we hadn’t built this factory here, those Chinamen would have no way to earn cash at all.” “Even with rickshaws—if we didn’t ride them and pay up, who’d give them coin?” “Why in hell’s name would we ever debase ourselves to work at their level?!” “That sort of thing—it’s a disgrace to Japan!”

“How is working a disgrace?!” Mikitaro thought. “What an idiot.”

“Live a little longer, and even you’ll get it soon enough!” Koyama bellowed.

On occasion, a man from the countryside who had come seeking work would suddenly show up at the match factory.

A man would arrive shouldering a futon soiled with grime, his jumbled cookware stuffed into a hemp sack that he clutched in his hand. The police, following Uchikawa's prior instructions, had let such men through the gate. Mikitaro became responsible for handling these men.

Uchikawa observed the Chinese man from the side while Mikitaro spoke with his textbook Chinese pronunciation. He decided whether to hire based on whether the applicant was docile，young，plump，and could be worked endlessly. A healthy-looking，though far from clean，young man from the countryside was hired. In exchange，one by one，an old man afflicted with the match factory’s unique bone necrosis，a long-term worker whose gums had rotted away leaving all his teeth fallen out，and a female worker whose fingers—festering and suppurating from repeated burns—could no longer grasp small objects like pincers were driven out. The wages were pitifully meager.

Due to malnutrition, lack of sunlight (working from four in the morning until seven at night), and the use of the most toxic yellow phosphorus—banned worldwide—even healthy bodies were ravaged by toxins in an extremely short period. The turnover of workers was fierce. For every one who entered, one was expelled. This cycle repeated itself again and again. Before long, Mikitaro realized that with each new hire, all the Chinese workers in the factory turned deathly pale with terror and anxiety.

It wasn’t just the cowering old men on the verge of dismissal or those being glared at. Even the skilled workers indispensable to the factory, and pitiful seven- or eight-year-old boys and girls laboring there, turned pale and gazed imploringly with clouded, sorrowful eyes at the Japanese who held the power of life and death.

No matter how desperately Mikitaro pleaded about paying wages, Uchikawa and Koyama showed no intention of conceding. "You're green but argue like a Chinaman." Koyama, acutely conscious of Uchikawa beside him, snorted derisively. "Wages aren't alms we dispense from on high," Mikitaro retorted, spoiling for a fight. "It's payment owed." "Labor is a commodity." "Isn't settling debts for purchased goods basic decency?"

No matter how much he appealed to their humanity, they were not the type to listen. "Hmm—just what are you? A Chinaman? A Russian? A radical?" "I am Japanese." Mikitaro felt something violent squirming all at once in his chest. I must do something to these two! Otherwise, the pain in his chest would not be eased. But the outcome of what he intended to do was all too clear.

“If you’re Japanese, then act like one!” Koyama said. “All your logic won’t make any matches.” “If you let the workers die, you won’t make matches either.” Finally, what he had been holding back exploded. “Thieves! Gamblers!…” He grabbed the chair beside him. Unsteadily, he swung it up. But Uchikawa stood like a panther and seized the chair.

“Idiot! Idiot!” “What are you doing, Inokawa?!” “What are you doing?!…”

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

“Well, he is young, after all,” said Uchikawa, laughing nervously at Koyama, whose eyes blazed with anger. “He’s a hopeless case. I’m only keeping him around out of pity for his mother. That guy’s father’s a heroin junkie, and he’s got a mouth on him—useless as he is—but I just feel sorry for his mother…”

Seven

The yellow wind howled against the power lines.

The wind charging in from Mongolia felt as though it engulfed even the standing trees, the sandy soil, and the houses into its whirlwind velocity—swirling them up and scattering them about. The sun turned pale. Humans were crushed by their own powerlessness and insignificance within the dust storm stretching from earth to sky. They thought of many things.

Shina, Shina—something is afoot there, yet Shina remains beyond control!

Life here may seem carefree, yet it was the most agonizing. Unbearable! People thought about how their lives up to now had been riddled with flaws.—Some resolved that they must live on by concealing them. Some collapsed under the weight of what they themselves had done.

Shun alone—amidst people thinking gloomy thoughts—remained the only one not pondering or considering anything, amusing three-year-old Ichiro and playing about. Ichiro, with his tongue struggling to form even fragments of Shina-go—"Tenchin," "Teeaanchin"—begged Shun for sweets. “Ichiro looks just like Ms. Toshiko… That upturned cute nose, the eyes, the slender eyebrows—all of it.” Shun laughed cheerfully. She had been closest to the sister-in-law who had left.

“Even the career lines in their palms—perfectly straight ones at that—are exactly the same!” Shun resented her sister-in-law’s departure. The contrast to that resentment was her mother. Her mother would only treat her with excessive care at first while she remained novel. But once flaws surfaced after some time had passed she would nitpick relentlessly from then on. Shun hated that. She plucked bits of straw debris from Ichiro’s woolen dress—the one she had knitted—with her fingertips. Then supporting his shoulder lest he fall she guided him toward her brother while making him walk.

Mother had been anxiously waiting for Mikitaro to return from the factory after closing. Suzu's absence made her feel lonely. "What's wrong?"

Mother’s face was restless.

“If you let your guard down even a little, Wang’s already quietly taken out ‘Happy-Up’ 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 kept it himself.”

“Now, now—just act like you don’t know anything and stay quiet,” said Mikitaro. “We have to lock that drawer!”

Completely consumed by No. 3, Juzaburo could no longer muster awareness for such matters. The pleasurable drug’s odor permeated every part of his body. He lay on a threadbare, somewhat faded red blanket atop a high pillow, melting into a doze. He simply greedily indulged in his ecstatic state as if it were a dream. He paid no mind to anything else. Mikitaro lifted up Ichiro, whom Shun had walked over.

“They say three bandits were caught recently.” “So, more exposed heads, right?”

Shun laughed cheerfully. She was interested in this barbaric method reminiscent of the Tokugawa era. “However, they say one of those bandits was a sergeant from the Shandong soldiers who used to be stationed at the Kishu barracks,” said Mother. “They caught that guy who’d run off with four men’s worth of bullets and rifles and joined the bandits.” “It’s delightful—a sergeant taking guns and becoming a bandit! Isn’t it amusing? Doesn’t it feel just right?”

“Almost every day now, some kind of disturbance breaks out, huh?”

Mother was offering a lamp to the nominal Buddhist altar. The drawer beneath that Buddhist altar was No. 3’s secret hiding place.

“Why don’t we write to Suzu and tell her to stay back home until it’s clear whether the Southern Army is coming here or not?” “She’s pitiful too, you know.” “Yeah.” Mikitaro pondered briefly. “But even if we send a letter now, it won’t arrive in time.” “……If she’s on the Nikkō Maru, today’s about when it’d be docking.” “I wonder.” The old man had been dozing on the red blanket for quite some time. Thick, livid lips let saliva drip sloppily onto the blanket. This was a phenomenon that always manifested when he entered an ecstatic state.

“Sleep well!” “Sleep well!” “Take your time sleeping!” Shun pointed at her father and let out a spirited voice.

At times like these, if someone disturbed his dozing even slightly, Father would erupt with explosive violence. Mikitaro and Mother remained silent, taking care not to make even a loud sound.

The old man’s skin was dusky and tinged with yellow; his white blood cells had lost their resistance due to the drugs, leaving him as listless as a patient with one foot already in the coffin.

“Sleep well! “Sleep well!” “Take your time sleeping!” Before long, the old man would die, Mikitaro thought. He himself was hastening toward ruin. He remembered how the old man had been driven from his hometown. Men like him who came to the colonies only to sink deeper into depravity—there wouldn’t be just four or five of those. No—there might be countless. This was a place where only those who could no longer endure their homelands came. Those driven to ruin with no way out, those with criminal records, those wanting to make money and return to their villages in triumph—the bastards who’d been insulted and vowed, “I’ll show them!” Or those burning with indignation; or those who’d crossed over to Korea and Manchuria only to fail there too, forced to drift to lands even more remote from Japan proper—this was where they all came.

Juzaburo left behind nine-year-old Mikitaro, five-year-old Suzu, and three-year-old Shun when he crossed over to Manchuria.

Behind the village, across a river, the towering Shikoku Mountain Range cut into the sky. To the front lay undulating hills like waves, and beyond them stretched a rough sea facing the Pacific. Mikitaro spent his boyhood in that village, ostracized by the other children. The sun crossed a narrow, bluish-blue, crystal-clear sky carved by the mountains each day. In spring, the bell of a temple that was one of the eighty-eight sacred sites along the Shikoku pilgrimage route at the mountain’s edge resonated over the village with a rusty yet lively sound. Pilgrims passed continuously along the narrow mountain path, ringing their bells. There, even when receiving beans from pilgrims into his small hands, Mikitaro remained all alone, ostracized by everyone. The reason stemmed from the old man scheming to frame the village council members—who were the fathers of the other children—as criminals on charges of embezzlement despite lacking concrete evidence. This was where it all came from.

But was there truly no evidence? Did the old man really scheme to frame the other village council members? The new elementary school had been completed. That was the year. Juzaburo was elected as a village council member. He was a landowning farmer who also worked tenant fields. Such a man was seen as unworthy not just of being a village council member—he didn't even qualify as a sanitation unit corporal.

Such was the time. The old man had a mouth that could speak without fear before anyone. He had eyes that could pierce through the heart of matters. Whenever he showed his face at the village council meetings, not a single one of the other council members welcomed it.

About a month ago, the old man built a gate. He felled mountain trees for timber. Then he served sake to the neighbors who had helped haul the materials, along with his brother-in-law and nephew. That proved ill-advised. Matsubaya, having witnessed this, denounced it as bribery. Offering celebratory sake to those assisting with timber work was customary practice. Yet after all the uproar, he found himself fined. The transgression lay in later procuring an extra two shō of sake and offering a cup to some man who happened by.

The village council members started making a fuss but soon resigned of their own accord.

A by-election came. The old man holed up at home and expressed his contrition. Even when threatened with having his house set on fire and burned to ashes, he had not the slightest intention of becoming a council member. He could not contain his outrage. At such times, he would endure by pulling the futon over his head and lying still. At that time too, he would crawl out from the futon—spread out and soaked with oil and grime—to eat his meal, then crawl back in. He spent about three days in idleness. However, though they should have let it be, Matsubaya’s tenant farmers went and voted for the old man again.

The old man was re-elected. Even the old man began to show some vigor. Not long after that.

The new school construction that had been underway for two years was completed. For a rural village of that era, an astonishing thirty thousand yen had been spent. It was Western-style. It had been freshly painted in a bluish tint. The roof was slate. The ridge formed a sharp angle, towering high into the sky. However, the pillars and beams were made of old wood and were thin; in places, old holes had been patched with filler or covered over with separate boards. Corners had been cut in the unseen areas.

The embezzlement scandal involving village council members connected to this new construction began to gradually come to light before the villagers. The old man had previously been charged with bribery—there had certainly been a desire for payback. He firmly rejected attempts by Matsubaya and the village headman to draw him into their schemes as one of their own. To Mikitaro, everything leaped as vividly as if it had occurred mere days ago. The old man had been robust and spirited; 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 memories belonged to ten years past—no, already thirteen years gone.

It was March. At the scattered edges of the field, broad bean flowers—planted here and there in single clumps like discarded clamshells—were beginning to bloom in dense clusters.

An incident occurred that required the old man to be away briefly. His sister was having trouble getting along at her marital home, and he found himself mired in the turmoil. The old man went to his brother-in-law's house—a ship chandler on Coast Street in K City. The situation worsened entirely during his absence. Matsubaya, the fishery owner, and the village headman all avoided prosecution due to insufficient evidence.

Matsubaya had seized control of ninety percent of the village, and the commotion abruptly died down. All evidence had been obliterated. The assault of false accusations now rained down upon the old man from the entire village instead. "The Village Headman declared that the pine tree cut down for the gate’s timber had crossed the boundary of Juzaburo’s owned forest and was actually from his own mountain." The pine had been stripped of its bark, shaved down, and become a supporting beam like the backbone of the newly erected 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 to tear off the roof tiles of the newly built gate, knock down its plastered walls, and dismantle the assembled timber piece by piece—the miscalculation of his forest boundary and his attempt to cover it up had completely destroyed the old man's credibility. He lost patience with the villagers who could be bribed. And the villagers completely gave up on him—both as a tree thief and a false accuser.

One evening at the end of August, the old man left the village, leaving Mikitaro and his sister behind. In the roadside thicket, crickets had begun to chirp. On the drooping branches of the old persimmon tree in front of the house, unripe persimmons had grown remarkably large, still green. When he passed through the darkness beneath, fruits tapped against his head. The old man crossed the pontoon bridge at the village outskirts and boarded a carriage. The candle inside the clouded glass panes on either side of the coachman flickered faintly. “Farewell!” “Farewell!”

Mikitaro could not fall asleep for a long time.

That was when the old man’s downfall began. If that hadn’t happened, we wouldn’t have come to a place like China! He still hadn’t abandoned his hope of someday returning to the homeland. Knocked down by the rotten ones and left to crumble away—they too were among them. Everywhere, it’s the servile bastards who flatter the powerful that manage to get by! He could not fall asleep for a long time.

A dog was barking persistently. The yellow wind roared and howled high in the sky. He was dreaming of his bony father walking briskly through a Japanese-style house like a puppet. The old man took a thick ledger and went out into the hallway. In the hallway stood a door. The old man jerked his legs spasmodically in the dim hallway, as though they were cramping. At that moment, his hard head struck violently against the door panel. A clattering noise sounded. It was entirely an event from the homeland.

Mikitaro abruptly awoke. Indeed, someone was knocking on the door. Mother cleared her throat. Then he sensed her quietly getting up and heading to the doorway. The door was knocked again.

A Chinaman seemed to be standing there. Mother peered through the narrowly opened door with cautious suspicion. Then she pushed it shut with a clack and returned. “A telegram came at this hour.” “Who is it from?” Mikitaro raised his upper body. “Well… Take a look.” He twisted the switch above his head. Mother was in her nightclothes; it shouldn’t have been that cold, yet she was trembling. “What could this be at such an hour?”

“Suzu-san detained by consulate police. Someone must come immediately to petition — Hanakawa” “Oh, Suzu’s been arrested.” Mother collapsed onto the tatami mats with a thud. Ichiro stirred his head on the child’s bed at the noise. “So she did arrive on the Nikkō Maru today.” “They caught her at customs during disembarkation.” Mother turned chameleon-pale.

“They made her bring too much too often, so customs had already memorized her face.” “This is it.”

8 Mikitaro had to set out for Qingdao. He worried about Suzu’s well-being. Here, where the Jiaozhou-Jinan Railway stretched west from Qingdao to meet the Tianjin-Pukou line, forming a three-way junction, they had entrenched themselves at that strategic point. Mikitaro had to endure nine hours on a filthy train to Qingdao, jolted amidst Chinese passengers scattering spit and hand-wiped snot.

He left the house.

There were no trains as carefree and unreliable as Chinese trains. If you weren't prepared to waste three or five hours at the station, you couldn't ride them. He knew Manager Uchikawa had frequently handled both hard and soft contraband on a grand scale while never once being caught. Manager Uchikawa had been procuring quantities twenty-, thirty-, even fifty-fold greater than what his father and sister smuggled in—all with brazen indifference. And he strutted about openly. Yet his pathetic father and sister brought just one or two packages and got caught. They were detained in holding cells!

The consulate only protected the wealthy. Only those bastards without money - those eking out a meager trade - were subjected to strict regulations' sanctions. Even here it held true: where there were more rotten bastards crawling about, more schemes got pulled off.

He emerged onto Tai Maru Road. Bandits being dragged to the execution ground before the station passed by under security squad guard, hurling obscenities from their rickshaws at both the fly-like swarming crowd and unarmed soldiers. There were three of them. Mounted officers and unarmed soldiers restrained the surging street crowd to clear a path. Coolies, beggars, Germans, and Japanese all flowed through the avenue like a human tide. "Cigarettes! Gimme cigarettes!" "Cigarettes! Gimme cigarettes!" De Botin - a bandit with dark, rolling eyes - sat splayed in the central rickshaw despite having his hands wrenched behind him in a neck-straining bind and legs locked in massive shackles, equally roaring abuse at both his rickshaw puller and security escorts.

The swarthy rickshaw puller pulled out a Hatamen cigarette (a brand of rolled paper) that the tobacco shop owner had donated and placed it in his mouth. De Botin chewed it and spat it out. “What’s this cheap trash?! “Idiot!” “Hand over Paotaipai!” “It’s Paotaipai!” “Paotaipai!” The rickshaw puller hesitated for a moment. “Hand over Paotaipai!” “It’s Paotaipai!” “It’s Paotaipai!” “Idiot!” The first prisoner hung his head deathly pale, utterly broken. The third man, bound with his elbow joints twisted backward as if about to snap, remained on the rickshaw gulping wine until it spilled from his mouth, utterly plastered. This must be the sergeant.

The prisoners demanded every item they saw in shops along their path to the execution ground as they pleased. The shop owners couldn't collect payment from those they had given goods to. The officials didn't pay for what the prisoners consumed. Yet even the greediest shopkeeper didn't refuse demands from prisoners who would pass through hell's gate within an hour or two. The bandits showed no interest in gold or silver vessels they couldn't take to the afterlife. They solely demanded alcohol, sweets, fruit, or tobacco. There was even a meek one who received a single pear from a street stall—costing just two or three sen—and stuffed his cheeks with it eagerly.

As the rickshaws advanced, the crowd of spectators grew larger. The wide road, dusty with horse dung and garbage, became packed as they followed behind.

At the station square, another, even more numerous pitch-black throng of people lay waiting, swarming restlessly. There was nothing there—no execution ground structures, no bamboo barricades, nothing at all. Yet as they drew near that place, the bandits' expressions abruptly transformed into rigidity. A low, indistinct cry—half-groan, half-supplication—echoed from the rickshaw. Their leg irons clattered harshly. Only the third prisoner, completely bereft of sanity, let his limp head thud dully against the rickshaw's mudguard.

"What will become of that drunkard," Mikitaro wondered. "If they execute him swiftly while he's still drunk, it might actually be easier for him." The soldiers drove away the crowd. The rickshaw puller lowered the shafts. The third prisoner suddenly raised his head. The earth-colored lips from which alcohol dripped like drool twitched spasmodically and tightened. And his eyes saw the mass of people. His eyes were like those of a dead fish. “Go ahead and do it!” “Ain’t scared! Go ahead and do it!”

He mumbled gibberish as if in a trance. His words were swallowed by the crowd’s roar.

The middle De Botin—who had thrown a tantrum until someone put a Paotaipai cigarette in his mouth—flicked the butt, about a third smoked, from the rickshaw onto the head of a nearby security squad member. The lit cigarette butt slid from the hat and fell onto the nape of his neck.

“Oh! It’s hot! Hot! Hot!”

The young security squad member jumped up in shock. De Botin sneered viciously at the sky with bitter sarcasm.

“Damn it!” The three were dragged down from the rickshaw. The iron chain on the shackles clanked with a rusty clang. The prisoners did not move. The crowd roared with an ominous air. ソウ　リウユチエ　プル Xue Ti Youpindian Chunchu Shichunen Kain Shue Ta Tonchen Chang Pei Hai Pien ……… Suddenly, Mikitaro heard the defiant strains of Su Wu’s song. It was a familiar military song, one even children sang constantly. When he looked, De Botin’s bandit was contorting his lips and humming.

“That De Botin fellow’s got some nerve!”

Beside him, a young Chinese man muttered resentfully. "...He’s still singing, that bastard." “Look, he’s still singing, that bastard.” However, at that moment, Mikitaro was seized by the same emotion he had felt when studying Chinese poetry as a Japanese. In an instant, he was struck by an intensely lonely feeling. The meaning of what had been sung last was something like: “An aged mother waits in vain for her beloved child’s return; a new bride in red keeps lonely vigil in an empty chamber.” De Botin had probably been raised in a farming village—had grown up singing that song since childhood in the southern winds blowing down from Li Mountain. He might not have committed any real evil at all. Even he must have had an innocent childhood free from sin!

Chuan Yen Peifong Tsui 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 Hon Zoan I Kon Uei “Damn it! Are you saying I’m a murderer? Damn it!” “Are you saying I’m a murderer? Damn it!”

Nine

In China, when bandits were captured, it was customary to drag them through city streets and publicly execute them before crowds as a warning. Severed necks—three or four of them—were lined up and hung from roadside utility poles, put on display as warnings.

Those necks were faintly grotesque. One of them had its mouth agape, revealing teeth caked in grime. One of them looked like it was about to laugh. Another wore a scowling face. In summer, blowflies swarmed with a buzzing drone over the rotting meat. 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 robberies. There were those who had committed murders. The number of Japanese nationals who were brutally killed was not limited to two or three.

They extorted money from village headmen, and if it wasn’t handed over, they would attack villages surrounded by earthen walls, abduct women, burn houses, and massacre all the villagers. They did that time and again. No matter how many heads they displayed, it might still have been insufficient as retribution for their evil deeds. Therefore, the crowd that had experienced the ravages of plunder actually rejoiced in the cruel methods of killing.

“Kneel!”

The mounted officer shouted at the three men who had been unloaded from the rickshaw. The three men slumped down limply, their knees hitting the ground. The soldier roughly grabbed the prisoner’s shoulder.

“Face west, idiot! You think there’s a proper way to face that direction for an execution, idiot!”

The chains clanked again. The three were made to sit at intervals of five feet apart. A tall, fat soldier took the Qinglongdao from his shoulder and practiced slashing at the air with a shout. Only the Qinglongdao's blade glinted sharply. It resembled a hatchet.

“Bring baozi!” “Bring baozi!” “I wanna eat baozi!”

De Botin, who had earlier demanded Paotai cigarettes, rattled his leg chains and flapped his bound, immobilized hands, craving steamed buns stuffed with pork in wheat flour wrappers. “Stop your nonsense!” “Hey! Bring it! Bring it! Bring baozi!” He shook his head and kept shouting.

The crowd, ignoring the soldiers with guns who tried to restrain them, found it amusing and leaned further and further forward. Mikitaro pushed through the crowd, jostled amidst the stench of fat and garlic from the Chinese people. The prisoner, whose hands had been twisted behind his back and pulled taut against the nape of his neck, had only the rope around his neck loosened. The one who had been sitting with downcast eyes, his face pallid and withered, raised his head with his unkempt, overgrown hair.

"I didn’t become a bandit for fun or as some damn joke…" It was a voice filled with dark anguish.

The two local men supporting the prisoner’s head and back prodded him to keep him still. Keeping him still was to make the beheading easier. “Hand over the baozi!” “Hand over the baozi!” “That De Botin’s throwing another tantrum.”

Beside Mikitaro, a woman in a purple dress whispered. She had bangs hanging over her forehead. Then, the old man without front teeth behind her, "Do it! Do it more! Make them suffer!" he bellowed loud enough for all around to hear, his voice ringing with unmistakable malice. While being jostled by the crowd, Mikitaro had his shoulder tapped from behind.

It was Yamazaki. And then, standing alongside Yamazaki, another person—a large-faced man with a balding forehead—glanced briefly at him and began to smile. He was indeed Japanese. It was Nakatsu.

“You going somewhere?” Yamazaki asked, having spotted Mikitaro’s handbag—which he clutched desperately to keep from dropping into the trampling crowd—through a gap in the shifting throng. Mikitaro explained his situation.

Nakatsu, listening to the conversation beside them, looked at him and smiled a complex smile—one that seemed to convey goodwill yet also mockery. This was the thuggish ex-bandit who had been terrorizing the Japanese compatriots in this region. He was Zhang Zongchang’s military advisor.

“Hmm. Hmm.” Yamazaki nodded. “I’m heading to Qingdao myself right now with another man.” “What’s your business there?” “Hmm... So your sister got herself nabbed at customs? What a half-baked stunt.” “Hmm.” “They say they’ll turn a blind eye no matter how big the Manager’s schemes get, but when it’s some penny-ante racket like my old man’s, suddenly they grow principles.”

“There’s no need to sulk about it… So you’re going to retrieve your sister, then?”

“That’s correct.”

“Since we’re heading over there anyway, shall we go get her released right away?” said Yamazaki, glancing at Nakatsu. “If we’re the ones retrieving her, it’ll be a breeze.” There was an intentional weight in Yamazaki’s tone. Mikitaro sensed it. This was exactly the moment to use Yamazaki—he’d be a fool not to.

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

And then, Yamazaki looked at Nakatsu again. Nakatsu wore an elusive smile on his bearded face. Mikitaro felt that Yamazaki was returning a past jest but deliberately pretended not to notice.

At that moment, a violent surge of jubilation rippled through the crowd. The two local men who had been supporting the prisoner's head and back were drenched from head to arm in hot, fresh blood. The headless corpse pitched forward heavily. The gushing blood grew increasingly sporadic as the heart's pulsations weakened. "Agh! Agh!" When the neck fell, the crowd roared. "Agh! Agh!"

There were those who clapped and rejoiced. This was an emotion incomprehensible to the Japanese. Three or four minutes later, the three men—the utterly dejected one, the drunkard, and De Botin, who had demanded steamed buns until his neck was severed yet never received them—lay as empty husks in identical postures. From within the surrounding crowd, a black-clad woman with bound feet darted out. Two or three others also dashed out. There were men among them too. Then, grinning, they held skinned buns skewered on the tips of long chopsticks. It was around the time the officers and soldiers were about to leave. When they approached the corpses, they hurriedly pressed those skinned buns against the severed and shriveled wounds. The buns had no filling inside. They absorbed the gushing blood before their eyes, turning as red as boiled lobsters.

“They’re doing it, they’re doing it,” Yamazaki laughed. “No matter how much time passes, Chinamen remain superstitious through and through.” Nakatsu made a face that said it was only natural. “Even Lord Zhang partakes in that stuff now and then.” “Does the Tenth Madame and her lot eat it too?” “Of course they eat it. Because they say that stuff’s a cure-all for health and longevity.”

“Lord Zhang is barbaric… I’m sure people from the mainland would be shocked if they saw this.” The crowd was still laughing and chattering. They did not even seem to feel that three people had been killed. They did not even seem to feel that a dog or a cat had been killed. Mikitaro felt that. It was no more moving than seeing a caterpillar or locust having its head torn off.

