I was exiled once for allegedly stealing food from a survivor’s hideout.
I had stolen food before, sure—but that was in the early days, not after I had joined the survivor group.
And yet, I was thrown out for a crime I didn’t commit.
This time, I was going to pin a crime on someone else.
***
“So we just frame the village as a resistance group?”
“Yes. That way, we can raid them while ensuring the Governor-General of the Far East gets his share of the profits.”
Unlike the Governor-General, we were the military force securing order in Manchuria.
As long as the Governor-General turned a blind eye, we could plunder as much as we wanted and toss a cut of the loot his way.
“But isn’t it too blatant to commit atrocities just for our own survival?”
“Our immediate survival is at stake. Why should we care about those damn Chinese? They’ve been the axis of evil, tormenting us all this time. This much is justified.”
That was enough.
After all, the Korean Empire was already drinking deep from the well of imperialism.
It wasn’t much of an empire, but poking at the Qing Dynasty had proven that it wanted to be.
So this was something we had to do.
“The looting has already begun. At this point, we should just plant our stakes, align ourselves with the Russians, and wipe out the Qing army together.”
The Korean Empire’s forces had to become so thoroughly ruthless that the very mention of “demons of Manchuria” would bring us to mind.
We would move for profit alone, trampling the Qing army into dust.
“Hmm.”
“General, we don’t know when the Japanese bastards will invade. Our forces are weak, and we can’t guarantee victory in war.”
That was the reality.
The Japanese had launched a surprise attack on the Russian fleet and secured dominance at sea.
“But we were so weak that we couldn’t even put up proper resistance against them. We were critically short on troops. At the very least, we had to train them up in quality here. At the same time, we had to overhaul the rotten mindset of the Korean Empire’s military.”
“We had to take everything, on an even greater scale than we already had, so that the army of the Korean Empire would not be dismissed as a pathetic force that couldn’t even fire a single bullet at the Japanese. We had to reform it as much as possible.”
“Alright, continue.”
“We must transform ourselves until we can tear our enemies apart, even if it costs us our lives. That’s the only way to prepare for what comes next.”
Of course, I had no intention of actually dying.
Once the Russo-Japanese War broke out, I’d make King Gojong pull a retreat that would put even his ancestor to shame—fleeing to Gando, or even farther, to the edge of Manchuria.
After that, instead of repeating history, I’d use my knowledge of the future to ally with the Russian army and crush the Japanese.
Yeah. If I could just escape during the war, I could at least keep things from being as bad as they were before.
The Japan-Korea Protocol was signed because things played out that way.
“You’re pretty sharp. Fine. This time, things are going to get big, so stay by my side.”
‘No, that wouldn’t do.’
‘If I wanted to make a name for myself, I needed to go all out against the Qing in Manchuria.’
“No. Please assign me to the Sapo unit that will be deploying.”
I shook my head lightly.
This time, I had to go in person.
I had to personally slaughter the Qing soldiers like a demon.
Ruthlessly. Mercilessly.
Before coming here, I had survived an apocalyptic world by killing countless people, even my own kind.
‘Did I care about wiping out foreigners in this era?’ Not at all.
***
“A woman’s body can handle this? Last time, you just stood there in shock and we had to retreat.”
That was the original owner of this body.
I was different.
I had to try, at least.
‘Isn’t it better to take action rather than sit back and get beaten?’
It wouldn’t hurt to let the British see our prowess, too.
I had considered working with them, but they had already chosen Japan as their partner.
Meanwhile, we shared a border with Russia.
So we had to give it a shot.
“I will see it through.”
I spoke firmly, with a determined expression.
“If your father could see you now… Hmm. Well, you must have your reasons.”
I had been hit by a truck before arriving in this world, and I hadn’t had time to dwell on things while assessing the situation here.
But I had already looted and killed countless times, whether by force or by choice.
‘Am I invincible here?’
If so, do you think I wouldn’t take full advantage of it?
I had to do whatever it took to survive.
I was going to rewrite the future, to prevent the world from being ruined by nuclear war.
