Episode 6
“How are you?”
“…are you making fun of me?”
“I didn’t mean to, but if you offended me, I’d be happy to apologize.”
Stolipin said with a frown on his forehead as if he had lost his pulse when I came out.
“How did know?”
“Didn’t you tell me? Fortune telling was ominous.”
“……”
The bandage wrapped around Stolipin’s shoulder drew attention.
He was injured by fragments of a bomb that exploded at his villa not long ago.
“Are you guys okay? I’m a little dark with the news.”
“…Yes, but there is another reason I asked to see you.”
“What?”
“What are you?”
“I don’t know the intent of the question.”
“I searched the Ohrana records and there was no record of any of your sightings before 1906. There are no birth records. I understand. You are not an Orthodox Christian, and as you said, you were born in Joseon.”
“……”
“However, at least the entry records. There were no records of how they got into St. Petersburg, etc.”
“Are you sure you did a thorough investigation? I gave all of my personal information to the tsar.”
“How would you describe the bombing in my house, I might think that this bombing was initiated by you.”
“To say that in front of me is to say that I don’t really believe that.”
“….. okay.”
“Minister, be honest. What do you want from me? As you know, I’m from the East, so I can’t understand high-class language, so I’ll ask you straight up.”
Digging up my identity means, with a high probability, that I am not curious about it.
“…What is your purpose?”
“Is that my purpose? That’s the wealth and glory of my body.”
What else could you have? On the day he said that, Stolipin looked at him with a puzzled expression.
“And don’t worry, I won’t do any harm to the Empire. If I want to enjoy wealth and glory, shouldn’t the empire be maintained?”
For a moment, the opponent’s expression hardened.
“… the empire will fall?”
“10 years.”
“……”
“The empire is destroyed. With the communist revolution, the present tsar will be remembered as the last tsar of the Russian Empire, and the world’s first communist state will be built on the corpse of the empire.”
“you!”
The level of speech is too high. It is blasphemous to say that this level of remarks have already been made.
But you know what you did. I spoke skillfully, hiding the sweat on my hands. I continued speaking with the feeling of a fortune teller who seduces a gentleman in a back alley and rips off the fortune teller.
“But there is always a way. Minister of the Interior, fate is not absolute.”
Actually I don’t know either. Whether fate is absolute or not.
I’m just someone else to fill Rasputin’s place, and no matter what I do, no one knows whether fate will roll like a pre-assembled timetable or the world will turn upside down.
It’s only a question that time will answer.
“My prophecies are always the most probable future, and if human will and God’s will agree, they can be misguided. There is no such thing as so-called fate.”
But at least in this place, you have to speak up.
If I have Stolipin as my allies and the Minister of the Interior, then one big obstacle will be removed from my progress.
“And I also want to mislead my prophecies. Your death will mark the ruin of the Empire in that future, Minister of the Interior Pyotor Stolipin.”
“What?”
“This is your last chance for the Russian Empire. The failure of the reform and nurturing policy of self-employed farmers in your opinion is a death sentence for the empire.”
“……!”
Are you surprised? This is because I know the details of my ideas that have not yet materialized.
“You are the only one who can push ahead with reforms that the Tsars do not like and the nobles will resist. Stolipin, if you fail or die, I will immediately renounce the Empire and prepare myself for you, so please save your life, Minister of the Interior.”
If Stolipin doesn’t succeed, the Russian Empire will end anyway. At that time, I should also prepare to run away with my possessions abroad.
Of course, there is no guarantee that the empire will survive just because he succeeds.
Anyway, I have no regrets about the Russian Empire itself, except for what I have gained so far. But for Stolipin, it would be advantageous to look like I need to save Russia.
Stabilizing my status is easy if Stolipin’s active cooperation is added. In addition, you may be able to come up with various countermeasures.
‘The most sure measure is military force.’
Even if things are twisted and the revolution breaks out according to history, if there is an army loyal to me, I can form a warlord and fight as a white army. Even if we lose as history goes, it is enough to exile to the United States with the wealth we have accumulated.
At the very least, it can bring the battle situation to an advantage in World War I… Above all, if I have an army loyal to me, the fear of being assassinated, like Rasputin, is greatly reduced.
However, several conditions are required to increase its military power.
Even though the Russian Empire is on the backward side among the great powers, it is still not easy enough to allow a single noble to have a large enlisted army.
