Two years. Two years had passed since the cannons fell silent and the last embers of the resistance had been stamped out in the mountains of Kyushu. For Nagasaki, it was an era of strange, chilling peace. The city had been reborn in the image of its conqueror. The streets were clean, the commerce was orderly, and the port was once again bustling, though now the ships that filled it flew the golden dragon flag of the Great Qing, not the rising sun of Japan. The people, too, were transformed. They moved with a quiet, disciplined compliance, their faces blank masks that betrayed nothing. In the new, state-sponsored schools that had sprung up in every district, the laughter of children could be heard as they chanted their lessons—not the tales of ancient samurai, but the ordered, harmonious couplets of Confucius, recited in crisp, clear Mandarin.
Governor Tanaka Kenji stood on the balcony of his mansion, looking out over the city he now ruled as a satrap for a foreign master. He was a man hollowed out by his own survival. His family was safe, his position was secure, his wealth was immense, but his soul was a wasteland. He was respected by the Qing, despised by his own people, and trusted by no one.
"It is remarkable, Governor Tanaka. Truly remarkable."
The voice belonged to Weng Tonghe, the Emperor's former tutor. The elderly scholar, now given the grand title of Imperial Chancellor of Education for the Japanese Provinces, had arrived from Beijing a week ago on an inspection tour. He was a true believer, an idealist who saw the conquest not as a brutal act of subjugation, but as a noble, civilizing mission. He joined Tanaka on the balcony, his old face beaming with genuine pride.
"I have just come from the new academy on the northern hill," Weng said, gesturing toward the magnificent new structure of dark wood and tiled roofs that now stood where the Suwa Shrine had once been. "The literacy rates among the children have doubled in just two years. They show a great aptitude for the classics. I heard a class of ten-year-olds reciting passages from the Analects with a genuine enthusiasm that would put many of our own students in Beijing to shame."
"They are… obedient students, Chancellor Weng," Tanaka replied, his voice flat and devoid of the enthusiasm the scholar expected. "The Emperor's methods for encouraging education are very effective."
Weng Tonghe, lost in his own idealistic haze, did not seem to notice the governor's dead tone. "It is more than just obedience! It is enlightenment! We are bringing the light of true, rational philosophy to a people who were lost in the darkness of superstition. We are building a harmonious society."
"Yes," Tanaka said, his gaze distant. "Harmony." He thought of the reports that crossed his desk every morning. "The quarterly census is complete. The crop yields were excellent this year, and tax revenues have exceeded our projections." He paused. "The Baojia system also continues to function with great efficiency. Last month, only three families had to be… removed… after a routine search uncovered a rusty, broken sword hidden beneath the floorboards of a home in the Urakami district."
The Chancellor winced slightly at the mention of the harsh security measures, a brief flicker of discomfort crossing his face. "A necessary, if regrettable, measure to ensure the peace," he murmured, quickly changing the subject. "I must say, Governor, I would be honored if you would accompany me on a more formal tour of the new Academy. I wish to see this new generation of students firsthand."
"Of course, Chancellor," Tanaka said with a slight, formal bow.
An hour later, they were walking through the quiet, orderly corridors of the Great Qing Confucian Academy of Nagasaki. The architecture was purely Chinese, a deliberate and total erasure of the Shinto shrine that had preceded it. In a large, sunlit classroom, they watched a group of young Japanese boys, all dressed in identical Qing-style scholarly robes, practicing their calligraphy. Their brushes moved with disciplined grace across the rice paper, forming the intricate characters of a classic text.
The master, a stern scholar from the Hanlin Academy in Beijing, had them reciting their work aloud. "'To rule with virtue,'" the childish voices chanted in near-perfect Mandarin, "'is to be like the North Star, which remains in its place while all the other stars pay homage to it.'"
Weng Tonghe was deeply, profoundly moved. Tears welled in his old eyes. "This," he whispered to Tanaka, his voice thick with emotion. "This is the Emperor's true victory. Not the battles at sea or the slaughter at Isahaya. But this. Bringing light and reason, order and harmony. We are not just ruling this land. We are healing it."
Tanaka watched the boys, their faces earnest and focused as they copied the characters of a foreign culture. He saw something different. He saw a generation being systematically and efficiently stripped of their own identity. He saw the children of the men he had known, the men who had died fighting for their own Emperor, now being taught to worship the man who had ordered their fathers' deaths. He felt a wave of self-loathing so profound it was like a physical illness, but his face remained a smiling, compliant mask of polite agreement.
"Indeed, Chancellor," he said smoothly. "It is a truly enlightened age."
As they were leaving the Academy, walking down the long stone path that led back to the city, Weng Tonghe was still extolling the virtues of the Emperor's civilizing mission. Tanaka walked beside him, nodding and making the appropriate remarks, his mind a million miles away. His eyes scanned the grounds. Near the bottom of the path, almost hidden by a neatly trimmed azalea bush, was a single, large, unadorned stone. It was the only original stone left from the Suwa Shrine, a foundation stone that had been too large for the engineers to easily move. The local Japanese, in a quiet, desperate act of remembrance, had begun to treat it as a makeshift memorial. Tanaka had seen the occasional flower or small offering of rice left there, which his guards were under orders to ignore, as long as it remained discreet.
As they passed the stone, Tanaka, feigning a stumble on an uneven paving stone, dropped the fan he was carrying. As he bent down to retrieve it, his movements were smooth and economical. With the same hand that picked up the fan, he let a small, tightly folded piece of rice paper fall from his sleeve into the shadow of the great stone.
He straightened up, his face a mask of polite apology. "Forgive me, Chancellor. My footing is not what it once was."
Weng Tonghe simply smiled benignly, and they continued on their way.
Later that evening, after dark, a lone figure, a humble-looking gardener, approached the memorial stone. He knelt as if in prayer, but his hands were busy. He reached into the shadows and retrieved the small piece of paper. He tucked it into his sleeve and vanished back into the night.
The note was not a grand piece of intelligence. It was a simple list of names and times. The names of two junior Qing supply officers, and the schedule of their weekly visit to a certain teahouse in the city's pleasure district. It was a tiny, seemingly hopeless act of defiance from a broken man. A single, poisoned stone dropped into the calm, orderly pond of the Qing occupation. But even the smallest stone could create ripples, and Tanaka Kenji, the collaborator governor, had finally, after two long years of silence, decided to throw one. The Japanese spirit was not entirely dead. It was just buried very, very deep.