Of course, I wasn’t reckless enough to rely solely on my supposed invincibility.
I checked the future once more through an alternate history forum.
***
[Author: Possessed by Jinwi]
[Title: About Lee Beomyun before the Russo-Japanese War]
—”I’m planning to write an alternate history novel set in Gando, but I don’t know enough about this. What happened when Lee Beomyun led his troops into Manchuria?”
[Comments]
[Daebung01: When he deployed to Manchuria, the Governor-General of the Far East, Alexeyev, was preparing for war and had Lee Beom-yun’s Sapo deal with internal unrest.]
Unfortunately, the unit got too greedy and looted all over Manchuria.
During the Battle of Mukden, the Russians had to step in to assist them.
[Possessed by Jinwi: Can you elaborate?]
[┗ Daebung01: The Sapo’s notoriety grew as they looted everything in sight.]
In response, the Qing army and anti-Russian, anti-Korean Han Chinese forces fortified Mukden.
The Sapo charged in recklessly and suffered heavy losses.
They could have taken Mukden without Russian aid, but the casualties would have been even worse.
So some people argued that they should have attacked Mukden first instead of raiding surrounding areas.
Of course, even if they had, colonial history wouldn’t have changed.
[┗┗ Possessed by Jinwi: LOL]
***
Hmm.
‘If we hit Mukden last, we’d take too many losses, and history wouldn’t change. Then should I just go all out and create chlorine gas?’
It wasn’t hard to make.
No. No, not yet.
The Hague Conventions existed.
But then again, we weren’t fighting a nation; we were exterminating the Qing.
‘Would it really matter if we didn’t follow the rules?’
Not that I was planning to use gas right away.
It was just a contingency for when things got difficult.
For now, my own invincibility was the best answer.
I would charge in first, like a madwoman, and slaughter the Qing.
The Sapo would follow my lead and rampage with me.
Most of the unit was already filled with men eager to plunder Manchuria.
This would definitely work.
***
“From this moment forward, our Sapo will march into Manchuria and purge the Qing soldiers and Chinese who resist Korea and Russia! Show those Han pigs the might of Korea! Long live His Majesty the Emperor! Long live the Korean Empire!”
“Long live His Majesty the Emperor! Long live the Korean Empire! Waaaaaaah!”
Lee Beomyun’s Sapo pillaged and occupied every village near Gando.
And with what was essentially an unspoken request from the Governor-General of the Far East, they began an all-out extermination campaign.
Of course, as always, their true goal was simple—plunder.
In the original timeline, the Gando operation commenced in December 1903.
However, this time, it was launched on a much larger scale.
Determined to deploy forces across all of Manchuria rather than just Gando, a force of 5,000 men was assembled.
This included members of the Jinsong Jinwi, patrol officers from the Imperial Korean Border Police, militias, and even reinforcements from Seo Sangmu’s forces, who had already begun operations in West Gando.
Compared to the original timeline, this was a significantly larger force.
Lee Beomyun officially declared them as the Sapo under his command.
However, assembling such a large number of Sapo troops was an excessive move, even for Lee Beomyun.
Interestingly, Emperor Gojong did not strongly oppose this operation. Instead, he shifted all responsibility onto Lee Beomyun to avoid escalating into an official war between nations.
“Our relationship with this has nothing to do with it. It is merely that Gando’s administrator, Lee Beomyun, has become a warlord and settled there.”
Since they could not declare him a traitor, the government in Hanseong officially labeled his actions as ‘independent’ at most. Secretly, the Korean Empire, eager for territorial expansion, refrained from condemning him.
With the backing of the Russian Far Eastern Governor-General, the Sapo divided their forces and simultaneously attacked Qing military bases in Fengtian and Jilin Province.
***
“How dare these Joseon bastards come here…! Gah!”
“But they’re nothing but weaklings, right?”
The Qing forces were a ragtag group.
Until the military reforms of 1905, the Qing troops in Manchuria were utterly disorganized.
They were in no position to stop the Korean forces, who had launched a surprise attack with clear territorial ambitions.