Only the rickshaw pullers who had transported the prisoners remained ominously dejected. The three rickshaws were pulled through the crowd quietly, without 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 boatmen from mainland Japan detest loading drowned corpses onto their boats. That was why they were utterly despondent.

“I can’t let you see this! I can’t let you see this!” “Hey! I can’t let you see this!”

Suddenly, as three rickshaws passed by, three more rickshaws came charging toward the execution ground at full speed. From the front rickshaw, a woman in her thirties with bound feet tumbled out and recklessly plunged into the wall of the crowd. After that, a flustered farmer chased after the woman and struggled to pull her back. “I can’t let you see this! I can’t let you see this!” The farmer shouted desperately.

The woman screamed hysterically, wailed at the top of her voice, pushed through the crowd, and tried to approach the corpses.

The farmer was an old man over fifty. He took large strides, dodging her flailing legs as he spread both arms and caught the young woman. With that, the woman threw herself into his arms. She wailed, her bound feet thrashing about. “Injustice! Injustice!” She collapsed in tears into the farmer’s arms. “The bad one is the master! The bad one is the master! The master’s the one who did this to my man!” “Stop this, stop this! No matter how much you lament, the dead won’t come back to life.”

The old man calmed the woman. “It can’t be helped! Resign yourself! Resign yourself!” The crowd grew tense again and began to gather around the woman. She was grieving for that man who had sung military songs, craved baozi, and begged for Fortune cigarettes. When Yamazaki saw the woman, he whispered something of apparent significance into Nakatsu’s ear. Mikitaro, for some reason, felt something connected to his intuition. Nakatsu pushed through the crowd and hurried toward the soldiers.

“Wasn’t that Debochin the boy who used to work for the Manager?” Mikitaro asked casually. Yamazaki turned away as if he hadn’t heard.

“He’s innocent! “He’s innocent! “The bad one is the master! “The master!”

The woman was still sobbing.

“Her husband ain’t no bandit!” the farmer explained to the people pressing in around them.

“The Japanese master ordered her husband and made him go do business with the bandits.” “Then the authorities caught him and he got lumped in with those bandits.” “They had their boy do their dirty work, but once he got caught, those Japanese started insisting they’d fired him already—like they knew nothing about it!” “It’s the master who’s wrong! …The master’s the one at fault!” “The Japanese are all at fault!”

Whether they were hardliners or moderates, those who handled things piecemeal, timidly, bit by bit - once discovered, they were made to pay restitution with their own blood tax. However, those who operated on a grand scale, meddling in everything, had taken all there was to take. The blood tax was extracted from the servant boys. Countless Chinese servant boys, acting on their foreign masters' orders while transporting illicit goods, were arrested and subjected to tortures like water-soaked leather whips and sham trials before being sentenced to death.

Mikitaro's family belonged to the group that paid their own blood tax. He couldn't remain calm. Even if irrefutable evidence surfaced proving an inseparable connection between the arrested Chinese servant and his foreign master who had employed him, the foreigner would only face trial at his own country's consulate. Even if the boy were convicted, the master would get off with nothing more than a fine, detention, or a reprimand through the camaraderie of his fellow countrymen. This was why the Chinese people were screaming for the abolition of extraterritoriality and consular jurisdiction.

The crowd surrounding the woman and the farmer was driven off by soldiers alerted by Nakatsu. The woman followed her husband’s corpse as it was carried toward the cemetery. She pleaded to have his body placed in the coffin loaded on the third rickshaw, but local authorities refused. “All right, let’s depart! Let’s depart! We’re running late now.” The engineer—who had been mingling with the spectators—dashed toward his waiting train as though exhaling relief. The scheduled departure time had lapsed by over an hour.

10

The questioning eyes of the consulate and Chinese authorities were trained on Juzaburo. The Seventh District Police Station patrol officers, carrying rifles and swords, stood like sentries at the crossroads of the acacia-lined avenue, keeping watch over those entering and exiting his back gate. They were keeping watch for people sneaking in under cover of night’s darkness to secretly buy anesthetics.

Suddenly, Shun noticed them. She had come out from the neighboring Ma Kuanzhi’s house onto the stone pavement, leading the toddling Ichiro by the hand. “Why are they standing over there?” Shun craned her neck toward the patrol officers and asked Ma Kuanzhi’s wife. She had just noticed. “Oh, Ms. Inokawa, you hadn’t heard yet?” answered the young wife with bound feet. They were next-door neighbors and had been on very good terms. The wife hesitated briefly, stumbling over her words. “Those guys have been standing there every night for five nights now. You should be careful with your household.”

“What on earth are they planning to do?” “They’re keeping watch on the buyers.” “They’re keeping watch on people coming to buy pills,” the wife replied with a frail sigh. “They’re standing there to stop anyone from coming to buy pills.” Shun flushed crimson down to her neck, ashamed of her family’s business before Ma Kuanzhi’s wife. She scooped up Ichiro and dashed into the house. Juzaburo lay sprawled on the red blanket, the polished opium pipe clamped between his teeth as he stared at the alcohol lamp, trying to slip into euphoria.

The visiting antique dealer from Kairoku and Mother were keeping each other company. The antique dealer laughed about how the Shandong soldiers dispatched to the front that morning had been carrying umbrellas and buckets made from oil cans hollowed out on one side with thick wire threaded through them. "Those bastards can't even guard their own masters properly." Shun's report brought terror to her mother. It brought something entirely different to the antique dealer. "Even if you interrogate folks coming through the back, thieves just pretend not to see a thing."

“But surely even thieves would show some restraint.” Mother masked her terror.

“Don’t talk nonsense. Whether those bastards are there or not makes no difference—thieves know full well how things work. From experience.”

The patrol police were convinced that people came and went under cover of the indistinguishable darkness of night. They did not stand guard during the day. However, the business was concluded during the daytime.

From evening until late into the night, they stood watch relentlessly, but not a single prey was caught. However, the fact that no prey was caught did nothing to dispel the patrol police’s suspicions. During the day, Juzaburo worked with a balance scale, mortar, and pestle. During the day, he could remain at ease. In No. 3, he mixed various substances and formed pills. The hand holding the spoon trembled even more violently than that of someone suffering severe nicotine poisoning—a result of heroin addiction. At the same time as his hand, his legs resting on the chair trembled violently. From the double doors of the neighboring house resounded the voice of Ma Kuanzhi's wife singing a song as shrill as a teeth-chattering violin.

The pestle gripped by his trembling hand grated against the mortar's inner surface like gnashing teeth. "Heroin at three thousand yen a stick... Heroin at three thousand yen a stick..." The pestle scraped around inside the round mortar as if muttering these words. That's how it seemed to Juzaburo. Heroin at three thousand yen a stick... Heroin at three thousand yen a stick... This was his mind's distorted state. Footsteps echoed in Chinese-style boots. Shun screamed like someone flipped head over heels. When Juzaburo turned around, a broad-shouldered Chinese man in plainclothes stood there. There was no time to hide—no time for anything at all.

“What’s that?” Under the Chinese man’s long jacket, a sword clanged. He was a patrol officer whose face looked somehow familiar.

“What’s that?” Juzaburo gazed at this Chinese man with eyes that pleaded pitifully, frozen in fear. “What’s that? Hey, hand that over here! We’re taking all of it... You’ve still got more hidden away... Haven’t you? Hand it over! Hand it all over!” Juzaburo trembled doubly from heroin withdrawal and terror. The chair looked ready to collapse to the floor. Just then, another small-statured Chinese man in a long jacket came bobbing lightly into the room. By their demeanor, it was clear without being said that they were partners. The Chinese man’s large hand unceremoniously reached to seize the mortar.

“Wait!” “Wait a moment!” From behind, Osen—who had been watching with nervous energy while repeating indistinct phrases in Chinese—went into the adjacent room. She grabbed a one-yen silver coin from the desk drawer. “Please wait a moment.”

And trembling, she slipped the silver coin under the sleeves of the two men in long jackets. Shun watched as Father and Mother turned pale. The patrol officers reached into their long jackets and felt around for what Mother had slipped in. “Is this all?!” “Hand over another two yen!” “Another two yen!” It was a threatening voice. Mother looked at Father’s pitiful state. The eyes that had once sought to expose village assembly members’ bribery had now become utterly powerless and clouded. When their two demands had been met, the patrol officers returned the seized mortar to its original place. And they left with a “sheh-sheh.”

Juzaburo let out a sigh of relief. From that day on, he began to be harassed time and again by patrol officers who had developed a taste for extortion. The money scraped together from heroin addicts making small purchases was immediately carried off by the patrol officers. His complexion grew increasingly pallid from the drug. The trembling in his limbs became more violent and unrelenting. He had now fully transformed into an addict. Without heroin for even a single day, he could not endure existence.

一一

Unsettling rumors about the war gradually 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, nearly all the troops had been sent to the front lines. The remaining barracks were guarded by a small number of soldiers. From the bluish-black barracks, futons, floor mats, and bullets were carried out. And in town, they were exchanged for money. The soot-blackened oil lamps and tables were also taken out to town.

It was the doing of the soldiers left to guard the barracks. They carried out the well buckets used to draw up water by winding, the stakes from fences, bowls, and tea jars. In the end, all that remained was the barracks' house itself—the one thing they couldn’t carry away. Then they removed the windowpanes and floorboards attached to that house and began lumbering through the streets with their haul. Such scenes could be glimpsed here and there. Their supposed strength in battle had become clear from this. When Suzu returned, Juzaburo's house became refreshed like freshly arranged flowers.

“In Qingdao, there’s one cruiser and four destroyers anchored.” “Naval landing parties with rifles came ashore.” “When they fire the cannons—boom!—those gloomy Chinamen start yelling ‘It’s a demonstration!’” Suzu told these stories. Ichiro called her “Mama, Mama”—the word he could barely bring himself to use for a parent—as if she were his mother. Mikitaro thought: If only Toshiko were here now! He found himself longing for her without meaning to. Toshiko had openly mocked his addict father and the stepmother who blindly worshipped him. If they weren’t in China—if they went back to Japan—Father and Mother couldn’t survive. They’re wrecks. That’s what Toshiko would say.—Now even her constant disparagement of his parents felt nostalgic to recall.

Suzu did not voice it aloud, but she understood these feelings of his. She harbored a desire—not to have her sister-in-law return once more—but rather to make her brother great and retort to Toshiko with “See this now!” Her earnest assistance with her father’s unsavory work also stemmed from that very sentiment. That sentiment, too, became clear to Mikitaro. He thought it necessary to convince his sister that he himself held no desire whatsoever to become what one might call “great.” He thought it necessary to demonstrate that he had no intention of selling heroin to make exorbitant money.

But, as often happens in times of misfortune, the two siblings' feelings harmonized perfectly into one. Suzu was twenty. And her younger sister Shun was seventeen. Shun remained at that age where grime took on beauty—where trivial matters seemed endlessly amusing and absurd. Both appeared to have not a single germ hindering the flow of healthy blood through their bodies—not one wound. In their kimono draping, their hair arrangements, their speech flecked with dialect fragments—the essence of mainland Japan still clung thickly. This became starkly apparent when compared to other girls—those China-born and raised in Japanese schools there.

When Suzu returned, Nakatsu—who had worked strenuously in Qingdao to take her as his wife—soon began visiting frequently. Nakatsu was a man—a gambler, a drunkard—who, even as an ally, would thoughtlessly devour your pockets and prove troublesome, yet if turned against you, became even more fearsome; you never knew what he might do. He had been left lame from the Russo-Japanese War. When he walked, his entire body lurched. He had an unremarkable, drab appearance. Even when Nakatsu wore a new donsu Chinese outfit, it looked covered in dust and grime.

Why such a man commanded such an intimidating presence was something Mikitaro couldn't quite grasp. He had retrieved Japanese hostages from bandits—those taken for ransom—not merely once or twice. When it came to cruel methods against enemies, he had countless tales to his name. Whenever Nakatsu left, Mikitaro's two younger sisters would burst into rhythmic giggles and bounce about the house like spring-loaded toys. When Nakatsu called from outside, had the servant boy Wang Jinhua undo the gate bolt, and came hobbling across the courtyard stepping stones, they'd watch from the window and again erupt in peals of laughter, bouncing up and down. Nakatsu kept smiling even when hearing their mirth.

“Hey, Mister, how come you can cut people down and shoot ’em all you want with a leg like that?” Finally, one day, Shun—careful not to offend, watching his expression all the while—brought it up in a playful tone. “It’s not this leg that does the cutting—whether pistol or sword, it’s these hands.” “It’s these hands that do the work.” From the loose sleeves of his Chinese clothing peeked a hairy arm ending in thick, stubby fingers.

"But if you hobble around like that, Mister, wouldn't people just run away when you try to cut them down or shoot them?" Shun’s voice contained a gentle laugh. But her eyes were fixed on his face with tension, like a cat confronting a dog. "Nah, even this—when push comes to shove—is faster than the likes of you." “Right.—Mister. Where did you get hurt?”

“Wherever—that was a long, long time ago.” “You lot were still swimming around in your old man’s balls back then.” At times joining mountain bandit gangs, at others participating in the Fengtian-Zhili War, and at still others prowling the outskirts of Harbin to ransack Russian homes and kill countless people—this mysterious rogue was, to the two sisters, nothing more than a peculiar and slightly comical uncle.

He fought on battlefronts alongside Zhang Zongchang, traveled to Beijing, guarded the very neck from which a bounty of tens of thousands of yuan hung, and played tedious card games with the two daughters. He taught them mahjong. He repeated the Chinese words for one, two, three dozens upon dozens of times like a fool. He longed for the scent of the Japanese mainland that overflowed within this family and seemed to selfishly indulge in it.

With his sister having fallen asleep, only his father, mother, and he remained. Mikitaro began to speak. “Mr. Nakatsu—there’s something off about him, no matter how I look at it.—He has his eye on Suzu.……And on Shun a bit too.” “Idiot.” Juzaburo laughed like a gust of wind. “Nakatsu’s the same age as me—he’s already fifty-three, you know. What would a man like that do with mere seventeen- or eighteen-year-old girls?”

“No—no.—From the moment he came in until he left, he didn’t look at anything else.” “He was staring holes into Suzu and Shun’s faces.—I know damn well.” “I’ve noticed that too.” Mother timidly interjected. “That’s right. “That’s right. He definitely has his eye on them.” “Idiot—what man past fifty-three would look at girls who might as well be his own daughters like that?”

“But isn’t there a saying that men prefer young girls more as they age?” “Moreover, he’s still unmarried.” “Idiot! Idiot!” “What suspicious minds you people have—Nakatsu’s my good comrade.” “I know that bastard’s true nature inside out.” “He’s not the sort of man who’d betray his duty with such disgraceful acts.” Juzaburo had known Nakatsu for four or five years.

But Mikitaro’s doubts had not been mistaken.

When Chimba came over, Suzu—who had been amusing herself by bouncing around the house—turned crimson to the tips of her ears at the sound of Nakatsu’s broad, insistent voice calling for Wang outside the gate and fled to hide somewhere. Nakatsu’s gaze was sharp and blazing. Not only did twenty-year-old Suzu find that gaze unbearable, but Shun and even Mother had their hearts jolted.

Nakatsu had shaved his bearded face clean, neatly combed his slightly curly, dust-matted hair into place, and reeked pungently of oil. He stayed at home all day. The sight of this formidable figure—a former bandit who had coolly committed every crime from murder and robbery to rape—being thoroughly discomfited by the girlish Suzu was truly perplexing. He did not look like a fifty-three-year-old man. He had moments where he seemed utterly tormented by the girl’s charms, like a naive twenty-year-old youth.

One morning, Ma Guanzhi’s dog Bai Bai barked as if on fire.

Mikitaro woke up at that. Suzu appeared to be rousing herself. The dog kept barking with fiery intensity. After some time, Suzu stood to open the window. Then, with tense footsteps, she returned to her brother's bedside. "They're here again—so many from the consulate."

Her voice held seriousness. And she wanted to hide herself somewhere.

Mikitaro sat up abruptly.

The surroundings were heavily surrounded by consulate police officers and others.

The inside of the house was ransacked as if a garbage can had been overturned.

This time, along with a box of "Kuai Shang Kuai" that Juzaburo had been about to seal—alongside a mortar, scales, and other items—they were all dragged away. Before long, Nakatsu departed for Suzhou where Zhang Zongchang was stationed. The strain of the front lines gave him no time to confide what troubled him internally. He departed by night train.

12

After sunset, for about an hour longer, objects still appeared white and bright in the unseasonably warm evening.

The daytime clamor and yellow ash-like dust finally subsided. The countless wandering groups of beggars disappeared into the darkness. In the gaps between the brothel houses, a woman with glinting earrings began to smile strangely.

Yamazaki emerged from between those houses. He was wearing a mouse-gray S University student uniform, different from his usual black Chinese clothing. The unseasonably warm town glistened with humidity. As night deepened, the anxiety and hostility grew worse. The only ones unafraid of this were the beggars wrapped in gunny sacks.

Yamazaki’s eyes twitched restlessly, as though waiting in vain for something. Chen Changcai, who had been prowling through the streets, still had not returned. The Northern Expedition Army—which they had dismissed as being capable of advancing at best to Xuzhou or Lincheng—had already taken Yanzhou and was pressing toward Tai'an.

Zhang Zongchang, on the defensive, continued his retreat from Suzhou to Xuzhou, Lincheng, and Yanzhou. The wounded soldiers from the fierce battle at Suzhou were abandoned as they lay on the battlefield. Not only that, but the other wounded soldiers who had followed from the front lines as encumbrances were also sacrificed in the hasty retreat there, buried alive one after another.

In Lincheng, he shot and killed his subordinate officers who were retreating like an avalanche with his pistol. The Shandong soldiers were pressed by the Northern Expedition Army in the south. The northern retreat route was blocked by Zhang Dubian. And so they were brought to a standstill. Some of them, forced to divert from their path midway, crossed the towering Mount Tai, passed through Mingshui and Guodian, and fled into the cities they had long called home. Another group surrendered to Chiang Kai-shek.

The reason the Northern Expedition Army's momentum rose unexpectedly was that they had money. Yamazaki had recently confirmed Fukuryu Match Company's report about the General Chamber of Commerce funding Chiang Kai-shek was false. The funds had come from an American industrialist. Through this contribution and its amount, it had been precisely calculated that Chiang Kai-shek could advance all the way to Beijing. America - plotting cultural invasion - established churches, schools and hospitals everywhere. They conducted deceptive charity campaigns. They brought gifts. They renounced the Boxer Indemnity. And they subdued the Chinese.

I fear the Greeks—no matter how many gifts they bring, I fear the Greeks. For the Chinese, who are not Romans, those Greeks are none other than the Americans! Yamazaki considered.

The Chinese were being taken in by these gifts. Of course, Yamazaki knew full well what all of this meant for Japan.

“Jinan is indeed a strategic point in the world. On land, it lies midway between north and south; at sea, it controls the southern half of the Bohai Sea—with but a single call to arms, one could seize control of Tianjin and Beijing’s strategic positions. If we consider the upper Luo River basin as Beijing’s back, Jinan presents itself as its front—its very abdomen. Moreover, along the railway to Qingdao lie deposits of approximately 1.8 billion tons of coal in Fangzi, Boshan, Zichuan, Zhangqiu, and other regions. Further west, over two hundred miles distant, lies the great Shanxi coalfield—sixty-eight billion tons of coal equaling eighty percent of Asia’s total reserves, alongside iron deposits of near-inexhaustible quantity, all lying fallow. If Japan is henceforth to achieve independence in iron and coal supply, we must neither disregard Shandong coal’s value nor overlook the Shanxi coalfield’s global significance.” ("Japan and Shandong's Special Relationship," page 19)

Yamazaki, of course, knew all of this. "The special interests in Manchuria-Mongolia are what Japan has developed through costly sacrifices and massive investments. These must be resolutely defended. In certain circumstances, even if we were to abandon Shandong, the special interests in Manchuria-Mongolia must be maintained to the last. Manchuria-Mongolia comes first; Shandong comes after. For Manchuria-Mongolia, we must fight even at the cost of our national strength, but regarding Shandong, we have no choice but to endure concessions to a certain degree. There are those who make such arguments. Of course, the realm of Manchuria-Mongolia is vast, its interests extensive, and the overall stakes of its entirety are of utmost gravity. However, the Chinese national revolution that arose in Guangdong and the covert activities of Communists have now fully infiltrated 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 existing, Manchuria-Mongolia too can be secure. All the more so when considering Shandong's geographical superiority, its military value, and its role in containing the boundless treasure house of the Yellow River basin within our rear zone—we cannot permanently allow this region to slip from our sphere of influence, both for national defense and the livelihood of our people. American capitalists had already taken notice that the Yellow River’s floodplains were suitable for cotton cultivation and were proceeding with their investigations. If Japan were to secure cotton production in this region, there may come a time when it would no longer need to rely on importing cotton from the United States. If Japan were to lose its dominant position as the leading power in Shandong, it would be unable to achieve independence in iron and coal in the future. Not only that, but Japan will retreat from North China and, under a policy of retreat and self-abasement, find itself unable to prevent the gradual decline of its national destiny. Vast as the Chinese continent may be, the regions under the absolute dominion of our economic influence are limited solely to Shandong once Manchuria-Mongolia are excluded. Japan has expended vast capital and noble sacrifices (the Japan-Germany War) over the past ten-plus years to develop Shandong’s resources, with current investments by Japanese nationals reaching approximately 150 million yen. We must declare it only natural that we protect, develop, and secure the economic foundation our compatriots have painstakingly established through their toil." (Ibid., pages 31–32)

Yamazaki, of course, was fully aware of all this. As for what America’s maneuvers there signified—any Japanese person should have felt it send a jolt through their nerves without needing to be told.

He ambitiously sought to outdo his colleagues. These matters had already been published in books. It was common knowledge to everyone. However, when it came to more concrete facts about this land, no one had any knowledge. And that was what mattered.

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

13

The night grew dark. The flow of people thinned out. However, in one corner beneath the night sky where stars glittered brightly, a clamorous disturbance unfolded. The noise drifted through the air, coming from nowhere in particular.

Yamazaki paced restlessly along the street where acacia leaves stretched out and white wisteria-like flowers exuded their seductive fragrance. He was in a foul mood. His ill temper stemmed from Chen's failure to return—Chen who was supposed to accompany him. Under the acacia trees, children craned their necks upward until their shoulders stiffened, using long bamboo poles tipped with hooks to pluck white wisteria-like flowers silhouetted against dim streetlights. These children had scavenged the fully drooping blossoms from daylight through dusk. They tore off the flowers and ate them.

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

“You shouldn’t even be breaking the branches!” The hungry children ate flowers to fill their stomachs.

“H-hey, Mr. Yamazaki!” At the startled cry, Yamazaki—who had been preoccupied with other thoughts—flinched. When the rickshaw stopped, Koyama of Fukuryu Match Company stepped down. The same Koyama who terrified workers and swaggered with authority inside the factory now stood on the street with slackened jaw, reeking of phosphorus—his gaunt frame and listless bearing making him appear unnervingly frail.

“The Shandong Army has suffered a terrible defeat-shu.” Koyama couldn’t articulate sibilants clearly. The canine tooth that had supported his denture through bone necrosis had come loose, and the incisors of his lower jaw had fallen out. “Even those brave Cossack cavalrymen have come fleeing-shu.” It was Koyama’s fervent manner of treating this as no mere bystander’s affair. “At this rate-shu, Communism’s gonna come right here-shu!” he declared with grave urgency. “If you don’t get them to send troops from the homeland quick-shu, it won’t just be our property-shu and factories—they’ll rip off our heads and cocks-shu!”

“Have the Russian soldiers retreated now?”

“Yes, yes—(he struggled to articulate)—they came on foot from Guodian.” “They drove those horses too damn hard-shu—half dropped dead along the way-shu.” “They’ve arrived now-shu. This way—I’ll bet someone’s giving Chiang Kai-shek a big push from behind.” “That’s exactly how I see it.”

“We’ve got to investigate tonight and send a telegram, or those bastards will beat us to it!” “What the hell is Chen up to?” He grew impatient. “No matter what, it has to be tonight.” “If we wait until tomorrow night, it’ll be too late.” “They’ll have someone else do it first.” As the situation grew increasingly tense, five or six of his colleagues had begun infiltrating here from various directions. On Erma Road, the disordered, lifeless sound of hooves—like a limping gait—echoed. Many were limping.

“There, they’ve come-shu.” “They’ve come-shu.”

“There, they’ve come-shu,” said Koyama. He then started walking toward the source of the sound. Before long, after several minutes had passed, short-statured White Russian soldiers with shabby coats appeared listlessly in the dim glow of streetlights—mounted on Chinese horses, their long boots dragging limply along the ground as if about to scrape against it. “These guys are far tougher fighters than the Chinese soldiers, I tell ya.” Koyama spoke with regretful emphasis. The men who had ridden their horses to death dragged their legs while limping. Their ragged procession continued intermittently all the way to the distant station street. It was said some had slipped away somewhere along the way.

The unpaid wages, the lack of food, and Zhang Zongchang’s forced battles had sapped their will to fight instead. They were the ones who had fled back over Mount Tai. They were part of that group. They were like leeches force-fed salt. Trudging on and on, they had completely lost the ability to think, to observe, even to grip their sabers—now they walked purely by inertia. If they stopped now, they would likely collapse right there on the spot. “These guys are far tougher fighters than the Chinese soldiers, I tell ya.” Koyama repeated. “If those guys are fleeing here, then the fall of this place is just a matter of time.”

At that moment, a Browning pistol fired once on the acacia-lined street across the way, and someone burst out cutting through the disorganized column of White Russian soldiers to come running toward this side. Then another gunshot sounded. Yamazaki and Koyama instinctively stopped in their tracks, startled. The fleeing man came charging toward the two men. Therefore, the gun muzzle was also aimed in the direction where the two men stood. That was what they felt in that instant.

The utterly exhausted White Russian soldiers remained indifferent even to the gunshots. They didn't even turn around. The charging man arrived right in front of the two. Yamazaki realized it was Chen Changcai when the man came into view before his eyes. "What are you dawdling for? You bastard!" He shouted in exasperation. "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 bastard!” “You’re completely useless!” “Damn it!”

