Empire of the Ring

Hong Sung-ki’s wedding was held in Baku, Azerbaijan on a big scale.

Park Jong-il had promised that he would get him a wedding at Arirang Wharf, but Sung-ki decided to have the ceremony in Baku considering the guests of the bride.

Since the rest of the Korean employees in Zeynep Security Service would be having weddings following Hong Sung-ki’s, the wedding had to be big. He was the last one to get married among the first and second groups of recruits in Zeynep Security Service.

Although it cost Youngho a lot to hold such a big ceremony, there was a reason. First of all, Youngho cared about him as his junior from Korea. Secondly, since Zeynep Corporation was a big company in Baku, it was necessary to show off that the employees of the company were well-deserved by the company.

The wedding tradition of the Caucasus was quite unique since families and friends came to the groom and bride’s houses a week before the ceremony for a long celebration. They ate, drank, and danced together for the whole week, which was quite dramatic. It was derived from nomadic traditions in which relatives rarely gathered unless there was a special occasion like a wedding, and when they gathered they made the most out of it. However, it was still hard to understand because such a tradition came with a high cost to feed the whole relatives for a long period which lasted a week or sometimes even longer.

Hong Sung-ki’s guests only consisted of his parents, sibling and their families from Korea, residents of the Arirang Autonomous State, and Korean employees at Zeynep Security Service. Because many people came from the autonomous state, a car ferry was used to transport them. It was used as a reception venue and lodging for many guests as well.

A 3,000-ton car ferry could easily have hundreds of people on board.

“Boss. We should lend this ship for a wedding reception venue to people from now on. It’s still spacious even though all of the guests of the groom and bride are here.”

“You should charge him a lot later. We mobilized the car ferry because we had no other option, but we’ll be broke if we keep doing this.”

“Security team leader Hong’s going to get away with it no matter what. You should encourage him to get more lumbers from Siberia instead. That’s a bigger gain for us.”

“Oh, that man had been demanding me to give him the best farming village to him and his parents after bringing some small trees to me. It’s quite a bother.”

“He jokes to you like that but he really likes you. If you could encourage him a little bit, he will do his best to help you.”

“His jokes are too much sometimes. I’m literally this close to being robbed by him.”

Although Kim Chun was a brazen person, Hong Sung-ki’s shameless actions and words made him shake his head. Since Sung-ki was a great worker, there was nothing to pick on about him either.

“But, Commissioner, don’t you think he’s been loyal to our state? He even refused to go on a honeymoon but said that he will go right back to Siberia. At least you won’t have to worry about lumbers anymore.”

“Oh, please let him just go on the freaking honeymoon. There won’t be any problem in lumber transportation without him being there.”

“Then you should make a policy of mandatory honeymoon trip or something.”

“Oh, please. I’ll just have to tell him that I’ll give him good farmland and house for him and his family.”

***

Youngho was able to seal the contract for developing the Taiga region in Siberia with the Russian government, along with Yaniv’s help. He was given 50 years to log the given area as a primary contract under the condition of giving solid wood to a lumber processing factory in Krasnoyarsk.

The government did not allow him to exploit the land in any way before he bought the land, so he decided to postpone it until he had thoroughly learned about the possibility of the land. Although he loved the rough diamonds, it seemed that the government would soon find out about them in several years, which would definitely affect his ownership policy. He surely did not want to deal with the unpredictable future.

He was lucky that there was no land rental fee yet. It was because logging business was a rough business that needed a lot of investment in the beginning stage. For this reason, there were not many people who were willing to start the business. So, not charging the land fee was a way to attract loggers. Since processing lumbers was limited to Krasnoyarsk, it was again for the Russian government anyway.

“Lee, you surprise me. I thought you’d be dying to buy the land.”

“Well, I don’t want to rush into this since I can buy it whenever I want to. Also, the land turns into a swamp in the summer. That’ll be a huge problem when developing the land.”

Youngho made an excuse of the swamp to Yaniv in case the government found out that rough diamonds were grown in the region. But, he was going to secretly steal all of the rough diamonds in the region slowly.

“Are you really not interested? Or are you just afraid?”

“To be honest, even if the region is full of underground resources, there’s nothing I can do because of the Russian government. It won’t let me take them anyway.”

“I see. I understand that it’s not easy for a private company to deal with the government alone.”

Even the mafia boss does not trust the government, and there was no way for Youngho, a foreigner, to deal with the government alone. It was better for him to get along with illegal businesses which were taken as the right way in Siberia.

“If there are important resources buried in the region, the government will take away my right to log. I’m not even going to try.”

“I doubt you’d do that. Aren’t you trying to get out of it because you already found something in there? That place has been a region where rough diamonds were found.”

Youngho almost spilled his coffee at Yaniv’s remark.

His heart almost dropped by Yaniv’s intuition.