Therefore, it is not an option but a necessity for me to stand up for the military or the Ministry of the Interior.
At least formally, I have to have a military rank and belong to the regular army, or at least have a title in the internal military.
‘The Home Affairs Army, yes, I need to create the Home Affairs Army.’
First Commander-in-Chief of the Interior Army of the Russian Empire. Isn’t it okay?
In fact, the Russian imperial political police, Ohrana, did not have a separate internal military organization because they were a force focused only on internal control.
The organization called the Internal Affairs Force originated from an organization called the All-Russian Central Executive Organization that was created during the Russian Revolution, and was merged with the Cheka to become the famous Enkadev and Smersh units, and furthermore, the KGB.
Then, as the KGB split up, the Home Affairs Army became independent.
‘However, if this happens, there is a high possibility that I will be with the military….’
Should I convince them that it is a concept such as strengthening the police force, not the military? Or is it directly under Ohrana?
Whatever it is, formally, it would be most convenient to have it directly under the Tsar.
‘Once the chance to meet the Tsar comes, I’ll have to try my luck.’
Of course, before that, he had to make sure that Stolipin was drawn into his ally.
“Sir, we are not enemies. Rather, I can be your ally, and if you come up with reforms, I can speak to the former tsar. If your ohrana finds the weightlifters, I can kill them. I’m not the type of person who’s fussed about not being able to rise above other people.”
“What are you going to do?”
“To be honest, I am a foreigner who has nothing but the trust the tsar has given me and the good riches he has bestowed upon me. Will the nobleman who will hand over my seat be honest with me?”
“That’s… that’s right.”
“So I have to make a place for myself.”
“Do you want me to give you a seat in the Ministry of Home Affairs?”
“There is nothing you need to do. No matter how hard-headed people are, if they listen, they will admit the necessity itself.”
“Listen.”
“Until now, Ohrana has focused solely on maintaining the status quo through the arrest of political prisoners. But isn’t that proven by the… Bloody Sunday incident a few years ago that this can’t be the case now? Even though Father Gafon, an Ohrana agent, was in the key leadership, we failed to break the protest.”
“Are you going to supplement it?”
“Yes, please suggest to the tsar that we should create an armed force separate from the military and directly under the Ministry of the Interior. First of all, it will be officially a police force or a national military police force. The armament should be at the same level as the military. Ohrana finds them, and they beat them. Black propaganda, sabotage, assassination of factors, etc. During wartime, they are assigned to the military and disrupt the enemy.”
“And do you have that command?”
“Well, I came up with the idea, so why not just do that? There won’t be much objection, because they’ll try it first, and if my incompetence is revealed, then they’ll think it’s okay to take responsibility and kick me out. Besides, if I don’t want to lose the Tsar’s trust, I’ll do my best, so it doesn’t matter if I do well, and if I don’t, I can take responsibility and expel him.”
“…you’re inexperienced, I hope everyone thinks that way, but people in the world don’t have enough rationality, especially the nobles, just the color of your skin and the reason you’re not aristocrats. The only thing is that there will be those who oppose you sitting at the head of the department where you are supposed to work on an equal footing with Ohrana.”
“Then make it a sub-department of Ohrana. It doesn’t even matter.”
First of all, I don’t care about my rank. Actually, the power that can be my background is important.
And the conditions for raising enlisted soldiers while receiving a legal budget, well, the Russian army is still backwards, so the reality is that officers serve enlisted soldiers like a bell. .
“As I said before, I don’t trust you completely, and if your existence harms the Empire, I’ll get rid of it.”
“If you want to hit the watchman, do whatever you want. Are you going to send him as a secretary or a lieutenant?”
“……Anyway, I will try to post the message to the tsar, but there is no guarantee that your thoughts will work out.”
“Don’t worry, I will also speak to the tsar. If you think rationally, the nobles will not object to the increase of one department in Ohrana. The military may be dissatisfied with the fact that it is an armed force, but of course there is a doctor there. Other nobles may object to having them sit down.”
“The military bastards are the ones with only oil in their ships, which even resisted even the inspection of the military by Ohrana, and they were full of oil.
“So you are not saying that you are going to improve the constitution of this country.”
“Have you figured out the name of the institution, unit, and name you were going to build?”
“What about the name of the agency, the General Information Service?”
“Glavnoje Razvedyvatel’noje Upravlenije?”
“It’s GRU for short, and the name of the unit is… How about Spetsnaz (Спецназ)?”