“D’you know ’im?” Koyama asked. “Him? He’s a guy who’s hard to handle. We’re using him, but he’s a ridiculous bastard—dawdling around somewhere for two whole hours…” Chen Changcai was currently an indispensable figure for Yamazaki. He was said to have been a dockworker in Shanghai in the past—a man Nakatsu had brought back from Zhoucun on his return from Qingdao and handed over. Nakatsu called Chen over, reasoning that goodwill begets goodwill. He would reward him accordingly. “But if you dare betray me and my brothers,” he warned, “I won’t let you live.” Then added with deliberate slowness: “And it won’t just be you—I won’t let your mother live either.”

“This guy was spying for the Southern Army just yesterday, and today he’s already switching sides,” Nakatsu warned Yamazaki. “You’ve got to only give him money in dribs and drabs. If you hand over an advance, he’ll slip right through your fingers, I tell you. You need to keep this guy under tight rein at all times.”

And then again, "You can’t take a single word this guy says at face value.—Goes without saying, but Chinamen’ll forge any damn thing if there’s money in it."

“Hmm, I know, I know,” Yamazaki replied.

Chen had somehow gotten his hands on crucial evidence—invoices for weapons shipped from Germany, photos of their loading, receipts for ammunition deliveries, and such. When ordered, he had even forged passports meant to be issued by the Foreign Ministry for overseas travel—stamping them with seals so precise not a single error could be found. Therefore, even those who couldn’t obtain passports in Japan could—by disguising themselves as Chinese and adopting Chinese names—have Chen create ones even for Russia. They bore the consulate’s endorsement in flawless penmanship. Amusing.

“You’re at it again!”

When walking with Yamazaki, occasionally a stranger would grin at Chen as he passed by. In a single day, they would encounter two or three of those unidentifiable fellows. This man seemed to stick his nose into every possible place. “Who was that just now?”

“That guy? Oh, he’s a sailor I worked with when I was on a junk ship,” “That guy’s raked in quite a heap of money by now, I tell ya.” “You’re constantly running into acquaintances—just how many do you have here alone?” “There’s only a few I tell ya—if we’re talkin’ folks whose faces I know, maybe three hundred.”

“You bastard! Three hundred people is only a few?!” There was no one as keen as this guy at detecting what people carried in their pockets. He was nimbler than a pickpocket. For this reason, Yamazaki himself had to stay alert. Carrying large sums of money in China meant more opportunities to be suddenly gunned down. Chen had gone into the city to investigate the Southern Army spies and plainclothes troops who’d been steadily infiltrating alongside Chiang Kai-shek’s northward advance. Had he tried filching cash from someone who noticed, or had he shadowed the plainclothes troops too doggedly—raising suspicions until they opened fire? Either way, he’d come fleeing back in a panic.

14

Approximately two hours later, the two of them were having a rickshaw take them to S University in the eastern part of the city. This university had become the headquarters of the plainclothes troops that had been highly active during clashes between the Japanese military and the Southern Army. Japanese soldiers were relentlessly tormented by those plainclothes troops. They were no different from partisans. They would dart out at the slightest opening, only to immediately retreat to safety.

Three thousand officers and soldiers mobilized in full force to chase down those plainclothes troops. Yet they couldn't catch a single genuine operative. The operatives wore clothing identical to ordinary law-abiding citizens. To the soldiers' eyes, every Chinese face looked exactly alike. Their safe haven turned out to be an American school. Yamazaki had heard what seemed credible from Chen. He resolved to infiltrate that nest of plainclothes operatives himself. Chen Changcai's reports proved seventy percent unreliable. Still, Yamazaki intuited this particular information held truth. He meant to verify it conclusively and dispatch a telegram that very night. Success would let him outmaneuver his peers. Moreover, his speech patterns, attire, and mannerisms showed not the slightest deviation from authentic Chinese traits. He believed no disguise could expose him wherever he went. This conviction demanded definitive testing to cement his confidence.

Moreover, this kind of perilous stunt had become rather a pleasure to him—this would undoubtedly become one of his life’s tales to boast about, he thought. Into enemy territory—moreover, into the very stronghold of those cunning plainclothes troops—he would infiltrate. This would unquestionably stand as one of his life’s proudest achievements! His life still lay ahead. He still had real work before him. People pinned their hopes on the future even into their thirties and forties. But Yamazaki was now engaged in truly substantive work—not for some distant future, but for this very moment. The present! he felt.

Chen Changcai explained the circumstances under which he had been shot. Then, “Ain’t it smarter to quit these reckless stunts?” he urged. “This time, they’re really fired up.” “No—I’m going,” Yamazaki declared firmly. “Call a rickshaw. The more fired up those bastards are, the more we’ve got to go verify it ourselves—don’t we?” “Once you’ve been shot, even if you regret comin’, ain’t no catchin’ up to that regret no more.”

“I know!”

“Since this here’s a life-risking job, I tell ya, I want a hefty pile of cash.” “If it’s some chickenfeed, I ain’t touchin’ it from the get-go.” “I said I’d pay any amount, didn’t I?” “Long as it goes smooth.”

Yamazaki had been changing into a student uniform since earlier. Chen also put on a student uniform. On the strange road—strewn with gravel, uneven, with landslide scars here and there—the rickshaw could move no faster than walking pace. The two got off the rickshaw. In the usual desolate darkness of the university’s suburban outskirts, there was a sense of movement—something human stirring where there should be none. “Are you sure about this?” Chen whispered. Yamazaki himself didn’t feel the slightest fear. Yet his legs turned terribly weak and limp. What was wrong with just his legs? If he walked even five or six paces, would they give out? He feared they might.

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?!”

Suddenly, as they passed each other on the narrow path from opposite directions, a shadowy figure called out. But midway through—apparently realizing their mistake—they cut off their words and glanced back suspiciously. "You idiot! (Bastard!)" Chen Changcai barked without turning around. Even in the thickets of bushes as tall as a man near the road, they sensed people stirring. The night air had grown colder. They passed alongside the first school building. Beyond lay the hook-shaped Third and Fourth Buildings wrapped in acacia groves, where a bonfire glowed. The tips of acacia leaves—their young buds sprouting—burned crimson in the firelight.

“Aren’t you scared?” Chen Changcai whispered mockingly, confident that he held the upper hand should things come to a head. “You idiot! Don’t talk nonsense!” Yamazaki scolded him sternly. At the same time, from between the acacia trunks came a voice in Chinese: “Who’s there? Coming this way?” The silhouette gripping a pistol showed clearly through the distant bonfire’s glow. They’re being damn cautious. If they start something, we’ll go all out—damn it! With that thought, Yamazaki reached for the Browning at his waist.

“Is Mr. Taft here?”

Chen asked, still walking. To verify their faces, the black shadow approached from between the acacia trunks. “Who are you?” the shadow said.

“We’re Normal Department students.” “Name?” “We have an appointment to meet with the professor tonight.” Yamazaki barked in Chinese from the side. “Why the hell are you complaining about students entering their own school?!” Passing through the gatehouse-like entrance and entering the school grounds surrounded by a fence, he hid in Chen Changcai’s shadow and lagged about a step behind to avoid being seen by the bonfire. Chen showed not the slightest sign of fear or pretense as he infiltrated this nest of plainclothes troops.

The two proceeded toward the dormitory. This guy might have some connection with the Southern Army bastard. Suddenly, Yamazaki grew suspicious of Chen. He'd spill anything for money, but in a real pinch, he'd defect to the other side. That's exactly the sort of man he was. Amid countless roughly partitioned pitch-dark rooms, only one had its light on. The murmur of Chinese speech seeped through.

The two of them passed under the window and turned into a dark corridor. When they emerged on the opposite side, the entrance to that room was left open. The sounds of rifles being rattled and bullets being counted could be heard. They were clearly not university students. A black-clad Chinese man inside the room bent his left elbow horizontally, rested a pistol on it, and pretended to take aim and fire. The man clicked the trigger. “Bullseye!”

However, as there was no bullet loaded, he did not fire. “Look, there’s Russian bullets mixed in here—this one’s pointed at both ends!” The man counting bullets burst into laughter. “It’s because Russia’s got enemies attacking from both front and back.”

When they noticed Chen and Yamazaki standing at the entrance, they abruptly fell silent and stared at the two with suspicion. “Ah! Have you eaten dinner? (Evening.)” With deliberate 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 glance. A young man with a crew cut, who had been tinkering with weapons in a dark corner, heard his voice and deliberately stepped before the others to stare fixedly at their faces.

“Gentlemen, where have you come from? ... I hear Shanghai’s economy is booming these days.” “Is that true?” No one answered. They exchanged speaking glances before lapsing into silence. Yamazaki listened to the blood pounding against his heart, again regretting his ineffective words. The room contained about twenty rifles and a box of pistols lying beside a heap of old shoes. On one white wall were two consecutive posters: one showed Tanaka Giichi trampling maps of Japan and Korea underfoot, his demon-like hands with elongated claws reaching to seize Manchuria, Mongolia, and Shandong in one grasp.

“Chinese people - disunited hearts; Japanese devils - ruthless ambitions.”

Next to it were written: On the wall above the other window hung a caricature of Zhang Zuolin—plundering the people, raping women, and selling out the nation—alongside posters branding the Communist Party and Soviet Russia as "Communist Bandit Party" and "Red Imperialism," all vaguely visible in the shadows cast by the electric light. This was something he had already encountered countless times throughout Shanghai. America sees right through our ambitions—sees through them too well. Yamazaki thought this as he stared at the posters.

If we don't take Manchuria, Mongolia, and the Shandong region, America will take them instead. The Americans have set their sights on China—where labor wages are animal-level, raw materials lie abundant for the taking, and organized resistance barely exists. They aim to establish massive factories and banking institutions. They seek to reduce every last Chinese to wage slaves. “Coming this late—here to take us whoring?” A short Chinese man with a comical face laughed, eyes narrowing at the corners.

Yamazaki, also responding with laughter from his side, addressed Chen Changcai: "How about we go see Mr. Taft?" Then,

“Mr. Taft! Mr. Taft!” repeated one of the young men with long hair. “Do you folks have business with Mr. Taft?” “I have an appointment to visit tonight.”

Yamazaki continued speaking hesitantly. “Hmm, hmm. Mr. Taft should be coming down from the second floor around now.” “I see. Then you’ve come at just the right time.” His overly fluent Chinese slipped out, making him blurt the opposite of his true intent. He didn’t know Taft. The last thing he needed was Taft appearing here now. Chen sat beside the Chinese men on stools and began asking questions—how many had come together from Nanjing, how many more might arrive 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 withdraw. He made up his mind. A Qianmen cigarette took five minutes to burn through. During that time, he felt Taft still wouldn't come. The rationale for using a single cigarette as his safety timer stemmed entirely from superstition. Yet once settled on it, he carried it out. Yamazaki was that sort of man.

He lit his cigarette and offered the opened Qianmen pack to those present, but aside from Chen, no one made a move to take one. The long-haired man from earlier glared with such persistence it could make one cower—meticulously scrutinizing him from his toes to the hair on his head—and asked again what business he had with Mr. Taft. Yamazaki, sensing the hostility directed at him yet feigning absorption in Chen Changcai’s account of Japan’s military deployment, exhaled the smoke he had drawn in and resumed speaking. "Even if the Japanese army comes, they’re just fireflies charging at an ox cart before this Northern Expedition Army," he laughed.

“Wherever that demon comes, it won’t leave without devouring people.” The crew-cut young man spat hatefully. “Well, uh… (He had been about to say ‘demons,’ but couldn’t bring himself to) The Japanese military’s strength only works against proper armies in uniform.” “Against us plainclothes types, even they can’t touch us,” Yamazaki pressed, his tone probing. None showed agreement, their faces clouded with suspicion.

The cigarette was gradually growing shorter. While he nonchalantly laughed and chatted, his ears strained feverishly toward any sound of Taft’s approaching footsteps in the hallway. Even at the clatter of Chinamen walking nearby, he nearly leapt out of his skin. “Alright, time to pull out now.” He thought this while stubbing out the cigarette—now reduced to five minutes’ worth—with his toe. Chen lowered his voice and steered the conversation toward Chiang Kai-shek having received twenty million yen from America. “This time they’re only using German military advisors—they won’t even let Japanese observers in, or so they say. True? Doesn’t America plan to give more funds to the Northern Expedition? Twenty million yen—maybe enough for poverty-stricken Japanese, but isn’t that stingy coming from America?” he began.

Three or four men who moved to a dark corner began whispering suspiciously.

Yamazaki thought he wasn't just under suspicion - his true identity had been discovered. He moved to the entrance, each minute stretching endlessly like ten hours as he desperately willed Chen to cut off the conversation or cut it off already.

He strained his ears toward the footsteps in the dark corridor. Far away, from the second floor, came the sound of shoes descending the steep stairs. Chen remained oddly amused, roaring with laughter and chattering away. The footsteps seemed to be heading this way. With almost no time to think, he just said something to Chen and stepped out into the hallway. In ten seconds, he covered about fifteen ken to reach the corner, his feet flying through the air. There, he stopped. Chen showed no sign of emerging.

Yamazaki was being chased by Chinamen. Anticipating this yet still observing the situation a while longer, he waited. Chen finally emerged, laughing amiably as if amused. Following that, the Chinamen came pouring out tumultuously. He stiffened. An explosion went off somewhere. Five seconds later, it became clear that the truck loaded with weapons had arrived in the schoolyard. Those warming themselves by the bonfire and the group that had been in the rooms carried in the weapons being unloaded from the truck.

Chen and Yamazaki stood on the dark, dew-covered grass watching. An American who appeared to be Taft—tall with a straight nose—was issuing commands in Chinese. The weapons had been fully loaded into a large truck. “Hey! No more lookouts needed.” “It’s secure.” “You lot—come help out.”

Suddenly, the tall-nosed man spotted the two students in uniforms and called out to them. “Yes.” Instantly, Chen dashed out with casual readiness. Yamazaki found Chen’s appearance comical and, chuckling under his breath, shrank back into the shadows. “This is war either way!”

On his way out, he whispered to Chen. "But tonight of all nights, I'll thank you properly." "With this I've secured my triumph... What exquisite satisfaction!" "You won't forget about the payment?" Chen remained dispassionately calm. "Hmm yes yes—as if I could forget!" "You'll get your reward." "But regardless—this can only culminate in war..." Then he reflected. _This isn't a conflict between Southern forces and our military._ _This means war between Japan and America._

15

This place was destined to fall sooner or later. The so-called "economic foundation painstakingly built through years of toil" would vanish like foam. The expatriates were made to consider that their houses, armchairs, ornate tables, phonographs, antiques, and safes—all of them—would be ravaged in the looting by those ruffian Southern soldiers. Brutal Communist elements were mixed in large numbers among the Southern soldiers. Rumors spread that they were impaling innocent citizens and digging graves along the roads.

The station was in chaos with evacuees bound for Qingdao, each carrying as much luggage as they could.

Boys of seven or eight were made to carry enormous trunks—so large they could have climbed inside themselves. The pregnant woman arrived, shoulders heaving as she gasped for breath, making a Chinaman boy carry two-section willow baskets more swollen than her belly—one slung over his shoulder and the other clutched in hand. Carriages of local despots and gentry, piled high with boxes and bags like mountains, lumbered in one after another.

Prices reflected every tremor of society's movements in meticulous detail. Their turmoil and the town's condition were laid bare through prices. The Da Yang banknotes issued by the Bank of Communications and Bank of China—which had maintained an exchange rate of twelve yen and thirty sen in gold notes against ten yuan—plummeted disastrously. From eight yen to seven, then five—until finally foreigners, Japanese included, refused to accept Chinese banknotes altogether. The Shandong Provincial Bank under Zhang Zongchang's faction collapsed. Pistols, gold, silver, gold notes, foodstuffs, horse carriages, and automobile fares all skyrocketed. There was even a pistol traded for eight hundred fifty-eight yen. Expensive chairs, tables, mirrors, and silk fabrics ceased to draw even a passing glance from anyone.

At the same time, the social upheaval was reflected in the actions of countless laborers. Factory workers—male laborers, female laborers—street coolies, thirty or forty thousand beggars—ceased to fear the overseers’ whips and pistols. The patrol police holding guns and swords were scarecrows. By barely sustaining their tactic of withholding wages—common to every factory—the factory owners had kept the workers tethered. That was all that kept them. The workers entered a state of sabotage.

Around the time the plainclothes troops arrived, Communist Party members had infiltrated the city. Rumors to that effect grew clamorous. Rumors arose that weapons were being distributed to workers to plot a riot. The rules and orders arbitrarily set by the factory owners were not treated as issues at all. For the workers, precisely at such times as these, favorable conditions for them to demonstrate their great power naturally arose. It was felt. The match factory workers had already endured all they could. They had endured beyond what could be endured.

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, the stubbornly defiant and contrary one, also became a representative. Wang received no word from either his wife, who had given birth, or his elderly mother after that.

The lack of any word only deepened his anxiety.

The workers had long been ridiculed and trampled upon. Some, dozens even, had received the most intense yellow phosphorus poisoning; their lower jaws had rotted away. Seven or eight child laborers had their soft flesh rot away in less than a year. And they were cast out with only their wages. Children bought from traders for ten or eight yuan could not even receive their wages.

They worked. They worked and had to let even parents and wives go hungry. They feared the whip like castrated bulls. But to fear the whip forever was to remain slaves eternally.

The young laborer who longed for his parents' home fled one night under cover of darkness without receiving a single sen in wages. The child who had been permanently bought had no home to escape to—nothing at all. Near the dormitory, the child remained silent, teary-eyed and forlorn.

Wang Hongji and four others hesitantly entered the office in the evening. They had to get their wages by any means necessary. That was only natural!

Iwao the accountant and Koyama the employee outright rejected [the demand], shouting, “What the hell!” They engaged in a heated confrontation. The manager did not revise his usual view that the workers still clung to their wages and did not flee. Until receiving [their wages], they would work obsequiously with all their might.—He did not revise his usual view. To Chinamen, money is more important than life itself. If you just give them money, they’d even offer their necks. His way of thinking was this. The five representatives withdrew. The two dormitory buildings were filled with a hostile atmosphere. Once again, a meeting was begun there.

The workers had begun plotting an unruly rebellion (to use Koyama's exact words). From the dormitories, the metallic, enraged voices of the workers noisily leaked toward the office. "What are you making such a racket about?" When the boy sent to investigate returned, Koyama bellowed as if even the boy was unbearably irritating. "If you won't give us our wages, then don't. That's fine, they say." Liu, who had been employed by the Japanese for eight years and could speak Japanese, acted as if he had done something wrong.

“So, what’re you gonna do about it?” “They won’t give—they won’t give... The workers say they have a plan.” The workers were planning to occupy and take control of the factory by force. They would sell the products and take their monthly wages from that. They would drive the Japanese out through the gate. They’d beat to death any patrol police who dared protect the Japanese despite being Chinamen themselves! “Don’t talk nonsense!” Koyama bellowed. Liu flinched.

“You’re lazing about, not doing a damn thing, yet we’re feeding you from the factory! “Their wives and parents starving? Let those bastards gnaw on raw radishes or carrot stubs! “Living like beggars yet acting high and mighty!” There had been concern that paying wages would make the workers flee. And once gone, there’d be no skilled hands to replace them. To placate his underlings, Foreman Li Lanpu—having exhausted every persuasive word—returned defeated.

“This is absolutely impossible. There’s nothing we can do,” Li said. “Couldn’t you at least pay them half? If we don’t do even that, there’ll be no way to settle things. Those bastards can’t buy a single thing these days without cash, given the current situation.” “Bastard! You’re in league with those bastards too, aren’t you?” “Mr. Koyama, I must protest this misunderstanding.” Li hurriedly interrupted. “I must protest this misunderstanding!”

“Shut up! “Shut up!” Koyama bellowed. “If you keep spouting such impertinent nonsense, I won’t have it!” “Shut up!” He looked back reassuringly at the pistol hanging on the wall. The manager resolved that there was nothing to be done, no matter what happened. When push came to shove, all they could do was rely on weapons.

The wives and children from the company housing hurriedly slipped out by automobile to the KS Club past eleven o'clock at night.

The workers instinctively united. Signs that they were shifting toward a riot had grown stronger.

The city was not only facing invasion by the Southern Army, looting, and destruction. There was no telling what terrible things the Northern Army might do on their way out as they abandoned this place and retreated. Ordinarily, they had made looting and rape their work. This time, for sure, it’s all going to hell. They would no doubt proceed to do exactly as they pleased.

Foreigners felt heartened whenever they occasionally saw faces from their own country. Due to their shared nation and language, they had to unite and endure through this chaos—no matter what hardships confronted them, no matter what assaults came their way. They succumbed to this sentimental feudal notion of brotherhood. "Oh, if only those soldiers in khaki uniforms would hurry here!" they uniformly prayed. They never pondered why this army came or whom it served. They simply believed its arrival would deliver them from their desperate plight.

The latter part of the month arrived.

The army began arriving. They reeked pungently of sweat and leather gear.

The expatriate residents, who had grown anxious as if each were left alone on a remote island, could not conceal their nostalgia. More than anything else, what felt most nostalgic to them was hearing Japanese with regional accents spoken by those newly arrived from the mainland.

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

A thick fog hung in the air.

The Chinese houses thickly painted in vermilion and blue; rows of open-air stalls shrouded in dust; Chinese people shouting in Tokyo-like voices—all these were obscured by darkness and fog until indistinguishable. Tormentingly stimulating spring, the acacia flowers permeated the air through the fog, their scent wafting pungently. The soldiers stacked their rifles and set down their knapsacks in the station square. They waited for their quarters to be assigned. They had already become rougher in speech, action, and even temperament than when they had been back in Japan.

“Ukiyo!”

From the crowd of people holding countless small Hinomaru flags to welcome them, a woman suddenly leaped before Private First Class Kakimoto. She was middle-aged with blackened teeth. Clutching at Kakimoto’s waist, she burst into wailing sobs—"Ukiyo! Oh, you came... Ukiyo!..." "Aren’t you Aunt Nakajō?" The private first class wore a look of awkward bewilderment, mindful of his superior officer. But finally he spoke.

“Oh... oh... oh...” The woman cried out as joy and gratitude welled up within her. “...You came.” “Oh... oh... oh... Now we’ll be saved.” “Oh... oh... oh...” Even if not openly expressed, this emotion had seeped into the hearts of every expatriate resident who had gathered to welcome them.

The soldiers started a bonfire. The flames suddenly blazed up. Kakimoto looked at the pale, haggard, bony face of this woman who had collapsed against his knee. Indeed, only the familiar contours of her face from their shared village remained. To what extent had this woman been worn down by terror and anxiety? He thought as he recalled her face from the village in the old days. This woman was, from his perspective, a cousin twice removed. Her age was different enough to warrant calling her "aunt." In the village, she was the sort of relative barely counted as family. However, here, even he began to feel a petty, grudging sort of affection toward this aunt—the kind one might feel toward a close blood relative.

The woman, for her part, felt him even more intensely. “How about it—are we safe?” asked the woman.

“It’s fine. Our division—an entire division—is coming. We’ve got all this ammunition,” (He shook the heavy ammunition box to show her.) “and our swords are sharpened to cut clean through.”

“Oh... oh... oh...” The woman cried out again, making no attempt to conceal her joy and nostalgia as she wept. The soldiers were assigned their posts. The troops were split up. Some were directed to the egg powder factory. Some were directed to Fukuryu Match Company. Some were directed to Yokohama Specie Bank. Shouldering their rifles and forming ranks, they marched toward their assigned posts, each under the command of their unit commanders. Many expatriate residents stood watching nostalgically for a long time as the army formed columns and departed in the opposite direction of their homes. The children followed after, waving flags joyfully.

But as for the adult expatriate residents—those who had scurried about passing resolutions for troop dispatch requests, collected seal after seal, submitted petitions—when they saw the soldiers they had so longed for finally arriving being deployed to guard factories and banks far removed from their own tiny homes, didn't they feel furious and astonished, as if they'd been swindled?

16

Three hours later, the factory was armed with sturdy sandbag fortifications, barbed wire, and spiked barricades. Machine guns were installed. Khaki uniforms stood guard. The yellow loam was dug up with a hollow thud-thud.

The continent’s unrelenting sun glared down from on high, scorching the city, the people, the factory—all of it—in a single withering gaze. Fine dust rose. It was furnace-like heat. The undershirt of the soldier who had removed his jacket—greasy sweat had drawn a map across his back. Dust had accumulated on top in a yellow-black layer. It was gritty. “Don’t slack off and act like you’re lounging in the barracks! This is genuine wartime!” Lt. Shigeto glared around with his hexagonal eyes. “Hey! Who’s the one slacking off over there?!”

Meanwhile, the yellow loam being dug up in one area was stuffed into hemp sacks by other soldiers. The soldiers had no time to wash their faces. They had no time to take off their sturdy, toad-like boots and expose their choking feet to air. The work began the moment they took up their positions. The hemp sacks swollen with loam were carried to the factory's front. They were stacked one by one. In no time the sandbag fortifications had been completed. They had not even a five-minute break.

Another unit drove in logs they had requisitioned from somewhere and stretched quadruple layers of barbed wire around the outside of the sandbag fortifications. In the streets, they assembled even thicker logs to create cheval de frise. The barbed wire stretched from the factory’s perimeter along distant streets, crossing through the thoroughfares; at S Bank, a round, gas tank-like sentry post of sandbags was erected. Both the flour mill and Fukuryu Match Company were guarded by sandbag fortifications, barbed wire, and armed soldiers.

Manager Uchikawa lavished flattery on the company commander and the company-attached officers. He also came over to the soldiers who were diligently continuing their work. While hindering their labor, he strained to impress upon the soldiers his belief that they must conduct themselves as a proper military force. Next came defensive works for the expanded perimeter area. The sandbags were stacked like walls in new locations as soon as they were made. No matter how many they produced, it wasn't enough. Personnel for alert patrols were assigned. Sentry posts were assigned. Duty soldiers were assigned. Mess duty was assigned. Night watch was assigned.

