The Emperor's temporary study in Nagasaki was a testament to his new philosophy of rule: stark, functional, and utterly devoid of sentiment. Gone were the silks and jades of the Forbidden City. Here, there was only a massive table of dark, polished oak, a single chair, and walls dominated by enormous, meticulously detailed maps. Today, the maps were of Northern China and the sprawling, amorphous territories of Mongolia.
Qin Shi Huang sat at the table, his posture as immovable as a mountain. The triumphant news of France's capitulation in Indochina, received only hours before, had already been processed and filed away. Now, his attention was fixed on a newer, more irritating dispatch. It wasn't from a European chancellery, but from the provincial governor of Shanxi. He read it for a second time, his index finger tapping a slow, rhythmic, dangerous beat on the tabletop.
"Meng Tian. Shen Ke," he said, his voice calm but layered with a cold pressure. "Read this."
Meng Tian, standing at rigid attention to the Emperor's right, stepped forward and took the offered paper. The spymaster, Shen Ke, a man who seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it, moved from his customary position near the wall to read over the general's shoulder. Meng Tian's jaw, usually set like granite, tightened further.
"Majesty," he began, his voice low and controlled. "The railway. Thirty miles west of Datong. A supply train… derailed. It was carrying grain for the garrisons and steel components for the new fortifications."
Shen Ke's contribution was a whisper of facts. "The report states the tracks were destroyed by a 'powerful explosive device.' A Qing patrol dispatched to investigate was ambushed two hours later. Twelve men lost. The attackers vanished into the hills. The tracks suggest they were Mongol horsemen."
"Vanished," QSH repeated, savoring the word with a chilling lack of emotion. "A fitting description. They are ghosts. Ghosts armed with Russian dynamite and given purpose by the Tsar."
"Khan Toghrul," Meng Tian said, the name tasting like ash in his mouth. "We shattered his war band at the Battle of the Ulan Pass, but he escaped with a core of his most loyal veterans. The Russians have clearly re-equipped him. They have taught him a new kind of war. Not for open battle this time. For this… this hyena's work."
QSH leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. The rhythmic tapping of his finger ceased. To his subordinates, he appeared to be merely contemplating the report. But within the silent chambers of his mind, a conversation had begun.
"Li Si," he projected, the thought sharp and clear. "This is an irritation. A gnat buzzing at the ear of a dragon."
The answering voice was not his own. It was colder, more ancient, honed by the merciless philosophies of the Warring States period. It was the internalized voice of his long-dead chancellor, the architect of his first empire.
Li Si: ("It is more than a gnat, Your Majesty. A single gnat is an irritation. A swarm can bleed a horse dry. You think of this railway as mere iron and wood. It is not. It is your empire's new artery, pumping the lifeblood of steel, grain, and soldiers to the northern frontier. These men are not attacking your armies; they are too cowardly for that. They are attacking the artery itself. They seek to give your empire a thousand cuts.")
QSH's mind reached out, his unique power, the dragon's spark, flaring from a pinpoint in his consciousness. He pushed his senses north, across the Yellow Sea, over the dense plains of Zhili, trying to grasp the vast, empty expanse of the Mongolian steppe. He was searching for a flicker of intent, a concentration of malice, the same way he had once located the Japanese fleet in the vastness of the ocean. He was hunting for Toghrul's soul.
The silence in the room stretched. Meng Tian and Shen Ke watched, both familiar with the signs of the Emperor exerting his unnatural power. The air grew still, heavy with an unseen pressure. But this time was different. A faint line of sweat, a thing they had never witnessed before, beaded on QSH's temple. His brow, usually a mask of serene command, furrowed not with anger, but with a deep, unfamiliar strain.
After a long moment, his eyes snapped open. The flicker of power receded, leaving behind a residue of annoyance and something else they couldn't quite name: surprise. He brought a hand to his temple, rubbing it lightly, a gesture of human frustration that was profoundly jarring to witness.
"The scale…" he thought, the admission costing him. "It is too vast. Too empty. Trying to find them with my senses is like trying to find one specific grain of sand in the Gobi desert. The land itself… it resists. It is a formless void that dilutes my focus. I can feel the general, simmering malice of the tribes, the cold, calculating ambition of the Russians far to the north, but the specific actors… Toghrul and his band of saboteurs… they are needles in a continent-sized haystack. My will has nothing to grip."
Li Si: ("A limitation, then. A weakness in the divine. Your power is a conqueror's sword, Your Majesty. It can split mountains and boil seas when aimed at a worthy target. But a sword is of little use against a poison that has seeped into the very soil. This is not a problem of power. It is a problem of scale and methodology.")