At the Qing barracks in Fengtian and Jilin, battles erupted between the surprised Qing soldiers and the attacking Korean troops.
The Qing forces were overwhelmed.
Tatadatang! Boom!
Gunfire rained down, and artillery spewed flames.
In the middle of that battlefield, I was there.
As a Jinwi officer assigned to the attack on Fengtian, I had thrown myself directly into battle.
‘Why? What kind of question is that? If I wanted to climb to a position where I could command troops, I had to prove myself. And as a woman, that was even harder. I had to prove it with my whole body.’
But as I mentioned, this operation was largely about looting, and many of the Sapo had joined specifically for that purpose.
‘Would I just stand by and watch my comrades charge ahead to seize their prize first?’ No, I had to chase after them.
“We… We’re going to plunder too!”
“Kill all these Qing pigs and take Manchuria’s gold and treasures!”
A ragtag army.
‘If I hesitated, they’d overrun me.’
The looters of the Sapo surged forward, and the battle began.
“You dare betray the benevolence of your suzerain state and side with the damned Japanese, only to now attack us?”
Some elderly Qing soldiers glared at us and charged.
Thanks to my universal language ability, I understood every word they were saying.
Hearing that nonsense made my blood boil.
Amid the battlefield, drenched in blood, I shouted back at them.
“You’re the ones who betrayed us first! Until the early days of Joseon, you were the ones who served us!”
The Qing soldier’s eyes widened in shock.
‘Did he not expect me to understand Manchu?’
“What the… This wench?”
At this time, the northern Jinwi were armed with Berdan rifles.
I raised mine and aimed at the startled middle-aged Qing soldier.
Bang!
With a dull thud, the Qing soldier collapsed.
And he wasn’t the only one.
I had pushed forward on my own, leading the charge into the Qing barracks.
I didn’t just use my gun.
Attaching a bayonet to my Berdan rifle, I used it like a spike for close combat.
“You dare commit such atrocities against your suzerain state?!”
A Qing soldier charged at me, wielding a rusty spear.
I countered with my bayonet.
Squelch.
The spear pierced my body—
But, unfortunately for him, I didn’t get wounded.
As the spear withdrew, my flesh healed as if melting away.
That old man had been telling the truth.
Even after witnessing my ability, I had been skeptical.
But now, I was sure.
With this, I could fight even in a woman’s body.
“You… You’re not dying?”
The Qing soldier muttered something in Chinese, but I didn’t even need my language ability to understand his terrified face.
His expression was so ridiculous, so foolish, that I couldn’t help but smirk.
Grinning, I pushed my bayonet deeper into his chest.
Mercilessly, So brutally that it might have seemed excessive.
“This is why I’m attacking you.”
Squelch. Splat. Stab!
Like an unstoppable warrior, laughing as I slaughtered them, I skewered Qing soldiers as if they were nothing more than livestock.
Any Qing soldier touched by my bayonet fell without resistance.
Even if I lacked brute strength or an advantage in numbers, as long as I couldn’t die, their attacks meant nothing.
“M-Monster…”
A young Qing soldier around my age stared at my face in horror before dying.
All the struggles I had endured to survive in that hellish world… Here, they proved invaluable.
Before I knew it, my rifle was drenched in blood, and my face was splattered with it.
I would’ve kept shooting, but I was running out of ammunition.
Bang! Bang!
Damn it, those bastards were just firing wildly from the rear.
Even with Russian support, Russia itself hadn’t been able to fully supply Mosin-Nagant rifles by the time of the Russo-Japanese War.
The ammunition we were receiving now could become a serious issue in the future.
If we were already inside the city, stabbing was the better choice.
“Hey, you idiots! Save your bullets! Can’t you see these Qing guys are weak? Use your blades! Avenge King Injo! Avenge Samjeondo!”
The Imperial Korean Army was burning with nationalism.
Having tasted the pleasure of carving up the massive Qing empire, the Korean forces would never be the same after this Manchurian campaign.
If only we had a justifiable cause.
If only we had the right backing.
Then these looters would become demons.