“Hey! Does anyone know where my jacket is?” Kamikawa, who had been working in Kakimoto’s unit, began flipping through other soldiers’ uniforms hung on the acacia branches like a cat and started walking around. He was the man who had been called as one of the patrol members. The undershirt had been turned khaki by loam dust. From the acacia branches—searching through acacia branches—he desperately looked upward, his face smeared with grimy sweat and dirt. There was none. The sergeant in charge, waiting for the soldiers to assemble, cursed bitterly.

Kamikawa twisted the uniform insignia he’d already checked once more with dirtied hands.

“Is someone mistakenly wearing my jacket?” He grew increasingly irritated. He made excuses.

“Where did you leave it? Don’t just stand there spacing out!” “What are you on about? It’s here.” “It’s because you’re spacing out. Before long, they’ll steal your very life! In the battlefield, there’s no replacing anything!” The men swinging pickaxes had unbearably sore lower backs. The deeper they dug, the harder the soil became. Lieutenants, company commanders, and special sergeants kept watch over the work. The crew stuffing hemp sacks were hounded from behind.

“What’s the matter? Have you lost something?” Manager Uchikawa scurried toward the commotion. “I can’t find my jacket.” “Probably someone must’ve mistakenly worn it.” “There’s my name written right on it.” He forced a feeble smile. The company commander pretended not to hear, his expression bitter. “I bet those Chinamen stole it,” Uchikawa said. “Weren’t they loitering around here just now?”

He jolted in realization. “Don’t just stand there spacing out! Those Chinamen stealing our military jackets right after we arrived… What a disgrace!” “You really can’t let your guard down around those bastards.” Manager Uchikawa laughed cheerfully as if lecturing them.

They had acquired a taste for beating Chinamen from their very first day of arrival. When two Chinamen were dragged from the slums, Kamikawa—as though this act could relieve his anxiety, anger, and the frustration of being mocked—raised his fist and lunged at them. Afterwards, the other soldiers followed suit, piling onto the two beggars. They struck, stomped, kicked, cursed in Japanese. Yet no matter what they did, Kamikawa's military jacket remained undiscovered.

There too, immediately, military life as in the homeland—the same military life—was initiated. They cooked their own meals. The cleaning of rooms, the cleaning of toilets, the maintenance of uniforms, sentry duty, guard duty—all were done by them. The distinction between first-year and second-year soldiers had become somewhat reduced. But it still existed. The distinctions between soldiers and non-commissioned officers, and between soldiers and commissioned officers, of course remained strictly in place. “Go to sleep, go to sleep! “Sleep is victory.”

They drove the workers out from the match factory dormitory to another building, spread their blankets over sorghum-stalk mats, and lay down using backpacks or rolled-up portable tents as pillows. Truly, for a long time, they did not sleep and carried out so many different tasks that they couldn’t even remember them all. It felt as though they had continued their labor and upheaval for a week—even longer—saving every moment that could have been spent on sleep or oblivion. Ten days—no, twenty days.

“We’re only staying here because there are no other suitably large buildings available,” the duty officer solemnly warned. “You must not fraternize with the Chinamen at this factory. Especially in areas like the matchbox packing sections or workers’ dormitories—since women are present—you’re forbidden from entering without legitimate business.” “Yes, sir!” “Furthermore, be aware that some Chinamen may harbor subversive ideas. We who embody the Yamato spirit must guard against their red influence—it goes without saying we cannot be corrupted.” “Should such disgrace occur, it would dishonor us as Japanese soldiers.”

“Yes, sir!” The soldiers, without removing their boots, without removing their uniforms, without undoing their puttees, simply let their heads fall upon backpacks used as pillows and were then overwhelmed by the relentless temptation of sleep—as if dragged down into an abyss.

17

The military only stayed in one building of the factory dormitory. They did not interfere with the workers in the slightest! That was exactly as Lieutenant Bando had warned.

Both the captain and the officers possessed a samurai spirit. The military personnel refused to condone meddling in labor-management conflicts. Despite this, from the very day the military arrived, the workers' slowdown was dragged back onto its original path like a horse shown the whip. The authority of the supervisors and foremen had doubled compared to before.

Koyama, with his jawbone corroded and a body-racking cough, felt reassured by the formidable force lurking behind him. That awareness amplified the violent authority of his club threefold, even fourfold.

Li Lanpu, the foreman, received an extra twenty-three sen per day from Uchikawa compared to regular workers. For this reason alone, this Chinaman had convinced himself that—as if he were Japanese—the khaki-clad military would become his protectors, his enforcers, and subjugate those who resented his oak club: the unruly elements and Hui Muslims. He placated, coaxed, and intimidated the workers. It was also he who acted as a spy for Uchikawa and Koyama. It was also he who served as the decoy.

The soldiers did not interfere in anything the workers did. They had no intention of doing so. Not only that—they protected the workers. And they protected the factory. Yet despite this, the workers felt not protection from the military but intimidation. The soldiers continued fortifying their defense sector. Barbed wire spread across streets like endless spiderwebs. At every intersection, jagged chevaux-de-frise stood defiant.

The brigade headquarters and battalion headquarters were connected via emergency field telephone lines. The battalion headquarters and the sentry line were also closely connected. The soldiers, upon a single command, immediately took up their weapons and were placed in a state of combat readiness. At every intersection, sentries strictly challenged each Chinaman coming and going with a loaded gun. In just a day and a half, the city had completely transformed its appearance. As if they had abruptly donned armor over their everyday clothes.

The chevaux-de-frise thrust their two jagged horns into the very center of the street. Machine guns, like sensitive antennae, extended their barrels over the sandbag fortifications. The factory, the walls, the company housing—all were protected by iron bristling with formidable spikes. It wasn’t only the Chinese who widened their eyes at the Japanese soldiers’ work efficiency. The soldiers themselves looked back at the endlessly stretching barbed wire and Great Wall-like earthworks, astounded by their own labor’s results. Though this had been built to repel Chinese troops and fortify the bourgeois factory, they felt as pleased as if beholding machinery of their own making. If only this armament protected our own factory!

Captain Bansai of the headquarters inspected the completed sandbag fortifications. He considered the direction from which the enemy might advance. Even perfection couldn't escape Bansai's scrutiny—he would inevitably find flaws to criticize. That which was flawless in every aspect saw its very perfection become a flaw. For something too perfected, by virtue of its completion, held no room for further growth.

“This place lies in a straight line from Jieshou Station on the Tientsin-Pukow Railway. First, we must assume that the Southern Army will charge here with all their might.” He led other officers and non-commissioned officers and came around to the southwest corner of the earthwork. “Lieutenant Suenaga, do you think such flimsy sandbag fortifications can hold back tens of thousands of enemies? Do you think these can hold back even a thousand enemies? Well?” “Yes, sir.” “The enemy is the enemy. We can assume they’ll come charging from over there to engage us in battle... Alright, redo it! It requires one and a half times the height, twice the width, three times the length, and double the machine guns.”

“Yes, sir.”

Beyond the southwest corner of the earthwork stretched grasslands far in the distance—green fields upon loess soil and scattered groves of acorn-bearing trees, oaks, and acacias. The view appeared hazy. The goat herds that normally roamed about were nowhere to be seen—likely hidden by peasants wary of looting. Soldiers remained bound to obey orders endlessly, even when separated by a single rank difference. Expressing opinions remained forbidden. Lieutenant Suenaga issued commands to the sergeant, who relayed them to the privates. Workers began stripping away quadruple-layered barbed wire from the sandbag fortifications to rebuild them anew.

“More, more! Extend it all the way here!” Lieutenant Suenaga marked the earth with his boot as a guide while gauging the expression of the fussy Bansai. If we make this corner especially sturdy, he thought, the enemy’s attack force would likely concentrate on the less sturdy parts. And that was where it would collapse. “Dig the soil from here! That acacia’s in the way.” “Break it off!” “Tch!” “Bring that cheval-de-frise over here.” He continued commanding the soldiers without revealing his thoughts. “More, more—bring round shovels and pickaxes!” “This is the only spot that’s not done yet!” “Too slow! Corporal Furukado!” “Enough of that! Stop dawdling!”

The ones who had left the Youth Training Center had been rejoicing at getting leave after a year and six months. That turned out to be a military deployment, and their leave was indefinitely postponed. The men who had been on the verge of tears responded with meek "Yes, sirs" to the lieutenant's scolding commands and worked diligently. Their diligence stood out. Takatori, the labor-duty soldier, was forcing a bitter smile. Kakimoto worked as usual. “That’s right! Everyone, learn from the work attitudes of Kuraya and Kinusuga here!” “Put your back into those pickaxes!” The Special Duty Sergeant pointed at the group from the training institute. “Takatori! Pack the mud tighter into those gunny sacks!”

“Special Duty Sergeant, Sir! What should we do about these rat-eaten holes in the sacks, sir? Should we stuff them with rolled-up straw?” “Right, right. Do that.” The sneering Special Duty Sergeant nodded in satisfaction at Matsushita, who was from the same training institute.

Meanwhile, others over there were also sucking up in some way. Takatori, who hadn’t missed hearing that, kept forcing a bitter smile. *It’s so obvious!*

One hour and fifteen minutes later, a massive defensive installation was completed exactly as ordered. With this setup, even a demon could come.

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

The lunch horn resounded. From the Egg Powder Factory across the way, a horn resounded in response.

“Even though it’s only April here in China, it’s already hot as July… Ah damn it… Swelterin’ an’ starvin’…” They shoveled down cold rice portioned into mess tins. “Every canteen’s bone-dry.—Duty Officer! Ain’t there hot water? Ain’t there any hot water?” The cook on duty had thrown a work apron over his shirt, flustered. The cooking gear wasn’t all there.

“Hot water!” “Hey! Hot water!” “Hot water? I don’t even have water to wash the rice—I’m in a bind here.” “Tch! The rice ain’t going down! You tryin’ to kill us off?” “Like I’d wanna kill you off! That’s bullshit!” “The Chinamen are selling hot water, huh?” “A full kettle for an igazuru—” Fukui, who had gone to check, reported. “What’s an igazuru worth?” “See, it’s like one of those one-sen copper coins in China—that’s an igazuru.” “Two rin and five mao, or thereabouts, I’d say.”

“What a stingy business—selling hot water.” Kuraya, a training institute graduate putting on airs of refinement, laughed boisterously.

Takatori was seething with bitterness by one of the walls. It was a wall that looked ready to crumble and peel away in tatters. Tamada from the noodle factory asked why he was making such a face. “You pissed off ’cause the work’s too tough?” “Making that moth-eaten face.” “That’s not it.” “Those bastards are beyond saving.” “Those sycophantic bastards—Kinugasa, Matsushita, and their lot,” growled Takatori. “It’s because there are so many bastards like that that the Chinamen aren’t just stripped naked—they have their very livers gouged out.”

“Those bastards, huh. Right.” “They’re like rotten women, those bastards.” “They’re slaves—exploited to the bone by factory owners and landlords, yet still bowing their heads and wagging their tails like dogs.” “Those bastards…”

Takatori glanced back at lecherous Nishizaki beside him - a man who always had to have the first taste and never bought the same prostitute twice. “Those bastards are the worst kind of nuisance. They’re mercilessly exploited, drained dry, and tormented by the bourgeoisie. Even so, they don’t even know how to hate or resist. They’re using flattery and trying to get scraps from those in power.” “That may be so, but, well, well, ain’t it alright? Their sycophancy ain’t somethin’ that started today, now is it?” Nishizaki laughed lewdly.

“Nishizaki! You get in with those bastards! That’s what suits you!” A stubborn fist looked ready to burst from Takatori’s arm.

“Ain’t like that, ain’t like that. “Ain’t no need to get so worked up here. “Look at Kinugasa’s face—ain’t it like a wet dick? “Look, ain’t it just like a wet dick?”

Nishizaki had derailed the conversation. Kinugasa, with his thick lips, was munching away at canned meat near the entrance on the other side, oblivious to their conversation—he really did look like a wet dick. Tamada laughed. Nishizaki’s lechery was notorious. He was a strange, jocular fellow. He had hoped that since coming to China, he would get to taste Chanpi. That had been his wish since before he came. Even during work, whenever women with bound feet and hanging bangs dressed in brown or purple Chinese clothes passed by, he would steal a glance at them. Their hands and legs were very delicate.

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

They were not beautiful. They were soiled with dust, smoke, and phosphorus. However, they were different from Japanese people in some way. They possessed something different. Different things became a stimulus to him.

“They’re up to something… Hey, the factory bastards are up to something!”

They had eaten and were resting for a while. One person noticed the commotion near where the shaved matchstick rods were drying. The workers were being subjected to an extreme form of bullying. “Lynch! Lynch!” Kakimoto lowered his voice as if in a private room. “What?” “Lynch! It’s a lynch!” Yu Liling, a worker with shoulders tensed in anger and a sardonic expression, was twisted under the arms of two foremen like a strangled rooster, his one leg kicking frantically at the air.

"The supervisor was thrusting needles under the nails." The curved fingernails were firmly fused to the flesh at the fingertips. Into the space between flesh and nail, they were thrusting a cotton needle. Starting with the little finger, needles were being thrust into his ring finger, middle finger, and index finger. His two hands were firmly pinned under his armpits by two foremen to prevent him from moving them. A groan pierced through the factory noise. The soldiers shuddered as though their own fingernails were being torn out.

Yu Liling had long been viewed with suspicion by the staff. He was bad at bowing. Even when the supervisors and foremen said something, he would just snort dismissively and act aloof. That was the kind of man he was. That was why he was especially targeted by Koyama. Takatori knew that even at the egg powder factory, the workers were subjected to the soldiers' intimidation and had frozen in fear. There, too, a staff-led lynching was carried out. The soldiers saw it. And if they were going to carry out such lynchings, they declared they wanted no part in guarding the factory.

That company stationed at the egg powder factory was one renowned even in the homeland. It had a history of being annihilated in both the First Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War. Every year, two or three men who had been discharged from active duty after just two or three months would, strangely enough, end up joining the company. When the factory staff discerned this psychology of abusing workers under the military’s authority, the soldiers of that company would have none of it.

That’s right—the bastards here are using us as their cover. Takatori thought. Damn it! They’re treating everyone like fools! “You bastard! Try acting high and mighty like you did when you demanded your wages!” Koyama bellowed. “What’s this whimpering? Try running your mouth like that night again!” “Hmm, I’d heard there were those in China who beat workers to death—they really are ruthless after all.”

The soldiers approached as if nearing something terrifying, step by step weaving through the mats spread with matchstick rods until they reached the scene. They had experienced both slapping others and being slapped themselves. However, thrusting needles into nails—this was their first time witnessing such a thing. A rusted needle was thrust into the white crescent moon at the base of the nail. Purplish blood was oozing under the translucent nail.

“It’s because some greenhorn’s coddling scum like you that you dare act so high and mighty!” (This was a jab at Mikitaro.) “You bastard—Communist Party lackey!” “If you think you can seize the factory, then try it!” “Hey!!” “Go on—spout that big talk from that night again!”

Koyama became aware that the approaching soldiers were his own shield. His face, contorted with anger, twitched into a slight smile toward the soldiers. But when facing Yu, it immediately twisted back to its former state. In the workplace, the workers fell silent as if a spell had been cast, straining their ears as they continued their work. Only the noise of the machinery in motion persisted. Some workers stopped their hands operating the matchstick frame assembly machines and, stealthily avoiding detection by the staff, watched from the window's shadow as Koyama thrust a needle into Yu's other thumb. Sure enough, the timid young laborer watching this felt as though he himself were being stabbed and turned his face away.

“You bastard! Still putting on that defiant act?!” “Li! The wet leather whip this time—bring the wet leather whip!” Koyama’s booming voice echoed through the workshop. Even workers who had been forcing a nonchalant hum while continuing their tasks now froze mid-motion. They stopped their hands and exchanged glances. Yu Liling—who had become one of those demanding unpaid wages—was being made to pay for that defiance. They knew it. They understood this wasn’t just about punishing Yu alone—it was a warning to them all. If only those soldiers weren’t here—we’d all rise up right now! Some wept silently at the thought.

“Don’t you think it’s about time to stop this? Enough already.” said Kakimoto, the watching soldier. The workers, upon seeing the wet leather whip gripped in Koyama’s bony hand, envisioned in their minds a scene where one would be stripped naked and lashed until their muscles splintered apart in a spray of gore. It was a scene all too common in police interrogations.

Yu's scream and Koyama's snarling voice sounded once more. The wet leather whip coiled around the object. Crack! Crack! It was a cutting sound.

At that moment, a bold, rough soldier leaped out.

“Knock it off!” “You bastard!” “You failure!” The soldier slapped Koyama’s sickly cheek. The bony hand of Koyama gripping the wet leather whip was violently twisted backward by the sturdy soldier’s arm. “You thought we’d just stand by while you made the workers suffer like this? We won’t tolerate it!” “You clown-faced bastard!”

Koyama was dumbfounded. “I’ll beat you to death!” “You clown-faced bastard!”

The soldier was Takatori.

18

The rearguard unit arrived.

The dormitory became cramped.

There were no beds, no straw mattresses; they spread blankets on the floor and slept in a jumbled heap. The sorghum stalk screen was beginning to tear. From below, bedbugs came crawling out with a rustling sound. The bedbugs, probably sensing—instead of the sulfurous, yellow-phosphorus-reeking, malnourished workers' diseased complexions—the sudden presence of sweaty, oily, vigorous skin, must have looked perplexed.

Takatori did not associate with those who had come later for a while. During that time, they discussed their respective journeys.

When they boarded the government-chartered ship in Moji, they had similarly picked up leaflets. There were some who folded them and carefully hid them in their chest pockets like amulets. “When we were walkin’ down Pier Street, leaflets started rainin’ down from the sky, I tell ya,” he laughed. “When I looked up, what do you know—Yasuakawa from the union was stickin’ his neck out the window, tryin’ to pull it back. ‘Hang in there!’” “When he called out like that, how could we not hang in there!” “If you’re gonna say that, then go all out an’ unite with those folks over there!” “Ain’t no one just passin’ through here!”

He called out carefreely in a loud voice.

A special duty sergeant major approached from the side. He had come to call someone. He said, “Hang in there. I wonder if we’ll join hands with Champy and press on.” He laughed loudly again.

His hand, unconsciously tearing at the edge of the fraying sorghum stalk mat, was covered in calluses and had become as hard as a board. “Kudo finally got disposed of on the ship.” While keeping watch on the special duty sergeant major from the corner of his eye, Kiya whispered.

“I tried to stop him from charging in alone since it’d be pointless, but that guy’s too hot-blooded to listen.” “This time, they’ve grown quite sensitive to labor unions and our opposition.” Takatori lowered his voice as though constricted. "The times are different from the Japan-Germany War and Siberian Intervention era, you know." “We know damn well we can’t just be used as the bourgeoisie’s lackeys—but the bourgeoisie has also grown sensitive to our opposition to the military dispatch.” "They’ll carry out the March 15th crackdown, force the dissolution of the three left-wing groups on April 10th." Then comes the military dispatch. “From start to finish, isn’t everything far more prepared and organized on the bourgeoisie’s side?”

“No matter what obstacles they have to push through, they’re determined to seize this place first and foremost, aren’t they?” “That’s right! That’s exactly how they’re thinking to take China.” “But we’ll do our part—slack off and cause as much trouble as we can.” “Even when ordered to fire their guns, none of them are actually shooting, right?”

However, they still hated their rulers and opposed the military dispatch, but not all of them held the same single opinion.

In our current position, we could not immediately withdraw one division back to the homeland and pull out from China. It was an impossible proposition. However, we had our own work to do. No matter how the army might have been used against our objectives, we must not abandon our military duties because of that. We were learning urban warfare for the day we would truly rise. We would learn how to operate armored cars. We would fight for that day.

Kiya spoke in a low voice. Takatori nodded and shook his head in equal measure.

“For that day?” “That’s fine.” “But you’re always so patient!” “But what about the Chinese workers being crushed before our very eyes by our own hands right now?”

The two had worked at the same factory up until their enlistment. Kiya, whose meticulous, persistent, and lively nature had served him well, became a superior private. On the very day Takatori became a second-year soldier after completing one year of service, he left his sentry post to chase a domestic duck. And then he was referred to a court-martial. At dusk, he tried to stab a sluggish stray duck with his bayonet-fixed rifle. And then he chased it.

From the training ground, he chased the duck about five chō into the brushwood hills at the foot of the old castle, driving it deep inside. The duck dodged with its ugly webbed feet flapping desperately, as if they might tear. In the end, unable to stab it to death, he crushed it under his boot. He felt relieved. Then he grabbed the domestic duck by its feet - its long neck hanging limp - and stood up. At that moment, a patrol officer discovered him.

He neither felt ashamed nor self-conscious about having become a compensation-duty soldier. He liked using machines. He especially liked using light machine guns. Even during blank-fire training, while imagining mowing down hordes of them with this single gun as though raining bullets, he would fire away with a rat-a-tat-tat. His slightly foolish, eccentric nature fueled everyone’s fondness for him.

Together they bared their testicles for inspection and entered dim barracks to eat red rice. Together they learned to aim rifles. They learned bayonet attachment and marksmanship. That same Kudo had been disposed of aboard the government ship. Why he'd been disposed of—they knew without being told! He was a man who loved sweet shiruko. A man with eyes like fire. And he'd been killed!

That couldn’t help but turn the soldiers’ blood savage. In the dormitory with rough walls，a low roof，and a stifling atmosphere，they were engrossed in their respective thoughts. Next to Takatori was Nasu，who had been searched down to his inner pockets，found with leaflets，and beaten by Lieutenant Shigefuji so hard it nearly tore his cheek off.

Nasu remained silent without saying anything. “No matter how many leaflets they confiscate or how much they yell, they can’t drag out our very brains!” Someone said.

“That’s right!” Nasu silently thought. "What I think or do is my own damn business!" The acacia flowers, like wisteria, were fragrant.

Nearby, Kakimoto was concerned about how the aunt’s family was faring.

He had no time to verify their circumstances. Even those who were but distant relations came to feel like close kin or siblings once they crossed a single sea and left the homeland behind. Under the banner of protecting expatriates, he had been harried here in such haste that he couldn't even find a moment to return and visit the aunt suffering from appendicitis. Yet he could neither directly protect nor even go see those closest to him—the people scattered through city districts barely sustaining their meager livelihoods, nor those bound by blood ties.

He was protecting the factory. For that purpose, he worked until drenched in sweat. He continued the defense work, soaked through. The factory perimeter had been tightly fortified with earthworks, cheval de frise barriers, and barbed wire. With rifles loaded with live rounds and bayonets fixed, they stood guard over it.

No defensive works had been constructed in other areas. Kakimoto, despite having come all the way as a soldier, found himself unable to leave the zone enclosed by earthworks and cheval de frise. The expatriates were being ordered to come into this fortified area.

And they were being told to receive protection within this area.

Then—for what purpose had he come all the way to this China?…… “Hey, hey—these matches here’ll spark whether you rub ’em against wood or stone, long as there’s a splint.” The three who had entered the workshop returned, each curiously carrying a small yellow box of matches. It was Matsuoka, Motooka, and Tamada. The three rubbed them against pillars and floorboards and lit fires.

“These are different from the home country’s matches.” “We saw matches like these when we were kids, I think.” “They call ’em ‘Boss’.” Nasu wore a grim expression. “These are yellow phosphorus matches—or so that Chinaman over there says.” “He can manage some broken Japanese.” Tamada said, still reeking of udon flour from the noodle factory. “This stuff’s poison. “Foreign countries don’t allow their factories to make ’em. “Our bodies rot quick.” “Bad stuff—real poisonous, bad... These yellow phosphorus matches are toxic and catch fire so easy every country’s banned ’em.” “But here they’re making ’em.”

“This is very poisonous.” “People die,” Tamada continued, imitating the Chinaman’s words. “No railways, no poison—in the countryside, this is what they swallow to kill themselves.” “Man and woman, husband and wife—they quarrel.” “The wife wants to die—this, she scrapes off the chemical from the tip of these splints and drinks it.” “She drinks ten boxes’ worth from this box.” “Die.” “Japan’s Nekoirazu… China’s yellow phosphorus matches…” “Hmm… If you can understand that much Japanese, you should be able to hold a conversation.” Takatori spoke in a loud, heedless voice.

“Why don’t we bring that Chinaman here and have a talk?” “Might be fun.”

19

There were night shifts that followed daytime duties. There were daytime duties that followed night shifts. They had no time to sleep.

The soldiers became caked with sweat and grime. There was no water. Even if there was any, there was only an extremely small amount. It was murky—nothing you could drink straight, not a clear liquid. If you drank it, your stomach and intestines would probably roar like thunder. They had not bathed in a long time. Seven days—no, already more than fifteen days. On the day before departing the mainland, they had washed off sweat and dust in the bathhouse next to the kitchen. That was the last time.

In the windowless, dark Shina-style dormitory, the stale breath of men alone hung thick. Through days of duty, deprivation, overwork, and suffering, the factory was protected. And leveraging this, the bourgeoisie plotted to secure this resource-rich Shandong region as their own. The soldiers were harassed and ruthlessly exploited even after coming to Shina for the benefit of the bourgeoisie who exploited them back in the mainland. In the mainland’s workplaces too, there was starvation, overwork, and exploitation. There was unemployment hell. Even after coming to Shina, the same things existed. They—they who were of worker and peasant origin—could not escape from suffering in any situation, at any moment. They could not go on living without whittling away their own lives. “Exactly! How can we sever these cumbersome shackles?!”

Takatori thought. He began frequenting the match factory's work area without anyone's prompting. An exposed cooling fan whirled viscous yellow phosphorus. The heedless worker nearly had his head sliced off by the fan's blades. The duty officer uttered a few words about workshop access. The soldiers listened quietly. But after two or three days, they wandered through workshops and Chinatown again out of curiosity. They couldn't understand the language. Eyes conversed with eyes. Faces and eyes conveyed emotions.

The conflict with the officers had deepened imperceptibly. Before landing, Kudo had been disposed of. That made the officers seem even more unapproachable. They were the enemy right before them. As for bathing, meals, duty hours, and resting beds—all were clearly distinguished. The soldiers had barley rice. The officers had rice. Sharing both hardships and joys existed solely among the soldiers. They had not bathed in a long time. The officers took baths daily at the Ice Manufacturing Company. They were treated by Ice Manufacturing Company employees to beer, snacks, and tea, and continued their interminable conversation that dragged on like a cow’s drool. Even if the soldiers thought of entering later when there was an opening, the cow’s drool was too long, and they had no time to get in. By the time they could get in, the evening had grown far too late.