The raw honesty of his own internal assessment was galling. Meng Tian, noticing the Emperor's uncharacteristic gesture, took a half-step forward, his concern breaking through his military discipline. "Your Majesty? Are you unwell?"
QSH waved a dismissive hand, though the gesture was less sharp, less absolute than usual. "No. I am… contemplating the nature of this new battlefield. This is not a war that can be won with a single, decisive stroke. This is not a matter of a better battle plan or a stronger will on a demarcated field of fire."
Shen Ke stepped forward from the shadows, his voice a low rasp. "It is a war of whispers and empty spaces, Majesty. My agents have been trying to infiltrate the northern tribes for months. It is difficult, almost impossible. They are insular, xenophobic, and bound by ancient codes of loyalty and blood that we cannot penetrate. To them, we are the invaders. The Russians are merely patrons. They offer guns and silver, and ask only that the Mongols do what their ancestors have always done: raid the settled lands of the Han."
Meng Tian's frustration was palpable. He was a man of action, a creature of the glorious charge and the perfectly executed flanking maneuver. This kind of warfare offended his very nature. "Then we must hunt them down. I will take a division of the Imperial Guard. The best trackers, the hardiest men. We will use their own tactics against them. We will live off the land, move by night. We will find Toghrul's camp and we will erase it from the earth, salt the ground, and leave nothing but a monument of skulls!"
"And what then, Meng Tian?" QSH asked, his voice cutting through the general's passionate declaration. "You kill Toghrul, and the Russians will find and fund another khan. You wipe out one war band, and they will arm three more. You would be chasing shadows across an endless wasteland, a glorious and pointless endeavor, while they can strike anywhere along a thousand miles of undefended track. We cannot guard every rail, every bridge, every culvert. Your plan is honorable, but it is a strategic dead end."
Meng Tian fell silent, his face a grim mask of anger, because he knew the Emperor was right. "Then what is the solution, Majesty? We cannot simply allow them to bleed us like this. It will slow the consolidation of the northern frontier to a crawl. It will embolden the Tsar and make us look weak."
QSH rose from his chair and walked to the massive map. He placed a hand flat upon the vast, colored region depicting the Mongolian territories, as if trying to physically dominate the land through the parchment. "You are right. A new strategy is required. One as brutal and as total as the land itself. You, Meng Tian, are my glorious sword. You are destined for the great battles that will decide the fate of empires. Your place is not chasing bandits in the dust. This… this is a warden's work. A butcher's work. It requires a different kind of mind. A mind not concerned with honor or the poetry of battle, but only with ruthless, grinding efficiency."
"You have someone in mind, Majesty?" Shen Ke asked, his head tilted slightly.
A cold smile, devoid of all warmth, touched the Emperor's lips. It was a smile that promised no mercy, only results. "There is a man. He served with distinction in the Korean campaign, demonstrating a remarkable grasp of modern logistics and a… wonderfully flexible view of the articles of war. He is ambitious to a fault, deeply pragmatic, and utterly without sentiment. The traditional Manchu generals in the court despise him. They say he is more of a merchant than a soldier. They are correct. He understands, better than any of them, that war is merely the continuation of economics by other means."
Meng Tian did not need to ask. A name rose to his mind, and his expression hardened with a mixture of professional respect and personal distaste. "You speak of General Yuan Shikai."
"I do," QSH confirmed, turning back to his desk. "He has been drilling the New Army divisions in Zhili province to a state of terrifying perfection. He has petitioned my court three times for a more… active command. I believe I have now found a task perfectly suited to his unique talents."
The Emperor picked up a clean sheet of rice paper and a brush, grinding the inkstone with a slow, deliberate motion. "Shen Ke, send a priority telegram to the Tianjin garrison. Have General Yuan Shikai report to me in Nagasaki. Immediately. He is about to receive a promotion. And a blank check to do whatever is necessary to cauterize this festering wound in the north."
As he spoke, he began to write the summons, the black characters stark and absolute against the white paper. Meng Tian watched, a sense of deep unease settling over him. He knew of Yuan Shikai by reputation: a brilliant, modern officer, but also a man driven by a bottomless, naked ambition that was unsettling to men of principle. To unleash such a man on Mongolia with no oversight was to unleash a wolf to guard the sheep. But he held his tongue. The Emperor had spoken, and in doing so, had revealed both a rare, shocking limit to his own power and a terrifyingly practical solution to overcome it.