“Well, if they exist, I wouldn’t look at them unless someone attains them and sells them to me.”

“I’ve been watching Sergeenko, to see if he deals with diamonds. If there is alluvial gold or diamond there, I’m going to pull every man of our organization from there because it’s going to be a hot potato that even I can’t handle.”

‘There you go!’

Yaniv was now showing his heart to Youngho.

“Mr. Yaniv, you don’t ever sell gold, silver, or jewels. Is there a reason why?”

“I don’t know about other businesses but gold and jewels are something that can easily break an organization. Anybody can pocket such tiny valuables, and I don’t want to get my henchmen into such temptation. If people suspected and not trusted each other, what would make that my organization? I don’t want to get involved in that.”

“But you have the gold bars made in the period of Imperial Russia.”

“That landed in my hands by accident. Many were given away gifts. I only have several left as a souvenir. As much as I want them, I know that they’ll overwhelm our organization.”

“That sounds like something that will attract the government’s containment as well.”

“Of course, the government would be interested since they can make its economy better. So I didn’t even try to make money out of them.”

The conversation with Yaniv made Youngho think that not everyone can be a mafia boss.

He had thought that Yaniv took any business he could get in order to make money but he had his own, clear standard. He had been able to lead such a big organization only with his exhaustive calculation. Even if he could make fortune, he would not dare to touch something that could be a seed of dispute for his organization.

***

Now that Youngho had signed the contract with the Russian government, he did not have to send his ships to Siberia without worrying about other people’s eyes. Until the fall, he would be focusing on logging preparation and transporting equipment. As for lumbers, he would be taking Chinese company’s lumbers which were piled up at the open-storage yard near the harbor in Krasnoyarsk. Since lumbers which had been overflowing near the docks of the Yenisei River, no one could tell no matter how big amount of lumbers was taken by the autonomous state.

Since it would take about three years for the U.S. woodworking plant to be built in Krasnoyarsk, Youngho did not want to fully focus on logging yet. He would be attaining lumbers that were in the open-storage yard for the state and focusing on collecting diamonds in his logging area. He would have 50 years of logging business anyway.

In the meantime, he wanted to interact with the Evenks in the area to find more diamonds and buy their reindeer skin. Reindeer skin was very durable and was quite popular among the residents of the state.

“Hong Sung-ki, you should work without getting paid. Do you know how many days your bride’s family and friends ate, and slept on the car ferry?”

“Oh, Mr. Lee, what can I say? They were so amazed by the car ferry since many of them live in a rural area and had never been on a big ship like that. Well, they must be thinking that I’m a rich guy.”

“Man, you’ll have to pay for that by working hard in Siberia.”

“I expected that already. I might call my wife to Krasnoyarsk to stay with me.”

“You said you wanted to live with your parents here.”

“They’re only in their early 60s now. They can live on their own.”

Youngho had thought that Sung-ki would be staying in Krasnoyarsk alone when he asked for an apartment but it turned out that he was going to call his wife there.

“You and Choi Sang-ho are not security guards of Zeynep Security Service anymore. You guys belong to the intelligence department of the autonomous state. Just be aware of that from now on.”

“Of course, I will. Don’t worry about the Siberian region.”

Since Hong Sung-ki and Choi Sang-ho were in charge of the security of the Siberian region anyway, Youngho sent them to the intelligence department. It was because Jong-il had complained that he did not have people who could be in charge of intelligence agents working in Krasnoyarsk. Youngho planned to send some more security guards from Zeynep Security Service to the intelligence department because the department needed well-trained, experienced, and trustworthy agents who could be leaders. Because junior guards who were discharged from Korean Navy Special Forces kept coming to the security company, there were enough people to serve in the intelligence department.

“See if you can attract Evenks there. They’ll come in handy for us. Their appearance even looks similar to us. It’s not going to be so hard to approach them.”

“Why don’t we ask Irtysh that we met in the winter? We should take some more combat rations for them.”

“I ordered a large quantity of them from Eti the food company. Take as many as you can. Also, you should replace all of the security guards that work in the temporary lodging in the Taiga forest with civilian workers. Since there is a Russian military unit there, you won’t need security guards.”

“Even civilian workers need to get armed but I’m worried about fire accidents. We should at least have two or three security guards around for safety.”

“Alright. You can talk to Cho Chul-hwan and arrange that.”

“Mr. Cho is a little picky. I’m not sure if he would listen to me. He’s been complaining how there are not enough security guards.”

“He said he would accommodate anything for the intelligence department.”

“Alright, sir.”

Cho Chul-hwan had been anxious about the lack of Countryside Force guards in the state, so the state decided to call all of the guards back to the state and hired security guards from Zeynep Security Service to work in the construction sites and mines outside the state. It was a shame that there were still not enough guards in the state to protect itself.