One time, Kamikawa, who had lost his jacket, returned carrying a wet towel, his skin cherry-blossom-pink fresh from the bath. He had sneaked in first. He was delighted. “The madam at the Ice Manufacturing Company didn’t care whether gold stripes shone or not." “Even Tantsubo’s open—she says go ahead and get in.” “When it comes to protectin’ expats, Beta-kin or Tantsubo—no difference in how they work.” “...See here now—I’ve gone and swiped myself the first bath proper.”

“Hadn’t anyone else come yet?” “Yeah, no one’s come yet.” “The madam at the Ice Manufacturing Company is a young one, isn’t she.” “Yeah, she’s got a bit of a cute face.” “Alright, I’ll go wash off the grime too.” “I’ll go too.” “I’ll go too.” They knew the thrill of committing theft. Without tying their shoelaces, they tucked them into their shoes. Fourteen men, damp with sweat and without a single bar of soap, crossed from the match factory to the square where weeds grew thick and verdant on the side opposite the slums—there were too many of them— But if they made one person stop, then all fourteen had to quit. A giant water tank was perched atop the red roof. That was the Ice Manufacturing Company.

It was over a chō away—about 109 meters. The location lay closer to where the company bound for the egg powder factory had gone. They slipped through the gate. The pump throbbed.

Suddenly, from inside the red-brick door, a shrill, cutting voice that sounded like an officer barked out. A familiar first-class private, crimson as a boiled octopus, came leaping out while shaking his index finger. He clutched the military uniform trousers and underwear as if pinching a cat. “What company do you men belong to?!” A razor-sharp voice rang out from inside the door. “Have you no consideration for others?! How dare you come imposing on someone’s household at this hour!”

The edge of his voice rose shrilly. "What's going on?" Takatori, whose face was known to everyone in the regiment, nonchalantly asked the naked first-class private. "It's the brigade adjutant." "What's the adjutant doing?"

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

The door was shoved open from the inside. The lieutenant's face—with adjutant insignia slung diagonally across his shoulder, aristocratic features accentuated by a prominent straight nose—stood blocking the soldiers' path. The adjutant, having undone his sword hanger button, glared suspiciously at the fourteen men pressing forward—what was this about. *Why had such insolent wretches come here in such numbers?!*

“His Excellency is coming! “Get out!” “Get out!” He let out a shrill voice. “You insolent wretches! “Get out!” “Get out!”

The fourteen men were struck by the sharp voice.

“Tch!” Takatori stood dumbfounded. Like a traveler denied boarding a boat at the crossing, he gazed regretfully at the bathhouse ahead. Then he looked back at the weedy square they had come through.

“Tch!” “What’s going on?” He muttered under his breath. “Damn it! Any human would feel disgusted by slimy sweat and grime—it’s all the same!” “Tch!” “Guess I’ll just have to endure this a while longer.” The common soldiers who had entered the bath before the officers were scolded away and driven out.

……Before long, the scum floating in the bathwater was neatly scooped away. They adjusted the bath temperature. The bathhouse entrance was guarded by two sentries with fixed bayonets. Acacia and roses were planted. From inside the door leaked the sound of water splashing noisily.

The bathwater was drawn out, heated, or topped up with water. There was the sound of the duty soldier washing a back. There was the sound of a beard being trimmed.

Then, for twenty minutes—no, perhaps even thirty—not a single sound could be heard.

The sentry, flushed and fearing he might faint from cerebral anemia, peered through the crack in the door. His Bearded Excellency was dozing, shaking his head against the edge of the bathtub. A faint, contented snore escaped.

The sentries walked back and forth before the door with bored expressions. The napes of their necks were caked with sweat-soaked dirt, feeling unpleasant and gritty. Stones jutted unevenly from the ground beneath their feet like rough heads breaking through soil. These two men guarded the neck of His Excellency—targeted by a plainclothes unit under a 150,000 yen bounty. They stifled yawns and boredom alike. The wristwatch marked one hour passed. Then twenty more minutes elapsed.

Finally, the old stableman entered with a deferential posture, carrying a new bucket. A dry towel was needed. “Even just one night—I want to wash off this grime and sleep in fresh bedding!”

“Quit spouting that luxury crap!” “That’s just gibberish to us, I tell ya.” In the machine room of the ice plant, soldiers with feet covered in blisters hooked their toad-like boots caked in yellowish dust and waited, growing restless as they awaited their turn.

The white dusk pressed in.

20 A caged canary was singing under the eaves.

The temperature on the continent dropped rapidly when night fell. The skin-clinging undergarment was cold and felt unpleasant. Even when the workers couldn't eat themselves, they cherished their small birds. It was a strange custom.

“Hmm, I see! Fascinating!” Takatori nodded with mock interest. “Keep going! Tell me more!” His voice carried forced anger. He remained utterly unconstrained. “Hui Hui people... treat bad.” “No good.” “Winter days short.” “Dark comes quick.” “No electric lights.” “Factory dark.” “We no see faces.” “Men women... always touch-touch.” “Start doing.” The congested-nosed worker pressed on in fractured Japanese: “Hui Hui people treat bad—while touch-touching, steal others’ filled matchboxes, make own filled boxes. Many boxes.” “Much money.”

He was a worker named Shi Yili. A man, pale and so thin it seemed his very bones had withered, looking like an old man. When asked his age, he was thirty-one. He was still young. “Hmm, so when it gets dark, the male workers and female workers get up to mischief together, eh?” “Taking advantage of that commotion, the Hui Hui followers steal the matches others have packed and pass them off as their own.” “I see. Interesting, interesting!” Takatori nodded. “Do more! Talk more! Say something else!”

The workers gradually stopped fearing the soldiers. The soldiers formed a circle around the workers, who emitted a smell of garlic, fat, and strange tobacco. “Um, beyond the barracks past the shanties, there’s a British hairnet factory. My sister—she works there—inhales nothing but dandruff and dust every day,” Shi Yili continued. “Sister’s hair and dust—it stinks.” “Her chest feels awful.” “Tuberculosis.” “The hair for hairnets—the queues of people in the countryside—they have them cut off for three or four sen. The brokers bring them to the company to sell.” “Those who don’t cut their queues are told to pay a tax.” “The company haggles down the hair brought by the brokers to sixty or fifty percent of its value.” “The brokers claim inflated prices and bring them in.” “My old man—from the old days—they’re making him pay the queue tax.” “My old man doesn’t want to cut his queue.” “The brokers come with the police—cut it off, they say, or pay a tax if you don’t. That tax—a tax the brokers and police made up themselves—there’s no such tax.” “But those who don’t cut their queues—they forcibly take the tax.” “The British company lines the brokers and police with money.” “…The British, Americans, Germans, Japanese—” (he started to say but bit his tongue) “…all of them—the Shina peasants, the workers—they oppress us.” “We live.” “It’s hard!”

“Ahem!”

A thunderous cough. A clang of military swords and boots. Immediately, it happened behind the soldiers. Lieutenant Shigeno had come and stood behind them unnoticed. They flinched.

Shi Yili fell silent as if struck dumb. Lieutenant Shigeno glared fixedly at him with hexagonal eyes. The Chinese man stood up like a criminal, hanging his head in silence. Then he weakly hunched his shoulders and left without making a sound.

“That guy’s come here to spread propaganda to you all, hasn’t he? Even in this factory here, there are Reds who’ve gotten in. If you let those bastards spread their red propaganda, you’d have no face left!” “Lieutenant, we were merely engaging in idle talk. That Chinaman understands some Japanese,” Takatori said.

“Don’t lie!” “I’ve heard everything!” The lieutenant’s face abruptly turned ferocious. “It doesn’t matter if he’s just some idle talker—this is unacceptable!” “Disperse!” “Disperse!” “Disperse and sleep!” “Stay vigilant!”

“Yes. We’ll be on guard.”

The soldiers were drawn to Shi Yili’s story. And then, they gathered around him. The dormitory was always dark. The walls were on the verge of crumbling away in tatters. It felt like a cave where only the oppressed and tormented gathered. Soldiers and workers—are these not twin siblings bearing the same fate? The grueling daytime labor drove both of them into extreme exhaustion.

By tormenting these Chinese workers，we were ultimately tightening the noose around our own necks. The only ones pleased by the workers being tormented were Daiichi Trading Company. There was no one else.

Takatori briefly related that story. Some shook their heads doubtfully. Takatori spoke again. He intended to elaborate. “We’ve come this far believing we’re devoting ourselves to Japan. We believe we’re protecting national interests. So what policies will these fattened bourgeoisie adopt? In the end, only the bourgeoisie grow fat! They make profits while tightening the noose around workers’ necks. They’ll line Darakan’s pockets with money. But skilled workers? They’ll have the noose yanked tighter still.”

“What fools soldiers are,” Takatori mused reflectively. “Even though we ourselves come from poor peasant and worker families, just because we’re wearing these high-collared uniforms, we’re suppressing the resistance of workers and peasants.” “When we’re sent to the colonies, we work ourselves to the bone just to make the bourgeoisie richer and richer.” “What are we even living for? We’re nothing but blind fools who can’t make sense of it all!” “We’re tightening the noose around our own necks with our own hands!”

Everyone was overcome by a deep, inescapable feeling they couldn't help but dwell on. "Endure!" Kiya told himself inwardly. "I must keep crawling under the lash, crawling and clawing my way up from the very depths."

Here too existed a life just like what they had lived in factories and rural areas on the mainland—only even harsher, more grueling. They learned that the workers had not been permitted to take a single step outside this section of the factory for over a month. They had not been paid their wages. Among the child laborers, there were as many as seven who were the youngest, just six years old. Up to five of them had been bought permanently for ten or twelve yuan each. Such a child, emaciated, with a chest so thin the ribs were visible, took off their jacket and was desperately stuffing matchstick shafts into small boxes. The child had small hands that could hardly grasp the little matchboxes.

Unless they had someone place another platform under the stool, the child could not reach the workbench.

“We too, from around six or seven years old like this, were raised being scolded by the old man—‘Work! Work!’” thought Tamada of the noodle factory, who rose around one in the morning to start work as he remembered his childhood. “But we weren’t sold off body and soul!”

Many of the workers were former peasants from the countryside. They had abandoned farming and become workers. Peasants were even more miserable than workers. Prodded on by imperialist powers, peasants faced the exorbitant levies of warlords locked in ceaseless petty conflicts and the plunder of bandits and defeated soldiers—no matter how much they tilled the land or tended their livestock, not a single thing remained of their own yield. There was drought. Cloud-like swarms of locusts emerged. The entire harvest was seized by those who carried weapons.

Some sold their land, houses, and livestock and migrated to Manchuria. Many migrated.—During their journey, they were intercepted by marauding soldiers on the march, and their meager travel funds were taken. And then, they could no longer go onward. Such people had made their way in as workers. Some had left their families in the village and come to work away from home. The remaining families were gnawing on tree roots and eating grass leaves. There were also those who ate stone powder and died.

“Well, even my Ma back home in that soot-covered house on the outskirts of my town—she’s sewing gloves just to scrape by a meal,” said even the carefree fool Takatori, overwhelmed with emotion.

“Hmm… she must be sixty-three by now… What dirty old men would come sniffing around a wrinkled old Ma like her?!” “No one would give her the time of day!” “Can she even get enough to eat just by sewing gloves?” The soldiers compared the lives of the workers here with their own lives back home in Japan. In the village, thinking that the wheat would soon ripen, and wondering how their slightly senile old fathers were doing—there were also those who thought such things.

“Wang Hongji’s wife recently had a baby girl.”

Shi Yili, who understood Japanese, pointed at Wang—a dejected, resentful man with a somewhat soft, kindly face—and spoke to the soldiers. “Hmm, she gave birth then.”

The gazes of over twenty soldiers focused solely on Wang. Wang wore a timid expression, as though he wished to vanish.

“Wang has no money. Wife has no money. “Foreman won’t give any money.”

“Hmm, so they’re not paying out the wages.” “The factory.” “Wang’s mother comes weeping to the factory with the older child strapped to her back.” “The company staff won’t let Mother and Wang see each other.”

“Hmm.” “No money to give. No money to hand over.” “Hmm.” “Wife can’t eat. Breast milk won’t come out. Baby cries.” “Hmm.” “Baby cried nonstop for six days. Wife’s stomach empties. Wife drinks nothing but hot water; hot water doesn’t fill stomach. She gets dizzy. On tenth morning, baby didn’t cry. She woke and looked. Baby is dead. Mother came rushing to factory. Even so, police wouldn’t let Wang meet. Through fence gaps, Mother spoke. Wang listened inside. Wang can’t go home. Foreman won’t let him take one step from 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—their situation is even worse,” Shi Yili continued. “Work, work, and not a single penny given.” “They can’t cut their hair.” “They can’t buy hand towels.” “At New Year’s, they only give us fifteen sen.” “Children work for one year, two years, three years.” “They work forever.” “They only get fifteen sen at New Year’s—forever.” “They can never go outside.” “Eighteen people haven’t left here for a single day in three years.” “All they do is work.” “Not a single shred of hope.” They despair. Children of nine or ten, in their own way, come to think that death would be better. They steal yellow phosphorus and drink it. “In February, two children died.” “March: four children died.” They drink yellow phosphorus; their insides burn.

“They suffer.” “Thin, small children’s bodies reduced to skin and bones, legs stiff as boards…… The company staff and foreman laugh.” “Chinamen are spineless—they die right to your face.” “Spineless….”

“Hmmph!”

The soldiers groaned, their breath stifled.

21

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

He was transferred from his duties in the soaking process and drying room to the accounting office. He buried his neck in the ledgers. From morning till night, he did nothing but click the abacus. This had been a lenient measure. The old man still hadn't been released from the consulate police's detention cell even after ten days. The body deprived of heroin was more unbearable than hell. Amidst the surveillance officers' shaming and relentless contempt—unable to endure the humiliation—he kept letting out throbbing moans.

At the factory, they regarded Mikitaro as someone who sided with the restive workers. The manager, the foreman, and the senior employees all detested him. If he were a Chinaman, he would have had his head lopped off long ago. He was shown leniency as a fellow Japanese.

General Labor Union-affiliated agitators infiltrated the city. That was no mere rumor. It was a fact. And the factory was beset by turmoil both inside and out.

Before anyone knew it, propaganda leaflets were plastered all over the outer walls and utility poles.

Propaganda leaflets containing cartoons were scattered at the flour mill. At Fukuryu Match Company, they were on guard against the infiltration of agitators. The factory's entry and exit became extremely strict. Not only did they prevent those inside from leaving, they didn't let a single outsider inside. And the boundary between inside and outside was doubly guarded by armed soldiers and hired police.

“Sooner or later, they’ll lop off my head—it’s only a matter of time!”

When he muttered this under his breath, Mikitaro's expression turned lonely.

He had witnessed Koyama methodically lynching workers he took a dislike to ever since the military arrived. One of them was directed at him.

The workers were not only lashed with wet leather whips until they sprayed and had needles driven under their fingernails.

One of them was made to pretend to make a phone call. Then from behind, the trumpet-shaped metal part of the telephone receiver was abruptly thrust toward it with a heavy thud. The wall telephone clanged. His nose was squashed into the telephone receiver like a round bean-paste bun. In the center of his face, the nasal bridge had broken from the middle, collapsing into a trumpet-shaped hollow. Drops of blood trickled down. Some were bound from the trunk to the branches of an acacia tree, their legs suspended in midair as if crucified on a cross.

“I’m arrogant, a slacker, lazy, a villain… This is a warning… This is a warning….”

The worker bound to the acacia tree was made to repeat it a thousand times while hanging from the branch. A stunted young laborer resembling an underripe tomato counted the repetitions beneath the tree. The ropes dug into his limbs and torso. The more he struggled, the deeper they bit. The worker on the tree gasped as though his breath might give out. "I was... arrogant... a villain... sir..." Gasping like wind through cracks, the worker spat out words flecked with white foam.

This had been carried out by exploiting the soldiers' absence from their dormitory during duty shifts, ever since they first discovered it. It had been ordered by the special duty sergeant major. The soldiers were swamped with security preparations due to reports of the Southern Army's approach. The factory's atmosphere shunned Mikitaro and kept him at arm's length. Mikitaro himself couldn't help but feel it. "I'm getting kicked out after all! That attitude's telling me to get out right away, huh."

Feeling an odd discomfort entangled with the manager and Koyama, he thought. "They’re telling me to leave on my own before getting the boot." He knew the reasons lay in his old man being a heroin addict like the Chinamen and in his having demanded Wang Hongji’s wages for him. He would sometimes slip out of the office. He entered the workshop as if checking contracted work output. Deliberately and carefully, he observed the workers.

Slightly bowing his head while clattering the axis alignment machine and inserting matchsticks into the wooden frame, Yu Liling acted nervously and hastily lowered his head. “Don’t be so jumpy.” “Yes, sir.”

The arrogant, standoffish Yu Liling had completely transformed into a terrified child.

“The medicine really works!” Koyama’s gratitude toward the military garrison and his pride in his own methods grew more pronounced with each passing day. As the lynchings grew more frequent, the workers’ behavior became increasingly subdued. They kept bowing obsequiously to the staff, as though fawning over them. Damn it! Even reduced to such abject humiliation, workers still had to keep toiling away. Animals! "These bastards are nothing but docile animals with their balls cut off!"

However, Mikitaro felt that they themselves were also docile animals who neither resisted nor acted. To him, it seemed all these things—his father never being released from detention; their home remaining unprotected while the factory was zealously fortified; the workers’ entirely reasonable demand for unpaid wages being rejected; each individual being beaten—stemmed from a single principle.

It was about sacrificing countless small things to let only the big ones grow fat. His old man had once tried to expose a village assemblyman who poured school construction funds into town geishas. For that very act, he'd been pushed off the cliff instead. And so the fall began. "They won't rest till we've dropped to rock bottom—where there's no lower left to sink!" he thought. This wasn't about fate or destiny or any such rot. The big ones get shielded—that's why the small ones tumble. That's why we all must keep falling till we hit bedrock! But someday that colossal structure would crumble from its foundations. It had to come.

He passed through the engraving workshop—where white poplar logs were being carved into matchstick piles by clattering machines, resembling grated daikon salad—and from the lumber yard peered into the dimly lit dormitory devoid of soldiers. Backpacks, blankets, tents, and overcoats lay folded haphazardly in chaotic stacks. In gaping empty cans, cigarette butts clustered like maggot larvae. The stench of workers’ garlic and onions intertwined with soldiers’ sweat and leather gear, clinging to the dormitory’s thick, oppressive walls.

Walking on the tips of his boots, he passed through toward the eastern entrance where the acacia trees stood. Then something rustled against his leg. When he looked down, it was a leaflet. Muttering to himself, he carefully surveyed the area again. Between similarly folded overcoats, blankets, and tents, paper slips had been tucked into every crease. Some remained completely hidden within the folds. Others protruded like tongues from their seams. He picked up one and examined it.

It was a propaganda leaflet dreaded like a scorpion. "Huh..."

Mikitaro wondered how these propaganda leaflets had been smuggled through the heavily fortified security cordon without anyone noticing when.

The following was written on the leaflet. He read.

Japanese Soldiers, The Japanese imperialist bourgeoisie made you come swiftly to the land of Shandong bearing rifles and cannons. And China’s military partition has already begun. Gentlemen, did you come to protect the lives of Japanese residents? Did you come to protect the property of Japanese residents? No, absolutely not! Consider this: Gentlemen, you are not protecting either the lives or property of the impoverished Japanese residents scattered far across the concession areas. Gentlemen, you are only protecting factories, banks, and hospitals. Who do the factories and banks and hospitals belong to!

Gentlemen! Soldiers of worker and peasant origins, Gentlemen! You must not be deceived by phrases like "protecting residents' lives and property" or "the national flag's dignity." In Japan's villages and factories, you are exploited by capitalists and landlords; in China, you are being driven into a bloody war risking your lives for the imperialist bourgeoisie. Who bears these vast military expenses? Whether you smoke one cigarette, use half a pound of sugar, or buy a single pair of shoes—it all comes from taxes wrung from you indirectly.

The imperialist powers who suffocated the national revolutionary movement of Chinese workers and peasants with bloodshed are now shifting from interference to land plunder. Japanese imperialism exploited a favorable strategic situation for plunder and brought you to this land. Japan seeks to make Shandong a slave-like colony just as it did with Manchuria. Have you gained even a single penny from the South Manchuria Railway or Fushun Coal Mines? Has your livelihood improved one bit for the sake of the South Manchuria Railway and Fushun?

Manchuria has done nothing but fatten big capitalists and big landlords. The bloated big capitalists have bribed class traitors like Suzuki and Matsukoma, intensified their exploitation of you, starved your wives and children, and fortified the reactionary fortress that will strangle even you yourselves. To suppress for the sake of partition—this is the policy of the imperialists in China. The imperialists have already realized the first part of this hateful plan through the united military intervention against the National Revolution. The military occupation of Shandong is the commencement of the second part of this plan. The possibility of an imperialist war erupting for the repartition of colonies is more than sufficient.

Gentlemen, think! General and Dictator Tanaka—this same Tanaka who drove you all the way to Shandong—is your class's greatest enemy! That bastard exploits and crushes workers and peasants back home. That bastard throws your brothers and fathers into prison, abuses your wives, children, and mothers. Japanese Soldiers! Stop obeying invasion orders for Shandong! Cease waving your swords against the Chinese masses! Join hands with China's workers, peasants, and soldiers—let no sacrifice deter you from forging ironclad revolutionary unity! Smash the reactionary front from both flanks. To defend China's revolution, unite your strength with her workers, peasants, and soldiers!

“Hey, hey, what’s this?” “They’ve stuffed these things between the overcoats.” The strange paper slips caught the eyes of soldiers returning from duty. They untied their puttees and moved toward their backpacks. Tamada the noodle worker also noticed the slips. Nasu picked one up too. “Oh—we’ve got to report something like this.” “Wait! How can you report it without even understanding what it says?”

Takatori restrained the training ground with his booming voice.

Evening had fallen. In the dim dormitory, they read it. After finishing reading, they exchanged glances with one another. And then, hiding in the shadows, they flashed furtive smiles.

“What’s this… There’s quite an interesting someone here.” “This is Chinamen’s work.” “Tch!”

“What’s this? Even I know something like this!” “This much—even I know!”

The taciturn Nasu was intently rereading it. "Gentlemen, to achieve the unbreakable handshake of revolutionary solidarity, spare no sacrifice." Takatori reread the last part aloud. "Destroy the reactionary front from both sides. For the sake of protecting the Chinese revolution, you must unite your strength with China's workers, peasants, and soldiers!—That's right! Exactly!"

Soon, a great uproar broke out in the dormitory and inside the factory. The soldiers were ordered to remain where they stood. The panicked manager, employees, company commander, Lieutenant Shigeto, and Special Duty Sergeant ran about in every direction.

Pockets were searched, and cheeks were violently struck. From the straw mats to the blankets, from the backpacks to personal belongings—everything was completely overturned.

The route and source through which the propaganda leaflets had been brought in were rigorously investigated. Several hundred workers were stripped naked, one by one. The female workers were also stripped completely naked.

The stinking workers were tied to pillars like Christ. And the workers' flat-bottomed, dirty Chinese shoes kept stomping frantically into the air.

The propaganda leaflets had likely been brought in by someone like Sarutobi Sasuke. No matter how exhaustively they searched—until they were sick of it—they couldn’t determine who was responsible. The soldiers’ beaten cheeks still stung. In such situations, Takatori—always the first to be glared at—had developed a horn-like lump on his head. After cleaning up the mess, they went to bed. Even though they had been wrung dry, they found it funny from the pit of their stomachs. An unbearable urge to laugh welled up inside them, making sleep impossible. Just when their laughter had subsided after bursting out, another person would let out a muffled “Hff-hff-hfft” and start up again. “Destroy the counter-revolutionary front from both sides!”

The fact that they couldn’t figure out who was behind it, the fact that their superiors had completely dropped their masks and started panicking, and the fact that the culprit was absolutely not one of the soldiers themselves—all of this filled them with bright cheer. Takatori bit the blanket countless times, trying to sleep. But someone’s words immediately distracted his focus. Again, a childlike laughter resounded through the cave-like dormitory.……

It was past eleven o'clock. They had not yet fallen asleep. Suddenly, the duty officer came rushing in, boots clattering roughly.

“Get up! Get up! Everyone, get up!” “Another inspection?” “You idiot! This isn’t about inspections! The Southern Army is coming in. Zhang Zongchang has just fled the city. All-night alert!” “Huh-huh-huh-hfft.”

The soldiers burst out laughing again as they got up.

22

Zhang Zongchang and Sun Chuanfang abandoned Tai'an without fighting. Then they attempted to maintain their position temporarily by means of the Jieshou line.

However, pressured by Feng Yuxiang's cavalry unit that had detoured around the Yellow River to close in on them from the flank there, and by Chen Diaoyuan's superior unit that had threaded through south of Mount Tai to emerge onto 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 the old capital of Jinan. Subsequently, while destroying the Yellow River's iron bridge, they retreated along the Tianjin-Pukou Railway toward Tianjin. The Shandong Army soldiers, fearing they would be left behind, competed to be first. They set up a ladder on the roof of the freight car and clambered up. They nearly tumbled off. Soldiers were packed onto the roof.

Approximately six hours later, Gu Zhutong's Third Division of the Southern Army—which had spent the night at Wangsherenzhuang—entered the city as dawn broke. Following this, 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 locations were occupied by Gu Zhutong's forces. One hour later, He Yaozu's troops arrived along the Tianjin-Pukou Railway. Three hours after that, Fang Zhenwu—who had been advancing along the Yellow River from the flank—arrived. Combined, these forces likely numbered around twenty thousand.

Night fell. Near midnight, marching columns, automobiles, and porters shouldering large luggage with pots and pans arrived at the station once again.

On one splendid automobile stood two boy soldiers holding drawn pistols on either side, vigilantly scanning the area with sharp eyes. Despite his desperate efforts, the boy found his brain relentlessly assailed by sleep—his head bobbing repeatedly—and even as he stood there, felt himself teetering on the brink of being dragged into another world.

