Empire of the Ring

This happened every time Fatima showed up in front of the Serbian people but it was quite a scene when they greeted her.

Her last visit was only a month ago, but the people all came out to receive her.

Youngho thought that Fatima might be enjoying this now.

Serbian young people were all waiting at the house near the administration building where Youngho and his family stayed. They were sent to guard the Archduchess.

The way they were lined up to receive their Archduchess in front of the house looked even funny to Youngho. It probably was Chief Niksic’s idea.

“Why are they all here? They don’t need to guard the Archduchess when there’s no threat whatsoever around here. Commissioner Kim, why didn’t you stop them?”

“Boss. You should work to establish your prestige. You need to be distant from the residents but not too far from them. If it was not Chief Niksic, I would’ve put Countryside Force guards around your house.”

“You still don’t know about Chief Niksic yet. He’s never going to entrust the guarding duty for the Archduchess to the Countryside Force. That’s only for the descendants of the knights.”

“Hahaha…”

“It’s not a funny thing. You should be careful with them too. Park Jong-il treated her without respect and Niksic gave him a hard time for years. Jong-il still has nightmares about him sometimes.”

“I didn’t know there was someone that Mr. Park feared.”

“He avoids Chief Niksic as much as he can.”

“Chief Niksic made a fuss about cleaning the city and each resident’s house before the Archduchess’ arrival. Since he was too enthusiastic about it, I didn’t say much.”

“You know, he can be too much sometimes but he’s full of a sense of duty. It’s something I’ll never understand.”

Chief Niksic allegedly had lived a quiet life until he met Fatima. Youngho could never imagine him being quiet. He heard this from Niksic’s grandson, Vaso. He said that Niksic said to himself that the time had finally come to his house after meeting Fatima. Then, he began practicing the special breathing techniques and movements that had been only handed down to the Serbian knights in a long time. Hearing the story gave Youngho a little cringey feeling. Niksic’s way of treating the Archduchess seemed to be the fanaticism that could be seen in many cult groups. Although it interfered with the community around him, he did not care.

“Fatima. I feel like you’re enjoying the attention given to you.”

“What are you talking about? The residents will feel discouraged if I don’t receive their greeting with joy. This is overwhelming sometimes but I decided to take it as my destiny. They’ll follow me around anywhere I go anyway. So, what can I do?”

“The Serbian immigrants from mountainous areas are not so problematic but the descendants of the Serbian knights are a little too much. I thought they were the royal guards of the British royal family. Can you believe what they were wearing? Jeez…”

“I had to hold my laughter too, but they sure look awesome.”

“See what I’m talking about? You’re enjoying this.”

“Honey, you need to watch out too. If I order the guards to keep the prince consort away from me, you won’t be able to come close to me ever.”

“What? Then I’ll give my profile to Karajan. The ladies of Baku will throw themselves at me.”

“Oh, you think? You should do it if you have that much confidence in yourself.”

Fatima’s reaction gave him sudden chills. Maybe he had been playing in her palm all along.

“Hey honey, are you okay? Why are you shivering suddenly?”

***

“Fatima, do you want to visit the nomad town with the kids tomorrow?”

“You mean the yurts we made here? Wouldn’t it be too dangerous?”

“We made a small size nomad town in a small ranch area. It’s surrounded by stone walls and there’s also a lodging facility for workers.”

“Okay, let’s go then. The kids will love to go there. It’d be great if it snows.”

“The wet season is still not completely gone. We might have a chance tomorrow.”

Youngho had already checked the forecast and there was a slight chance of snow tomorrow. That was why he wanted to bring the kids to the nomad town.

Ever since both Jong-il and Insoo were gone to Korea, he seemed to have a lot of free time to himself. He also missed Korea. So, he decided to have some family time.

***

“I gave them a break but I found them idling at their units. I asked them why, and you know what they said? They said that they have no other places to go and they feel more comfortable when they work. Man, I had no words to say.”

Cho Chul-hwan was talking about how Countryside Force soldiers reacted when he gave them a break. Since Countryside Force soldiers were used working during weekends, having a break was an unusual thing for them. They were rather proud to work on the weekends.

“You should chase them away no matter what. They need to get trained to have free time in order to enjoy their free time.”

“Since they lived isolated in mountainous regions before, I don’t think they know the concept of a break or a vacation. They think going home after work is a break.”

“They should know how to relax. That’s the only way that they can last long.”

“What about you? You only spent two days playing with your family.”

“Dude, I couldn’t take it any longer. My kids were so clingy since we are inside a yurt the whole time. It snowed too much that we couldn’t even go out of the yurt.”

The Arirang Autonomous State in March was still winter.

Because of the heavy snow combined with strong winds, the family could not go anywhere to play and look around. Although it was a relaxing time for Youngho since he stayed inside and ate a lot of food while doing nothing, his kids were bored to death. They were the ones who asked Youngho to go back home first.

“Man, I guess I need to arrange a list of vacation spots for the Countryside Force soldiers so that I can send them to have free time.”

“Why don’t you send them to Arirang Hotels scattered around different cities?”

“Ha, I guess that’s a way. We can give our residents a discounted price for their hotel stay. They can tour around foreign cities and expand their horizon.”

“Hey, let’s first open ones in Baku and Batumi for our residents as a trial. We can give them a ride to Atyrau Airport and they can fly from there.”