The automobile was surrounded by cavalry on all sides—front, back, left, and right. Still more automobiles followed behind. The unit was obstructed by the street barricades. The horses and vehicles slowed their speed and barely managed to slip through the gap. From the window of the automobile where the pistol-bearing boy stood, an oblong face with slightly sunken cheeks suddenly thrust out its neck. “What is this?” he barked in a metallic voice. “This is something the Japanese military constructed.”

“For what purpose did they so outrageously construct these things?” he barked, his jet-black eyes darting about as he surveyed the area. “There are sandbag emplacements here, and barbed wire spread everywhere—isn’t that right?” “Yes, sir.” “Our own soldiers stand guard here—they’ve even installed machine guns! This amounts to nothing less than hostile action against our revolutionary army! Why didn’t you demand they remove all this?!”

“Ha...”

The man on horseback beside the automobile also seemed to be a staff officer or division commander. “We must immediately lodge a stern protest demanding they completely remove all these things!” When they passed through the barricades, the automobile’s speed increased. The boy soldier, who had been nodding off repeatedly, suddenly bumped his head with a thud and opened his eyes. The unit dashed toward the city.

“This was from his son Jingguo in Moscow a year prior: ‘…Now you have become an enemy of the Chinese people. Father, you are a hero of the counter-revolution and the leader of a new warlord faction. You massacred workers in Shanghai. In response to this, the bourgeoisie of the entire world will no doubt greet you with welcoming words; the imperialists will bring forth many gifts. However, never forget that the proletariat resolutely exists on one side! Father, you became a hero of your time through coup d’état. However, I believe your victory will be temporary. Father! The Communists are preparing for battle day by day...’”

This heartrending letter had been thrust upon the party from the military headquarters of the traitor Chiang Kai-shek.

23 In the crowd of demonstrators in Sun Yat-sen suits, a Chinese officer was munching on a melon, his mouth moving repeatedly. The city streets were a showcase of various propaganda leaflets. On top of the peeling vermilion gate, a slender pole’s Blue Sky White Sun flag billowed grandly in the wind. The lame Nakatsu changed out of his Shandong Army cotton uniform into a dagua. He left the city. And, without boarding the train on which Zhang Zongchang was fleeing, he remained in Shangbudi (commercial district). Lately, Zhang Zongchang had been twisting his thick neck as if to avoid letting their gazes lock. The Russian Milukurof was also in a bad state. The favorable one was Cai Deshu, the younger brother of the Fifteenth Wife. Nakatsu, since departing for Suzhou with lingering feelings for Suzu, had confirmed the intuition he had long harbored.

After all, she’s gone and stopped liking me.

Zhang did not speak to him. Even when he stated that he had come, Zhang merely exchanged a nod. “If she doesn’t like me, it’s fine not to care,” he thought. “Human feelings of like and dislike are something that even oneself cannot control. That kind of thing happens to me too. It’s all so obvious.” Even so, he became somewhat reckless in his desperation. He reverted to his former nature. Without consulting Lord Zhang, he shot dead retreating officers and soldiers with his pistol in Lincheng. “Liquidate the hopelessly wounded!” he issued such an order.

The wounded soldiers to be buried,

“Please have mercy on us! Did we not fight for Lord Zhang and get wounded? Are you really going to bury us alive like this?” the wounded soldiers pleaded. “You got wounded for Lord Zhang’s sake, and now you’re being buried for Lord Zhang’s sake. You’re such fools!”

This was a phrase Nakatsu could have directed at himself. “How pitiful is that!” “How pitiful is that!”

They wailed and cried out at the top of their voices.

The brutal labor soothed his desolate emotions.

The lord retreated to the old capital without any stratagem or resolve. And he abandoned the Governor-General’s Office where he had lived for two and a half years. Abandoning this place would mean complete downfall. Public sentiment had turned. He was subjected to reprimands from Zhang Zuolin. There was no path but ruin.

Nakatsu perceived this.

“Damn it! Now’s the time to sever this rotten bond with that bastard.” ……He had reverted to his former self as a ronin. When he retreated from the front lines, he immediately stopped by Inokawa’s house. Juzaburo was groaning in his detention cell. In the house, there were no men besides Mikitaro. He too was absent during the daytime. This situation proved extremely convenient for him. The time spent at the front without seeing Suzu did not wither his emotions—rather, it stoked the passions of his fifty years.

His feelings toward Suzu were like those of an old man who loves a young girl akin to his own granddaughter out of an unquenchable lust in his twilight years. When he thought he might feel that way—bah! All this tedious pretense at refined love and dried-up romance was such a bother. Might as well take drastic measures—simply snatch her away without permission and be done with it? That sounds way more fun! And so, he commuted back and forth between these two places as if on a shared ride. He enjoyed savoring this turbulent swirl of his own emotions.

He savored it, and found pleasure in fantasizing about what to do next.

Nakatsu’s second visit did not instill much fear in Suzu or Shun. At the edge of the city, where the streets ended, there was a river. The water, flowing from an ancient spring within the city walls, made no sound. Unarmed Chinese soldiers thrust their heads into the water like a herd of hippos, churning it muddy. On one side of the street, soldiers in blue-gray Zhongshan suits swarmed like ants. On the other side, khaki uniforms gleamed within sandbag fortifications. It was like how gamecocks, before they start kicking each other, first lock eyes and probe for an opening. Beggars and vagrants, who had nothing to be taken, were strong.

Suzu, Shun, and their mother knew their house stood alone amidst swarms of Zhongshan-suited ants and crowds of beggars and vagrants. And they feared it. The rest were all Chinamen. The Shandong Army had looted valuables in several locations as a parting shot during their retreat and fired indiscriminately. The Zhongshan suits' eyes held hostility. Their anxiety grew increasingly worse. Nakatsu's visit—that of a former bandit turned warrior—served as some slight subjective relief from this fear and dread. He was skilled with a pistol. His glare could pierce. His presence strengthened them.

Along the narrow, garbage-strewn stone-paved street, Chinamen of indeterminate origin came and went like dogs, acting suspiciously. Inokawa’s house, though a heavy-stoned, thick-walled Chinese-style home, was immediately distinguishable from Chinese residences by the windows cut into its walls and the stone-built fence reminiscent of rural Shikoku. Suzu, Shun, and their mother felt eerie whenever they saw the long, bulky Chinese-style clothing, as if those garments were concealing pistols in their pockets. And they felt an anxiety akin to longing, a desire to cling to someone.

Nakatsu visually savored the simple yet vibrant kimonos of Japanese girls in this house, the Shikoku-accented Japanese spoken there, and the soft, youthful flesh of the daughter—tender as a young chicken’s breast meat—that made him tremble with desire. All the while, he feigned sympathy for the family’s anxieties, adopting a concerned expression and occasionally declaring he would lend them special assistance. Osen did not spare her meager purse, draining it to accommodate Nakatsu as he ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner and lingered until late into the night.

Shun was innocent.

When Suzu tried to face Nakatsu with the same casual, overly familiar attitude she showed other outsiders, she found it draining. For some reason, her face burned crimson. Nakatsu had committed robberies, murders, rapes—acts that made him loathed and feared as a venomous scorpion by many. Yet he still wore that same comical, cheerful smile from before, unchanged in reality. To Suzu, this proved both unsettling and perversely gratifying. But from the moment Nakatsu entered the gate until his departure—whether twelve hours or fifteen—not once did his smile-laden predatory gaze leave her face, neck, or hands during all that time. For Suzu, this became an airless confinement.

That persistent gaze remained fixed on her even when she was occupied with tasks and not looking toward him. She sensed this. At times, she grew anxious that Nakatsu’s two thickly haired, sturdy arms might boldly seize her from behind and lick her neck like a bear. She shuddered.

When her brother wasn’t there, this fear grew even stronger. When Mother was gone too, she felt as though the terror and danger drew closer and closer.

Suzu came to feel reliant on her younger sister and nephew, who could barely walk. Like a small bird, she huddled in a corner.

Mikitaro felt the two terrors assailing his family. At the same time, while his sister and mother harbored an obsessive fear—strong enough to induce shudders—toward Chinese soldiers' violence, he thought they remained nearly oblivious to Nakatsu's menace. Above all, Mother paid no heed to this. This left him dissatisfied. Mother seemed to be deliberately drawing Nakatsu into their home. He clashed with Mother. That sentiment, unknown to him, might have taken shape as words Mother sensed.

One evening, he mentioned that a six-tatami storage room in the match factory’s company housing had become available—they should evacuate there with only their valuables, he suggested. Mother abruptly declared she wasn’t bringing Nakatsu into the house out of any liking or fondness. Mikitaro felt her words’ sharp edge turning toward him. “Why was she twisting things up like this?” “Does she think I’ve ever once hinted that Mother’s involved with Nakatsu?!” Mikitaro thought. “Absurd! She’s completely off track!”

He fell silent, as was typical in such situations.

“If you hate it so much, you don’t have to go to the company housing at all.”

He said simply. With that, he fell completely silent.

“Since marrying into this family,” Mother cried hysterically, “there hasn’t been a single day I haven’t worried about Juzaburo and you all! Who in the world is to blame for dragging us all the way to China and making us suffer like this?!” She broke into a fit of hysterical sobbing. Strangely, the household’s structure had become topsy-turvy.

The following evening, Mikitaro was where his sister was,

“How much longer does Mr. Nakatsu plan to stay here without fleeing? He’ll end up a POW.”

“He’s already quit following Zhang Zongchang, they say.” “Why?”

“I don’t know why,” answered Shun to her brother, who had returned from the factory after being questioned along the way. “They say he’s been staying here all this time.” “When did he say that? When did you hear that?” “He said that on the day he returned from Jieshou. Over a week ago already. Didn’t you tell Big Brother?” “Why would I need to ask?! Why the hell did you hide that from me?” He too shouted hysterically.

“That bastard’s staying here forever because—” (he was growing increasingly irritated) “he’s after Suzu!” “I don’t want that!” Even Shun flushed bright red. “You shouldn’t say such things.” “Fool! Fool! You bastards are glad Father still can’t come out, aren’t you?!” Somehow, even Mikitaro’s faculties had gone awry. Glaring at his two sisters, he shouted as if to kick them away. “It’s because Father and I aren’t here that that bastard’s swaggering in and taking over!” “Don’t you get that?!”

“Daddy! Daddy!” Unaware of anything, Ichiro came up to Mikitaro’s knee.

XXIV

In a dusty corner of the street, street vendors were spread out. The Chinese people, like the street itself, were bathed in reddish-brown dust. The shop was an asset. Behind the street stalls, half-finished Chinese furniture stood gapingly empty.

A crowd in blue-gray Sun Yat-sen suits came passing by. The reddish-brown vendor, who had remained wary yet half-doubting, had no time to pack up his stall before he was suddenly surrounded by the Sun Yat-sen suits. Shouts, curses, limbs thrashing in desperate drowning struggles—the stall overturned...... With their bellies heaving in uproarious laughter, the Sun Yat-sen suits scattered. Not a single boiled egg that had been arranged in dishes and baskets remained—not even one slice of pork stewed in oil. The Sun Yat-sen suits went bouncing through the streets as they walked, munching cheerfully. On the opposite side of the road, khaki-clad soldiers kept dragging barbed wire with thorns. They glared at each other. This side glared. That side glared. A stone went flying.

At that moment, in a narrow street at the western edge—hemmed in by a sturdy sandbag fortification reinforced to triple its resistance—a Japanese man accompanied by a Chinese man was being questioned by a bayonet-wielding sentry. “You don’t seem Japanese.” The sentry thrust the bayonet forward. “Your Chinese is just too damn good.” “I am Japaneshe!” “Is that so?” The grime-covered sentry was startled.

“I really am Japaneshe.”

The man’s lower front teeth were completely gone.

“What’s with this Chinaman?” “Thish guy here, uh, thish morning, he eshcaped from the factory—a disgraceful worker—now I’m taking him…” His toothless mouth made the words slur and falter. Two bayonets gleamed at his chest. Koyama wiped his sweat. This only deepened the sentry’s suspicions. The military was an invaluable institution. But one misstep could make it terrifying. Flustered, Koyama explained he was the match factory foreman, that he’d gone to catch an escaped worker, that he’d even been housing soldiers in his factory. His explanation came out jumbled and incoherent.

The more composed sentry then said, “In that case, come to the sentry commander’s post,” and led them to a cramped, dark Chinese-style house at the end of the street. The sentry’s suspicions did not seem to be clearing. In the light of the hurricane lamps, the soldiers swarmed.

“Sergeant, sir! This guy might be a Southern Army spy.” “His appearance and speech are quite suspicious.” Things had become complicated, Koyama thought. Despite having gone to such lengths to accommodate the military at the factory... he felt a certain contradiction. “Hey, what’s going on here?” A familiar voice suddenly called out from a dark corner. “Ah, Mr. Yamazaki!” Koyama blurted out sharply, immediately realizing it was the spy Yamazaki. Saved!

He, aiming to demonstrate his familiarity with Yamazaki to the sentry, arrogantly stepped over the swarming soldiers and shook hands. Yamazaki in a black Chinese suit, alongside Nakatsu in a similar Chinese suit, sat on a long bench in the corner before a drowsy sergeant. “What’s going on here?” “These soldiers here—they ain’t the ones I’m hostin’ at my factory! Soldiers oughta be bastards standin’ under my command!” In a tone that practically declared as much, Koyama cut in. He told them how he’d chased after the escaped worker since early morning, catching him where he’d been hiding behind straw bales piled with dried waste in the waste drying yard.

“That’sh him.” “That’sh him.” At the entrance, he pointed at the filthy, pale Chinaman trembling with darting eyes. He was twenty-one years old. On his forehead were three lumps. They were lumps formed when he had been beaten by him just moments before; red blood oozed from them. “To think there’s a gap-toothed bastard like this.” “Even among Zhang Zongchang’s soldiers, there ain’t no fool who’d get caught after running.” Nakatsu sneered. “Why don’t we just get rid of him?” “It’ll make a damn good lesson for the other bastards.”

Nakatsu’s murderous eyes gleamed 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 curiously, as if belatedly. A gunshot rang out in the direction where they had been glaring at each other and throwing stones. Everyone pricked up their ears. Yamazaki and Nakatsu hurried outside. Yamazaki once again emphasized what he had previously instructed the sergeant to do. “Yes, sir.” In the darkness, the sergeant bowed toward his back.

On the street, a vagrant ran curiously toward the direction of the gunshots. Women with bound feet came fleeing from that direction. Again, a gunshot rang out. Before long, as if to crush one side of this minor clash, a gray armored automobile roared up, machine guns protruding like horns and raising a ground-shaking rumble. Dogs prowled.

“Tch! “This is why things go wrong!” Yamazaki, covered from head to toe in the automobile’s dust cloud, clicked his tongue like a master dissatisfied with his apprentice’s blunder. He had an elaborate plan of his own. He had labored for that purpose. He utilized anyone he could use. Nakatsu too was a pawn to be exploited. “This is why you shouldn’t do things like this.” “If you want to win, first lose!” “That’s how it is.”

He muttered toward Nakatsu. “What’s all this about winning or losing? Just bring in the artillery and crush those ants in one go!” “Unless… you establish a righteous cause for your actions, even victory becomes defeat.” “You lot always make everything such a pain!” Yamazaki appreciated Nakatsu’s boldness and his extensive connections among the Chinamen. That was one exploitable asset. However, this crooked rogue—no straight arrow himself—was too engrossed in other fantasies to entertain his proposal. He didn’t like that.

Gu Zhutong had occupied the Tianjin-Pukow Railway Station and the telegraph office. That was an extremely dangerous situation. That tormented Yamazaki most severely. The reports sent to the homeland and countries around the world had to align exactly with his intentions. For that purpose, some degree of fabrication was permissible. Gu Zhutong controlled that communications apparatus. From then on, Chiang Kai-shek could not afford to advance his troops further toward Tianjin and Beijing. From the perspective of securing Manchuria, this was the worst possible development. Therefore, establishing some righteous cause became necessary. It could even be called a pretext. To create that pretext, using a thug like Nakatsu as a pawn was the optimal approach.

An officer came running out from the side street.

The minor clash had subsided. The two of them walked toward Tōkōzan like fools who had only come to gawk at the peep show sign. “Hey, quit making daily pilgrimages to that childlike girl and give me a hand with my work for once.” Yamazaki broached the subject as if joking. Nakatsu, as he walked along the road, had become engrossed in enumerating Suzu’s beautiful features—her hands, legs, shoulders, nose, and mouth. He was enjoying fantasizing about a plan to abduct her. How absurd that plan was. He gave no thought to what the consequences might be. He was single-mindedly determined to take the girl away. And he found pleasure in planning and fantasizing about it. Nakatsu, seizing the opportunity when Yamazaki had brought up Suzu, cheerfully grinned and laid out his own plan.

“How old are you exactly?” Yamazaki asked. “Fifty-three.”

Nakatsu didn’t find it particularly strange. “That girl is about the same age as your own children.” “She’s probably only a third of your age.”

“What’s wrong with that? You don’t understand this feeling of mine. That softness, that utterly childlike air—isn’t it unbearably appealing? In all my years, I’ve never seen a girl like that. How should I put it... It’s a feeling that seizes my entire being—something utterly beyond words.” “At your age, spouting lines like some spring-green youth in indigo!”

“This isn’t some trifling matter.” “No matter what you say, I can’t give up this resolve.” “Heh heh heh,” Yamazaki sneered. “She’s a cute girl alright… but for you, that girl’s mother would be just the ticket.” “You and that old hag would make a fine pair.” “How ’bout it? The old man’s a heroin junkie locked up in the consulate—why not take the hag for yourself instead?” “I’ll even help you out.”

“Cut the jokes.” “I’m sick and tired of that rotten old hag.” “No matter what you say, I must have a virgin!” “A virgin’s taste is something special!” “I’ll never get another girl like that again!”

Koyama told the soldiers in the Chinese house to eat shit! Koyama left the scene with a face that said "Eat shit!" The captured worker followed after him.

25

Juzaburo was transferred from the consulate police detention center to S Hospital. He smashed off his own little toe on the edge of a Seto-ware basin.

That was how he was able to get out of the detention cell. A young Ministry of Foreign Affairs patrolman, freshly arrived from mainland Japan, followed him to the hospital while keeping watch with a sullen look.

At the match factory, it was not the military but the manager who worried about the removal of defensive barriers due to Chiang Kai-shek's protests and the risk of clashes between Southern Army troops and Japanese forces. The staff had been fidgeting since morning. There was no telling whether the workers might conspire with radical factions of the Northern Expedition soldiers. Around ten o'clock, Mikitaro was notified that his father had been moved to S Hospital. His mother and a Chinaman in a baggy high-collared jacket shoved past the scolding patrolman and came bursting into the office. He was startled.

Mother was out of breath, her eyes like those of a child with insects sealed inside them, and as though she didn’t know what to say, she couldn’t utter a word. Mikitaro saw that alone and was immediately struck with anxiety that Suzu might have been snatched away. “Quickly—S Hospital—go. “Your father’s injured. “Japanese doctor saw him—bleeding. “Hurry! Hurry!” The high-collared Chinaman who seemed well-meaning jumbled Japanese and Chinese together. He was frantic to relay his message quickly to Mikitaro. Between his widely spaced eyebrows, he furrowed a crease. The more he panicked, the more his Japanese knotted on his tongue. At last losing patience, he shouted entirely in Chinese. Mikitaro understood.

Mikitaro suppressed his irritation toward the manager who was exchanging contemptuous looks with Koyama and sneering, uttering a brief excuse. He immediately rushed out toward the hospital. Soldiers were dragging barricades being withdrawn from the streets with heavy movements. “Wait.” Mother called from behind. “...”

Mikitaro knew it was Mother but deliberately didn’t answer. “Wait!” Mother repeated. “What is it?” He spoke in an angry voice. “You have to take this with you.” Mother, like a child with insects sealed inside her eyes, stood before the gate guard. “You can’t go without this.” From between her obi she took out a small paper box. “Kuai Shang Kuai.” “Is home safe?”

Though he didn’t want to say it, Mikitaro ended up voicing his concern about Nakatsu.

Mother remained silent, unable to comprehend what she was being asked. "Is home safe with Suzu and Shun there?" "Ah," Mother said absentmindedly. "Just now, as we were leaving, Mr. Nakatsu came by passing us." "It’s okay." "Nakatsu came! — Who knows what he might do!" "......" "You should go home from here." Mikitaro thought he couldn’t afford to dwell on minor lingering emotions. He declared flatly.

“What’s happening with Father?” Mother hesitated.

“With Suzu and Shun there, how can we afford to be careless about what might happen?” “But…”

It seemed her husband still weighed on her mind. Let it be! He couldn’t press her further. Mother followed behind him as he rushed toward the hospital, accompanied by the Chinese man in the high-collared jacket. He had vaguely sensed Nakatsu’s dangerous scheme. Even while arguing with his mother, he kept obliquely repeating that she mustn’t leave the house unattended. Nakatsu had come to their home just as Mother was leaving. Mikitaro could practically envision Nakatsu’s obscenely knowing grin slipping through. And his unease only deepened.

Juzaburo endured his body—now emptied of heroin—as much as he could within the consulate's detention cell. Yet he ultimately failed to withstand the full twenty-nine days of confinement. He writhed in physical torment, groaning as though at death's door, all while enduring the young patrolman's scorn and derisive laughter.

He had once been a village assembly member. He had tried to expose the others who'd taken bribes. The gallant bearing from those days had vanished completely. Finding the old man in the surgical ward's white bed - yellowish and thrashing like a dying jaundice patient while nurses pinned him down - Mikitaro first recalled those times. Who had reduced him to this?! We receive protection from no one! Japanese privileges are privileges that don't extend to the poor!

A young, manly Chinese doctor was wrapping a bandage around the tip of his right foot, now little more than bone. While being bandaged, the old man groaned. The doctor seemed Japanese at first glance. From the old man’s torn toe, red blood welled up sputteringly where the gauze had been wiped. The white bandage stained red as soon as it was wrapped. The Chinese guard stood nearby with a resentful look on his face. When Mikitaro entered, the young patrolman from the consulate—wearing a hat with a maroon headband—exchanged a brief glance with the other man and went outside. Mikitaro had brought "Kuai Shang Kuai" to give to the old man. So the patrolman tactfully left the scene—and Mikitaro immediately sensed why.

The old man lay like a starved corpse, his cheekbones jutting out, eye sockets sunken deep, gasping and moaning. "It'd be better to endure this now - stop giving him anesthetic and break that damn habit for good!" he thought.

The old man, with eyes sunken from illness, noticed his son and—heedless of whether the patrolman outside could hear—demanded “Kuai Shang Kuai” like a petulant child. “Tch! Can’t be helped!” The medicine was administered. Juzaburo inhaled voraciously, with evident relish. He then proceeded to inhale an entire case’s worth of anesthetic in quick succession. “It hurt so bad—so bad—I couldn’t take it anymore, so I ended up doin’ this." “Bashed off my little toe with a washbasin.—Had to do that to get outta detention." “No matter how much I thrashed ’round, those consulate bastards just kept grinnin’ at me.”

Mother and the Chinese man in the high-collared jacket arrived. With the medicine having taken effect, Juzaburo forgot the pain in his foot. He frolicked with those surrounding him, and even a smile like that of a self-satisfied man rose to his lips. He’s completely become a slave to heroin! Mikitaro thought. He wants to smoke heroin even if he has to cut off his own finger! A finger in exchange for heroin! If he hadn’t even come to China, this would never have happened! If they hadn’t even driven us out of that village, none of this would have happened!

He was filled with dread.

“Is there no more?… Ain’t there more? Let me smoke it!” “Let me smoke it!”

The old man began to whine like a child again. In China, there may be countless people who, like this Juzaburo, had become prisoners of opium, morphine, and heroin brought in by foreign hands! Countless humans were becoming addicts and being destroyed because of opium...

26

The shabby man with a receding hairline and a limp entered the stone-paved alley sweltering in blazing heat and dust. Shuffling along, his gait appeared repulsive. Yet he walked nimbly and briskly. After a while, he returned from the stone-paved alley he had entered. He moved even more nimbly than before, as if flying on his one gammy leg. He called for a rickshaw and leaped in with a single bound.

“Hurry up!” The rickshaw was swallowed into the dust-choked streets of scorching heat. In a house within a stone-walled compound at the end of the alley, Suzu faced a cheap hand-cranked sewing machine, sewing, unpicking, and resewing a dress. The stitches that refused to run straight and parallel displeased her. Ichiro, with his upturned nose, looked as though his entire face was nothing but eyes. His eyes were wide and gleaming. He was the spitting image of Toshiko who had left. He crawled closer to Shun. With his small hands, he tried to roughly snatch the leaflet she was reading.

The leaflet was one issued by Chiang Kai-shek. The leaflet was somewhat different even from the classical Chinese textbooks used in schools. Shun couldn’t quite read it. “Wait a minute.” She drove away Ichiro as he reached out to grab it with his hands. She gave him a toy dog.

The Nationalist Government will exempt all taxes in full for this region alone.… Ichiro threw the dog. And again, he spread his hands and lunged to grab it. The leaflet became crumpled. Shun smoothed it out and read again. —Zhang Zuolin, Zhang Zongchang, robbery, rape, treasonous... Suddenly, Ichiro knocked the leaflet from her hands with both hands. The paper was torn to shreds. It was still partially read.

Shun didn’t find it regrettable. She was pondering something. Suzu concentrated fully on the sewing machine. The needle moved rapidly and rhythmically up and down. The stitches clattered along. “Hey, he was acting really strange today.” “What?” Suzu replied vacantly. “It felt like he was plotting something—he wasn’t just glaring around the whole house and staring at us with those angry eyes.” “There was something terrifying in his eyes and the way he smiled at the corners of his mouth.”

"Is that so?" Cat-like Shun vividly recalled Nakatsu's recent actions from the past few days. Signs of something terrifying had been present for two or three days—no, even four or five days.

“Hey! Hey!…” Shun called out to her sister again…

In a room at the Tōkō Inn (Shina Inn), 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, reckless jobs over food. Tang, a short and stocky man, was the type who would grapple with enemy sentries bare-handed, bite through their windpipes, and seize their guns and swords. They all had experience kidnapping the daughters and wives of the wealthy as hostages three or five times.

Bed mats, low tables, desks, floral-patterned teapots, suitcases, a pile of silver coins. Nakatsu found his mind still wavering even as he reached the stage of executing the robbery plan he had refined countless times in his imagination. Perhaps I should abandon the whole thing altogether? To dote on her like a granddaughter—that kind of doting would be fine. That might be better. He had never hesitated this much before. But he didn't let even a hint of it slip to his comrades. He explained the execution method regardless. He divided his comrades into three automobiles; when driving through Japanese military-controlled areas, he negotiated through Yamazaki to avoid being questioned. Because if sentries noticed them forcibly loading a girl in a kimono, it would cause trouble. When they approached areas garrisoned by the Southern Army, they would erect the Blue Sky White Sun flags they had procured beforehand on their automobiles. That's how they settled it.

Two automobiles were moving through the streets. Nakatsu lured the girl out and began walking toward that spot. The first car came to a sudden stop. In an instant, the comrades who had leaped out snatched the girl into the car. Nakatsu rode in the rear car and followed after. It had been decided to proceed in this manner. If the sister and child came along too, they would take all three away. And from there, they would dash nonstop for about four miles along the Yellow River’s banks to Luokou, then make their escape toward Tianjin. This was the plan. If Suzu did not accept Nakatsu’s invitation, the five had intended to force their way into the house. They had no choice but to resort to violent abduction. As for money, there was five hundred yuan in silver. In addition, there were 3,500 yuan in paper money that wouldn’t pass.

Nakatsu still needed to raise about a thousand yen. Yamazaki, who shared the lodging, was persistently trying to dissuade them from this riot. He was a stingy man. To Nakatsu, it seemed he was trying to stop them out of a dislike for lending money. That had hit the mark. And the more they tried to stop him, the more obstinate he became.

“Cut it out—this kinda thing…” said Yamazaki. “Snatchin’ village permits? I’d get that. But what’s the point grabbin’ some flighty broad without two coins to rub together?” “Yeah—this ain’t no joke.”

“Shut your trap!” Nakatsu, as the critical moment drew nearer, tried to conceal his agitation by forcing himself into an exaggerated state of composure. “If you’re so dead set on her from the core, why not just propose properly instead of snatching her? There’s no need to resort to barbaric, violent acts—you could just formally ask for the girl’s hand. If you did that, even I’d support you.”

“Quit your stupid talk!” Nakatsu laughed. “Even Commander Zhang—when he spotted some beauty on his way to Dong’an Market in Beijing, didn’t he snatch her straight into his automobile and claim her? Fancy methods like marriage proposals don’t suit our breed.” He leaned forward, teeth bared. “When you want something, ain’t it way simpler—hell, more fun—to just grab it without all that bowin’ and scrapin’?”

He Fugui, one of Nakatsu’s comrades, narrowed his clouded eyes and nodded in agreement. “As expected, you lot just can’t shake off those bandit habits.”

Nakatsu laughed. “The only ones spouting that kind of logic in all of China are that girl’s argumentative brother and you.” “...in all of this vast China.” “No—” “I’m being serious here.” “For your sake.”

“Who gives a damn about your ‘seriousness’ or any of that crap?! If we take a liking to ’em, we snatch ’em and make ’em our women; if we get sick of ’em, we just toss ’em out and sell ’em off. No need to take care of ’em—you can’t imagine how damn good that feels!”

“Don’t get too full of yourself, I’m warning you!” “I don’t know a damn thing about getting through sentry lines.”

“Heh heh heh… If you don’t know, then you don’t need to know.” “In return, I’ll spill your secrets too—I’ve got plenty of dirt to spill.”

This was a bluff.

The five men who had gathered took up their sake cups before departure. Compared to the five, Yamazaki still retained an ineffably Japanese air about him. Even when offered a cup, he stiffly refused to drink. The five fully loaded pistols concealed on his person—two at his chest, two under his arms, and one in his right hip pocket—were betrayed by slight bulges beneath his overcoat.—That tightwad’s hoarding all his cash and won’t lend a damn penny to anyone! Nakatsu thought resentfully. Damn it! This guy didn’t come to China to enjoy some free and unrestrained life. He’s here just to hoard petty cash! Tch! Goddammit!

An automobile arrived. "If only I would formally take a bride and dote on her like a grandchild!" Nakatsu thought. That way would have been peaceful. That way would have been better. But he had already taken one more step into the river. "In the end, I have no choice but to cross even this raging current!" "Alright, let’s get going." He stood up. He also realized they were short on funds. "Boy! Where are the blankets?" He Fugui—who had narrowed his clouded eyes in agreement—said. "Load those Russian blankets into the front car." He narrowed his eyes contentedly again. "When moving through the city—if you don’t swathe the woman head-to-toe—with martial law being so damn strict these days—the job’ll be near impossible." "If that gagged woman gets spotted by khaki sentries—it’s all over."

The five men finished preparing and stepped into the hallway. Through the second-floor windowpane, they saw blue-gray uniforms rummaging through pedestrians' pockets. A bellboy arrived with blankets. “Not those,” He Fugui barked. “Aren’t these Russian blankets?” Nakatsu scattered money with reckless abandon. Another bellboy—beautiful, almost girlish—came sprinting over clutching a russet-colored Russian blanket. “Ah, this one.” He Fugui took it at the stairway—an ornate, thick blanket with a coarse texture. He flexed his hands once. Then in one swift motion, he swaddled the pretty bellboy head to toe in the fabric.

“Agh!” The boy was caught off guard and startled. “See? This is how you do it.” Proudly demonstrating the method he had acquired, He looked around at the others. “This’ll do the trick!”

Nakatsu smiled contentedly. Yamazaki watched the five thugs depart, still looking as though he reluctantly wanted to get some last bit of change from them. Suddenly, he rushed to Nakatsu’s ear and whispered something. Nakatsu nodded. Some money was handed to Nakatsu…… The automobile exited from Tai Malu onto Weisi Road—where barricades and barbed wire were not holding strong—turned toward Yongsui Gate at Qimalu, and detoured through neutral territory that was neither the Japanese military’s security zone nor areas scattered with Southern Army forces. Nakatsu arrived at Shiwangdian by rickshaw.

They would snatch the lured-out girl at Guanzhan Street. The arrangements had been finalized.

Nakatsu got off the rickshaw. About an hour earlier, he had darted into and out of this stone-paved alley; now he strode through it again with the same urgency. The fresh green leaves of the acacia rustled in the wind. He moved beneath them.

Though dragging his lame leg, he walked with the vigorous stride of youth. His feet seemed not to touch the ground. The gate was closed.

Nakatsu called Wang Jinhua. There was a presence inside. And yet there was no reply. Again, he called. After a few threatening words, the bolt was unlatched with a clank. Inside, a Chinese boy stood timidly. “What the hell’s going on?!” “Yes… Welcome.” “What the hell’s going on?!” Inside the house, Suzu—who had been sewing at the machine until just moments before—was nowhere to be seen, the half-sewn dress left exactly as it was. Shun and Ichiro were also gone.

“What’s wrong?!” Nakatsu rapidly circled through all the rooms whose layout he knew. There were traces of them having fled with nothing but their bodies. “They’ve caught on! Damn it!” They’d hidden somewhere. “They’ve run off, damn them!”

For a while, he wandered aimlessly. The group that had grown impatient waiting in the automobiles came surging forward noisily. They were a crew who relished looting and violence. They overturned the Buddhist altar. They yanked out the drawer. The Kuai Shang Kuai and copper coins inside cascaded down onto the floor like trash. Every neatly arranged item in the interior was thrown into disarray one after another. Valuables were snatched up by the five pairs of hands and frantically crammed into pockets.

The abduction of the girl had, before they knew it, turned into the looting of household goods. That, too, was immensely entertaining to them.

27

Mikitaro and Mother tried to return home from the hospital. They got into a rickshaw.

From somewhere indeterminate, five or six rifle shots rang out.

He thought they were fireworks.

Through the town, a band of fierce Mongol cavalry flew southward, kicking up a cloud of sand as they raced like the wind. The soldiers in khaki uniforms lowered their bayonet-fixed rifles and appeared sporadically behind them. The rifle fire, like popping beans, intensified in various places. As they approached Weiliu Road, the rickshaw puller faltered and drew back. “Hurry up! We must get home!” They reached Weiwu Road. Bullets fired from the second floor of a thick-walled Western-style building whizzed back and forth over the street.

Soldiers ran. Barefoot Japanese ran with their shirts hanging open. A woman in red satin, her bangs disheveled, ran as if about to stumble. From there, they charged straight through to Weisan Road. That stretch had become something even Mikitaro himself could no longer help but feel was dangerous.

“Hurry up! What are you dawdling for?!”

“Sir, I can’t go on. It’s too dangerous.” “It’s life-threatening.” “I don’t care! “Go on, go on!”

However, the rickshaw puller simply refused to go any further.

This event had occurred rapidly following the looting of his house. A house on the verge of collapse—remove but a single wedge, and its massive framework would crumble all at once into scattered fragments. When looking for a fight, all it takes is the slightest touch of sleeves. That was all the pretext they needed. Nakatsu’s looting became the trigger for the urban warfare. Seeing Nakatsu’s violence, the blue-clad men who had been loitering nearby surged forward. The house was smashed to pieces. The khaki-clad soldiers who heard this rushed to the scene. The shooting started right away. And in the blink of an eye, it had spread throughout the entire city. As if it had been prepared and lying in wait.

The intense, infamous urban warfare was now set into motion.

The dirt-floored area of the KS Club was packed with people who had barely escaped with their lives, fleeing in desperation. Refugees kept surging in from behind—more and more of them. There was a man who—with his exit blocked by bluish-gray southern soldiers—broke through a wall into a neighboring house, borrowed Chinese clothes, pushed a passing rickshaw from behind while disguised as a laborer to escape. There was another man who had escaped alone while watching southern soldiers abduct his wife. Those clutching blankets and cloth-wrapped bundles. Those wearing nothing but loincloths and undergarments. A small child with red eyes—hoarse from crying—clung to his father’s back.

“Oh, Momoko-chan is so brave! When I was bringing her to evacuate, I asked what we’d do if the Southern Army caught us, and she said, ‘I’ll cut our throats with a razor and die with you, Mom!’” The pregnant fabric store proprietress was the only one chattering shrilly and triumphantly. “Isn’t she truly remarkable? This truly is what makes a Japanese man!” She lifted a flat-nosed child of about ten high into the air to show the crowd.

“My, this truly is what makes a Japanese man!” Whenever she spotted a familiar face, this plump hen would proudly repeat her story, heedless of their concern. Suzu and Shun huddled in a corner of the dirt-floored area, pressed down by the crowd as they crouched small. They’d let Ichiro get taken by the Southern Army! They saw a red-eyed child fussing on his father’s back and finally remembered. Where had they lost him? They had no clear memory.

Turning back to search for him would have meant risking their lives. She had barely enough strength left to protect herself.

Another crowd of women, barefoot in their tabi socks, came stampeding in. They were prostitutes from Yongxianli. Chinese soldiers had invaded the brothel district. The prostitutes were thrown into complete panic. The man in a torn white shirt and only trousers couldn't even sit on the palm-fiber mat; he stood rigid by the window where a bulletproof blanket hung, clenching his lips, one hand thrust into a pocket, staring ahead with gleaming eyes. A restless anxiety radiated through his entire body. He was a man who had lost his wife and child.

“Oh, Mr. Koide! You must listen.” “My Momoko-chan, she…” Once again, the hen began noisily repeating herself.

When Nakatsu and his men broke into her house, Suzu had been huddled under the palm-fiber matting beneath their neighbor Ma Guanzhi’s floorboards with Shun and Ichiro, the three of them making themselves small. She remembered that. There had indeed been three of them. The bed, the bedding, everything nearby—all were permeated with the strange smell of Chinese people. At their house, rough footsteps in great numbers, cursing shouts, and the clamor of destruction swirled together in a chaotic vortex. The splintering crack of planks being torn away. The thunderous crash of a cupboard toppling over, glass shattering, walls collapsing.

Trembling with fear, she crawled out from under the floorboards and approached the window. And, sticking out only her eyes, she peered outside. In the stone-paved, ominous alley, bluish-gray-uniformed soldiers were swarming in great numbers.

There was a grubby man who, carrying her hand-cranked sewing machine under his arm, disappeared into the alley opposite. A wire birdcage had been trampled flat. They had been well hidden by the wife of their neighbor Ma Guanzhi.

There was a sound of someone knocking on the gate from outside. She felt they had come to kill her. They crawled back under the floorboards and pulled in their necks. Rough footsteps approached. They held their breath and listened intently. It was Ma Guanzhi.

“It’s dangerous for you all to stay here. Hide in the toilet quickly!” Ma Guanzhi was being kind.

They fled to the toilet. That place was also easy to find. They were in trouble. There was a gap where another neighboring Chinese house tried to adjoin this toilet. Shun frantically climbed the six-foot wall. And jumped down through the gap. That spot was safe. Suzu followed after and jumped down. The footsteps of five or six people clattered noisily on the other side of the wall, kicking aside chairs and boxes. They seemed to be heading for the toilet as well. The wall was kicked with a heavy thud. They listened intently. The voices were in Chinese. Was it Nakatsu or the Southern soldiers? Either way, if they were discovered, they would be killed or dragged out naked.

The gap between the houses was open, leading through to the alley on the opposite side. In a panic, a figure fleeing in white tabi socks and bare feet was fleetingly glimpsed through the narrow gap. Bayonet-fixed khaki-clad soldiers came charging. They had no time to think. They rushed out into that alley. And then they ran toward where people were fleeing—straight to Ichimoku-san. They pushed past those plodding along ahead and ran. She had forgotten what had become of Ichiro. To the KS Club, more and more refugees came crowding in without end. When had things turned into such great turmoil? They found it strange. Her house had become the trigger for the urban warfare. They hadn’t known that. The Southern soldiers were to blame. They had been made to think so. Many people, of course, had thought the same. At all times, the trigger for incidents was created by reactionary thugs like Nakatsu as needed. Of course, they knew nothing of such things.

In distant places and nearby, the sounds of cannons and gunfire rang out intermittently, then continuously. Each time the cannons fired, the glass windows rattled violently. A man whose head had been savagely slashed came in. Several hours passed.

The man went outside and washed the rice. When the rice was ready, those men distributed it only to people they knew and to prostitutes, while those on the opposite side were eating their fill. But not a single bowl reached those who weren't acquaintances. Suzu and Shun were filled with a lonely sense of having been cast aside. If their older brother were here, he would get them food to eat. Abruptly, Suzu thought such a thing. The prostitutes in red kimonos, though they'd already had more than enough, were still being forced to take one rice ball each.

At last, a small portion of the leftover rice from those across made its way to the bottom of the rice tub. They felt an infuriating sense of being treated as second-class. However, if they missed this chance to eat, they wouldn’t know when they’d get another meal. Everyone scrambled to grab that rice with dirty hands, each trying to be first. It was a wretched scene like starving demons.

In the evening, the people received an order to move to S Bank’s dormitory. It was because they couldn’t hold out there, they said.

Suzu firmly grasped Shun’s hand. They moved along the wall to reach the main street, avoiding bullets. The usually bustling thoroughfare stood deserted, without even a stray dog passing through. Occasional gunfire rang out: pah-pah-pah. “Look! “Look there… Those Southern Army bastards are getting slaughtered.” A bearded man running with a child on his back pointed toward the postal management compound as he fled. “What could that be?”

Suzu briefly turned her face toward the indicated direction. Inside the barbed-wire fence stretched taut, disarmed soldiers in navy-blue Sun Yat-sen uniforms—their hands bound behind them—were moaning and howling like beasts. Were there dozens? Hundreds? There was no way to tell. Four or five khaki-clad soldiers stood scattered about, gripping rifles with fixed bayonets.

Suddenly, Shun cried out something, then pulled her hand heavily downward and collapsed to the ground with a thud. “What’s wrong?” Shun had been struck in the leg by a stray bullet. Blood was seeping into her whitish merino skirt. “What’s wrong?” More than the pain of the wound, the realization that she’d been shot completely shattered her tense composure. Shun couldn’t stand up no matter how she tried. The others rushed past them one after another. Suzu made her sister cling to her shoulders and stood up carrying her. Only the two of them remained behind at the very end. Again and again she hitched up her sister’s heavy body. Cold blood dripped steadily onto her calves as they hurried along.

……The people spent the night on straw mats inside S Bank’s building. Thirteen families sat on two straw mats. There was no doctor. Suzu tore a handkerchief into strips and bound Shun’s bruised purple thigh. The two couldn’t even reach the edge of a straw mat. They sat on the wooden floor. “It must hurt sitting there.” “Sit on this.” The small woman with blackened teeth spread out her own nightgown as a substitute for a straw mat. Suzu did not know the woman’s face. However, taking care not to stain the nightgown with blood on it, she stretched out Shun’s leg.

The two lay side by side on the woman’s nightgown. “Ah, how terrifying this is! There’s no telling how many people killed or were killed today.” The woman sighed and chanted “Namu Amida Butsu.” “There’s no telling how many have lost all their property… It must be over a hundred. How many have had their houses destroyed! ……Ah, ah, how terrifying! How terrifying!”

Namu Amida Butsu. Namu Amida Butsu.

Night deepened. Shun clenched her teeth and tried to endure the pain, but a groan leaked out from between them. The cannons still roared in the distance, shattering the stillness. The sound of people snoring and dogs barking could be heard. Only the electric lights were growing brighter and brighter. The military police's boots clomped repeatedly down the corridor.

The next day, in the afternoon, the two were taken to the hospital where their father and mother, who had leg injuries, were. There, Shun received treatment.

28

Killing and plunder were inherent to armies and war. When war broke out - plundering was carried out; requisition was carried out; murder was carried out. This was exaggeratedly reported according to interests. Conversely, depending on interests, they were ultimately silenced.

On this day, the Japanese nationals who were massacred amounted to fourteen when including nine discovered two days later buried in the earth.

In the bourgeois newspapers of mainland Japan, it was reported as 280 people. The newspapers wrote that after stripping women naked and subjecting them to unspeakably cruel acts of torment, they were massacred. The girl had a rod thrust into her genitals, the bones in her arms beaten and broken with clubs, and both eyes gouged out. They wrote. They reported that before the correspondents’ eyes lay corpses with shattered skulls, their brains spilled onto the dusty roads. Regarding plunder as well, similar reports were made. They looted valuables and clothing as a matter of course, ripped up floorboards, tatami mats, and ceiling panels, and even stole elementary school textbooks. And gold chains, gold watches, 240 yuan in silver coins, and 380 yuan in paper currency were stolen. The accounts of those victims were published.

Anyone who read that and didn't despise the Southern Army must have been unhinged. Anyone who didn't feel outrage that annihilating those brutal soldiers was justified must have been unhinged.

The power of such exaggerated reporting was immense. The public opinion of the nation, hatred toward the enemy, the soldiers' reckless courage, and indignation—all these were inevitably created and propagated through such reporting. Yamazaki understood this. And he utilized it.

On the third day, he discovered the brutally murdered bodies buried beneath a freshly raised earthen mound in the farmland northeast of the Tianjin-Pukou Railway embankment. The earthen mound with clear, fresh hoe marks seemed somehow suspicious.

He dug it up.

A woman and two men lay there, emitting a raw, sour stench. Furthermore, near the Asia Tank, slightly removed from there, six corpses had also been concealed. Both ears had been severed, and one person’s abdomen was swollen and hardened with stones stuffed inside. Jūōden and Tateekimachi alike had been reduced to unrecognizable chaos, with many houses overturned through plunder and destruction.

Yamazaki in Chinese clothing surveyed the area. "I must report this," he resolved. To the soldiers, to his compatriots, to the mainland itself. Through professional instinct, he understood precisely what would unfold once this was reported. This man knew full well the monumental effect of inflating a dozen casualties into two hundred eighty. War could not be waged without whipping the populace into feverish excitement. The enemy had to be painted as absolute evil. Third-party sympathy must be secured! He knew these truths all too well...

The house that his friend Nakatsu had first invaded and plundered remained in Jūōden as a scattered empty shell. That this became the trigger was nothing short of a godsend for him. A beggar had slipped inside. After the initial plundering, he had been stealing broken chairs, straw mats, and a girl's Western-style umbrella with a snapped handle that lay discarded and scattered about. I really took full advantage of this opening.

“Ah, right. This was Inokawa’s house, wasn’t it,” he muttered as if it were someone else’s business.

“The Southern Army bastards plundering this place was what started the war! That’s right. The fault lies with the Southern Army!”

This self-serving man came to a stop before it. Behind the broken thick wall, the beggar was furtively going about his business. “Hey, Mr.Yamazaki!”

A voice that brought back unpleasant memories sounded from behind.

“Ah, Mr.Chen!” Yamazaki smoothed over his startled reaction. Chen Changcai had disguised himself as a student and infiltrated S University. Since then, while repeatedly promising compensation, he had evaded every time without handing over even a single yuan. “How about it? How’s business?” Chen looked at Yamazaki with a complicated smile. “Ah, that—that’ll have to wait until next time. With all this chaos, this ain’t the place for it.” “Next time? Next time?” Chen repeated. “...You’ve got no right to keep saying that shit over and over!” He took a step closer to Yamazaki. By whose power were you able to concretely grasp America’s secret?! Who do you think made your accomplishments possible?! Those eyes seemed to be saying just that.

"What a pain! This guy’s followed me!" Yamazaki thought. "I might as well take care of him now in all this chaos."

He started walking.

Chen followed from behind. He followed persistently, like a shadow trailing behind. He emerged into Tateekimachi. He came to the corner turning onto Weiyi Road. Yamazaki’s right hand had barely finished scanning their surroundings when it dove into his daguai jacket’s pocket. The next moment, a pistol shot cracked like popping beans in the alley. Almost simultaneously, a nickel-plated object glinted at Chen Changcai’s hand. However, Chen did not have time to pull the trigger. The hand holding the pistol was raised toward the broken roof, trembled violently through his torso, and collapsed heavily onto the debris-strewn street with a thud.

“Bastard’s done for!”

Yamazaki walked. With that single pistol shot, the three hundred yuan meant for Chen rolled into his own pocket. The thought made him shudder. He needed to inform the soldiers, refugees, and the general public back home about the plundered Japanese homes, the woman’s corpse with both ears severed, the man’s corpse with stones stuffed in its belly—all of it. He thought about it. The whole world needed to know!...

He came before the headquarters. “Halt!”

The sentry’s voice didn’t enter his ears.

“Halt!”

As expected, he was walking while deep in thought. That place had been under strict clothing inspections and vigilance since before the Northern Army’s retreat. Sun Chuanfang’s automobile had also been ordered to stop there. The automobile’s owner was dragged down. Pockets were searched. “I am Sun Chuanfang!” The balding old man with gold braid on his forehead stamped his feet in frustration.

“I am Sun Chuanfang!” “You insolent cur!” But to the sentry, whether you were the Zhili-Shandong Allied Army commander or some has-been made no difference. Everything was the same. They were just fulfilling their duty. “Tch! Sun Chuanfang? What’s that supposed to be? Strutting around in fancy gold-braided uniforms—who the hell does he think he is!” “Who the hell is Sun Chuanfang?!” “Who the hell do you think you are, strutting around in that fancy gold-braided uniform?!” It was this sentry line that Yamazaki passed through. The sentry reprimanded the man in Chinese-style clothes who reeked of Chineseness. “Halt!” Yamazaki had forgotten his Chinese-style clothes and was now thoroughly immersed in the complacent mindset of a Japanese. He was lost in imagining the boiling frenzy of stirring up the crowd’s fervor with cruel information. I’ll tell them! I’ll inform them!... And he felt that those being challenged were other Chinamen. That’s what he had intended.

“Halt!”

Still, he hadn't noticed. Then a gunshot rang out. Yamazaki—who had kept five pistols and an eight-thousand-yen bankbook pressed against his skin without ever parting from them—abruptly collapsed. He croaked. At last!

29

An airplane came flying. As it passed over the city, it began dropping black lumps in rapid succession, like a bird defecating. A whoosh drew a line through the air, followed by a ground-shaking boom. Bombs away!

Three aircraft flew in V-formation, maintaining distance between each other. They circled widely over the city like returning to an old nest, reaching its western edge. One burst like a glass bead with a pop—sparks instantly scattering. The plane belched black smoke, became flame, its wings splitting cleanly in two before plunging earthward as if burrowing into the ground.

The urban warfare ended.

The soldiers, utterly exhausted, obtained two and a half days of rest. Alcohol. They smoked two days’ worth of cigarettes they’d gone without for a week.

Chinese corpses lay scattered everywhere in the streets. Acrid stench! Countless droning flies.

Shaggy stray dogs with matted fur and beggars licked their lips with seeming delight; tails wagging, the dogs prowled among the corpses. The bombed wireless station's sky-piercing antenna mast lay crushed at its midpoint, tilted and leaning precariously. No one turned to look. No one came to fix it. Figures blackened like soil scraped brains from skulls lying beneath into buckets.

Sudden mobilization! At 4:00 AM—when fatigue had subsided and sexual desire began to stir—it was that time. The soldiers were abruptly roused.

Kakimoto scraped his shin when jumping down from the stone window of the Shina Trading House. The area where iodine had been applied became infected, and the underpants tightened by puttees rubbed against the wound. He joined the formation limping. The eastern sky had just begun to lighten. They would attack the city wall—four jō in height, seven ken in width, and three ri in circumference. A crisp, cold order came from the company commander. A face remained unseen. Lieutenant Shigeto walked gripping his military sword. Having rolled up the barbed wire and cleared a narrow exit on one side, the soldiers' column marched along utility poles.

The road was damp with dew. Everything was deathly still. Only the synchronized tramp-tramp of boots was swallowed up into the dark sky. West of S Hospital, with low forceful commands, the artillery unit clattered their vehicles into position as they laid out their artillery positions. The soldiers advanced in silence. The bluish clouds, dyed pale purple by the red sunrise from the east, drifted slowly. It grew brighter.