Because many of the residents had no experience of vacation trips, they needed to be guided to enjoy their vacation. Youngho wanted to offer free stays at the hotels, but then the hotel’s business might get affected by the residents if they crowded in there.

“I don’t know if they’ll travel to foreign cities since they might think it’s a waste of money but they need to learn how to enjoy their free time. They’ve worked hard since the beginning of the state.”

“We had nothing back then when we first started the autonomous state. We still have a long way to go but we can’t let our people only stay in our state.”

Cho Chul-hwan had a point.

When the world was in chaos, staying in the small state trying to protect it from the world would not be a wise choice. It would be impossible trying to prevent outside force by such a small number of people.

It would be wiser to make war bases in different places in the world like Siberia and grow mobility to move to anywhere for the state.

“I want to get another large-scale transport ship.”

“Why do you need that?”

“The original car ferry of the state will be used for tourists that visit the Caspian Sea from the spring. It could be used as an icebreaker but it can’t go to the North Sea.”

“The North Sea? Are you going to sail to the Yenisei River then?”

The icebreaker that the state had now could only break the ice that was about 50 centimeters thick. The vessel was too small and weak to break the ice on the North Sea’s which was about two to three meters thick.

“If we want to exploit the land in Siberia, our only way to transport supplies and products is to use the land route. I want to open a sea route to access the region too.”

“That sounds good.”

The Yenisei River was a huge river and even the width of its upper stream was more than five kilometers long.

The river’s width reached up to 20 to 40 kilometers wide from the point where it met the Angara River, so it was used as important transportation means in Siberia.

Its freezing period was quite long, but a big and sturdy icebreaker could sail through it in the winter.

Since a huge vessel could be used as a lodging for workers and security guards when if it was moored at the river even in the summer, it could be used in many ways.

In an emergency, the Countryside Force soldiers could be transported to different places for their operations.

The vessel had to be bigger than the current ferry but it was a shame that a bigger vessel would not be able to sail through the Volga-Don Canal since the maximum weight of a vessel that could go in the canal was 5,000 tons. In order to cruise around the rough North Sea, a vessel should be at least 10,000 tons.

Although it would cost Youngho a lot to build the ship, it was an investment for the future. Besides, if he could find more rough diamonds, the cost could be easily covered.

***

“Boss. I don’t think it’s going to be so profitable to produce snacks at the state.”

“Have you done market research already?”

“I didn’t have to. Serbian families bake their own biscuits and snacks. And since we have our own cheese, they also make something similar to pizza.”

“You said you’re going to mass produce snack products in the Kazakh market.”

“It’d be better to leave snacks to local business people and to produce different kinds of ramen in the Kazakh market. Since there are already local business people who produce snacks, we’d better not to disturb their businesses.”

“Okay, when Mr. Park comes back from Korea, let’s see if there’s anything we can do about that.”

Youngho had been hoping to produce some daily supplies in the autonomous state anyway. Since the state would only get bigger, it was not plausible to wholly rely on imported goods.

If the state had a facility to produce plates, it could make eco-friendly plates out of clay and if the state could produce natural soaps and detergents, it would not pollute the river as much as before.

Starting in May, more Koryoins from Kyrgyzstan would be moving in. In order to make more job positions for the increased population, making a factory was also necessary since not everyone would want to do farming and ranching.

People in the state had been making their own snacks since not many instant foods were supplied to them until now. They were given ice cream during the summer but that was the only exception. It was because there were more important necessities than instant foods or snacks. It was about time that the state provided more variety of snacks to the residents.

“We haven’t provided any carbonated drinks, cookies, and snacks to people. If we did, we would’ve ruined kids’ health.”

“But if our kids go study abroad in foreign countries, they’re going to ruin their health anyway. There’s no way that they’ll be able to resist such temptation.”

“Okay, then we should start providing them little by little so that they can be familiar with foreign snacks. I don’t want them to get made fun of by foreign students just because they don’t know about such things.”

“Phew, there are so many things that we need to care about. By the way, I’ve heard interesting news. It seems like many people want to have a night club here.”

“Well, we can make one. It could be a great meeting place for young single men and women at the state.”

“There are such clubs in Atyrau or Astana. I’ve been to such places several times when I was young but those places always had problems. I’m afraid to make such a facility here.”

“There’s music, dance, and drink. I think it’s natural to have some troubles once in a while but that can’t be a good reason for not having it.”

“If a private owner opens it, it can’t be controlled since the owner will do whatever it takes to make a good profit. The owner might try to sell excessive alcoholic drinks or do illegal businesses.”

“Then why don’t we manage it by the administration of the state? There are many ways we can control it. You know, we can open it only on Fridays and Saturdays or something.”

“You don’t think it’s something special, do you, Boss?”

“There are quite a lot of night clubs near colleges in Korea. Young people like to gather at such places. Well, if you go out of college areas, clubs in some other areas had been turned into strange places.”

“What about them?”

“Some places had become a place where married people gather to have an affair with other people, and it became a social issue.”

“You’re saying there’s a risk that this could turn into an indecent place.”

“That’s true but don’t you think young people should have an outlet where they can resolve their stress? It all depends on how we manage the place.”

Youngho thought that preventing people from entertainment could make society even darker since people would find ways to have fun anyway. It was better to open it all up and try to manage it well. This could make a brighter society.

There would be troublemakers but such people would get punished to teach a lesson to everyone. If these steps were repeated, the society would grow more mature and healthy in the future.