The civilian house whose roof ridge had been broken by the crashed airplane crouched like a crab with its shell crushed. Only soldiers remained. The houses stood empty of people. The grass had been trampled down until its form was no longer recognizable. Gradually, the faces of Takatori, Kiya, Nasu, and others became clearly distinguishable. Like wooden puppets, they walked shouldering their rifles, the mess tins attached to their backpacks digging into their flesh. Apart from the terror of war, Kakimoto sniffled over the aunt from Nakajō—her child killed, her house looted, now facing homelessness and starvation from tomorrow onward. Even though I came all this way, I couldn't do a damn thing to help! There was a reason Takatori and the others walked like foolish wooden puppets. They were enduring in silent submission.

The squadron entered the utterly destroyed city. Window glass, doors, walls, roofs—everything was utterly destroyed. A rattan-covered women’s geta lay discarded with only one leg remaining and struck against a shoe. The soldiers circled around the tall, sturdy stone houses and walls and emerged into a wide, ravaged grassland. They crossed it diagonally. And again, they entered the debris of destroyed houses. They twisted through a narrow path as if threading a needle. The sun emerged brilliantly and vividly from between the jagged, broken roofs. The tattered fragments of clouds that had been scattered across various quarters of the sky vanished completely. It would get hot again! All the cluttered objects were starkly illuminated.

The squadron emerged onto the main street. The main street led straight to the outer gate of the city wall. Above the outer gate’s structure, the Blue Sky with a White Sun flag could be seen fluttering.

Somewhere, a signal seemed to have sounded. Then from far behind where artillery batteries had been positioned, cannon fire thundered forth. It continued—shells howling through the air before detonating ahead. As if answering this, gunfire erupted in rapid succession from the opposite eastern direction. Kakimoto's calf muscle twitched spasmodically. His whole body shuddered. That was when it happened. The squadron's formation abruptly took flanking fire. Lieutenant Shigeto registered several gunshots cracking directly above his ear—from T Hospital's second floor. Kakimoto heard them too. Then the gunfire stopped.

“Ah! They’re ambushing us from over there!” The Special Duty Sergeant let out a pitiful cry and dropped prone as if to hide beneath the acacia’s shadow. The soldiers exchanged glances. Faint, bitter smiles rose unbidden to their lips. Simultaneously, they heard Lieutenant Shigeto’s fragmented command—issued as if he’d been utterly flabbergasted. “There they go again—ordering us to charge right in.”

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 surveyed the two-story hospital. Before he could finish looking, the right flank—with Lieutenant Shigeto at the lead—had forced open the swinging doors, thrust out bayoneted rifles, and stormed into the cresol-stinking room. Soldiers came tumbling in behind them. Nurses in white uniforms scattered like startled birds. Patients lay motionless in their beds. Pleurisy, nephritis, gastric ulcers, cardiac valve insufficiency—the internal medicine ward stood separate from surgery. Doors dividing the rooms flew open one after another—bang, bang. Mud-caked boots trampled across bedding. The operating table’s thick glass split with a crack.

This was the incident recorded at the time as follows: “When the ××× Regiment gradually approached the city gate through the dark night, they suddenly came under fierce fire from Chinese soldiers within T Hospital to their north, bringing them to the brink of extreme danger. However, considering the building’s nature as a hospital, they temporarily found themselves at a loss for how to respond.” However, given the urgency of the situation and the fact that any hesitation would result in significant casualties from the rioting soldiers’ indiscriminate fire, Captain N dispatched a unit to drive them out. At the time, as an emergency measure under pressing circumstances, it was truly unavoidable. “and so on,” thus justifying the incident.

About thirty minutes later, the soldiers withdrew from the hospital, unpleasant memories etching themselves into their brains. The unpleasant memories lingered all day. They lingered the next day too. Kakimoto moved listlessly, every action steeped in reluctance. He sank into thoughts he couldn't grasp—A child patient had been impaled on the wall. Spurting blood from his chest, he'd crouched unsteadily beneath it. How could they do such a thing?! How could such things be allowed?! Something like remorse tormented him. That pale-faced woman had slept with her mouth open, unaware... A small triangular hole pierced the blanket. She'd sleep forever now without waking... My hand had trembled then. Strength had drained from my arms! That's right—we'd been forced to go that far!

They reformed their ranks and headed toward the city gate. The siege warfare was already at its peak. Rat-tat! Rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat! Machine guns from inside and outside the city gate answered each other, their rapid fire echoing incessantly. Just when it seemed to cease for a moment, it would echo again. Howitzer shells exploded on the city walls. When he looked at Takatori, Tamada, Matsushita, and the others, they were sullen, their faces like they’d eaten a bug. Even Kuraya from the training institute sat with a sullen face, lost in thought—That's right, their hearts were being crushed by those same unpleasant memories too! Kakimoto thought.

The lowest-ranking soldiers who gripped their swords and killed each other could no longer discern for whose sake they were killing. They seemed to have been seized by some unseen force.

Japanese compatriots had been massacred. They had been plundered. Even a single board from the ceiling space had been stripped away. And so they focused solely on these surface phenomena as the problem. And they felt a fury, a passion, and a desire for revenge that compelled them to exact double retaliation for each Japanese person killed. That their fury, their passion, and their vengefulness were the most crucial elements in vanquishing the so-called "enemy" was beyond dispute. Driven by this passion, they had offered up approximately fifteen times as many Chinamen as Japanese killed in the urban warfare as blood sacrifices, then kicked aside the corpses.

For what purpose had they done it?! Who had they done it for?!

30

Two days later, at six in the morning.

The scorching day on the continent had already begun.

The soldiers lined up in a corner of the match factory's white poplar lumberyard. The perceptive Lieutenant Shigeto took notice of the soldiers' gazes that seemed to avoid direct eye contact with their superiors. He saw unrest, a decline in morale, and reluctant half-hearted actions carried out with visible unwillingness. He had sensed the hostile atmosphere that had been brewing among the soldiers for some time. Immediately, someone was hiding in the shadows doing something! He thought.

Brave, simple, and emotional, Shigeto possessed an acute talent for intuitively discerning the demands and instincts of the soldiers under his command. Through this intuition, he knew the soldiers were sneaking around doing something beyond their superiors' sight. They were up to no good. They'd clearly lost conviction. Takatori had beaten the foreman and forced full wage payments to workers through violence. Since then, at least five or six soldiers had grown unable to distinguish whether they'd come to serve the nation or join workers in unconscionable acts. He focused his attention most intently on Takatori. Moreover, many soldiers were voluntarily gravitating toward Takatori's rhetoric. He understood this too. There had to be a reason for it!

The Special Duty Sergeant handling personnel matters had also noticed this. The Special Duty Sergeant viewed it as a grave matter that they were conspiring with Chinese Communist Party members to plot something. However, regarding that point, Shigeto had dismissed it with contempt, thinking soldiers were just soldiers—no matter what they did, they couldn't accomplish anything significant.

When he saw agitation, anxiety, and a certain spinelessness in the eyes of the lined-up soldiers, he immediately pinned the blame on Takatori and his lot. And of course it's on a day like this that we lose, he thought. Countless casualties would occur. They were going to make a huge blunder! He grimaced. Takatori, last of all, was re-rolling his puttees and dragging his boots as he tried to join the formation. He closed in on Takatori. He struck him across the cheek from the side. He had done it intentionally where all the soldiers could see.

“Hey, Takatori! Don’t slack off!” “…” “Do you hate working for your country? You’re a traitor!” And then he struck him three more times.

“Understood?” “...”

Takatori's eyes were bulging from their sockets, blazing as if charging ahead. He couldn't understand why he had been suddenly struck down.

The lieutenant disliked Takatori's eyes. He couldn't stand his dismissive attitude. “Hey! If you slack off, it won’t do you any good!” he bellowed. “What seems to be the problem, sir?” “Hey! Takatori, stop!” He clashed his military sword. “I can see right through your guts. I know every single thing you’re up to! You don’t even realize the horror of what you’re doing yourself.”

“I haven’t done anything at all, sir.” Takatori was momentarily flustered. But immediately, he glared at the lieutenant with burning eyes. “Stop!” Shigeto declared solemnly. “I know everything!” “Yes, what is it?” Having been assigned to punitive duty, he had been beaten several times before. He had been kicked. He had been struck so hard that the officer’s sword bent. He had endured it time and again. The others weren’t much different.

“Through all this—what are we really being forced to do?” “You’re tying your own nooses!” “Nothing else! There’s no bigger fool than a soldier!” When the soldiers beat Takatori, they weren’t just beating him alone. They were beating their whole group! That’s what they felt. It was all just intimidation. Their faces paled. The sharp-eyed Shigeto noticed instantly, like an accurate barometer. He saw the soldiers’ agitation—their strange restlessness. Any more beatings would only rouse a hornet’s nest. He realized this applied to the entire unit, but the force of his own words betrayed that awareness. Takatori lifted his head to speak. The lieutenant cut him off.

“What on earth are you all scheming?” “Huh?” “What on earth are you all scheming?” “We refuse to labor just for our own torment.” “Hmm—so you claim you don’t wish to be tormented.” (He deliberately distorted Takatori’s phrasing.) “…Then obey orders properly!” “All you need do is heed orders!” “……”

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 gauging the soldiers' expressions. Yet from his experience handling troops, he knew he must never betray any hint of doubt—the suspicion that his orders might go unheeded. His commands were always carried out without fail. He believed this absolutely. He made the soldiers see this conviction. He understood its necessity. And he assumed that stance. Takatori's attitude gave him no satisfaction whatsoever. Yet as if concluding the reprimand was finished, he straightened his posture and turned toward the soldiers standing at attention.

31

The soldiers clattered down like straw dolls.

Fang Zhenwu stubbornly held his ground within the city walls.

Despite any interference, they showed the resolve to advance on Tianjin and Beijing without fail. The castle gate was sturdy and could not be breached easily. The castle walls were thick. The Blue Sky White Sun flag continued to wave vigorously within. They were not weak. The weapons were also new. Chiang Kai-shek proposed: “I will accept any of Japan’s demands—just allow us to pass through here to attack Tianjin and Beijing!” Chiang Kai-shek proposed. That was not accepted.

The commander knew Manchuria was under threat. At that point, the Shina soldiers dug in their heels. As other units occupied positions like the Northwest Corner, Tai'an Gate, and Xinjian Gate, the officers of Kakimoto's unit frantically rushed their attacks on their assigned areas. More men clattered down. The officers' ambition and competitive spirit bore down on the soldiers like deadweight. Kakimoto and the others could see it plainly. They had no time to undo their leg wraps. They were utterly spent. The agony became unbearable. While adjusting their rifle sights, they would doze off dizzily.

The comrades became so entangled in the chaos that they could no longer tell where anyone was or what they were doing. The city was scorching hot, as if red-hot pokers were raining down. The fresh green leaves of acacia trees were torn off by the yellow wind and flew through the streets like blinding grit, mingling with clouds of dust. That night, the blue-gray uniforms ceased firing. The soldiers returned to the factory and stretched their legs. Around 2 a.m., they were tormented by terrifying dreams. The two hundred or so warriors in the barracks were all strangled at once; they groaned and jolted upright. In their agony, they clawed frantically at the air with both hands.

This was the same phenomenon as when, back in Japan proper, a new recruit who couldn’t straighten his shins during double-time marches had been tormented mercilessly by his instructor and hanged himself from a pine branch of an old castle—the very night they were plagued by nightmares. At that time too, the entire squadron had been strangled. They groaned. And at the same moment, they awoke. They didn’t know how to explain it.

“This is bad—something ominous is happening!” “I thought I’d been strangled... It hurt so bad I couldn’t breathe at all.”

“Someone’s actually being killed!” “They’re being brutalized! Lawlessly brutalized!”

When they came to their senses, the soldiers spoke.

“Is Takatori here? “Takatori!” “Is Takatori here?” “I can’t shake this feeling that Takatori’s coming toward me with someone right before my eyes!”

Kakimoto said, his face still bearing the look of someone seeing phantoms. A chill ran through them—the sensation of being dragged down into a deep abyss.

The next morning, they realized Takatori, Nasu, Okamoto, Matsushita, and Tamada had not returned. Everyone wondered in bewilderment yet spoke no words aloud. They spoke with their eyes. Kiya and Kakimoto examined the injured at the hospital and corpses in the morgue. They were not there.

Evening came. They still hadn’t returned. Two mornings later arrived. They still hadn’t returned. The relieved sentry entered the barracks pale from lack of sleep and night dew.

There was no news of them.

Lieutenant Shigeto, commander of Takatori and his unit, returned from somewhere with a face like he'd been licked on the cheek by a macaque. In the corner of the room, Kiya and Kakimoto fixed their eyes on how he laughed—that forced laughter straining to hide his own injuries even while bearing theirs.

Kiya’s intuition became firmly anchored to that manner of laughter. He felt as if he could physically grasp the lieutenant’s mental state. “Well? Today’s the assault on Luanyuan Gate…” “Is that so.” Kiya replied in an indifferent, clipped tone to the guilt-ridden face of the man sidling up to him like a sycophant.

“If you lot just grunt and push today, it’ll fall.” “I see—Lieutenant, sir! What’s become of Takatori and them, sir? They haven’t returned since the day before yesterday, sir. We’ve searched everywhere and can’t find them.” “What’ll that achieve?! Kiya! What business do you have with Takatori?” Suddenly, Lieutenant Shigeto glared fiercely, raised his voice, and closed in on Kiya. His demeanor suggested he might even execute Kiya by firing squad as well.

“I have business with him. Isn’t it only natural to care what’s happened to our comrades?!” Beside them, Kakimoto, who had been watching the lieutenant and Kiya’s exchange, suddenly gripped his rifle and stood up, his brow etched with resolve and fury. The soldiers who had been wrapping their puttees or smoking cigarettes also tensed up. In the opposite corner, some soldiers took up their rifles and stood up, clacking their bolts to load bullets. “Hey, Kakimoto! What do you think you’re doing?” shouted the lieutenant.

“I don’t need to tell you what I’m going to do.” Lieutenant Shigeto witnessed an authentic clash of brute forces. The lieutenant had believed himself vested with the authority to command an entire platoon. But now, before Private Kakimoto’s rifle, he was reduced to nothing but a biological entity. Just as Takatori, Nasu, Okamoto and the others—stripped of their weapons two days prior—had been reduced to mere fragile organisms. Then he swiftly produced another cunning stratagem from his arsenal. He retreated five or six paces from Kakimoto and,

“Line up! Line up! Everyone, take your rifles and get outside!” he shouted while dashing out of the barracks as if fleeing. “Bastard!” “He’s a disgrace to his rank—a piece of shit!” The soldiers cursed indignantly, one after another.

Kakimoto thought of Takatori—foolish and rough around the edges. Where had that straightforward, cheerful fellow gone? He seemed like a fool, but in truth, he was no fool at all. It was Takatori who had first begun approaching the workers. And he had become close friends with them. In the Russo-Japanese War and the First Sino-Japanese War, soldiers had thrown away their lives. Now they were risking their lives to protect expatriates' lives and property. But every one of those claims was a blatant lie. It was Takatori who had first pointed that out.

“In reality, they don’t let us do anything but beat down Chinamen,” said Takatori. And then, addressing Kakimoto in a friendly, sympathetic manner, he asked what had become of his aunt’s house outside Purimen Gate.

At that time, Kakimoto still did not know his aunt had fled to S Bank with literally nothing but the clothes on her back, nor that her five-year-old daughter had been killed. Even the silver coins hidden in the underground secret room had disappeared when they later returned to check. He had not known that either.

“Purimen was the area that suffered the worst damage, wasn’t it?”

“That seems to be the case. I still can’t even go see it.” “What are we even here for? We came all this way, and 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 were specially sent here, and even if we had real parents back home, we can’t even protect those parents. This is the truth. This is the true state of the position we’re in right now. Only those with big money get protected. For that reason, they don’t care how many of us they sacrifice—they’ll keep sacrificing us without a second thought,” Takatori continued. “There, while making us guard the factory, they torment the workers. We drive out the Southern Army. They’re making sure to firmly secure their interests in Manchuria through this. Manchuria is what matters most to those bastards, you see. We only get about seven yen a month in wages. And our lives are being thrown out openly for free. There’s no profit in it at all. If we return to the homeland, we still can’t get money unless we work. Even if we become Manchuria’s defensive wall, they won’t let us live idly and feed us for our entire lives. If protecting expatriates was truly the only goal, why would they station us in such an inconvenient, filthy match factory dormitory crawling with bedbugs?”

“Even elementary schools, the expatriate association, or the KS Club—there are plenty of cleaner, bigger buildings.” “And those places are more convenient.” “Other than to suppress the workers and make them guard the factory, where else can you find a reason for stationing them here?”

Kakimoto felt a deep, penetrating emotion—unlike Takatori’s bold way of speaking. “We’re being used to smash China. The more we interfere with the workers’ and peasants’ movements, the worse life gets for us back home.” Takatori kept talking. “Only the rich grin while China’s being crushed.” “They just keep raking in money from it.” “Once they’ve made their pile, they’ll use that cash to screw us over back in the homeland through some backdoor scheme.” “No matter how you look at it, there’s no way things’ll get better for us in bits and pieces.” “Unless we let those Chinamen do a hell of a lot more, our work back home’s gonna be impossible!”

Takatori was gone.

Kakimoto still did not fully grasp the meaning of those final words alone. The executives worried most not about the Southern Army entrenched in the city nor the bandits, but rather about the soldiers' communization through unity with the workers—propagated by Takatori and the leaflets distributed by ninja-like operatives. They feared this above all else.

That was not disputed.

32

On this day, another desperate, ferocious attack was attempted.

At 3:00 PM, Kakimoto was struck through the shoulder by a bullet flying from the shadow of the city wall amid the garbage. Among a group of wounded, he came to the hospital, jostled in a truck.

Wounded soldiers overflowed every ward to capacity. Carried on stretchers, those who could walk did so, and they were crammed into the wards with a density that allowed as many as possible to pour in afterward. The surgical ward was packed to the brim. Wounded soldiers also entered parts of the internal medicine and infectious disease wards. The room Kakimoto was placed in was a treatment room for Chinese—one from which the Chinese had been expelled. Iron bed frames with peeling white paint, straw-stuffed mattresses speckled with stains, foul-smelling blankets reeking of pus. There were no bed sheets or mattress covers. It was even worse than a regular ward.

Scorching thirst and wounds stealing away lives—the battle against these afflictions and pain left the ward echoing with cage-like screams that reverberated in unison. The ferocity of combat across all sectors found full expression through both the sheer number of wounded and the brutally unrestrained nature of their injuries. "Our own artillery's shrapnel is hitting infantry near the city gate! They're firing wild despite miscalibrated aim! Our bullets are bursting right over our comrades' heads!"

The stretcher bearer who had brought in the wounded muttered bitterly beside the bed. “They must be using bullets abandoned by the Southern Army.” “Hmm, that might be the case,” another responded. “That’s why the artillery’s aim goes haywire—our own gunners end up killing our own infantry.” “Tch!” spat a third. “You think they’d even consider that? This whole damn war’s been worthless from the start!” No sooner had the wounded from one truck been carried to their beds and the clattering footsteps faded than—before medics could tend to even a third of them—the next truck came roaring into the hospital yard. Again stretcher bearers clattered in, boots pounding as they hauled more mangled men.

“In □×’s unit, those getting killed are numerous!” “Already, deaths in battle have reached nine.” “It’s because Rensan’s rushing to grab glory before anyone else.” The newly arrived stretcher bearer at the bed next to Kakimoto spoke in a thick, low voice to the wounded man he had brought. “The officers’ ambitions have a nature that can’t be achieved without using us as stepping stones!” “Even in the Port Arthur attack, they piled up mountains of corpses.” “And so, a single general gets enshrined as a god!”

Kakimoto was faintly listening. □× was his regiment. When he looked, the one being moved to the bed was Kuroiwa from the company. The triangular bandage taken from trousers and tied around his leg had stiffened into a dark red. They were being forced into reckless charges and advances by their commanders' thirst for glory and rivalry with other units. They fell wounded before his eyes, collapsing helplessly.

The XX Battalion captured □□! The △△ Squadron captured such-and-such location! It was those with “commander” in their titles whose vanity was inflamed by these reports. “It’s because they push too hard—show-offs trying to do in one go what no one could possibly manage!”

Kuroiwa spoke in a tone more frayed by agitation than actual pain from his wound. "No matter which unit you look at, aren't they forcing maximum horsepower out of the soldiers?"

Kakimoto suddenly interjected from the side.

The stretcher bearer fell silent for a moment and looked at him with a puzzled look. When Kuroiwa realized it was Kakimoto, a shadow of a smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.

"Could be." "That’s right! It’s obvious! All these countless wounded soldiers—war is an arena for commanders’ ambitions, you know. That’s how it’s built. So they’ll drive out the Chinese soldiers completely. We are made into stepping stones for the commanders and lose our hands and legs. Ha ha ha! The commanders themselves—their ambitions are being stoked even more from above. It’s all about medals. Above them, they’ve got higher-ups."

“Aren’t we the ones at the very bottom?” “Hmm, on top of us, heavy stones are piled three or even four layers deep! Damn it!” The carefree military doctor, as if finding pleasure in the soldiers’ agony, their screams, and their limbs flailing uncontrollably in unbearable pain, continued his treatment with a grin, utterly unfazed. He cut through the shirt caked with dried blood using scissors. “So it’s ‘one general’s success built on ten thousand soldiers’ corpses,’ I see.” Having overheard snippets of the soldiers’ complaints, he hummed lightly in a poetic recitation tone.

Kakimoto received treatment from the military doctor. And then he put on a new white hospital gown.

The city wall fell the next morning. Sitting on the bed, he heard it. The pain from the wound gradually diminished. The shoulder injury posed no hindrance whatsoever to walking. On the third day, Kiya and Yamashita came to visit.

“Hey, Kakimoto, how’s it going?” Kiya shouted in a masculine, gruff voice. “Takatori and the others were done in! All five of them were found as white bones at the Yellow River’s edge, eaten by dogs.” He had probably sensed that things had turned out that way. But when he actually heard it, Kakimoto’s heart was violently struck. “So it was true after all. That night I was tormented by nightmares—it wasn’t just some trivial joke after all!” “All five of them have now been brought to the corpse room.”

“Who did this?!” Kuroiwa said. “Who did this? Isn’t the culprit clearly identified?” “Shut up! Hearing that won’t help.” Kiya waved his hand gravely. “We know without saying— it was him!”

“Who’s ‘him’?” “It’s him!” For a while, they remained silent. With his injured arm dangling limply like a toy from his shoulder—supported by a triangular bandage around his neck—Kakimoto walked with Kiya and the others to the corpse room. Kuroiwa, whose thigh bone had been shattered, couldn’t move. From the hospital grounds, the cityscape visible through the ruins lay utterly devastated. Trampled grass, bent and mud-caked, still strained to lift its head. The acacia tree stood even more verdant against the wind. At the corpse room’s entrance and windows, nurses, patients, soldiers, and townspeople swarmed like a black mountain. They rose on tiptoes to glimpse the five corpses licked clean by dogs.

Takatori and the others had already decomposed in the heat. The sour, unbearable stench of rotten meat mingled with incense smoke assaulted their nostrils. They couldn’t tell which was Takatori, which was Nasu, or which was Tamada. They were covered with white cloth. They had been left abandoned just as they were killed. Until the search party arrived, it’s said that shaggy-furred stray dogs had gathered, licking their chops as they gnawed. “It’s their black hands that brought this upon us!” Yamashita muttered. “But from where in this flesh did they come to destroy us?”

Yamashita asked dubiously.

“I don’t get it. Don’t know how to explain it right.” “But they got scared our weapons would turn on ’em, so they struck first!” “To protect their own interests, they’ll sacrifice anything without blinking!”

The three of them crossed the grassy embankment and emerged into a field of trenches. Under the shadow of a large acacia tree stood a crematorium. "Even we could have been done in if we'd made one wrong move," Kiya said in a low voice as he leapt across the trench. "They're scared of us. But next time when we're the ones holding swords, they won't land the first blow! First thing - we've got to skewer those bastards' hearts!"

33

――Afterword――

The five soldiers with only half their flesh remaining were declared to have "died honorable deaths in battle." Their bodies, placed into coffins and doused with kerosene, turned into foul smoke and vanished inside the crematorium furnace. Back in Japan, their parents probably truly believed their sons had been struck by the bullets of those detestable Chinamen and died in battle. However, because of this, all the soldiers fiercely ignited a new hatred toward their officers.

As a result of the military intervention, anti-Japanese and anti-imperialist movements in China instead surged with renewed strength. On the utterly destroyed Luanyuan Gate were written the slogans: "Swear to Wipe Away This Humiliation" and "Have You Seen It?"—igniting a fire in the hearts of the people with "Do you remember?" The Japanese bourgeoisie had nearly achieved their initial objective in the military intervention—"securing Manchuria as a colony"—for the time being. Through the assassination of Zhang Zuolin—a man they could no longer control—and the execution of Yang Yuting, who had allied with Chiang Kai-shek, they found themselves compelled to seize Manchuria-Mongolia by force if necessary and fully colonize it. For that purpose, they poured all their forces into it.

The workers of Fukuryu Match Company then shook hands with the soldiers and rose up. The wives from the company housing fled by automobile to the KS Club once again, just as they had before. And they never returned to the company housing. The workers' power was formidable. And Uchikawa and his associates allied with Swedish capital aiming for global unification in the match industry. The workers once again had to confront a formidable enemy.

And finally, Mikitaro Inokawa lost his home, his job, and his child completely in this chaos. He was dismissed from the match factory. It was completely unclear where or how Ichiro had been lost. He had probably been strangled to death by Chinamen. He regretted it. He had lost a child who closely resembled Toshiko. That was what he regretted most. However, on the other hand, he also thought that if he had been killed, then it was fine that he had been killed.

But then, one day.

He was wandering aimlessly around the area near Jūōden where he used to live. The aftermath of the destruction had not yet been restored. The town was even dirtier and dustier. Chinamen were gnawing on the butt ends of raw daikons.

“Dad! Dad!” Suddenly, something approached his feet. It was a child wearing dirty Chinese clothes. His head was shaved in the Chinese style - bangs left in front and a topknot at the crown.

“Dad! Dad!”

The child toddled away from the group of other playing children and came walking over.

When he looked, it was Ichiro.

Ma Guanzhi’s wife was standing by the acacia tree where a branch had split at the street corner. Without thinking, he picked up the child. Ichiro had been saved by Ma Guanzhi. (November 1930)